Watch Your Mouth

We all remember being a child, going to the doctor, and having to open our mouths, stick out our tongues, and say, “ahhhh.” As children, what we didn’t understand was that the doctor wasn’t looking at our tongues. What the doctor was looking for was what our mouths showed that could be affecting somewhere else.

In the Book of James, we see James giving us the same type of instruction. And the problem is that most of us don’t think there’s anything wrong with our mouths. We have diagnosed everybody else’s mouths, but we have trouble seeing ours.

When something comes out of us that we regret, we usually try to convince ourselves that it isn’t that big of a deal. We tend to treat our words as isolated mistakes, whereas Scripture treats them differently. Scripture sees them as revelations of what’s going on in our hearts.

Our first instinct is to defend ourselves, but what if we became curious instead?

Luke 6:45
A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

One of the easiest ways out is through the mouth, and if our words really do reveal what’s going on inside, then our tongues have more power than we realize.

James 3
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 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.

We all struggle with this and need to come to terms with that very reality. We all stumble. We all need Jesus.

The word perfect in verse 2 doesn’t mean flawless, it means mature or complete.

Real Faith Owns Its Words
James 3
3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 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. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 

James gives us two pictures. A bit and a rudder. Both pictures prove the same point.

That small thing is our tongues. Words go somewhere, they steer. Your words can steer your marriage, your children, your friendships, or your church.

The scary fact about a bit or rudder is that you don’t have to turn it very far to eventually end up somewhere completely different.

Words can do that. But the opposite is true too!

• You can change someone’s week by saying, “I’m proud of you.”
• You can impact a child forever by saying, “I believe in you.”
• You can break a vicious family cycle by saying, “I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
• You can bring healing by saying, “Will you forgive me?”

And James isn’t done yet because the tongue doesn’t just have the power to direct something. It has the power to destroy something.

James 3
5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 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.
7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

Again, James takes the gloves off and tells us that something said in ten seconds can take ten years to undo.

There’s a destructive power within words that forever can change the course of your life, how you see yourself, and what you say “yes” and “no” to. Everything can be impacted by a few words, and they can destroy you.

And it’s not just what is said, it’s how it is said.

Our tongue isn’t just the words we use, it’s the tone we use to deliver them. It’s not what you say, but how you say it.

Remember, we have an incredible ability to minimize our words because we can say things that on the surface aren’t destructive, but the way we use them is like atomic bombs that destroy people’s lives.

What makes it worse is that when we say these destructive things, we usually have a pretty good excuse.

• “I was joking.”
• “I’m just being honest.”
• “That’s just my personality.”
• “I’m sarcastic.”

The problem with those explanations is that they focus on intention instead of the impact of the words. If you get into a car accident but explain to the person you hit that you didn’t mean to, that’s good, but the dent is still there. Intention matters, but it doesn’t erase the impact.

We don’t get to say something destructive and then use our intentions to escape responsibility for the damage.

James 3
6 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.
7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind

No human being can tame the tongue, and that’s a good thing because our hope isn’t human willpower. Our hope is the Spirit of God producing in us what we cannot manufacture ourselves.

This is a heart issue, not a mouth issue. This is an overflow of what’s inside of you.

Real Faith Goes to the Source

It’s not about encouraging yourself to stop complaining, it’s about asking why you are so discontent. He doesn’t want to make a better version of you, He came to make you new.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Not an upgrade, not a better model of your old self – a NEW creation.

The same Jesus who forgives what has come out of your mouth is able to transform the heart from which it came. It’s not about pointing out our flawed behavior, it’s about pointing it out to Jesus and telling Him that’s where we need His grace.

James 3
9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

We sing, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and then declare, “Great is My Annoyance.” Out of the same mouth, and sometimes sentence, we bless God and curse people made in the image of the God we just blessed.

The person you tear apart, God made them. We don’t have permission to strip someone’s dignity away just because we’re hurt.

Real Faith Sounds Different
The source isn’t our mouths, it’s our hearts.

Stop and ask Jesus, “Why did I say that? What’s going on with me? Where did that come from? What am I afraid of? What am I angry about?”

Doing this starts to show what Jesus wants to heal in our lives.

Imagine a world where gossip wasn’t used as a form of connection, disagreements didn’t become disrespect, and we could have hard conversations without stripping people of their dignity. And not just on Sundays, on every other day that ends in Y too.

We should do this under the guise that Christians are supposed to be nice, but because, at the heart, Jesus is changing the source.