THE POWER OF THE TONGUE PART II

William Norris, the American journalist who specialized in simple rhymes once wrote: If your lips would keep from slips, Five things observe with care: To whom you speak; of whom you speak; and how, and when, and where. There is a lot of Wisdom in this quote; we sure would save ourselves from a lot of trouble if we kept those five things in mind? But regrettably so often we let our tongues slip and pay dearly for the unwise and uncaring words we have spoken. Publius a Greek sage noted "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." Don’t we all have regrets over our speech? Don’t we all lack control over our tongue at times?

The Bible has numerous examples of those who lacked control over their tongue and paid dearly for it. Remember the story where the Israelites quarreled with Moses at the Desert of Zin because there was no drinking water. The Lord said to Moses to “speak to the rock and it will give water.” Instead of calmly speaking to the rock, Moses lost his cool and struck the rock twice saying, “Listen you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” What Moses did and said displeased God, hence Moses couldn’t enter the Promised Land. (Numbers 20)

Another example was Nabal. He was a harsh man and evil in his dealings. When David sent some young people to him to ask him for some bread and water, this is how Nabal answered David's servants, and said, "Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are each breaking away from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men whose origin I do not know?"

If it was not for his wife’s shrewd thinking and quick intervention he would have been killed by David that day. (I Samuel 25: 10-11). These two are the biblical examples where people lacked control over their tongue and reaped bitter consequences.

Recently a high ranking USA military officer due to his insensitive remarks lost his job as the commander in chief. General McChrystal made some rude and insensitive comments about the president, the vice president and the current administration in his interview to Rolling Stone Magazine and he had to face the music. An Associated Press writer reports, “President Barack Obama sacked his loose-lipped Afghanistan commander a seismic shift for the military order in wartime, and chose the familiar, admired — and tightly disciplined — Gen. David Petraeus to replace him.” This is a classical example of a person who lost control over his tongue.

It is important that we learn to control our tongues, especially if we claim to be Christians. We are encouraged in James 1:26, “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.”
Last week we looked into the evil power of the tongue and how destructive our tongues can become when we lack the fear of the Lord. Today we look at one more sin of the tongue “The boastful tongue” before we discover the constructive power of the tongue. The apostle James explains the power of the tongue and shows how Christians must learn to use their tongues to praise God and bless people instead of cursing those who were made in the very image of God. Most scholars believe that the oldest half brother of Jesus wrote this epistle. It was written around A.D 45. Though it was primarily written to Jewish Christians who were scattered around the world, the principles are applicable to all Christians.

THE BOASTFUL TONGUE
In his book “The purpose driven life” Rick Warren first coined the phrase “It is not all about you, but it is all about God” what a paradigm shift when all of life has always been about I, me and myself! The bragging and boasting of some people knows no limits, so much so that they themselves are oblivious of it. I much rather listen to a person who is full about God than full about themselves.

What is boasting? It is “To glorify oneself in speech; talk in a self-admiring way. To speak of oneself with excessive pride. The act or an instance of bragging. A source of pride.” With or without realizing we carry certain prejudices of our culture, background, and accomplishments and take great pride in them. We seldom hear so called self made professionals, politicians, athletes saying that they have made it in life with the help of God. It is all about how hard they worked how well they acted, or played, smartly conducted their business and so on. James vividly described in his letter how a small part in our body, the tongue can do great boasting. James 3:5 “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!”

Recently I was listening to an interview of Lebron James the basket ball legend by Larry King. Throughout the interview Lebron boasted about his troubled background, how he came up in sports, how well he invests his money, how well he understands the game and so on, there was not a single mention of God in that interview either by Larry King or Lebron. What a tragedy? You might be asking is it wrong to boast about our accomplishments? What wrong is it if we take pride in ourselves? Well, boasting may seem a culturally accepted innocent norm, yet it has far greater ramifications than you realize. How does God look at boasting?

I John 4:15-16 “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

Face Book is a classical example of what John was saying through this scripture. I enjoy connecting with family and friends overseas via face book nowadays. But sometimes I have to laugh at the self aggrandizement and self profiling that floats around on face book. There’s a lot of “been there, done that” or even more mundane; “I ate this or got that. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that in itself but if all we are defined by is what we have or what we have done and our self projection, we have a shaky identity. God’s desire for us is to be secure in His love for us, we don’t need to impress him or anybody for that matter.

To come back to the boastful tongue, what do you think of this one?

Prov 27:2 “Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; A stranger, and not your own lips.
Gal 5:26 “Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.”

But if at all you want to boast you are encouraged to boast only in one thing. Jer 9:23-24 “Thus says the LORD, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises loving-kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD.

We can overcome boasting, when we realize all we have ever done and we will ever do only with the help of Christ, because apart from Him we can do nothing. We have learned enough of the evil power of the tongue and its consequences. Now let’s look at the positive power of the tongue and its blessings. How should Christians use their tongues for good? Scriptures suggest a number of ways. I would like to look at three distinct ways we can use our tongues for good.

I. THE RIGHTEOUS TONGUE

When we accepted Christ as our personal savior, we became dead to sin and to our old nature. That’s what it means when it says the “old has gone and everything has become new. Our old sinful habits and life style has no longer power over us. When we were baptized in water we became dead to sin, buried and raised with Christ putting on his righteousness. In other words once we were slaves to sin but now we have become slaves to righteousness. As a righteous person how are we to use our tongues? Proverbs 10 shows how a righteous person uses his tongue in a God honoring way.

Vs 11 “The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life”
Vs 13 “Wisdom if found on the lips of the discerning”
Vs 20 “The tongue of the righteous is choice silver”
Vs 21 “The lips of the righteous nourish many”
Vs 31 “The mouth of righteous brings forth wisdom”
Vs 32 “The lips of the righteous know what is fitting.”

The essence of this chapter is that Christians ought to speak differently than non Christians. Unfortunately, these days we can hardly tell the difference. Many Christians tend to mimic the world in every thing. They curse, slander, use filthy language, and say things like “Oh my God” without realizing that they are using God’s name without any reason. It is breaking the third commandment which says, “you shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guilty who misuses his name.”( Ex 20:7) What more should I say about the flattering tongue, which we often use merely to please people in order to get into their good books.

Why are we Christians to be careful with our words? Firstly, our words have power and they can hurt others immensely. Secondly Jesus said that we will be judged by our words, Mat 12:36-37 "And I say to you, that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment. "For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned." Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Thirdly, “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.”(Prov 10:19)

II.THE GRACIOUS TONGUE

With our words we have the power to bring healing and encouragement to others or we can hurt others and damage their reputation. Do you realize that so many people are hurting because of the insensitive words spoken to them? We don’t want to further add to their hurts with our harsh and cutting words. The scriptures tell us that Jesus was “full of grace and truth” John 1:14, it is not other way around first grace and next truth. Some falsely believe that we must say “truth as it is” therefore they often come across blunt and hurtful without extending grace.

We serve a King whose lips have been anointed with grace (Psalm 45:2). Prov 22:11 “He who loves a pure heart and whose speech is gracious will have the king for his friend.” Ecc 10:12 “Words from a wise man’s mouth are gracious, but a fool is consumed by his own lips.” This is what the prophet Isaiah has to say about this servant King, Isaiah 50: 4 “The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary.”

We are the citizens of the Kingdom of God then are we to be any different than our King? Paul encourages us how our speech should be in Col 4:6, “let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone.” When we are gracious with our words we are walking in the footsteps of our Lord in bringing healing to the hurting.

III.THE PRAISING TONGUE

One of the primary purposes, why God created us is to give him praise. We praise God through all of our life. God is praised in right relationships; God is glorified through work well done. God is praised when we trust Him on a dull Tuesday or a challenging Friday.

When we come together on a Sunday morning it is a very special time of celebration and worship of the Most High God. Our Praise and worship brings us into the presence of God where we can unload our burdens and receive fresh strength to walk into a new week with confidence. It is not just singing a few beautiful praise songs but each time we sing praise songs we are powerfully declaring the character of our God. We are boasting about who God is and what God has done and what he can and will do.

The book of Psalms is all about praising God.
Psalm 34:1 “I will extol the LORD at all times his praise will always be on my lips”
Psalm 33:1, “Sing joyfully to the Lord you righteous, it is fitting for the upright to praise him.”
Psalm 147:1 “Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him.”

We have barely touched on how to and how not to use our tongue and there is much more to learn. I would encourage you to do a personal study on this subject, and it will change you forever. My prayer is that we will have the fear of God upon our tongues and we will use our tongue to glorify God. We will bless others and not hurt others. For now let’s practice what we have learned about praising God by singing a praise song for Him. Amen