Well, there were three pastors, a Pentecostal, a Baptist, and a Methodist, who all were pastors in the same small town and they went deep-sea fishing together. They rented a boat at Myrtle Beach and they went out to the Gulf Stream and they began fishing. They had a great day, caught several big fish and decided it was time to call it a day, but the motor wouldn’t start, and a storm was headed their way.
The Pentecostal pastor got a bit scared, and he told the others. “Guys, in case things go wrong here, I’ve got to confess to you that I have sinful behavior. I’ve been having an affair with a woman in my congregation.”
The other pastors acknowledged the depth of the sin, forgave him in the name of Jesus and they watched the storm get closer.
The Baptist pastor told the others, “Well, I’m getting worried. That storm looks pretty bad and I don’t swim, so I’ve got to confess to you guys that I also am deep in sin. I’ve been taking a twenty-dollar bill from the collection plate every Sunday for the last two years. “
The other pastors acknowledged his sin, forgave him in the name of Jesus and they watched the storm get closer. The waves were starting to get pretty high now, and were breaking over the sides of the boat.
The Methodist pastor said, “Well, I’m glad you guys have been so open. I have to admit that I am also deep in sin, and I pray that if I confess my sin to you the Lord will let us survive so we can get home. I really want to get home badly, for I can see the joy I will have when we get back home.”
The other pastors asked, “Well, what’s your sin?”
The Methodist pastor looked back at them in anguish and said, “I’m addicted to passing on gossip!”
History does not record whether that pastor made it home safely or not…
This is the fourth of ten sermons on Living the Christian Life. So much of the time, we know just what we are to do as Christians. We know very well we are to do all of these things. But the problem is how.
That is the subject of this sermon series. It is a sermon series on How to live the Christian life. We’ve covered kindness, developing patience, loving deeply, and breaking addictions. These sermons are now posted online at the sermon blog listed on the front page of the bulletin.
Today, we’re going to cover how control our tongues.
As we heard our readings this morning, we find that there are considerable parts of the Bible devoted to the control of our tongues and our lips. Just putting the word “tongue” into a search turns up over 130 verses. And that doesn’t include all the verses that mention gossip, back-biting, and passing on rumors.
So once again, we know that Christians – indeed all people – are to control what we say and when we say it, but this is perhaps the most difficult and common sin that we all struggle with – speaking in ways that don’t honor God or lift up people.
Our culture encourages trash-talking and verbal conflict. What used to be limited to Muhammed Ali and his pre-fight promotional talks, what moved to the World Wrestling Federation is now common practice before games of all types. Our comedy shows glorify gossip and out-of-control speech. Jerry Springer specializes in people fighting on-air. Even our news shows have degenerated into loud arguments as the networks have found that on-air arguments generate better ratings. There is something deep inside us that makes us look toward any argument and quickly decide which side we’ll take, perhaps because we humans have developed in societies where verbal arguments so quickly have escalated into physical fights. And so any television drama today will have on-screen arguments.
I heard a Star Trek writer talking about writing for the Next Generation show – that’s the one with Captain Picard. The first season, you see, everyone on the crew were friends. But they found when the writers created some conflict within the crew, some arguments, some fights between crew members, the ratings went up. So they learned that conflict is what generates interest. And that is what you see on almost every television show, in almost every movie, even in our comedies.
And because there are still limits to the violence that most people will watch, most of the conflict is verbal – wars of the tongue – especially in shows targeted towards children. Children’s comedies emphasize and glorify children who are brats, children who make rude comments, children who talk back to adults. And children are naturally attracted to those characters, and then they imitate those characters, and now, 28 years after Bart Simpson first appeared on television, we have grandparents who were in their early teens when Bart first began his rude comments. Is it any wonder that our conversations are no longer civil and uplifting? Is it any wonder that our political candidates are rude to each other – and it is a disease that has infected more than just one particular presidential candidate, it has infected almost all who run for office.
And so how do we control our tongues? How do we avoid gossip and insult, hateful speech and angry speech? How do we avoid saying things we will regret later?
Our Proverbs selection has some useful advice:
Proverbs 10:10 Whoever winks maliciously causes grief,
and a chattering fool comes to ruin.
Do you chatter? Perhaps the best way to avoid saying the wrong thing is to say less. If a boy throws a baseball at a house, even if he is trying to avoid hitting the windows, every throw is a chance to break a window. So the boy who throws only three pitches is less likely to crash a window than the boy who throws 30 pitches. Say less, and you will say less things you will regret.
Have you noticed that most good, older, wise pastors have recognized this? When they are not in the pulpit, they listen rather than talk. They would rather take the risk of being seen as distant rather than shatter the window to someone’s soul by speaking without thought.
The human resources profession and the sales profession have also learned this. Both teach that the person who says less and listens more actually controls the job interview or the sales meeting. Our stereotype of the loud, used-car salesman who is always talking is an incorrect stereotype. The best salespeople ask a few questions, keep the customer talking, and listen. And then, when they know exactly what the customer is really looking for, they speak directly to what the customer wants and they make the sale.
So perhaps we should simply learn to say less and listen more by practicing our listening skills in life.
The writer of Proverbs continues:
11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,
but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
12 Hatred stirs up conflict,
but love covers over all wrongs.
13 Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning,
but a rod is for the back of one who has no sense.
When a wise, righteous Christian speaks, when a mature saint talks, that mature leader of the faith concentrates on speaking wisdom and on giving life-giving advice. Most of them have passed on now, but the generation that came of age in the depression and during World War II often had learned many sound lessons. Those wise men and women often spoke little about their experiences – especially the men who fought during the War, but when they spoke, it was with the benefit of their wisdom and they gave us wisdom. I’m sure you have met people like this.
It is our turn to begin to pass on our wisdom to those younger than us. And the first rule of getting a message through is that you have to shut out the noise. Just as you find it hard to hear when loud music is playing in the background, it is hard for people to hear you when most of what you speak is simply meaningless noise. Be alert that what you speak isn’t noise, but is instead something worth listening to.
There is much more in Proverbs 10, but we have little time. Take time this afternoon to sit down and carefully read each verse of Proverbs chapter ten, thinking through what is there. It will be well worth your while.
But unfortunately, most of us already realize that we need to speak less and speak more wisely. But how do we do this?
Perhaps one way is to understand why we chatter and why we speak in ways that lead to trouble.
Ultimately, a Christian is supposed to trust in the Lord to protect us. Yet, while we may trust that the Lord will protect us from a permanent death and bring us home to eternal life, we often forget to remember that the Lord has said He will always be with us, to the end of the age. And if Christ is with us – always – what can harm us? Obviously, the answer is “nothing”.
Yet we often forget that Christ is with us and when we forget that Christ is with us, we grow fearful. We focus on the loud person yelling in front of us instead of the very quiet Holy Spirit that is whispering inside us. And so our ears hear the argument, our adrenaline begins to flow, our hearts and lungs work faster, our muscles get prepared to fight or run, and from our mouth comes trash-talk that we will one day regret because it harmed the person in front of us and that harmed our reputation. More people have given up on Christianity because of our angry or hurtful reactions to their comments or actions than for any other reasons.
You see, non-Christians understand very well that we are supposed to be nicer than other people. They understand that we are to have our tongues under control. And because they have not accepted the graceful presents of God, they find it very difficult to give us grace. It is much the same way that you rightly expect clergy to be better behaved than the average church-going person. For the more grace we have accepted from God, the better able we are to give other people grace.
Here’s how this works. ..
When we accept God’s grace, a bit of our fear goes away with that grace. Usually, the first thing to go is that intense fear of death that we all are born with. As we grow closer to God perhaps by reading more scripture, by attending more bible studies, by practicing two-way prayer more, we begin to believe that God really has our best interests at heart. We learn to rely more and more upon God’s promises of protection – and our fears begin to go away. We lose our fear of worthlessness as we understand that we are truly God’s children. You know what the fear of worthlessness is, don’t you? For some, it is that fear that strikes us when someone suggests we hand over what we are doing in the church to someone else. But if we understand truly what it means to be God’s children, then we will never feel worthless.
We lose our fear of poverty when we accept that God’s grace-filled promises of giving us what we need, are truly promises of God just like the way He feeds the sparrows and those promises are backed up by God’s wonderful integrity. When that happens, we lose that fear that came when someone threatened our job, our home, our bank account.
And this losing of our fears continues every time we accept more of God’s grace and truly believe that God is giving us all these gifts. Every time we accept more of God’s grace, another fear goes away. And every time a fear goes away, another way for Satan to make us angry goes away, because anger, you see, comes from fear. We fear we aren’t respected, we fear we may lose our position, we fear another may get more attention. If you have spoken angrily to someone recently, consider what you were fearful of? What were you afraid of? Did you forget another of God’s promises? Or did you forget completely about God?
As our anger and fears go away, we are better able to control our tongue and not slash back at another with our tongue. We don’t want to hurt them in an attempt to protect ourselves. Because we are secure and standing strong in God’s protection, we can afford to let others say and do things that would previously have sent us into an angry rant. And what starts all of this is an understanding that God has sworn to protect those of us who follow Jesus from any harm. If God is for us, who can be against us?
And so we must learn to keep God’s Holy Spirit active with us so we will remember that God is always with us. And how do we keep the Holy Spirit active?
It’s sort of like our computer. Over the course of a day, I’ll open and close probably ten or twelve windows on my computer. Some, like my email, I’ll keep active all day. But to keep it active in my mind, every hour or so I need to click on the email window. I need to look and see if there is a new email waiting for me.
Or perhaps your computer, like mine, is set to go to sleep if no one touches the keyboard or mouse for an hour. Every hour, then, you'll need to simply move the mouse to keep the computer active.
And so it is with the Holy Spirit. The best way to keep your relationship with the Holy Spirit active is to practice two-way prayer regularly through the day, especially when you are alone or in a stressful situation. Two-way prayer is where you speak to God and listen for the answer from the Holy Spirit. It is intentionally listening for an answer from God.
If you keep the Holy Spirit active by touching base regularly through the day, then you will remember that God is with you and you will better be able to control your fears – and your anger – and your tongue.
But what about the things we stupidly say? What about the things we say that were just because we were chattering on – no anger – just our own stupidity?
If we work through this, most of the time, we chatter when we are nervous or we chatter when we are afraid that we are not important. And so we say things to make us feel important, or we chatter because speaking keeps us from facing the real causes of our nervousness. Nervousness, you see, is just another word for fear – usually fear that we don’t know what is going to happen, or fear that something bad is going to happen. So we chatter to keep from looking at our fears.
And why don’t we feel important? Why do we feel the need to tell everyone about the drama in our lives? Why do we find it necessary to talk about “almost” being hit by a tractor-trailer? Why do we find it vital to post rants on Facebook and go on and on telling others about how we stood up to the nurse at the hospital, about how we told off our son’s teacher, about how we told the waitress how bad the food was?
Now there is a difference between telling a story that friends have asked for because your stories are entertaining, and telling a story because you need sympathy and attention and importance. So why don’t we fell important?
Isn’t it because we haven’t yet accepted that we have been created in God’s image, that we are God’s sons and daughters, that we are a special portrait of God who is unique in the Universe and of infinite value to God our Father? Brothers and sisters, the Universe was created because of you! There is no need to feel worthless, or meaningless, or overlooked. Accept that God loves you and that you are priceless and unique, more valuable than the Mona Lisa, more beautiful than a Michelangelo painting, worth far more than any Rembrandt, for you are a portrait and child of God!
And this is also the key to understanding the unthoughtful comments that we make where we insult a friend accidentally, because we make those comments when we have forgotten that all the people in the room are also priceless and unique portraits of God, fragile and beautiful in their own ways. (Back in the days of duels, few people insulted others by accident because of the possible consequences. Insults were well-thought-out, planned beforehand, and devastating, for people recognized the life-and-death possibilities of those insults.) Of course, today, insulting people accidentally is something our culture appears to encourage, for many of these insults happen when we try to play the “blame game”.
You know the blame game. A tree falls on a highway, a car hits it, a woman passenger is injured, and someone begins the game with the announcement “Whoever owned that tree should have cut it down ages ago.” And another responds, “The tree was down for an entire hour before the accident, the state road should have cleaned it up sooner.” And still another says, “If the airbag would have worked right, the woman wouldn’t have been injured.” And another says, “I heard her husband had been drinking and he was driving.” And pretty soon, reputations are damaged, lawsuits are filed, and someone is fired.
But the actual fact was that God sent an exceptional burst of wind to knock down the tree which had been hollowed out by termites, the state road crew was cleaning up three other trees on the way to the scene which had also been knocked down by God, the sober driver dodged a huge buck deer sent by God and thus hit the tree at an angle and a speed so low that the airbag wasn’t supposed to fire, and the woman had just decided at that moment to take a drink of tea from a glass bottle, which shattered and cut her face and hands, and that was how she was injured. But because of the injury, she got a phone call from her sister with whom she had fought twenty years ago and they became friends again. Once again, God has good in mind with everything.
If we don’t play the “blame game” – and remember that God is in control - we will cut back on our accidental insults dramatically.
And a general method of controlling our tongues is to practice courtesy, politeness, and graciousness – what used to be called “being classy”. Let me recommend remembering the classiness of Sean Connery, the stories of Jane Austen and the movies based upon her novels – Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, as well as the original Sherlock Holmes books – not the recent movies. In these books you will find a pattern of behavior and speech that will help control the tongue.
Some have read the Bible and all it says about the dangers of a fiery tongue on the loose, and therefore have become silent, almost never speaking. Our reading from Mark’s Gospel appears to be a bit different from the other readings, but it also concerns the tongue.
In this case, the problem is that a man does not have a voice. In this case, a man cannot talk because he is deaf. In this case, Jesus meets the man, opens his ears and loosens his tongue and the man can now speak plainly.
And this, my friends, is the part about the tongue that we do not normally look at. It is God, working through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who gives us a voice in this world. It was the visit of Christ that started a long chain of events that allows you and I to do anything instead of being locked in as slaves to our rulers. It was Jesus Christ, who through His death and resurrection paid the price to set us free from our bondage to sin and death, who allows us to speak openly and without fear in this world. You will recall that it was Jesus, the Word of God, Who spoke the very Universe into existence. And Jesus loosened our tongues! So speak good things into existence!
How does this work?
If you believe that this life in this world is the total of all existence, if you believe that when you die, you die, if you believe that there is no hope of resurrection, no love of God, no God who will reward and punish in the life to come…no one would ever speak up against injustice, against bad laws, against those who rule over us.
And so it is with the Holy Spirit. The best way to keep your relationship with the Holy Spirit active is to practice two-way prayer regularly through the day, especially when you are alone or in a stressful situation. Two-way prayer is where you speak to God and listen for the answer from the Holy Spirit. It is intentionally listening for an answer from God.
If you keep the Holy Spirit active by touching base regularly through the day, then you will remember that God is with you and you will better be able to control your fears – and your anger – and your tongue.
But what about the things we stupidly say? What about the things we say that were just because we were chattering on – no anger – just our own stupidity?
If we work through this, most of the time, we chatter when we are nervous or we chatter when we are afraid that we are not important. And so we say things to make us feel important, or we chatter because speaking keeps us from facing the real causes of our nervousness. Nervousness, you see, is just another word for fear – usually fear that we don’t know what is going to happen, or fear that something bad is going to happen. So we chatter to keep from looking at our fears.
And why don’t we feel important? Why do we feel the need to tell everyone about the drama in our lives? Why do we find it necessary to talk about “almost” being hit by a tractor-trailer? Why do we find it vital to post rants on Facebook and go on and on telling others about how we stood up to the nurse at the hospital, about how we told off our son’s teacher, about how we told the waitress how bad the food was?
Now there is a difference between telling a story that friends have asked for because your stories are entertaining, and telling a story because you need sympathy and attention and importance. So why don’t we fell important?
Isn’t it because we haven’t yet accepted that we have been created in God’s image, that we are God’s sons and daughters, that we are a special portrait of God who is unique in the Universe and of infinite value to God our Father? Brothers and sisters, the Universe was created because of you! There is no need to feel worthless, or meaningless, or overlooked. Accept that God loves you and that you are priceless and unique, more valuable than the Mona Lisa, more beautiful than a Michelangelo painting, worth far more than any Rembrandt, for you are a portrait and child of God!
And this is also the key to understanding the unthoughtful comments that we make where we insult a friend accidentally, because we make those comments when we have forgotten that all the people in the room are also priceless and unique portraits of God, fragile and beautiful in their own ways. (Back in the days of duels, few people insulted others by accident because of the possible consequences. Insults were well-thought-out, planned beforehand, and devastating, for people recognized the life-and-death possibilities of those insults.) Of course, today, insulting people accidentally is something our culture appears to encourage, for many of these insults happen when we try to play the “blame game”.
You know the blame game. A tree falls on a highway, a car hits it, a woman passenger is injured, and someone begins the game with the announcement “Whoever owned that tree should have cut it down ages ago.” And another responds, “The tree was down for an entire hour before the accident, the state road should have cleaned it up sooner.” And still another says, “If the airbag would have worked right, the woman wouldn’t have been injured.” And another says, “I heard her husband had been drinking and he was driving.” And pretty soon, reputations are damaged, lawsuits are filed, and someone is fired.
But the actual fact was that God sent an exceptional burst of wind to knock down the tree which had been hollowed out by termites, the state road crew was cleaning up three other trees on the way to the scene which had also been knocked down by God, the sober driver dodged a huge buck deer sent by God and thus hit the tree at an angle and a speed so low that the airbag wasn’t supposed to fire, and the woman had just decided at that moment to take a drink of tea from a glass bottle, which shattered and cut her face and hands, and that was how she was injured. But because of the injury, she got a phone call from her sister with whom she had fought twenty years ago and they became friends again. Once again, God has good in mind with everything.
If we don’t play the “blame game” – and remember that God is in control - we will cut back on our accidental insults dramatically.
And a general method of controlling our tongues is to practice courtesy, politeness, and graciousness – what used to be called “being classy”. Let me recommend remembering the classiness of Sean Connery, the stories of Jane Austen and the movies based upon her novels – Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, as well as the original Sherlock Holmes books – not the recent movies. In these books you will find a pattern of behavior and speech that will help control the tongue.
Some have read the Bible and all it says about the dangers of a fiery tongue on the loose, and therefore have become silent, almost never speaking. Our reading from Mark’s Gospel appears to be a bit different from the other readings, but it also concerns the tongue.
In this case, the problem is that a man does not have a voice. In this case, a man cannot talk because he is deaf. In this case, Jesus meets the man, opens his ears and loosens his tongue and the man can now speak plainly.
And this, my friends, is the part about the tongue that we do not normally look at. It is God, working through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who gives us a voice in this world. It was the visit of Christ that started a long chain of events that allows you and I to do anything instead of being locked in as slaves to our rulers. It was Jesus Christ, who through His death and resurrection paid the price to set us free from our bondage to sin and death, who allows us to speak openly and without fear in this world. You will recall that it was Jesus, the Word of God, Who spoke the very Universe into existence. And Jesus loosened our tongues! So speak good things into existence!
How does this work?
If you believe that this life in this world is the total of all existence, if you believe that when you die, you die, if you believe that there is no hope of resurrection, no love of God, no God who will reward and punish in the life to come…no one would ever speak up against injustice, against bad laws, against those who rule over us.
It is through Jesus Christ that we know that there is life after this life. It is because Jesus showed us His new body and promised us a resurrection that we know we shall also live. It is because Jesus told us that God will protect us that men and women over the last two thousand years have felt secure enough, brave enough, and bold enough to open their mouths and speak open words of defiance against evil, against tyrannical rulers, against the wrongs of this world. This is what has led to our modern Western-style democratic republics, where people may speak up on Facebook, in public, and yes, in pulpits when evils are seen. It is through our words of life that new ideas, new methods, and new good things can come into existence. It is through Christian men and women’s voices that we have hospitals, that we have warm homes, that we have cheap food, that we have good clothing, that we have long lives, that we have a country!
For, as the writer of Ecclesiastes wrote, “there is a time for being silent and a time to speak.”
Let your fear disappear as you understand the complete love of God for you, oh child of God. For God can protect you through all things, and this means you can be silent – and God will avenge you. Or, you can speak – for Christ has freed your tongue to change the world for the better and to praise the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
As Christians, the body of Christ on earth, our task, our duty, our holiness depends upon us developing the wisdom to know when to speak and when to remain silent. In a very real way, our opinion of a person’s holiness is based largely upon what they say and what they do not say.
We must study scripture diligently to know what to speak when we speak. We must listen carefully to the Holy Spirit so that we only speak words of righteousness when we speak and never words of hatred and destruction.
And free from our fears, secure in the knowledge of God’s love, possessed by and listening to the Holy Spirit, we can do just that. And then, our tongue, that small part of the body that Paul told us is filled with “restless evil and poison”, will be tamed and controlled because of the Holy Spirit which is in you.
For, as the writer of Ecclesiastes wrote, “there is a time for being silent and a time to speak.”
Let your fear disappear as you understand the complete love of God for you, oh child of God. For God can protect you through all things, and this means you can be silent – and God will avenge you. Or, you can speak – for Christ has freed your tongue to change the world for the better and to praise the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
As Christians, the body of Christ on earth, our task, our duty, our holiness depends upon us developing the wisdom to know when to speak and when to remain silent. In a very real way, our opinion of a person’s holiness is based largely upon what they say and what they do not say.
We must study scripture diligently to know what to speak when we speak. We must listen carefully to the Holy Spirit so that we only speak words of righteousness when we speak and never words of hatred and destruction.
And free from our fears, secure in the knowledge of God’s love, possessed by and listening to the Holy Spirit, we can do just that. And then, our tongue, that small part of the body that Paul told us is filled with “restless evil and poison”, will be tamed and controlled because of the Holy Spirit which is in you.
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