DEC 28 2025 | Storm Proof: A Study in James S1E9 | Spiritual Adulting

Sea Change Church · Storm Proof: A Study in James · "Spiritual Adulting" Pastor Vinny Iudici · December 28, 2025
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

We pray this in your name. Amen. Amen. The letter of James to the 12 tribes chapter three, verses one through 12. Not many should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we will receive a stricter judgment for we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is mature able also to control the whole body. Now, if we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we direct their whole bodies and consider ships.

Though very large and driven by fierce winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So too, though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts great things. Consider how a small fire sets ablaze a large forest and the tongue is a fire the tongue, a world of unrighteousness is placed among our members. It stains the whole body, sets the course of life on fire and is itself set on fire by hell.

Every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and fish is tamed and has been tamed by humankind. But no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison with the tongue. We bless our Lord and Father. And with it we curse people who are made in God's likeness, blessing, and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way. Does a spring pour out sweet and bitter water from the same opening?

Can a fig tree produce olives, my brothers and sisters or a grapevine produced figs? Neither can a salt water spring yield fresh water. This is the word of the Lord. Alright, if you have your Bibles, uh, turn to the book of James chapter three. And, uh, while you're doing that, I wanna just take a moment and introduce myself. Good morning everybody. My name is Vinny. I'm the youth pastor here on staff and oh, And it is just with great honor and great blessing to have the privilege to be up here giving the word to you guys this morning.

And I gotta tell you, I am stoked. I got everything I wanted for Christmas this year, got a Costco membership for the first time. And I'm really stoked because today we are in one of my favorite books in the Bible. The book of James is like on my Mount Rushmore of Bible books. Um, and where we land in our series this morning is in chapter three. Now, in chapter three, James talks about controlling the tongue and how controlling the tongue that can lead you to control the rest of your body.

And so on the topic of self-control, I decided to give the sermon title this morning titling its Spiritual Adulting. Now, I gave it this title because in theory you would think like you get better at self-control as you become an adult. Is that debatable for every adult or I'm sorry, is that the case for every adult debatable? Um, but I know one thing being the youth pastor and that is that children have absolutely no self-control, especially in what they say.

They have no filter. I could write a book on the amount of wild things a child has said to me. Uh, one thing that recently still, uh, just blows my mind today. I had an elementary school student not too long ago, randomly tell my girlfriend that she smells like a protein shake. I still ponder if that was supposed to be taken as an insult or a compliment, but you know what? I like protein shakes. So I guess it works out for all of us.

So without any further introduction, let's get right into it. Let's pick up in verse one. So James, in verse one says, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we'll receive a stricter judgment. I wanna pause really quick right there because I think this verse is very important to tackle on its own. I, ironically, I've used this verse, uh, I've told this to my high school students in the beginning of the school year context behind this.

Uh, so at the, uh, as you guys know, we had our faith club president up on stage this morning, uh, sea Change Church. We put on an on-campus ministry across two high schools, and that'll be La Jolla and Claremont High. And I really tried to prioritize making it student led. And so I developed like a student leadership team. And this year, as we were kind of mapping out the year, uh, my students came up to me and they were like, Hey, we wanna preach at Faith Club this year.

Like, we want to teach like a sermon. And I'm like, that's amazing. Like it seriously is being their youth pastor and being someone that has taught them for years, walking with them, shepherding them, seeing the kids who I discipled, yearn to go and now be shepherds and disciples and teachers. It just, it warms my heart. But I feel like I would do them a disservice if I did not give them the same warning that James gives us that not everybody is called to teach because the theology is is that being a teacher of the word, it is a calling and a very high calling at that.

And the reason being, it's because being a teacher, it's not a casual role. Like, it's not just something you can say, yeah, I did it and I could put it on my college resume. Uh, the Bible makes it very clear that teaching comes with a lot of weight and comes with a lot more sacrifices than you would assume being a teacher of any sort. Whether you're a Bible teacher, a school teacher, a coach, a musical instructor, teaching is an influential role.

Like you are an influence on somebody's life, especially a teacher of the word. You have the influence and the power to shape a person's life, their beliefs, their behavior, and most importantly their spiritual direction. And I believe that we live in a time nowadays where the role of a teacher is surpassed the typical pastor at the pulpit on church at Sunday morning. I think, uh, that platform has expanded. I tell my kids, I'm like, you guys are not club leaders.

You guys are ministry leaders. Faith Club is a ministry. If you are a leader of a ministry in any way, consider yourself a part of this group as teachers of the word. If you are a worship leader, if you are a Christian influencer or as they like to write on the tax break the content creator. Um, if you are a part of a nonprofit, I would say consider yourself a part of this group as a teacher. Because now what you are doing is you have a platform and you are taking on the responsibility to be a resource for others, to experience the spirit of the Lord through you, given by his power, given by the Holy Spirit.

And I tell my kids that when it comes to teaching, I warn you, some people might not look at you the same at school because as teachers, we are called to live a life above reproach, to live a life set apart. And I tell them, I, I don't, I I want you to make sure that your walk with Jesus is set in a, in the right direction of a teacher. Because what I don't want is you in the club teaching, preaching about how good Jesus is, how loving and forgiving God is, and bringing blessing to his name.

But then every other period throughout the day, you are gossiping or you're talking harm or hateful speech against somebody else. You're making fun of other kids, you're not kind. You are rude. And I think, and I believe that as a teacher of the word you are, you are now on a platform where you are wearing the name of Christ. You are a representative. I mean, the Bible calls all of us as representatives of Jesus and it calls all of us to ministry, to go and make disciples and baptize them of all nations.

But especially on the responsibility of a teacher. You are wearing the name of Christ and if you choose to not live the way of Christ, what you are going to do is defame the name of Christ. And so I believe as, uh, as all followers of Jesus, as God has called us all to be set apart. Um, my first point for today is this, and it's in your notes. The faith that we sing on Sunday should look the same on Monday. Uh, I'll kind of paint this out for you.

Church Vinny should be the same as Vinny Monday morning in the office. It should be the same as Vinny when he's out in the water surfing. It should be the same as Vinny at home. Vinny when he's trying to get the last pack of chicken at Costco. It should look the same as Vinny doing Juujitsu. I shouldn't be a different person and present myself a different way just based off of the environment that I'm in. And I kind of came up with this idea, uh, a while back because uh, I had a conversation with my girlfriend who's sitting right there, uh, as beautiful as she is.

Um, and she does one thing really well and that's put me in check a lot of the times. And she came up to me one day and she was like, Hey, do a lot of juujitsu this week. And I was like, yeah, I did. How, how can you tell? Do I look extra skinny today? Are my abs popping through? Is my cauliflower ear showing 'cause for some reason we think that looks good? And she's like, no, I could tell by the way you're speaking.

I'm like, Ugh. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Because the sad reality is when you go into a Juujitsu gym, there are people there who are not walking by faith. There are people there who are speaking vulgar languages. The the words and the languages and the things that are said are not pg, they're not family friendly. And maybe some of you are in environments like that where you can't avoid. Maybe you're at work and the people that you work around talk like this and act like this and use profanity and use swear words or whatever it may be.

But hearing that from my girlfriend, I decided to say, you know what? Just because I'm in this environment doesn't give me an excuse to join in on this. It's like what your mom tells you. Like if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you too? You know? So I decided to create this mindset of who I am on Sunday should match who I am Monday through Saturday, who I am here at church, the things that I would and would not say at church if I wouldn't say it here on Sunday morning.

If I wouldn't say it in front of my students, if I wouldn't say it up at the pulpit, I probably shouldn't be saying it at all. And that, and, and that's the truth. And when it comes to controlling what you say, I think James does a really good job kind of painting that out. Uh, so we're gonna continue reading in verses two through five. So James says in verse two, for we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's mature able also to control the whole body.

Now if we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we direct their whole bodies and consider ships though very large and driven by fierce winds, they're guided by a very small rudder whenever the, wherever the will of the pilot directs. So too, though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts great things. Consider how a small fire sets a bla blaze a large forest and the tongue is a fire. So James, he says that the tongue though, a small part of the body, the tongue can have a big impact.

And he paints it out with these two really neat analogies. The first one he uses the bit of a horse, the bit is the bar that goes into the mouth of the horse. And when you're riding horses, maybe not like this, but when you're riding horses, that is used to direct the direction of the horse. Same thing with the rudder. Now I know all too well about rudders because uh, I served in the United States Navy for five years of my life.

I actually worked at ru at on rudders. Um, being a, uh, engineer, the rudder is a blade in the back of the ship and it kind of moves in this like direction. And what that does is it controls which direction the entire vessel moves in. And so James is comparing the tongue to that of how something so small is so essential to controlling the rest of your body. I would say taming our tongues and controlling the things that we say, it's probably one of the most practicals yet difficult things that anybody could do.

And what makes it so difficult is because the tongue is a messenger of your heart. Your tongue is a messenger for your heart. In your notes, I have a quote from, uh, John Calvin. John Calvin says, the tongue exists to reveal the heart. Jesus even says in Matthew 1234, for the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. So whatever it is our hearts are filled of that will be the overflow of the words that we speak. And I wanna share with you guys, this is what the Bible has to say about the condition of your heart.

By the way, if you're curious, in Jeremiah 17 nine, God speaks to the prophet and says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick who can understand it? So the answer to the question of what, what's the state of my heart right now? The way that we can diagnose our heart's condition is by the things that we say. Because the things you say and how you say them, they matter. You know, there's, there's one saying that I just, I hate, I'm not called to hate a lot of things.

You know, the Dodgers are one of them. The lord's working on my heart there. But there's one saying that just really grinds my gears. And if you may humor me, please finish the saying with me. It's the saying of sticks and stones may break. My bones never hurt me. Yeah, let's go. Yeah, that's nonsense. That's malarkey because sometimes people have said something to me and I'm like, I'd rather you hit me with a brick.

I'd rather the give me the stone. And why is that? It's because your words hold weight. You ever had a time in your life where somebody has said one thing to you and it made your whole day? I've had times like that. I've had times too where somebody has told me one small thing killed my weak. That's all I was thinking about. I lost sleep at night because of it. And why is that? Well, it's because James compares the tongue to a small fire that sets a large blaze.

Something so small can have such a huge impact. And you know, I've had a good couple of times in my life where I've said something so small, something I thought would be so meaningless. But yet it's had a much greater impact than I would expect. Um, so there's this one story that um, I was debating on telling, but my mom, she never lets me live this story down. Uh, and I know this all too vividly 'cause she does a good job reminding me of this.

So when I was seven years old, I was really obsessed with the ninja turtles. And I really wanted to be Michelangelo. I wanted to learn how to nunchuck. So my mom signed me up for TaeKwonDo. And if you want Nunchuck lessons, you can catch me in the, in the corridor after church. But my mom, she signs me up for TaeKwonDo. I'm there. Now let me remind you, kids do say the darnedest things. I know children have no filter.

Not just from working with them for four years, but because I was one myself and I was in the dojo and there was this one girl about 11 years old, sitting right next to me. And a detail that I wanna mention in this story. This this 11-year-old girl, she was going through everybody's favorite season of life. And those are the years of puberty. Being a survivor of puberty myself, I can say I've seen better days and I decided on impulse not prompted to just look at this girl dead in the eye and go, Hey, I know you're a girl.

Like I know you're a girl, but you look like a boy. Yeah, I know. The tension was so thick. You can cut it with a knife. Everybody looks back at her, her eyes start to like water with tears. She runs over to her mom, she's crying. And you just hear in the awkward silence, my mom also comforting her going, no, my son's an idiot. You're, you're so, you're so beautiful. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I, and I just, I still dunno, to this day, what what led me to tell her like, Hey, I'm aware if no one else is, I'm aware you are indeed female, but I just need to let you know that you look like a boy.

Sorry. And then I'm just, okay, yeah. Karate kick and, and like, like that is just a moment where I wish I like, I don't wish my worst enemy could even live that moment. 'cause it was embarrassing. It led a big impact. If you're wondering where is she today? She's actually on the cover of Vogue Magazine. No, I'm kidding. Could you imagine like I was her villain story? Um, but not only can the tongue, the fire that the tongue is, not only can that set a blaze, a large blaze in other people's lives, but the things we say can have a huge impact on our very own lives as well.

Because depending on whether or not you can control what you say, the Bible points out that that'll determine whether or not you are able to control the rest of your body. If you can control what you say, you can control other impulses. And I wanna give you some hope because if you today want to practice self-control, I got some good news for you. You have so much opportunity to do that with your tongue because what we do the most throughout our day is speak.

You guys are doing a great job right now. You're implementing self-control by not talking while I'm talking. That's great. I have to remind my high schoolers that every week, every aching week, um, you could practice this as soon as you leave the service and you get in your car and you're driving down La Jolla Boulevard in the legendary Sunday traffic, you could practice this literally at any given time. And so if I were to give you some homework, I would say go home this week.

Write down three to five environments that you approach throughout your week that you know, this is where I lack self-control in what I say. And I would say write those down. Keep those on your heart. It could be when you're driving, it could be when you're in the office and the tea is hot and the gossip is being talked about, or the chisme as the word lee would probably translate it to. Um, it could be when you're surfing, it can be when you are, uh, when you are at the gym.

But wherever it is, I would say keep these on your heart. That way you are well equipped in the next time you enter these environments of, okay, this is a moment where I can implement this. This is a moment where I can practice this. And if we can control the things we say, which is the hardest thing to do, and it is the thing we do the most frequently, you can control other impulses that you have. And James, he talks about how much power that one's tongue has.

If you weren't moved by my, by my story of breaking down the hopes and dreams of a little girl. Lemme tell you what James has to say about the power of the tongue. So let's pick up in verse nine. In verse nine, James says, with the tongue, we bless our Lord and a father. And with it we curse people who are made in God's likeness, blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. But my brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way.

Okay, so I wanna pause again here. So James here, he points out a really interesting contradiction in our speech. He says, blessing and cursing both come out of the same mouth with our mouth. We bless the Lord our God, the creator of the universe, but also with it we curse the people who are made in his image. And he says, these things should not be this way. And by the way, if you're wondering what is cursing, I, I'll tell you the biblical definition of cursing.

It is not just saying the bad words. And if you're wondering what are the bad words, I have a very detailed list of every bad word in your notes that you should not say. Kidding, could you imagine? Youth pastor puts lists of curse words and sermon notes. But the Bible's definition of cursing is speaking harm, speaking hate telling lies, breaking people down, gossiping. And he says these things do not mix and they don't mix because cursing is the antithesis to blessing.

And to give an even better example of the power of our tongue and an example of blessing and cursing, we get a really great picture painted in the first three chapters of the Bible. So in Genesis, chapters one through three, we see God and God creates the world. And how does it say that the Bible created the universe with his words? It says that God spoke us into existence and from his word is life. And then we see in chapter three, the serpent, when the serpent opens his mouth, what do we get?

We get deceit. We get lies that lead to sin and that eventually lead to death. And if we are children of God, if we are made in the image of God, my question for you is, whose example are you gonna follow? Are you gonna ex follow the example of the Lord whose words lead to life? Or the examples of the serpent whose words lead to death as Proverbs 1821 says that death and life both come from the power of the tongue, but James warns that these things should not be this way.

Blessing should not come out of the same mouth of cursing. Do not let your mouth, that is blessing. Do not allow it to curse. The Bible specifically calls us to be blesses and not be cursors. Romans 1214, Paul says, bless those who persecute you. And then he says, specifically, bless, do not curse. So if you are not actively speaking blessing and life into people's lives, then don't expect to live in the blessing of God.

If you are a cursor, don't expect blessing if your mouth is full of cursing. You know, there's one quote from Billy Graham that I really do enjoy. Uh, and I think that this is like the key nuance of like how we should think before we speak. And it's in your notes. Billy Graham says, we should ask ourselves three questions before we speak. Is it true? Is it kind and does it glorify God? I wanna encourage you, anytime you, you, you feel to think before you speak, think of these questions, I guarantee you you'll notice a humongous difference in the things you choose to say and the things you don't say and in the way you say them.

So as we close, I have a couple of practical takeaways for you. My first practical takeaway is this, every time you open your mouth, you have the potential to change somebody's life. Every time you talk to somebody, you have the potential to share with them. Jesus, you have the potential to extend the love of Jesus that he extended for you on the cross. And I really want you to know you have the potential. I have the honor standing here today in front of you guys.

And I know that the congregation I am standing in front of are going to be a people that lead a multitude of souls to the kingdom. I know this for sure know that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you have the potential to change a person's life. My second practical takeaway for you today is this, my younger audience, you'll get this, anybody that's surpassed millennial, um, uh, bear with me. My second practical takeaway in your notes is don't be a Hannah Montana Christian.

What does that mean? I'll tell you. So in the early two thousands there was this, uh, show on the Disney Channel. It was called Hannah Montana. And the synopsis was Miley Cyrus. When she puts on the blonde wig, she's teenage pop star Hannah Montana. But when she takes the blonde wig off, she's regular degular, 16-year-old girl Miley doing regular degular girl things. And it shows the dichotomy of her living this split life.

But as we said earlier, let the faith you live on sing on Sunday. Let that be the same on Monday. Let who you are on Sunday morning, be the same Sunday afternoon, let it be the same Monday and Tuesday all the way to Saturday. Let it be the same person. Yeah, Hannah Montana reference in a sermon youth pastor, get the best of both worlds. Okay, third practical takeaway is this. I heard this saying in a sermon one time and it really changed my mind about teaching.

And the third one is this, A passion to teach without a burden to study is just a desire to perform. If you feel called to teach, and I believe you are called by the Lord to teach, answer that calling, answer that calling from the Lord. But if you're going to teach, make it your life's mission to study the word, to know the word, to be a living example of the word, to live by the word. Make that your mission, make it your burden.

And your final practical takeaway is this. Our hope is not in our perfect words, but it's in Christ who is the perfect word. You know, as I said earlier in Jeremiah, the heart is deceitful above all things who can understand it? I'll tell you who can understand it, who can understand it is Jesus. It's Jesus who knows your heart. It's Jesus who understands your heart. It's Jesus who the scripture says, that he will come into our hearts and dwell in our hearts.

And as Jesus said, if the mouth speaks of the overflow of our heart, then the more and more as we follow Jesus, then the hope is that the more we follow Jesus, the more our hearts will be filled with Jesus. And it will be Jesus who is the overflow of our hearts and out of our heart is going to be more and more of Jesus, more and more of blessing and life that the words of Jesus produce and less deceitfulness. At the end of the day, our hope is all in Jesus.

Let Jesus be your hope. Let Jesus be your light. Let him be your guide. Let him be the example that you walk your life by. Let us be a congregation, as James 1 22 says, to not just be hearers of the word, but to be doers of the word. Will you pray with me? Lord Jesus, we are thankful for everything you have done in this world. Heavenly Father, as we celebrated your birth this season, in order to celebrate your death, we couldn't have celebrated it if we didn't celebrate your birth.

Father, I pray over everybody here in this church. I bless and anoint everybody here that we may go out and be a congregation of action. Let our hearts be filled with you. Jesus, let you be the one who is the overflow of our hearts so that the fruit that comes from our lips are your words and not ours. Let us be filled with your spirit. Let us walk the narrow path. Let us walk in faith by you. I bless everybody here in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit.

Amen. Let's stand and sing. He is blameless and spotless. Patient and righteous. Again, high majestic, almighty, relentless, stable, steadfast able, you are the victory. He's blameless. And I want, As we come to the end of our, uh, sea change 2025 year, I've heard a lot of people say, oh, I'm just ready for 2025 to be over. And um, yeah, there was a lot that went on this year, but in this community, uh, it was almost like a Goshen.

Goshen is a place where God's people sheltered. We saw more people, especially young people, make a decision to follow Christ than we've ever seen here. We've seen more baptisms in this church than we've ever seen. We have more people in discipleship than we've ever seen. We have more people wanting to do kingdom work. We have more small groups than we've ever seen. God is growing. And so I am, I'm so thankful. Even in the difficult times, there's been some very difficult times with people that are going through some very huge challenges.

We've lost people in our congregation. It's been a, you know, it's been a year, like every year is. But uh, for all of you that are consider sea change your home or considering it to be your home, I'm so thankful for you. I'm so grateful that this group of people, I look around and as a leader, they say, you know, look around and see who's following. And I look around sometimes I'm like, wow, I cannot believe that this incredibly gifted, talented, compassionate, empathetic, kingdom minded group of people would come and gather like this so often.

And I wanna thank you from the bottom of our heart as a staff. We are, we are, we feel so supported by you. We don't feel torn down by you. We thank you for the words that you have for us. And so I wanna say thank you to you. And then to follow up just quickly on Vinny's word, that was his first sermon ever preaching on a Sunday morning main service. Let's go. Yeah, I remember mine, I remember mine when I did it. Uh, El Camino Community Church in Encinitas.

And I wanna pass it up and bring up the next generation. But I just wanna say those words. Um, I think that one of the things the Lord said to me is I'm there is how do I speak to myself and do I actually know what Jesus says about me? And I think the place to start, 'cause it's easy to start with a pejorative of like, oh, I shouldn't have said that to that person. I should. And you just start policing all of your words.

But if you begin to change the tape, uh, read the scripture, what does God say about me? You can even Google search that and find the truths and the promises and begin to let that be the word that change the dialogue. And then to go into criticism fast. We're getting into the book of Proverbs. Start next week, one my favorite series every year in January, go into criticism fast. Let's start criticizing who drives in front of you, uh, your football team.

Just criticism, fact we're not criticizing anything. Begin to live in gratitude in that, uh, in the new year. So we will see you in the new year. If you wanna extend your hands, I wanna give a final blessing for 2025 and then Chris is gonna keep playing, uh, make you known is what it's called. Yeah. It's one of our newest songs that's coming out on Spotify soon. It's already January. Right on If you extend your hands, Lord Jesus, we wanna say thank you for the good and the bad, the difficult and the glorious in 2025.

And thank you for this community, Jesus, that you've brought some, some people you've just brought in this year. And in 2026, I believe that this is going to be a year of, of favor, a year of prayer, a year of your spirit. I believe Zacharia to Zacharia says that, God, you're gonna bring new people in here. You're gonna expand your kingdom. And we pray for your blessing now upon all these families, upon all these homes, upon all these people as we continue to journey together to the cross