How far should we go to control the things we say? James says we should go a lot further than we often do.
We’ve all felt it—that moment when something cutting is right there, ready to come out, and we know we probably shouldn’t say it but we’re not sure we can stop it. The Epistle of James says that’s not a small thing: if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, that person’s religion is worthless.
The following transcript is AI generated and may contain errors.
How far would you go to avoid giving away a secret? Would you just avoid the person you needed to avoid telling it to? Would you write it down and try to forget it yourself so you couldn’t say? Or are you just not very good at it? Sometimes we’re better at it, sometimes we’re not. Wellens’ Calcutta tells a story of the Greek philosopher Anaxarchus, who had information about his homeland. When he was accidentally routed to Cyprus and ran into his arch nemesis, King Nicocrion, he was confronted with how far he would go. Anaxarchus decided to go a lot further than most of us would. He literally bit off his tongue, the story goes. He bit so hard he actually took part of his tongue off, spit it out at the king to say: I am NOT going to tell you what it is that you want to know. No matter how much you push me, no matter how much I feel desirous to say it to end the pain and the torture, I’m going to try to make it so I can’t say it. Tonight’s reading from James, welcome to Steadfast, I’m so glad to be with you tonight, is a study on how far we’ll go not to keep a secret, but how far will we go to avoid saying things that are displeasing to God. How far will we go to hold our tongues back when they just want to lash out? Sometimes it’s not because we’re being tortured per se, at least not physically, but it’s that mental anguish that we want to say something because we think someone else is annoying us or has angered us or we just feel like saying it. How far are we willing to go before we just spill it out, even if we know that God doesn’t want us to? James says we should go a lot further than we normally do. That’s what he’s challenging us to because all of us struggle with things slipping out in our speech, but Scripture is calling us to something better: better in our speech, better in our writing. We do a lot of written communication in these days, not just vocal communication. We can’t just bite off our tongue literally and be okay. I guess we could chop our fingers off too, but that sounds a little drastic. How about we do something better? Let’s try to control our metaphorical tongues. That’s what we’re going to be challenged to tonight. So let’s ask God to help us to see those places where we’re not being controlled in the way that He would like us to be controlled, and then think about how we live in a way that’s pleasing to Him. Will you pray with me, please? Father, we do pray that You would help us to live in the way that’s pleasing to You. Whether it’s our tongues, it’s our fingers typing, it’s just thoughts in our minds, would You help us to be people who are controlled and focused on You? We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. Let’s go ahead and look at verse 26 of James chapter 1. We read this: “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.” James says we need to control our tongues, and we live in an era where that’s not popular to say, at least not generally speaking. It is in certain circumstances, right? There’s whatever is out of fashion to say. It’s considered politically incorrect in certain circles or it’s too politically correct in other circles. But generally speaking, we’re told we should express ourselves. We shouldn’t hold back. We should be able to say and do whatever it is that we would like to do. That’s not God’s way. Now, we’ve been thinking about what it looks like to listen, and James challenged us not always to be rushing to speech but to hear other people out. And that’s a big part of this, right? If we hold our tongue back, sometimes we just gain new information. We realize what our initial knee-jerk reaction would have been—that thing that we just want to spit out at other people. It’s not really relevant. It’s not really helpful. There’s more detail to absorb and to respond to. But it’s more than that. Last night, as we were starting our series on the Ten Commandments, we talked about how the negative prohibitions imply the good reaction to it as well. And that’s something we’re going to keep coming back to in that series. But it’s true here as well. It’s not merely holding our tongue back so we don’t say something unkind, but are we allowing our tongues to speak in ways that are kind? Think about the image James uses here. He uses the image of bridling our tongues. Now, I’ve never bridled a horse, but I know the basic idea of what’s being done. The goal is, yes, to bring that horse under control, to be able to direct that horse. But that’s the key thing: to direct the horse. There are other ways to keep the horse from going in the wrong direction. You could put the horse in concrete blocks and the horse couldn’t move at all, but that wouldn’t be useful. Anaxarchus, as he bit off his tongue, well then he couldn’t speak. How much better is it if we can control what we say so we don’t say unkind things, but we still say the things that are kind? A lot of times someone needs an encouraging word, and we hold back because we’re thinking, “Well, I feel like saying something unkind, so I just won’t say anything at all.” In some moments that might be wise because that’s the best that we’re going to accomplish. But it’s so much better if we can move further. You don’t bridle a horse so that the horse merely doesn’t run in the wrong direction, but so that the horse runs in the right direction. It’s a move from negative to positive. And that’s what James is calling us to here: to move our tongues from a negative direction to a positive direction. To quit saying the things that tear down other people, the things that boil up in our hearts and it just feels like, “I have to get this out because I want people to know how foolish they are, how stupid they are, how irritating they are, how wrong they are.” Instead, we’re putting out things that build people up and move them towards God. Sometimes we will have to point out that someone is wrong, but we can do it in such different ways. We can just make people feel like fools, or we can be directing them towards their God-given place in a way that encourages and builds up. And that’s what James wants us to be thinking about. The last few weeks, we’ve seen the negative power of water very clearly demonstrated in the hurricanes. You look at those disasters across the East Coast, and so much of it beyond just the initial storm is the flooding. When water is pouring out in ways it’s not supposed to, it’s incredibly, incredibly destructive. But we know that water is actually a useful thing, even in the midst of a flood zone. It can be a useful thing. If you have all kinds of water that’s contaminated, that water that’s purified and clean is incredibly useful for keeping people alive. We need water. And it’s not just in drinking water. The actual sheer power to move earth and destroy buildings can also be used, harnessed for good. Think about a hydropower dam. You dam up this water and you have this incredible amount of force. You take out that dam, it’s going to destroy everything downstream. But you hold it back and you let it out in a controlled fashion. It instead creates power and turns on lights and air conditioning and heat and does all kinds of wonderful, useful things that are good. It’s guided that power and it becomes constructive rather than destructive. That’s the same thing with our speech and our communication in general. Our communication can be incredibly, incredibly destructive, but the instruction from James isn’t quit communicating. It’s move that, bridle that into something that’s constructive, following God’s path. None of us are perfectly good at this. But we ought to be moving in this direction. We’re a lot like that hydroelectric dam. There still could be floods downstream. It doesn’t have perfect control. And if you’ve ever been around one of those dams when water levels are high, sometimes they have to release water and it’s damaging because they can’t hold any more back. Now, we should never use the excuse, “I can’t hold any more back. I have to unleash my anger at people.” No, that’s not a good excuse. But it may actually reflect the reality. Our wills are weak enough we just let go. We don’t even mean to until the moment it happens and it’s just like, I’m going to unload here. But even in that we see, when I can hold it back, it can be so much better. And all of us have opportunities every single day to practice this with the different people that we’re around. We’re going to interact with people in all kinds of different forms throughout our weeks, throughout our months, throughout all the years of our lives. Are we directing what we’re saying so that we’re not focused on building ourselves up or relieving steam for ourselves or making ourselves feel important, but building up the kingdom of God, caring more about what the other person will benefit from than what we just feel like saying? Now again, I’m not saying that we only just always say positive things. This is not an argument to become a church of motivational speakers that just tell everyone how great they are. Sometimes the best thing to say is something that seems a little negative in its isolated state. Sometimes we have to say something. A friendship, for example, is going to break down if we don’t speak about something that just drives us wild. The choice is either we’re just not going to ever be around that friend again, or we’re going to have to say something that bothers us. But even when we do that, are we bridling it? Are we controlling it enough that it’s actually going to be focused on building that person up, building the relationship up? Or are we more focused on, “I’m just so irritated, now I’m going to have to say this.” Whenever we think, “I know this is going to hurt the other person. I know this is just going to tear down the other person, but I just can’t take it any longer”—that’s a good sign actually we should take it longer. Because at that point we’re not bridling, we’re unleashing. And that’s not good. James goes further here. This might sound like, “Oh, this is advanced Christianity, right? If you reach this now, you’re in Christianity 401 or something, or 801, or 2001.” No, not at all. This is right at the heart of living as Christians. Take a look again at the end of verse 26. James says, if we don’t do this, this person’s religion is worthless. Not just not as good, not just a little flabby, no, worthless. James says we deceive ourselves when we don’t do this. How is that? Is it that we’re saving ourselves by our speech? No, it’s something a little bit more nuanced than that. Take a look at what John Calvin says here. He says, “He who is neither an adulterer, nor a thief, nor a drunkard, but on the contrary seems brilliant with some outward show of sanctity, will set himself off by defaming others. And this under the pretense of zeal, but really through the lust of slandering.” I think that’s right at the heart of it. We can look like we know a lot about the Bible, that we do a lot of good things, but if we’re doing a lot of good things and tearing people down as we do it, well, we might look a lot like the world. There are a lot of people that do a lot of good things but also are really kind of mean as they do it, or they do those good things so they have a platform even to be mean. Calvin says, reflecting on this passage, that facade of piousness, that facade of being a good person, it’s just that. If what’s coming out of our mouths is actually destructive, it calls into question the sincerity of everything else. And that goes right down to the heart of our faith. If we confess Jesus but we don’t have a desire to bridle our tongues, we say, “Well, when I’ve had a hard day, I just have to say what I’m going to say, and everyone should move out of the way.” That’s not living in a Christlike way. It’s not saying that we value what we confess, because that same tongue that’s confessing Jesus is now confessing things that hurt other people. People are going to see the two combined. If we confess Jesus, if we want to follow Jesus, that should bother us. It should mortify us that we’re blending our own sinful hatefulness with Jesus. To an extent, we can’t avoid it. We are going to do this because we’re still sinful. We surely shouldn’t want to do this. As the tongue outwardly emits what is wrong, it goes inward and it chips away at the very things that are internal to us. Think about something with mold on it. I had a box of donuts that was clearly mislabeled in how long it was going to be good for. I thought it must have a ton of preservatives. It was going to be good for over a month. It actually was supposed to expire today. I’d gotten it at the very beginning of September. That seemed kind of unreal, but that’s what the expiration date said. Several weeks ago, I looked at it, and I’d forgotten about it. I looked at it and it had grown what looked sort of like fur on it. It clearly was moldy. Now, what I didn’t do is I looked at that mold on those donuts. If you want to put in the comments what you’d do differently, I’d be interested to hear. Why don’t you share what you do if you find a moldy donut? Would you cut it open and see if you could extract the core of the donut out and still eat that? Or would you just throw away the donuts? I threw away the donuts. I actually threw them outside. Maybe some animals that are used to eating garbage would enjoy them. I hope that didn’t poison any local wildlife. But I’m not going to try to find the untouched part of that donut. No, if there’s mold on the donuts, I’m done with the donuts. Even if they look really good or the label looks good, the donuts themselves didn’t. I can assume that if the outside spoils, those inside do too. When the outside of us is all moldy, when the outside of us is putting out speech that’s destructive, Scripture tells us that speaks to what’s going on on the inside too. Even more so than that mold. Take a look at what Jesus says in Matthew 15:18. He says, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.” Jesus was speaking about the Pharisees. The Pharisees had all kinds of rules on what they could put in their mouth, how they cleaned their hands, how they ate because they wanted to make sure they were richly pure. But they were saying things that were coming out of their mouths that were incredibly destructive and hurtful to people. Jesus said, “Well, you can worry all about what you’re putting in, but it’s what’s coming out that’s going to be telltale about how things are.” It’s like my donuts. I could put some powdered sugar on them. I could cover them up in chocolate sauce. I might not even know I’m eating mold then, but I bet I would have gotten sick, or at least I certainly would have enjoyed it. For good reason, because at least some mold is quite toxic. I wouldn’t want to consume that. And the fact that I made it look good by putting nice stuff on top of it doesn’t change what’s going on inside. Jesus says that when what’s coming out of us is bad, it doesn’t matter how much we cover it up. It doesn’t matter how much we try to take on a sense of looking like a Christian, or all the Christian stuff we do. If what’s exposing our thought process, our hearts, is ugly and damaging to other people, that’s what’s really an indicator of what’s going on with us. God wants us to care about what we think and what we say. When we say, “I care about God, but I don’t care if I hurt other people. I care about God, but other people just need to grow a thicker skin. I care about God, but I can’t get everything perfect. I’m just going to have to say what I want online or at work or at neighborhood meetings,” that’s really saying I don’t really care about God. Because God says this is important to Him. We have to remember another thing we talked about last night. God has taken the time to give us His Word in a way that we can understand. As we look at it, He cared enough to put every letter of every word in His Word down for us. He didn’t need to. He could have made it in some form that was illegible to us, but no, He did it in a way that allows us to grow closer to Him. If He cares that much about communication, shouldn’t we care that much about communication too? That as we interact with people, we want them to hear things that point to the Word of Life and not to the words of death we’re all too often good at producing? The fact that it feels good to say it, or “I gotta say it,” is not an excuse. It’s blowing up the dam and allowing the water to pour out, rather than helping to generate light that brings life to people. God wants our voices to show His heart, not our sinful hearts that God is restoring. James here is saying, when he says that religion is worthless if we don’t seek to bridle our tongues, that we’re saying, “But that’s just me,” that we’re saying, “I don’t want to be like Jesus.” It’s not that we’re going to save ourselves by perfect speech; we’re not. But we certainly can say, “I want that. I want to show the heart of Jesus. I’m aiming to show the heart of Jesus. And Lord, would You help me to show Your heart more?” Because God wants us to show His heart with our voices. May we be a people that does that today and every day. Would you pray with me, please? Father, would You help us to be people that show Your heart? Show Your heart to our neighbors, to our colleagues or fellow students. Show Your heart to the people that are connected with us on social media. Show Your heart to our family, our friends, our fellow church members, our club members, everyone we interact with, the people that we run into in the grocery store, the people that we encounter as we’re driving down the road. In everything we do, Lord, would You help us to want to bridle our tongues, taking away that which is destructive and instead showing that which is constructive? Because Lord, You’ve placed us here and You’ve called us to be people that point to You. And every time we fail to do this, we’re pointing to ourselves and the ugliness that we can exhibit instead of the beauty of Your love. But Lord, would You bring us back to the fact that You’ve loved us even when we do have all that sin and ugliness inside of us? And if that’s true, we want to love others even as we see their ugly sides too, because You love them too. Let me pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. That’s really the heart of it. Jesus loves you right now. If you’ve never trusted in Him, never sought to follow Him, but you’re kind of curious tonight, know that He loves you, and you can turn to Him right now and trust Him. Say that you want Him to be your Lord. Say you want Him to help you to start moving away from the ugliness that we all have in our lives and towards the beauty of His care and His love. And He will do that. He will be with you. For all of us who do trust in Him, we can continue to do that and continue to seek to grow more like Him. He will honor that prayer. It’s not instantaneous. We won’t have it all right, but together as God’s people, we can help each other to get closer to it. That’s why we have our prayer line. You can see that on screen: 1-833-356-4032. That’s 1-833-356-4032. Just text into it. We’d love to pray with you, encourage you. Sometimes we just need to walk through these things together. Of course, you can also do that by leaving it in the comments below. Speaking of those comments and the general social media that you’re on right now, would you please share this video and other videos like it that we post? You make a difference by sharing this. We say so much share. Sometimes it’s not our own voice; it’s just the things that we find, the memes and videos that we share. They can be constructive or destructive. My prayer is that as we come together each week and we study, we’re putting something constructive together because we’re bringing each other to God’s Word. Every time you help share it, you’re helping to get that out. I sure do appreciate it. I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week, and I’ll see you next week.
The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
1. Jesus says what comes out of our mouths proceeds from the heart (Matthew 15:18). When you notice destructive or unkind words coming out, what do you think that reveals about what’s happening inside you in that moment? How might that awareness change how you respond? 2. The preacher describes bridling a horse—the goal isn’t just to prevent it from going the wrong direction, but to direct it toward the right direction. What’s the difference between simply holding back from saying something mean and actively choosing to say something that builds others up? Can you think of a recent situation where you could have done both? 3. We live in an era of written communication—texts, emails, social media—as much as spoken words. How does the challenge to bridle our tongues apply differently (or similarly) to what we type? What makes digital communication harder or easier to control? 4. The preacher says that if we confess Jesus with our mouths but tear people down with those same mouths, we’re pointing people away from Jesus rather than toward Him. When have you experienced this contradiction—either in yourself or in someone else? What was the impact? 5. How would your relationships—with family, friends, coworkers, people online—change if you genuinely committed to directing your speech toward building others up rather than relieving your own frustration? What would need to shift in how you think about your words?
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