OCT 7 2018 | The Tongue S1E1 | Taming

Sea Change Church · The Tongue · "Taming" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · October 7, 2018
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, church. My name is Deborah Netherland. I volunteer with a marriage group at our house and on the worship team once in a while. And my husband is the tall, light, and handsome man right here. You could always find us sitting up here. Today's scripture is James 3, 1 through 12. Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways.

Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body. But it makes great boast.

Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire. A world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind. But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings. Who have been made in God's likeness? 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 tree bear olives or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can salt spring produce fresh water. The word of the Lord. Thanks, Deb.

Nice work today. Especially on that solo work up the front. Good stuff. Your Superman husband lookalike. Hashtag man crush. Good to see you all this morning. I want to just give a quick shout out. Paul does this in the scripture, so I think I'm in good standing. When I was in, my brother was in 6th grade or 7th grade or something, 8th grade, he got invited to go to Disneyland by a neighborhood kid named Chris Conrad.

Do you have your hand? Do you want to put your hand up, Chris? Are you around here somewhere? He's in the very back row back there. That's Chris. We would not, it was because of that invite that we got saved. My mom got it. We got on the mailer. My brother got on the mailer. And none of this, at least with me as a part of it, would be here if it wasn't for that 7th grader's willingness to invite my brother to Disneyland.

And so, Chris, thank you. We owe you a lot. And bless you, my friend. So I'm glad you're here today. Chris has become the, I think, one of the general superintendents. He's in our old denomination. We came from Skyland, or from the Wesleyan Church. But he's up there doing that stuff. So it's awesome. And I'm excited. And a lot of us that came out of our youth group, we came out of a youth group that seemed to have the ability to birth youth workers and full-time Christian workers.

And I've seen that some of that has kind of followed me. I've been able to, the ministries I've been in, the youth groups I've led, even people that have late-onset adult ministry callings have started to come out of the ministry. Bryce Maurer, who's now a pastor up in Montana, in his 40s, became a pastor. And so I'm excited. So if you feel a call to ministry and that's been on your heart, you're probably in the right place because we seem to birth those around here.

So we are moving into a new series. Do you have the slide? The tongue. There it is. What to do with what you've heard. Get it? Right? Right? Right? Yeah, right? And don't you just love, when you preach a new series, how it makes it very keenly aware of the subject you're teaching on? Wow. Powerful. The tongue is powerful. And I want to move into a 30,000-foot view of the tongue. We're going to talk about it for three weeks.

And I'm not specifically going to take the James passage and exegete it. That means to, like, take it apart bit by bit. But I think it's a good pivot text that we can look at that gives us a lot of meat. But I think I need to do a bit of an overview before we get into gossip and encouragement for the second two weeks of this. And what I would like us to do is, like many of the people who are in the health and fitness industry, you always see their cleanses online.

They're going to join me for a cleanse, the before and after picture, and this whole thing. Well, I don't know if I've ever seen anybody do one about the tongue. We're going to do, and what I want to do is a 21-day cleanse of your tongue. So I want to do a 21-day cleanse where you could, you know, imagine the before and after pictures on Facebook, right? Like, ah, ah, that looks exactly the same, you know what I mean?

Sometimes the pictures look exactly the same, or the second one looks worse. And I'm like, wow, well done. I don't know if, oh, oh, oh, oh, sorry. We want to do a 21-day cleanse. And I want to encourage you as part of that to do a criticism fast. One, to just, you know what, there is enough judgment in the world, and God's a good enough judge that the world can do without your criticism of someone else or yourself for 21 days.

So let's do a 21-day, I want to go into this, and just anything that smells of criticism, it'll be there in 21 days when you get back, just like the chocolate brownies in February when you're done with your one month of whatever your goal was. It'll be there. We're going to look at words, and we're going to look at the power of words, and really wanting to have a value as a congregation that when you come here, you are lifted up.

That when you come here, you are filled with hope, and people speak words to you that unite. People speak words that encourage. I was sitting here this morning, and I got a text, and I think texts are very powerful. I try to use them, because they are powerful, I try to use them very proficiently and with wisdom when I send a text, lots of emojis, so you know what I'm actually thinking. And I just had a friend from Nashville reach out to me when I was sitting there.

He said, hey man, I woke up this morning, you were on my mind, just want to know how I'm thinking about you, praying about you. And I thought, boom, I just needed that today. And it was like a two-line text. How important is a word in season? How important is an encouraging word? My mom, when we had lunch yesterday, we sat for a couple hours, and she's told me how her father had said to her when she was very young, you will never amount to anything.

That is a powerful word from your dad. And perhaps you have heard words like that from someone very close that has a place of power in your heart. How we use our tongues with our children, how we use them with our husbands and our wives. Because I would say that in the last five years, I've gotten to the point where there's very few things I regret saying to my wife. Now, there's probably a lot of things I regret saying, but I've realized that I don't have the margin to do the cleanup janitorial work after I say things, and maybe you do.

And so I try to say things a lot less, especially in that relationship. But words have an incredible power. And we're going to look at the 30,000-foot view, looking at a few things in regard to God, and why words are so important. If you look at your notes, it says, word up. That's a reference to Cameo in the 80s. What's the big deal about a few words? I was only kidding. Yes. All the death that has been spoken, that has been exclamated with the exclamation point of, I was only kidding.

I didn't really mean it. Maybe you've looked at our society today, and you have seen how powerful words can be. Words of truth bringing life and death that can construct and deconstruct. How is the health of your tongue? So it says here in the scripture, for God, looking at this, and looking at a 30,000-foot view, to set the table for this entire series, for God, words express true reality. Circle that. Words express true reality.

The meaning of words is to express something that is true. God never says anything that is not true. Every word he says is carefully thought out. There is never a word that is just said indiscriminately that comes from God, that comes from Jesus. I only do what I see the Father doing. I only say what I see or hear the Father saying. Words are so important because, for God, words emanate truth. They are the road upon which truth drives upon.

They are the channel in which the words of truth float upon. It is everything. It is the pathway to give truth, and they are an incredible tool. So for God, words have the power to create. We see that in Genesis. We'll look at that in a second. And to bring life and to destroy it. Words have an incredible power to bring life and to destroy. Once again, let me ask. Do you need the 21-day cleanse of your tongue? And how is the health of your tongue in what you say?

James paints a powerful picture in James chapter 3 about the tongue. The importance of it. In the creation narrative, in Genesis 1-3, we see that God spoke creation into being. Now, this is interesting. God did not need to speak creation into being. God could have just waved his little finger. He could have done an interpretive dance. He could have done whatever he wanted to. But for some reason, God chose to use words.

Because he understands that words have a building effect. Words have a creative effect. And the entirety of scripture, the balance of scripture over and over again shows this. And you can be a person who brings life with your word and who creates and builds. And this is why narrative is so important. Why storytelling is so important. Why the Bible is made up of words that came from oral tradition. The importance of words in our life.

And says that God is truth. And his entire being emanates truth. And so when he spoke creation into being, he spoke truth into being. In Genesis 1-3, he says this, And God said, let there be light. And there was light. You know, you can walk up to a person and give them a word that brings light into their life. Or you can bring a word into their life that brings darkness. You can be a person who's committed to being a spotlight.

A candle. A flame of God's truth and light. To encourage people. To walk into the room with a presence. That comes from what is in your heart. Because the Proverbs say, I believe it's the Proverbs, says that what comes out of your mouth is actually created and resonates in your heart. That everything you say eventually will come from your heart. And so God speaks it into being. And God mentioned in the Genesis 1 account alone, God said.

It's interesting. Nine times in Genesis 1, the Bible says, God said. In the creation account, bring into life, life into an unformed and chaotic environment. It's interesting. If you look at the Genesis passage, it is chaos. And maybe in our society today, what do you see? Do you see order? Do you see when words are spoken, that it's bringing life the majority of the headlines, the majority of things that people say?

Do you see forgiveness? Do you see grace? Do you see light? Or do you see death? Do you see destruction? The scripture here with God said there was chaos, that there was an unformed earth. And then he came in and he spoke. And the ability to speak, the result of that speaking was light. Let's say, God has given you the power of words to speak life into people, to speak light into people. One of the problems though is we speak death to ourselves constantly.

And we fill ourselves with the words of a society that speaks in death. And it's very hard to have a heart that has been filled with darkness, that has been filled with chaos, and then emanate truth out of your mouth. And it's very hard to bless others when you curse yourself regularly. I've said this many times. My wife said to me one time, I was saying something about myself or whatever, and she says, why do you allow yourself to speak to yourself that way?

You wouldn't let anybody else in the world speak to you that way. And she is absolutely right. But we give ourselves an incredible license to speak death over ourselves. We give ourselves an incredible license to look at what other people accomplish, and we judge them according to themselves as according to judging ourselves, as the scripture says, according to ourself, or according to Christ. And we speak death. And so in this critical fast, in this changing of our tongue, one of the things I want you to be very aware of is how you speak to yourself.

And what are you creating in your own heart? Because you are building a sanctuary in your own heart that is a true representation of Christ. And when you speak about yourself to yourself, does it reflect the words that the Father says that you are beloved, that is said in Galatians? Or do you speak death over yourself on a regular basis? That's the first thing. It was in creation. Proverbs 18, 21. Powerful verse. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

Let me read that again. Again, death and life are in the power of the tongue. New Testament says, if we confess, if we believe in our heart and do what? Confess with our what? Mouth. We will be what? Saved. If we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, we will be saved. There is a sense that part of your salvation is not only believing in your heart, but it's confessing with your mouth that Jesus Christ died on the cross.

It is through words that you will be saved. Now, ultimately, through Christ's death on the cross. So, theologically, let's get that right. But it says, the proof of that, that you received His work on the cross, is that you believe in your heart and you confess it with your mouth. Power. And when you do that, you will have eternal life. You see, words actually have the power to give eternality to your life. They have the power to bring your life from a mortal life that'll be corrupt without Christ.

To move you into ultimate reality because for God, words speak truth and words bring you into reality. What is profanity? Profanity is profaning something that is holy. It is taking something that is good and saying it is bad. That is to profane things. That is why it is a curse. That is why when you use a slang curse word to talk about something like human sexuality, that when we do that, we take something that is holy, that God says is true, that He speaks about, and we use a word that besmirches the actual truth of the meaning.

And in a way, you go up to God and you say this holy thing that you have created, let's say it's human sexuality, and we all know the different curse words that are used with that, but when you use a word that does not reflect, or you use a word when you speak to someone about who they are, that girl's a whatever, or that guy's a whatever. When you do that, you are going to God and saying you've created this amazing creation that is a human being.

But I don't accept what you say they are, I say they're this, and you besmirch it. That's what our words do, and so you profane what God has made. That's what profanity is. Actually, in the Old Testament, there are some times that the prophets use what they would consider curse words in the Hebrew, but when they use that word, they're actually speaking of the thing. So I won't say it, but they talk about cow dung, and we'll just leave it at that, okay?

But the actual prophets use a Hebrew word that uses it would be profanity, but it's not profane because the thing is actually what they're calling it, it is what it is. Does that make sense? They're not profaning something that is holy, it is what it is. Look in Jeremiah, look in Isaiah. As we see these things, are you profaning things? When you speak to yourself that you are unloved, that God doesn't want you, that God doesn't like you, are these different tapes.

not to bring guilt upon you, but to say perhaps you are profaning the reality of who God has created you to be. You see, for words speak about reality. And let me ask you this, do your words speak reality? Do they build? Do they give life? Do they have power? You have the power to bring eternal life to people through the words that we use. It's so powerful that we can be creative in this, and God was creative in the Genesis.

So what are you creating with your tongue? Flip the page if you would. The second thing we're going to look at is the Bible itself is a collection of words meant to lead you into reality. God not only had a thing, it's called creative revelation, before, that God revealed himself in different ways, ultimately revealing himself in his son, and then we, it goes to where the Holy Spirit lives in our heart, but the first revelation of God was a creative revelation.

God created, and the creation speaks itself of his glory. God says at the creation that the rocks will do what? Cry out. There is a language, you have to understand that there is more than just our language. There is a natural language that God speaks about, that the waves will roar, that there is a language that earth and creation cries out. There is a language that you don't understand. Perhaps you've heard those scientific reports where they say, we can sometimes hear the earth singing, we can hear the rocks, we can hear a tune within the waves, they hear the dolphins sing, they hear the whales sing.

There is a constant chorus because God has created things to speak out. And there is a language that we don't even understand that is ringing around you right now in the creative revelation of God. And this is what so many people that are spiritual people but don't follow Christ in the New Age movement are in touch with. They see that there is this creation, but in Romans it says you can't take that too far because then you stop worshipping the creator and you worship the what?

The creation. We can't just give away creative revelation and so we saw the creative revelation. The second revelation that came was God introducing himself and then giving the word of God. The word of God is a revelation. If you want to get in truth with reality, get in truth with God's book. God's book is a good book. And if you start in a place that makes you really feel guilty and like don't start with Jeremiah and Isaiah, okay?

Like don't start with Job, you know? And if you do hit one of those little patches where you're just going, oh, you know, because the Bible is a balance of like challenge and invitation. Like I said a few weeks ago, just go to Romans 8, like read it a bunch and then you can go back and finish your passage and then when you start feeling bad, go back to Romans 8 and back and forth. The Bible balances challenge and invitation.

It's easy to build a church with all challenge. You're horrible and if you don't do better, God is going to get you and so I'm going to challenge you to do better. You can build a huge church that way or you can build one with invitation. God just loves you. Do whatever you want. God just loves you. Do whatever you want. He just loves you. We're just here to have fun and enjoy ourselves. Scripture is balanced and the word of God shows that.

Let's look at these words and the word of God and if you want to take speech which God has already empowered for you and you want to put it on steroids, so to speak, start embedding the word of God into your speech and can we get stealth about it? Like, I know in the 80s it was like you're talking to somebody and you're like, well the Bible says in Galatians, you know, 47.9, there's no 47.9 of course and the person's like, I don't even read the Bible.

I'm not a Christian. Why do I care about that? God's power in the Bible and you speaking the words are just as important if you don't cite the reference. Billy Graham was the master of the Bible says, you know what I mean? I don't know if he just didn't know his Bible. No, he probably did but nonetheless, he always just said the Bible said. One of the things I'm trying to get good at is embedding scripture in the conversation where people have no idea that you've done it.

You know, you have the ability, so if you want to take your words and you become in tune with God's word every day, he will give you words during the day to give to others in that same way. Let's look at it, Hebrews 4.7. The word of God is alive and active. Wow. It gives it a personification. It is alive and active. It is sharper than any double-edged sword. It cuts its way through to where soul and the spirit meet, to where joints and marrow come together.

It judges the desires and the thoughts of the heart. Proverbs 4.23 says, My son, pay attention to what? To what I say. Turn your ear to my words. Do not let them out of your sight. Keep them within your heart for they are life to those who find them. And this is a powerful promise. And health to one's whole body. The Bible promises that if you embed yourself into God's word and make it part of your life, you'll be healthier.

Right? You will actually, it has the power to give you life to your actual body. You know, I haven't met too many people that are filling themselves with the word of God that walk around mopey. I really don't. I mean, that just make it a sense to know the word of God. I don't know if Pastor Jim's here today. Pastor Jim is a man who fills himself with the word of God. He's got great challenges in his life if you know him.

But he is a man that emanates joy because he knows the word of God. His study, and if you're not there, it is Wednesday, I think it's Wednesday night study, which is going through 2,000 years of church history in 10 years. A little free ad for Jim there. Check it out because he is a man that loves God's word. You can see it. So many others. Every day, each one of us consumes words. Those words will lead you to life and death and health or death and decay.

I did a little bit of binging over the last couple weeks just involved in the issues of the day and watching them, and I found out after about a week or two of that, I just was not in a good place. I don't know about you, but I can't consume too much news, too many headlines before I'm not in a good place. I need to get back to the word of God, immerse myself in it, and then take that word that he gives me each day and speak it out of my mouth.

Speak it into the mirror if you have to, but begin to build a sanctuary in your own heart of the true creation that God has made you to be so you can speak to others. It's the word of God. If you want to change your tongue, get into the word of God. Final one, as we circle the tower on this communion Sunday, Jesus himself is called the word. Really kind of an advanced passage that we can get into, but it's pretty basic.

John 1.1 says, In the beginning was the word. Interesting, that Jesus was called a word. And the word was with God, and the word was God. He was God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. That's the creative passage again. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood or overcome it.

That's exactly what we just spoke about. This is a parallel passage to the Genesis 1 passage that shows what your life could become, what our lives can become. If we start to change what comes out of our mouth, what we say, what goes into our heart, and how we listen. Have you ever sat in a coffee house or a restaurant, and you're waiting for a friend, and you hear people speaking next to you? The majority of the time, it's people talking about other people.

And so often, it's negative. I was sitting in the back row of an unnamed airline on the way home from France, and the stewards and stewardesses, I was right by the little curtain, which isn't a great sound barrier for them, and they began to talk about the different people that were on the flight. And I thought, man, if I wanted to have a viral moment on my social media account, which I actually never want, I could just put my phone under there with the camera and listen to what they were saying about the different people, making fun of the elderly, making fun of people.

I mean, it was just disgusting. I actually almost went back and said something to them, but I also didn't have the margin to clean it up, so I didn't. Words are so, so powerful. Jesus says that he is the word. The reason it says that is because the reason, it's just like when Moses said, who are you, and what did he say to Moses? I is who I is. I am who I am. He basically said, you can't describe me. So I'm it. I'm it.

I am everything that can be said. And so when it says about Jesus, when Jesus is the word, the reason they use it, that he is the word, because it's every word. And let me just say that words, while there is a limited amount in the human language, words in heaven are an eternal language that go on, that echo through eternity. And so Jesus, when you say, what can be said about Jesus? He says, the word. I'm the word. That's what can be said about me.

Every single thing that is good. And it says in the scripture that Satan's main job is to be a liar. His native tongue is a tongue of lying. And he is an accuser of the brethren and the sisteren. I don't think that's a real word. Don't join with him. Don't join with Satan as he is an accuser, as he speaks lies over people and gives his statement on how, on the state of how things are. The word of God tells us who God is and what to say.

Within the person of Jesus is an eternity of words that describe the totality of truth and love and thus the only way to describe this reality is to say that he is the word. That's it. That's why Jesus is called the word. We want to get in touch with the word so that we have the right words to say. Here's a final warning about words before we move on. Today is a, it's been an interesting week as I've been into this passage and really, I gotta say, if you're gonna go on a tongue cleanse, it's gonna be like doing that diet you do in January.

Seriously, it's gonna wake you up and you're gonna have to stop yourself and you're gonna become aware of how you speak to yourself and it's not gonna be pretty. You're gonna become aware of your thoughts. You're gonna become aware of what other people say. You're gonna become aware of the things that when someone is gossiping and then you don't join into it and that awkward moment where they kind of look at you and you don't say things or you say like something counter to that.

You ever been in a gossip circle and then like one person kind of ruins it with a like, well, I don't think we should really maybe say something about that. I think they're kind of awesome and then it's just like, you know, it's a train wreck. You might be that person. It is not easy. Let me tell you, if you are going to change your tongue, you are going to have a difficult time. You are going to have ketosis flu. You know what I mean?

Like they have at the Atkins diet or those different paleo diets when you just stop eating sugar and your body's like, no! Lost 38 pounds in three days, but no! Final warning. Because I didn't write my scripture down there, we'll just say the Bible says. When I heard Billy Graham did that, I just adopted it. I quit trying to remember the scriptures about two years ago and now I just say the Bible says and then if you look it up on Google, you'll find it.

Make a tree good and its fruit will be good. This is about the root. It's about getting in touch with your belovedness. Or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you say, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Yeah. Ouch. A good man, good person brings good things out of what is stored up in him.

And this is a powerful, you need to store up things in your heart so that you have margin. Most of us wait until something negative happens and then we go to God and try to like store everything up. You can store up weeks. Like when you have a good few weeks, don't just chill and watch Netflix. Like you can do some of that. But go to the word of God and fill up, like fill yourself up so like when good times happen you have a silo of goodness, of truth within you.

You can fill yourself up. You can do a whole study on the Bible being filled up. It says here, it says it is, the heart speaks of what the heart, the mouth speaks of what the heart is full of. What is your heart full of? A good man brings good things out of what is stored in him and the evil man brings out good things, evil things that are stored up in him. But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.

For by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned. Ooh, that's the challenge. Now go read Romans 8 after the service because that's a heavy word. With that said, we want to be a church that you come here, you leave feeling better. Why do I bless you at the end every week? Because the world is full of cursing and we need to be blessed. We need to bless our husbands, we need to bless our wives, our neighbors, our co-workers to just be a fountain of God's love and truth.

Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Amen? Father? ki? light? The name? ?