Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

Please take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of James 3.  We are going to address a subject this morning that can be a little convicting.  We’re gonna talk about our tongues.  Somewhere between the head and the heart, you'll find something that is as powerful as a nuclear bomb.  Webster defines it as two ounces of muscular structure attached to the lower part of your mouth.  It’s called the tongue.  The tongue is very powerful.  And we can use our tongues to inspire.  We can use our tongues to motivate and persuade.  We can also use our tongues to destroy and to devastate.  Whoever said that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” was a liar.  Words hurt, don’t they?  They can penetrate our hearts and cause tremendous emotional and spiritual damage to us.  Words can launch wars, can’t they?  Or, through diplomacy, we use words to hopefully prevent two nations from taking up arms against one another.  Propaganda is the use of words in such a way that can sway masses of people to believe a lie, if you can believe it.  Words found in advertising can be used to influence the way we use our time in our money and how we buy things or even sell things.  Words put to music can inspire us emotionally and move us emotionally in ways that few other things really can.  And then I was thinking this week about preaching.  Isn’t it strange that God, even today, still uses the foolishness of preaching- preaching His holy word to inspire faith in us.  Some think that preaching is archaic and old and just doesn’t fit with the world in which we live today.  But God will always use words and the preaching of His Word to inspire of faith in us.  

0:02:38.6

Words also create beautiful things.  If you have any doubts about that, go to the book of Genesis 1, where you find that God spoke of the worlds into existence.  He literally spoke a word, and it appeared.  The phrase “And God said” appears no less than eight times in the creation story.  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  And God said, “Let the waters teem with creatures,” and the fishes of the oceans appeared.  And God said, “Let's create man in Our own image,” and so on and so on.  Throughout the creation story God spoke a word and it came into existence.  And then you fast-forward a little bit in the scriptures to the Gospel of John.  And when the God of heaven and earth appeared on this planet, John says it this way.  “In the beginning was the Word.”  What beginning?  Yeah, back to the beginning of Genesis.  “In the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God and the Word was God.  And the same was in the beginning that was in the beginning was God.”  And then verse 14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” referring to Jesus Christ.  

0:03:42.9

Some people have a silver tongue.  Have you noticed that?  They’re very good with words.  And we’re amazed how they sway audiences with a speech, and they’re just are just able to, you know, really use words in a powerful way.  Other people have a quick tongue.  They are good with words as well, only they use words to chop you into a million pieces like a skilled chef, dicing tomatoes for a salad.  Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop with their words.  Words are powerful in that way.  Winston Churchill was known for his silvery speeches and for his quick wit.  One time one of his political rivals by the name of Lady Astor came to Churchill and said, “Winston Churchill, if I were your wife I would poison your tea.”  And Churchill snapped back, “Lady Astor, if I were your husband, I would drink it.”  Mark Twain was known for a few words that he wrote and said.  He said “the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug”.  I thought that was pretty good.  

0:04:52.2

What about on this Independence Day weekend?  I think it's important for us to note that we live in a country that values free speech.  We value it so much that we protect it in our Constitution with the First Amendment.  And I'm glad we live in a country like that.  But I was wondering this week, is any speech really free, or can our words cost us something?  Don Imus of “Imus in the Morning”, the radio talk show host, his controversial words about a year ago regarding the girls’ basketball team at Rutgers University cost him his job.  I think of Howard Stern, one of the most perverse shock-jocks on the radio today.  He exercised his right to free speech by moving his radio program to the satellite networks, where presumably his words are uncensored and unaccountable.  And I wonder if Howard Stern ever considered the words of Jesus in Matthew 12.  “I tell you that men will have to give an account on the Day of Judgment,” listen to this, “for every careless word they have spoken.  For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”  It’s interesting; Jesus didn't direct those words to a radio talk show host.  He was actually speaking to the Pharisees about the evil things that were coming out of their own mouth.  We are accountable for our words.  Every careless word that comes out of our mouth will appear on the Day of Judgment.

0:06:34.0

And that brings us back to the book of James.  James has a lot to say about what we say and how we say it.  In fact, the Bible itself, even through the book of Proverbs, has a lot to say about the tongue and the mouth.  James has been teasing us with his interests in the tongue a little bit.  In chapter 1 he told us to be quick to hear and, say it with me, slow to speak and then slow to anger.  James chapters 1 & 2, if you're into outlining books of the Bible, could generally be categorized as the “quick to hear” part.  Now, in chapter 3, he turns his attention to the “slow to speak” part.  And he dedicates a pretty large amount of editorial space in the book of James to this subject.  

0:07:20.7

Before we get to it though, at the end of chapter 1 you may remember that James said that a person's religion was worthless.  It’s a powerful word, isn’t it?  But that’s the word he chose.  A person's religion is worthless if he's not able to bridle or control his tongue.  You see, James doesn’t talk a lot about, at all really, matters of predestination and election and adoption and these grand theological themes we find elsewhere in the New Testament.  No, James talks about practical, every day, “your faith in action” kinds of things like the tongue.  Twelve verses out of 50 some verses he dedicates to the tongue in chapter 3.  

0:08:06.5

And he begins by giving a fair warning to those of us who make our life and our living by our words.  Listen up, teachers.  He begins by saying in chapter 3:1, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we shall incur a stricter judgment, for we all stumble in many ways.  If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.”  Now, James isn’t against the profession of teaching.  But he is saying to those who would become teachers- teachers in schoolrooms, preachers, teaching elders, Sunday school teachers, whatever the profession might be- “Be careful,” he says.  Now, we need good teachers.  But if you're a teacher, he says, fair warning, be on guard, be sure of your calling, because there are three things you need to take under consideration for this most dangerous profession on earth, he says.  

0:09:05.0

Three things you need to consider.  Number one, teachers are held to a higher standard.  Did you see that?  “Knowing that as such, we shall incur a stricter judgment.”  Jesus said every careless word will appear at judgment time, and we will have to render an account.  And for those of us who make our living with our words, we better pray twice and think once again and consider our calling and make sure of it, because we sure spit out a lot of words, don’t we.  And for that reason this will be a very short sermon.  Will you bow your heads with me, please?  (Laughter).

0:09:43.4

The second things he says is that the tongue is slippery when wet.  That word stumble in verse 2, “we all stumble…and if anyone does not stumble…”  It literally means “to slip up”.  All of life, especially life that involves speech, is sort of like a banana peel or a slip-n-slide.  It's easy to have a slip of the tongue.  We use that phrase in our culture today.  And when we slip with the tongue, we say things that later we regret.  But you can’t take it back, can you?  It's out there.  It’s even out there in cyberspace ‘cause you typed it into that e-mail that you set off too quickly.  And you can get it back.  Oh, I know, you send that email that says, “I’m, you know, retracting that.”  But how can you?  It's out there.  Plus, it’ll be there at the Day of Judgment as well, as we take account for every word, every careless word that we say.  

0:10:36.3

And then James says the tongue is a universal problem.  Dealing with a troublesome tongue is a problem that every one of us in this room has.  Do you see that little word “all” in verse 2?  “For we all stumble in many ways.”  Say the word “all” with me.  Just as all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, okay, not one of us is able to control this tongue.  As all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, all of us stumble in this way.  Not one of us has an advantage over the other with regard to the troublesomeness of our tongue.  Even if you are a silver-tongued person or a quick-tongued person, every one of us has trouble with this thing called the tongue.  And for those reasons James says, you know, especially if you consider yourself a teacher or you're considering the teaching profession, just know that there's a higher standard, a stricter judgment that you'll be held to.  But even that judgment is something that applies to all of us.  

0:11:36.5

And finally, there in verse 2 James says that “we all stumble in many ways.”  I tried to make a list of some of the sins of the tongue this week.  By the way, in every one of the passages of scripture in the New Testament that lists out sins- and there are four or five of them- sins of the tongue are always mentioned.  And here some of them.  There’s lying, gossip, cursing- maybe you’ve met some of these friends, I don’t know-  sarcasm, blasphemy, innuendo, flattery, insults, slander, criticism, and I’ll even add the inappropriate use of humor.  Does anybody feel guilty yet?  I mean, I just look at a list like that and say, “Well, how do I win in something like this?”  I speak every day.  I talk every day in casual conversations.  In a sermon there are probably 3, 4 or 5, 6000 words that you speak.  Multiply that 52 times a year.  I mean, well, I hope I’m not lying or cursing or…but it’s a challenge, isn’t it?  It's a challenge.  Every one of us stumble in so many different ways.

0:12:41.6

Now, James goes on in this text to make the case for the fact that the tongue is the most powerful part of the body.  And he uses a number of word pictures and illustrations to make his point.  A picture is worth 1000 words, even when you're talking about words.  And James gives us a number of word pictures, a number of illustrations to help us understand just how powerful the tongue is.  First of all, he would suggest to us that the tongue is powerful enough to point or direct, and to persuade.  Let’s look at the illustration in verses 3 and 4.  “Now if we put the bits into the horses’ mouths so that they may obey us, we direct their entire body as well.  Behold, the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder, wherever the inclination of the pilot desires.  So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things,” James says.  Two pictures here, one of a horse- big, beautiful animal in the animal kingdom.  A horse can weigh up to a 1/2 ton and can run at remarkable speeds.  Strong.  You ever seen those thoroughbred racehorses and the muscles in their legs and in their body?  And yet you can put a 90 or maybe 100-pound person on the back of the horse, put a bit in that horse’s mouth, and with the flick of a wrist you can direct the horse to go this way or this way.  

0:14:23.1

The same way, James says, look at the ship.  The ship has…you know, these massive ships, big ocean cruisers and ocean liners...and you have this rudder.  And you have this captain standing on the deck there.  And just with the turn of a hand, he can turn the rudder and guide the ship, direct the ship.  And James saying the tongue is like that, that the tongue can direct our own lives.  We’ll get to other people's lives in a moment.  But, in one sense, what he’s saying here is that our life points in the direction of our tongue.  Where we go in life and perhaps how far we go in life really depends on how we wag the small, little rudder in our mouths.  Some of you may be saying, “I understand that perfectly well, because my favorite phrase is ‘me and my big mouth’”.  And you realize that the way you’ve wagged your tongue has gotten you in trouble over and over again.  And maybe your life is just kind of going in circles.  You just kind of keep repeating the same mistakes because you just can't get control of the tongue.  I think James understands that.  It can direct our own lives for good or for bad, where we go and how far we go.  The tongue can determine that.  But we can also use our tongue to direct other people's lives.  We hold the power of persuasion in our tongues.  And I’ve been particularly convicted about this just as a parent.  Proverbs tells us that the tongue has the power of life and death.  And I’ve been asking myself, am I speaking life into my kids or speaking death into them?  Do my words build them up or tear them down?  The parent, with every word that he speaks, has the power and the ability through the tongue to point a child in a certain direction or to direct that child a certain way.  Words really do matter that way and are powerful.

0:16:28.6

Now, James goes on to give us a couple of other illustrations.  And in this way he suggests to us that the tongue is powerful enough to destroy and to devastate.  Let’s read on in verse 5.  He says, “So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things.  Behold, how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!”  He goes from horses and ships, now to fire.  “And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.  For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed, and has been tamed by the human race.  But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil…”- and now here is the second illustration- “…and full of deadly poison.”  He goes from horses and ships, from bits and rudders, now to fire and deadly poison.  And he doesn’t have anything positive to say about the tongue here.  He says it can destroy and it can devastate people.  Think of the fires, those raging fires in California.  This is the second year that I know of in a row that the fires have raged in Southern California, just running amok among all that pristine land.  We’re planning a California vacation later this summer, and I think all of it is gonna be scorched by the time we get there.  The land, Highway 1 I'm told, that beautiful drive up the California coast, is closed down because of the fires that are encroaching upon the highway.  And it all began with a single spark.  Now, think about this.  A single word can start a wildfire in a person's spirit.  Maybe you remember words that were spoken to you from your father or your mother.  Maybe the verbal atmosphere in your home when you were growing up was so destructive that your spirit, your soul is scorched even to this day.  The scorching that takes place by the fires in California will take decades to recover, to grow back that vegetation.  And sometimes the destructive and devastating words that are spoken to us can take decades to recover from that.  I read this week that (0:19:00.1) for every word that Adolf Hitler published in his book, Mein Kampf, 125 people died in World War II.  And you say words don't matter. 

0:19:12.9

Well, a little bit closer to home, I had my daughter at a softball tryout a couple weeks ago.  Somebody put us on to a team, said I need to go check this one out.  And I really liked the head coach.  He had great experience; you know, assistant coach or possibly a head coach at one of the local high schools.  And he’s really able to teach, you know, 10- and 11-year-old girls; has a great disposition with them.  But I’m sitting at this practice, kind of observing and letting him observe my daughter.  And I really liked the coach, but there's this other coach on the other side of the field.  You really didn’t have to tune your ears to him because you could hear him all over Northern Virginia.  And I was talking to one of the parents.  You know, we both agreed we really liked the head coach and it seems like he does a great job.  I said, “But what’s with this guy (0:20:00.2) out here?”  And the parent, she said to me, “Oh, you mean Old Yeller.”  I said, “Yeah, what’s with Old Yeller?”  All he knows how to do, in terms of a coach, is yell.  Yelling not words of encouragement, but words of discouragement.  And my daughter came home in tears, and I thought about these words from James.  How careful we need to be that we don’t set a fire, this wildfire in our spirit with inappropriate and destructive words, whether you’re a parent, a coach, or whatever you might be.

0:20:38.6

James goes on to shift from fire, now to deadly poison.  Did to see that at the end of verse 8?  It is a restless evil.  I mean, he calls the potential of the tongue evil, a world of iniquity.  He links it to hell itself.  And then he says it is full of deadly poison.  I think back to the terrorist attacks on our nation in 2001.  And shortly thereafter that, you remember the anthrax scare?  Somebody was sending letters through the United States Postal Service laced with a poison called anthrax.  And I thought, how ironic that letters filled with words were associated with a deadly poison at that time.  That’s what James is saying here.  Our tongues can be full of poison.  A gossip columnists are often known as having a poison pen.  They can just poison your spirit and poison a situation with the words that they write.  Somebody once personified gossip in a creative way with these words.  “I have no respect for justice.  I maim without killing.  I break hearts and ruin lives.  I am cunning and malicious and gather strength with age.  The more I am quoted, the more I am believed.  I flourish at every level of society.  My victims are helpless.  They cannot protect themselves against me because I have no name and no face.  To track me down is impossible.  The harder you try the more elusive I become.  I am nobody's friend.  Once I tarnish a reputation, it is never the same.  I topple governments and ruin marriages.  I ruin careers and cause sleepless nights, heartache and indigestion.  I spawn suspicion and generate grief.  I make innocent people cry in their pillows.  Even my name hisses like a snake.  My name is gossip.”  And there was a time when Jesus look that the Pharisees, and he called them snakes for the evil things that came out of their mouths.  Matthew 12 again, “You brood of vipers,” Jesus said, “How can you who are evil say anything good?  For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.  The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”  And then those words I mentioned earlier, “But I tell you that men will have to give an account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word they have spoken.”  Jesus said that to religious leaders.  How poisonous our tongues can be.

0:23:26.6

And then James goes on to say that the tongue is powerful enough to bless and to curse.  Let’s read on in verse 9.  He says, “With it we bless our Lord and Father; and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing.  My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.  Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?  Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs?  Neither can salt water produce fresh.”  Now he moves from a bit and a rudder, and from fire and poison, to a fountain and a tree.  And he speaks of the incongruity in our mouths.  He says, friends, out of our mouths come both a blessing and cursing at the same time.  And his suggestion is there’s something very unnatural about that.  And he draws upon two pictures from nature, the fountain, the water stream.  He says, you won’t find both fresh water and bitter water in the same fountain.  You won't find a fig tree producing olives or a grapevine producing figs.  That's just not a part of nature.  That would be unnatural for nature to do that.  No, a fig tree produces figs and a grapevine produces grapes.  And a freshwater stream produces freshwater, and a saltwater stream produces saltwater.  And so the person in Jesus Christ who has not just been improved by Jesus, but our total nature has been changed, that’s the implication here.  So it is unnatural for us to have both blessing and cursing come out of our mouths at the same time.  

0:25:17.5

Or maybe we should say it this way, using some Pauline language.  You know, there’s the spiritual man who knows Christ, and there's the natural man who does not know Christ.  Out of the natural man's mouth flows the bitterness of life and the cursing of life.  But the spiritual man, who is controlled by the Spirit of God, out of that mouth should flow the blessing and cursing.  James just can’t understand the incongruity of coming to church on Sunday morning and singing wonderful praise songs and hymns and worshiping God and praising Him, and then walking out the door and the very next morning cursing the person in traffic who cuts you off.  And I know this is all a little bit convicting.  And I've crossed the line with my mouth and have more than enough occasions to say, “Me and my big mouth”.  On a scale of 1 to 10, where are you?  Slow to speak at 1?  Or are you saying, “Me and my big mouth,” again?  Where are you on that scale?  Put yourself there, and I know it can get very, very convicting.

0:26:21.4

Well, what help does James provide for us?  Not much.  I mean, he pretty much just diagnoses the situation and says, you know what, nobody can tame the tongue.  There are animals in the animal kingdom.  We've tamed all of those.  But you try to tame this troublesome tongue, and you can't do it.  You can't do it.  I know, some of you are high D personalities.  You’re “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” kind of people, and you say, “I can do this.”  No, you can’t.  You try and you try again and you try again, and you will fail.  We are universally in trouble with our tongues.  And every time we try in our own strength we’re gonna fail.  Let’s go back to verse 2, chapter 3.  James says, “If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man,” a mature man.  Okay?  If you don’t ever slip with your tongue, there is a level of maturity, spiritual maturity, in your life that is really kind of off the charts.  “He is a perfect man, able...,” listen to this, “…able to bridle the whole body as well.”  James says if you get control of this thing called your tongue, those 2 ounces of muscular structure attached to the floor of your mouth, if you're able to bridle that, guess what?  Every other area of self-control, by comparison, is easy.  He's not saying it's easy to control the tongue.  In fact, later in verse 8 he says, “But no one can tame the tongue.”  But if you're able to tame the tongue, if you’re able to get this under control, it is the single most difficult area of self-control in the entire body.  You think your weight is a problem.  You think you can't refuse another bite.  You know, those trips to the refrigerator are difficult.  You think that level of self…no, that’s easy.  That’s a piece of cake, pardon the pun, compared to controlling your tongue.  Isn’t that what he’s saying here? 

0:28:39.7

So if no one can tame the tongue, where do we find some help?  Well, let’s go in our minds to Galatians 5 and to that list known as the Fruit of the Spirit.  See, I want to suggest to you, first of all, the way to tame the troublesome tongue, the way to tame this thing, is to yield your tongue to the Holy Spirit.  You can't control the tongue in the natural, and neither can I.  We need supernatural help.  And you say, well, of course.  That’s just kind of preacher talk, isn’t it?  I mean, of course you would say that in church.  No, I really do mean that.  I mean, if we default to behavioral psychology or behavioral modification, we may achieve some level of success, but we will never fully tame the tongue.  We need supernatural help in this area.  And for that reason, I am so glad that, listed in the nine Christ-like characteristics known as the Fruit of the Spirit, the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit listed self-control.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  The tongue is a self-control issue.  And you can’t control yourself in the natural any more than I can.  And so we need to walk by the Spirit.  We need to let the Spirit of God control us.  First of all, we need to be in a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  And, by doing so, we have the Spirit of God.  But the question is, does the Spirit of God have you and does He have me?  Does he have your tongue?  Does he have my tongue?  Are you waking up every day and saying, “God, by Your Holy Spirit, will You control this muscular structure in my mouth so that there are no slippages of the tongue today?  So that I don’t slip on a verbal banana peel or an orange peel, and bruise and destroy somebody in the process.”  We’ve really got to come to the point, friends, where we take this tongue and put it on the altar and say, “Holy Spirit, I can't control it.  You’ve got to control it in a supernatural way.  Teach me to be slow to speak.”

0:31:10.9

 Second thing I want to suggest to you, by way of application, is to take responsibility for your words.  We are accountable for our words and will be held accountable on the Day of Judgment for every careless word we speak, Jesus says.  So we may as well start taking responsibility for our words right now.  And by taking responsibility, it may actually begin the healing process in the person that you hurt with your words.  Two of the most powerful words you can ever say are simply “I'm sorry” and “I was wrong”.  You remember Fonzie, the character during the Happy Days?  He had a hard time saying, “I was, I was wrrrr-….wrrrr-…..”  He just couldn’t say the words “I was wrong.”  And some of you need to go to somebody today- maybe your spouse, maybe a child, maybe parents, maybe a neighbor- and say, “I'm sorry for what I said.  I take full responsibility for it.  I can’t erase what I said, but maybe with some healing words and some time we can begin the healing process.”

0:32:21.9

And then, thirdly, just find an accountability partner.  If we’re gonna be held accountable for this and a whole host of other things, it’d be good for us to have somebody who can speak the truth to us kindly and graciously.  Somebody who is a little bit of a verbal monitor for us.  You know, from time to time I’ll get a call or a letter or somebody will come up to me and say, “Pastor, you know, something you said in the sermon…”  And I’m, like, I know.  It didn't come out right, and I’m sorry for that.  I’ve had to eat some of my own words and apologize for them.  That’s why James says be careful if you do this for a living, because you’re held to a stricter judgment.  But even in casual conversations, hallway conversations, family conversations, this troublesome tongue of ours can really get us in trouble.  And that accountability partner will help us.

0:33:22.4

I told you this would be a little bit convicting this morning, and it is.  But I want to send you out with the hope that is found in Jesus Christ and the hope that is ours as recipients of His grace and recipients of His resources in the Holy Spirit, Who gives us all the resources we need to live the Christian life successfully.  So walk by the Spirit.  Be filled with the Spirit.  Every day ask God through His Holy Spirit to form in you that fruit that never goes out of style, that fruit that never goes rotten in somebody's life; that love, joy, peace, patience, and so on.  And maybe for this week, you say, “Lord, I really need the self-control in my tongue that only Your Holy Spirit can give.”  Let’s pray together.

0:34:23.2 

Father in heaven, thank You for the gift of speech.  You created us.  You fashioned us from the dust of the earth, and You put in an extra ounce or two of muscular structure in the floor of our mouths.  You gave us language.  You gave us speech.  We speak with a variety of tongues in our world today, but, Father, in every language, hurtful words are hurtful.  And in every language, words can be used to inspire and motivate and persuade, to build up rather than tear down.  Father, we ask You to take our tongues today.  And, by Your Holy Spirit, to give us self-control.  Produce that kind of fruit in us, the kind of fruit that even our spouses and our friends and our neighbors, our children, people that we interact with, and even in casual conversations every day, that they would notice something about our speech that lifts them up.  Father, make us those kinds of people.  It's unnatural for us as followers of Christ to speak anything but words that are full of blessing and graciousness.  And so, Father, now that You’ve quickened our conscience and our awareness of the troublesomeness of this tongue, just help us to walk by Your Spirit, to be filled with Your Spirit, to be so overwhelmed by the Spirit of God that we can't help but speak praise and blessing and words that honor You.  And I think of the person here today, Father, who may not have that resource available to him or her in their own spirit because they don’t know Christ as their savior.  And they’re still living in the natural realm looking for natural helps and behavioral modifications that might solve the problem here.  But even bigger than that, Father, is their relationship with You.  I think of some of the most beautiful words ever written, ever heard in our English language.  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.”  Maybe you've heard those words but you’ve never received them personally and owned them.  For God so loved… put your own name there.  He loved you so much that He sent His only son to die for your sin- every sin of the tongue, blasphemy, cursing, sarcasm, whatever it might be- nailed right upon the cross.  He paid the penalty for your sin and for my sin.  Paid it in full, every sin debt we owed.  And then, when He finished His work on the cross, He said, “It’s done.  It’s finished.”  And He wrapped up that gift called eternal life, and He offers it to you and He offers it to me free of charge.  Receive it by faith today.  Start fresh and start new.  Start new verbally with your new life in Christ today.  Just say, “God, I know that I'm a sinner.  Evidence is my mouth, me and my big mouth.  That’s all the evidence I need to know that all have sinned and fallen short of Your glory.  And today I receive Christ as my Savior.  I invite Him into my life.  Take control, starting with my tongue today.  And I thank You for giving me heaven, for forgiving me of my sins, for giving me eternal life.”  And, Father, we thank You for the work You're doing in our midst today.  And we pray this in Christ’s name, Amen.

0:38:55.2