Life Hacks (Part 6): Taming Your Tongue

I want to begin today with a story, and it's a story from a man named Ben Burton.

And I'm going to take the time to read this story rather than retell it because as he tells the story, I think it captures something that relates directly to James chapter 3.

James 3 · chapter mention

So here's what he says.

It's called The Martyrdom of Andy.

Andy was a sweet, amusing little guy whom everyone liked but harassed.

Just because that's the way one treated Andy Drake.

He took the kidding well.

He always smiled back with those great big eyes that seemed to say, thank you, thank you, thank you, with each sweeping blink.

For us fifth graders, Andy was our outlet.

He was our whipping boy.

He even seemed grateful to pay this special price for membership in our group.

Andy Drake don't eat no cake, and his sister don't eat no pie.

If it wasn't for the welfare dole, all the Drakes would die.

Andy even appeared to like the sing-song parody of Jack Spratt.

The rest of us really enjoyed it.

Bad grammar and all.

I don't know why Andy had to endure this special treatment to deserve our friendship and membership in the group.

It just evolved naturally.

No vote, no discussion.

I don't recall that it was ever mentioned that Andy's father was in prison or that his mother took in men.

Or that Andy's ankles, elbows, and fingernails were always dirty, and that his old coat was way too big.

We soon wore all the fun out of that.

But Andy never fought back.

Snobblery blossoms very young.

I guess it's clear now that the group attitude was that it was our right to belong, but that Andy was a member by our sufferance.

Despite that, we all liked Andy until that day.

Until that very moment.

He's different.

We don't want him, do we?

Which one of us said it?

I've wanted to blame Randolph all these years, but I can't honestly say who spoke those trigger words that brought out the savagery lying dormant, but so near the surface in all of us.

It doesn't matter who.

For the fervor with which we took up the cry revealed us all.

I didn't want to do what we did.

For years I tried to console myself with that thought.

Then one day I stumbled on the unwelcome words, but irrefutable words that convicted me forever.

The hottest corners of hell are reserved for those who, during a moment of crisis, maintain their neutrality.

The weekend was to be like other weekends that our group had enjoyed together.

After school on Friday, we would meet at the house of one of our members, mine this time, for a camp out in the nearby woods.

Our mothers, who did most of the preparations for these safaris, fixed an extra pack for Andy, who was to join us after chores.

We quickly made camp.

Mother's apron strings forgotten.

With individual courage amplified by the group, we were now men against the jungle.

The others told me that since it was my party, I should be the one to give Andy the news.

Me.

I, who long had believed that Andy secretly thought a little more of me than he did the others, because of the puppy-like way that he looked at me.

I, who often felt him revealing his love and appreciation with those huge, wide-open eyes.

I can still see plainly.

Andy, as he came toward me down the long dark tunnel of trees that leaked only enough of the late afternoon light to kaleidoscope, changing patterns on his soiled old sweatshirt.

Andy was on his rusty, one-of-a-kind bike.

A girl's model with sections of garden hose wired to the rims for tires.

He appeared excited and happier than I had ever seen him.

This frail little guy who had been an adult all his life.

I knew he was savoring the acceptance by the group, this first chance to belong, to have boy fun, to do boy things.

And he waved to me as I stood in the camp clearing, awaiting him.

I ignored his happy greeting.

He vaulted off the funny old bike and trotted toward me, full of joy and conversation.

The others concealed in the tent were quiet, but I could feel their support.

Why won't he get serious?

Can't he see that I'm not returning his gaiety?

Can't he see by now that his babblings aren't reaching me?

Then suddenly he did see.

His innocent countenance opened more, leaving him totally vulnerable.

His whole demeanor said, It's going to be bad, isn't it, Ben?

Let's have it.

Undoubtedly, well practiced and facing disappointment, he didn't even brace for the blow, and he never fought back.

Incredulously, I heard myself say, Andy, we don't want you.

Hauntingly vivid still is the stunning quickness with which two huge tears sprang to into Andy's eyes and just stayed there.

Vivid because of a million maddening return reruns of that scene in my mind.

The way Andy looked at me, frozen for an eternal moment.

What was it?

Was it hate?

Was it shock?

Was it disbelief?

Or was it pity for me?

Or maybe it was forgiveness.

Finally, the fleet tremor broke across Andy's lips and he turned without appeal or even a question to make the long lonely trip in the dark.

As I entered the tent, the last of us to feel the full weight of the moment started that old doggerole.

Andy Drake, don't eat no cake and his sister.

Then it was unanimous.

No vote was taken, no words spoken, but we all knew.

We knew we had done something horribly, cruelly wrong.

We were swept over by delayed impact of dozens of lessons and sermons where we heard, maybe for the first time, and as much as you've done it unto the least of these, and in that hushed, heavy moment we gained an understanding new to us, but indelibly fixed in our minds.

We had destroyed an individual made in the image of God with the only weapon with which he had no defense and for which we had no excuse.

Our words and our rejection.

I now know that to have hugged Andy and to have cried with him and to even have joined with him in a long silence would have been enough.

It would have healed us both.

But to say I haven't seen Andy is not entirely accurate.

In the decades since that autumn day in the Arkansas Woods, I have encountered hundreds of Andy Drakes.

My conscience places Andy's mask over the face of every disadvantaged person with whom I come in contact.

Each one stares back at me with the same haunting, expectant look that became fixed in my mind on that day long ago.

Then he writes this letter.

It's much too late for this confession to purge my conscience of guilt.

I neither expect it nor want it to.

What I do pray for, my little friend of long ago, is that you might somehow learn of and be lifted by the continuing force of your sacrifice.

What you suffered at my hands that day, and the loving courage you showed, God has twisted and turned and molded into a blessing.

This knowledge might ease the memory of the terrible day for you.

I've been no saint, Andy, nor have I done all the things I could and should have done with my life, but I want you to know that it is that I never again knowingly have betrayed in Andy Drake, nor pray, shall I ever.

And then he signs his name, Ben.

So I read that because as I read James chapter 3, and we come to this section of James, what I see very simply here is that we are at a place where James tells us about the incredible power of our words.

James 3 · chapter mention

And my guess is that whether you at one point in your life were on the side of the kid who said, Andy, we don't want you, or you were on the side of somebody who was told we don't want you.

That you've seen the power of words to be destructive.

And it may not have been when you were a kid, it may have been last week with somebody that you're married to, or with a sibling, or a coworker, a boss, an employee, a friend, where if words came out of your mouth and you knew as soon as they came out of your mouth that they were going to pierce and hurt and be destructive.

Or as soon as they were said to you, you understood just how powerful they were.

And what James chapter 3 does is it tells us about the power of words.

James 3 · chapter mention

It starts off very simply by saying, not many of you should be teachers, because if you teach, the more you say, the more strictly you'll be judged.

It's a somewhat haunting verse for me.

But what is being communicated here is that our words matter because the second verse says, if you're able to control your tongue, then you're able to control your whole body.

So, in other words, if you don't control your tongue, what it indicates is you're not in control of your whole spirit or your being.

And this passage tells us at least two ways in which the tongue is powerful.

And I want to look at those for a few moments.

The first is this, and that is the tongue is powerful because the tongue directs.

And we see this because of these little images that are used.

It says that the tongue is like the bit that goes in the horse's mouth.

In other words, you can't control a horse unless you can control it by its mouth with a bit, and what that's saying is that the things that you say have incredible power for good, to control something, to lead something.

And then we're told that the tongue is like a rudder.

In other words, again, it's small, but it directs a ship.

And directing a ship can be both good and bad because you can shipwreck by controlling it wrong, or you can steer it to good things.

And then we're told that the tongue is like a spark that sets a whole forest on fire.

And this is telling us that the tongue has the power not just for good, but for evil, for destruction.

And in fact, what we're told is that the tongue itself is like the very fire of hell, that it's a deadly poison.

In other words, the tongue has this incredible power to produce outcomes.

And not only that, that power is disproportional.

Because you say a word, and the way that the words, powers, can impact things sometimes for decades, sometimes for generations, is amazing because some of us can probably remember things that were said to us when we were kids.

Things that were positive and things that were negative.

Things that shaped our self-perception about what we can and cannot do or be or who we are.

And so the tongue has this incredible power that's disproportional.

Now, you may think when I'm saying this, that what I'm saying is that we can speak things into existence.

That's not what I'm saying.

I don't believe that we speak something and make it happen, but what I think this is talking about is a simple cause and effect, that the more that we speak certain ways, it does actually set a course sometimes by how other people respond to us and sometimes how we think about things ourselves.

I remember years ago, uh, when I was first an adult, I heard somebody talk about the power of how you respond to the simple phrase, how's your day?

Or how are you doing.

And I used to think that when people would ask how you're doing, it was like a real question.

And what I've learned, and you know, is it's not generally a real question.

I mean, sometimes people ask it as a real question, but generally it's a greeting in our culture.

In other words, somebody doesn't come up to you and say, How are you doing, and expect you to say, Well, let me think about it.

I, you know, I've got all these things going on and I'm not doing that well.

And they're just looking for you to say, yeah, I'm doing okay.

And what this person said is instead of trying to think about your day and decide how you're doing and respond, or just using it as a throwaway greeting, use it as a chance to decide something about the kind of day you're going to have.

Now, obviously, if you're walking through an incredibly tough time, uh, this probably is not applicable.

But what the person said is, so when somebody says to you, How are you doing, decide that you're just gonna say, I'm doing great.

Whether you're doing great or not, because sooner or later what will happen is you'll start to say, you know what, I'm doing well.

Now, again, you may say that's just goofy positive thinking.

Maybe.

But what James is saying here is that the tongue actually directs things, that it works like a rudder, that when you make a decision about how you speak, that you can choose to speak words that will bring about poor outcomes in your life or positive outcomes in your life, and those outcomes will be disproportional.

So the tongue directs.

But that isn't all that the tongue does.

The tongue also reflects, it has the power to reveal something about us.

And we see this in verses 10 through 12.

It says, Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing, my brothers and sisters.

This should not be.

Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?

My brothers and sisters, can a fig bear olives or a grapevine bear figs?

Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

And here's the argument that he's making very simply.

He's saying that your tongue will ultimately be the overflow of what's inside of you.

Jesus, by the way, made this same point in Matthew or in Mark chapter 7.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

He said, It's not what comes into your life that defiles you, but it's what comes out of you.

In other words, the very things you speak reveal what's deep inside of you.

And in verse 5 of James 3, James says that the tongue, although it's small, makes great boasts.

Now, why does he use the word boasts here?

I would suggest that the reason he uses the word boast is because so much of what comes out of us is centered around what we perceive we need to feel good about ourselves.

In other words, the boasting of the tongue or even the things of the tongue that don't seem like boasting are really masked versions of pride and insecurity.

In other words, when we find ourselves in a place where we start to tear somebody down, whether it's a it's a group of kids in a tent years ago saying, we don't want Andy Drake, there's a part of them that says, we're better than Andy Drake, therefore we're going to make him feel bad so we feel good.

And you may say, well, that's just some kid's little little thing that happens, but it actually happens throughout life, where you compare and contrast and tear down in order to say, aren't I something?

And what that is, is it's our own version of boasting, and we do it on all kinds of scales.

So sometimes we think that the boasting is only when we walk around saying, aren't I great?

But a lot of times what we do is we just simply throw out a subtle statement, tearing somebody else down just a little bit for the way they dress, the way that they think, the things that they do, the things that they don't do, so that we just feel a little bit better about ourselves, and what it does is it reflects something deep inside of us.

Now, these two things that the tongue directs and the tongue reflects, in some ways appear to be opposite.

And what I mean when I say that is does the tongue reflect or does it direct?

Do I get to decide and choose the course of things, or does it reflect what's already inside?

Which is it?

Well, the truth is it's both.

That's what James is saying here.

That sometimes when we choose certain paths with our words, it will direct an outcome, but it also reflects what's inside of us.

So let me give you an example.

And this is not a flattering example to me.

So a few years ago, it was uh Christmas time, and Christmas is a fairly busy time in the church schedule, especially at Orchard Hill, and I like to preface what I'm about to say with that because that feels like a nice excuse.

You know, we have a lot of services here.

Um, and so you know, I'm at church a lot, and as a result of being at church a lot over Christmas, going all the way back to our early 20s, my wife and I have almost always hosted Christmas at our house for all of our extended family.

And hosting Christmas is intense, especially if you have large crowds and people who stay for multiple days.

And my wife would say, and you're not here to help with any of it because you're at church, and so you know, this is an intense thing.

So we always tend to host family, or often, almost always.

So a few years ago on Christmas, my wife and I had started having some conversations around Christmas spending, especially on gifts.

Any of you ever have those conversations in your house?

And I had established in my mind what I thought was a fair budget, somewhere around here.

And my wife's perception of the budget for Christmas was something around here.

Now, she has her own website called what really happened.com.

Um, you're welcome to check it out.

This is my recollection of how this went down.

I had the budget here, she had it here, and so I'm kind of starting to stress when I'm seeing all these things come in.

I'm thinking, we've got January coming, like we still have to live in January.

The year doesn't end in December.

Then we have family come and stay with us for multiple days.

Now, again, that that's just it's wonderful to have family, but it's it costs money to have family.

And even when you love your family, it's kind of nice when they leave at the end.

And so I'm here, it's Christmas Day, her mom and dad are at our house.

Her, I think her brother and sister-in-law uh were at our house with their family.

They were gonna stay for another day or two.

Her mom and dad were ready to go home on Christmas Day.

Uh they live in Ohio, not very far, so they can make it home.

In fact, I like to say that they live the perfect distance from us.

They live about an hour and ten minutes.

It's the perfect distance because they never drop by unannounced and they never stay overnight.

Um I love my in-laws, by the way.

They are awesome.

And uh and and so they were at our house, and my wife decides that after we bought the dinner, provided the dinner, have hosted people, that they should take ham home with them.

Now, this is the part that's not real flattering to me.

Um, I basically did a jerk move in this moment.

So, so so I'm sitting here, I'm watching this, and I'm thinking, we've overspent the Christmas budget.

I know how this movie's gonna play out.

Tomorrow, you're gonna be tired, you're gonna want to order pizza for our family and your brother's family.

It's gonna be$40,$50 of pizza.

We don't have$40 or$50 more dollars.

This is what's going through my mind.

She's handing the ham to them and cutting up our dinner for the next night, and I'm thinking, no, no, no, I want the ham.

Here's the jerk move.

I went from thinking it to saying it.

It was inside of me.

It reflected what was inside of me, which was stinginess toward my mother-in-law and father-in-law.

It was me saying, enough! Now I can try to excuse it and say, you know, we were tight, all of this.

It was a jerk move.

I know it.

And one of the things about having children is when they see jerk moves, they call them out.

They're like, Dad, that's a jerk move.

Now, now here's here's my point.

Was that incident reflecting or leading?

Well, in a sense, it reflected.

But do you know how it could have changed?

If before I got done thinking it and before I said it, I had said, you know what?

I want to be the kind of person, the kind of son-in-law, who doesn't pull a jerk move on Christmas and say, No ham for you.

And instead the kind of person who says, Ah, that's good, we'll figure it out.

I could have said something different and it would have led my heart.

Do you see how it does both simultaneously?

Let me show you a couple examples from Proverbs of how this works.

Proverbs chapter 15, verse 1 and verse 4 says this a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Proverbs 15:1

So you could say, harsh words reveal what's in me.

That's true.

But what this is also saying is that you can choose a soft answer and that a soft answer will direct the future for you.

That's what that's saying.

Verse 4, very similar.

Soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.

So if perversity is in you, it may come out, but if you choose to be a soothing tongue, to have a soothing tongue, To use your tongue for soothing words, then you will bring good things into the world of other people.

Here's uh another verse, Proverbs chapter 16, verse 28, says this says a perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.

Proverbs 16:28

So what this is talking about is it's saying sometimes when somebody does something that annoys you, what you might want to do is say to somebody else, have you seen?

Have you heard?

Can you believe?

And in doing that, you will separate close friends.

In other words, it can reflect, but it can also be a place where you direct and say, I'm not going to gossip, and it will not separate close friends.

Proverbs chapter 16, or excuse me, chapter 18, verse 8 puts it this way.

Proverbs 16 · chapter mention

It says, the words of a gossip are like choice morsels.

They go down to the innermost parts, the inmost parts.

In other words, sometimes we gossip because we like the feeling that it gives us.

And then Proverbs chapter 17, verse 27, 28, the one who has knowledge and uses words with the one who has knowledge uses his words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even tempered.

Proverbs 17:27

Even fools are thought to be wise if they keep silent and discerning if they hold their tongues.

This is basically just saying that if you and I understand about our tongues what the power of words have, that sometimes we'll just hold our words.

In other words, you you may say, well, I just have to say what's on my mind, but sometimes just simply not talking becomes a way of being wise and controlling our tongue.

So now the question is, okay, the tongue has this power to direct and to reflect.

How do I change?

How do you change?

And my assumption here is that some of us are sitting here saying, I hope, you know, somebody sitting next to me really is hearing this because they have a real issue with their tongue.

But if we're honest, we all have moments when we say something and as the words are coming out of our mouths, we wish we could grab them and pull them back because as soon as we start to say them, we know that we're saying something that's hurtful, something that's damaging, something that's unkind, something that's that's mean-spirited.

In fact, I would go so far as to say if you're married, if you're in a family, if you have siblings, if you have parents, that you know how to say something that's hurtful to somebody and yet maintain plausible deniability.

Do you know what I'm saying when I say that?

If you've been married for a while, you know exactly how to do this game.

If you have a sibling, you know exactly how to do this game.

You say something to them, you know exactly how hurtful it is, but you say it in such a way that when they say, that was really unkind, that was hurtful.

What?

I don't know what you're talking about.

Me?

No, you took that wrong.

You're so sensitive.

But if we're honest, we know even when we're saying it, I want to pull those words back.

So let me give you three suggestions for taming or controlling the tongue.

The first is this decide that you can and will address your tongue.

Decide that you can and will address your tongue.

Now, the reason I say this is you could read this passage and you could say, well, this passage says no one can tame the tongue.

Says it right in verse 8.

No one can tame the tongue.

Ha! I can't tame the tongue.

In fact, it says it's a deadly poison.

It's set on fire by hell.

I mean, if this is a deadly poison set on fire by hell, then no one can tame.

I guess I'm just the kind of person who has to say what's on my mind.

I just, I'm just a truth teller.

I'm just the person who says what I need to say.

But this text also says in verse 2 if someone is able to control their tongue, then they're able to control everything in their life.

You see, the portion that says no one can control the tongue, and the portion that says it's set on fire by hell, those are statements of expansion and, in a sense, hyperbole to say the tongue is something to take seriously, but it says you can control it.

And my point is this, and that is don't buy the lie for yourself that simply says, I'm just a person who says what I need to say.

But instead be a person who says, I will choose to do to address my tongue, and I can.

Here's a second thing, and that is we need to decide basically to do all we can to choose our words carefully.

If the tongue controls or directs things, then that means that you and I need to make choices to say, I'm going to do all I can to control what I say.

I saw somebody who had given an assignment about the tongue.

And what they said is that if people would just make a choice for a week to say, I'm going to guard my words, it could change the trajectory of some things in their lives.

And so here's what this person suggested.

For one week, decide not to complain or grumble about anything.

Some of you are thinking, what would I talk about?

I mean, some of you are students, and when you go to school, you complain and grumble about your parents and your home life so much with your friends, you wouldn't have anything to talk about.

Some of you work somewhere, and if you didn't complain and grumble about the environment and the boss and the company, you wouldn't know what to say.

Some of you have been in relationships that have gone south, and if you didn't complain or grumble about somebody who you perceive to have done you wrong, you wouldn't have a topic of conversation.

And what this is this little assignment is saying is if the tongue directs, just decide for one week that you're not going to complain or grumble about anything.

Then this person said, Don't boast about anything at all.

Don't put yourself forward, don't make more of yourself.

Don't gossip or repeat bad information.

In other words, when you have the opportunity to run somebody down, you just simply say, I'm not going to repeat anything bad about somebody else.

Don't defend or excuse yourself.

And then it says, but do affirm people.

Now, I include this because this is do all you can to choose your words carefully.

Proverbs and James assume that you can choose your words.

But there's also another underlying issue, and this is the third suggestion or third thing that we need to do to control our tongues, and that is we need to address our heart.

And the reason I say this is what will happen if you simply say, I'm not going to grumble or complain, I'm not going to gossip, I'm not going to boast, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, or I'm going to affirm, is sooner or later you will get in a place where you're standing somewhere on Christmas and you're watching that Christmas ham go out, and you're going to say, No to the Christmas ham.

Because it will reveal what's in your heart.

Now, you may say, okay, well, how do I address my heart?

Remember what this text said in verse 5?

The tongue is little, but it makes great boasts.

Do you know why we feel so compelled to say things?

It's because of our need for glory, our need for pride.

And maybe it's the flip side of that insecurity, which is really just the other side of pride, but what we're doing is we're saying, I need something.

I need something from this interaction.

I need something from people to feel better about myself.

And as a result, what we do is we say things that are hurtful to others and to ourselves because what we're trying to do is we're trying to get a sense of glory in our own lives.

And so when I say address the heart, what I don't mean is just try to clean up your own heart.

What I mean is we have to get to a point where we say, my real glory has come from something greater than what any person can give me.

In fact, when James 3 at the end of the chapter or at the end of the section we've looked at today says praise and cursing shouldn't come from the same mouth because we have different kinds of sources.

What that's saying is that when the source is right and you're praising God, then you won't be full of these cursings.

And this doesn't mean curse words, it means the negative things that you're saying.

In other words, the way that we really purge our desire to say things is not simply to say, stop it, although that's helpful sometimes just to be aware and say, I'm not going to do it, but it's to let our heart be transformed.

And here's how that really happens it's when we say, I don't need glory from what I'm getting from other people because I've already been declared a child of the God of the universe.

You see, the the message of praising God that this talks about comes from a recognition that we're sinful, that we need a savior.

And when we acknowledge that, when we live in that reality, here's what it does.

Whenever somebody else wants to say something negative, what we can say is, yes, you can say whatever you want to say about me, but what God has said about me is already much more intense.

God has said, I'm a sinful person who deserves hell.

But he's also said you're a loved person, and I sent my son to die on the cross on your behalf.

And when that is something that has resonated into my soul, into my spirit, what happens then is I say, I have glory already.

I don't need glory from what I'm trying to get horizontally from people because I've been given glory vertically.

And what will happen then is my heart, your heart, it will be healed in a way that allows us to live without having to say, I've got to control my tongue, but instead we'll live saying, my tongue is reflecting the praise and the glory that God has already given.

And when that's true, for you, for me, we'll actually start to see a change in our words.

And it's not the kind of thing that you do once and it happens and you're done.

It's the kind of thing that all the time, the degree to which we understand and live in the reality of God's glory, the less we try to get it from other people in other situations.

And when that's true for me or for you, then we'll live very differently in what we're trying to get from people.

Father, we thank you for just the challenge of these verses.

And Lord, I pray that we'd all understand the power of our words, but also how we can tame the tongue.

And Lord, I pray that we would rest in what you've done on our behalf rather than always trying to make much of ourselves through our conversations and our words.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.