I was telling Earl in our break, whenever we have the topic of James chapter three in the tongue, I said, you know, the hard part about preparing a message like this is I see all the things that are coming out of my own mouth throughout the week, and I think about everybody in the church and how this might apply to my church family, and I think they don't have a single problem with this. I mean, I've never heard anybody here blurt out with cursing or just give an evil demonstration of speech. And I was thinking that I'm the only one, so all these examples are of me. So you guys can pray for me. But then I thought, you know what? I'm church folk, right? So you all monitor the way you talk around me. So it does apply to you. I just don't know it yet. We're gonna be in James chapter 3 this morning, we're gonna be looking at verses 1 to 12. Interesting statistic, the average person in a day speaks roughly 18,000 words. By this time, you've already spoken about 4,000 words today on average. That's enough, in a day, that's enough to fill a book of 54 pages of just you talking. That accounts for roughly one-fifth of a person's life is spent talking. And in our culture, the other four-fifths are probably spent texting. But words, they're a foundation of life. Every society has a language. That's how you define a society, a group of people with a common language. Right now, there's about 6,500 different languages. And about 2,000 of those have less than 1,000 people who speak them. Even a small group of people who get together with a common identity, they develop a common language. That's how basic words are. We think of the scriptures, we think of good works. Just consider how many good works require words. Encouraging, admonishing, correcting, teaching, praising, singing, Truth-telling. These are all works we do, and how do we carry out those works? We do them with our tongue. The problem is, our tongue is attached to something. And that is the title for our message today, A Restless Evil. That is the description of our hearts, or that's the description of our tongue, which is attached to our hearts, so we can only imagine how evil our heart is, that we're limited by language in the expression of words. Our heart is limited in its expression of evil by words. And just as there are good works, evil works are of the tongue as well. Think of quarreling, gossip, lying, corrupting speech, crude jokes, slander, cursing. These are all evil works that come from our tongue. So we're going to be looking at the tongue, a massive problem. largely because we think it is a small problem. So we're in James chapter three, starting in verse one. I'll be reading through verse 12. Next week will be the remainder of the chapter. James 3, verse 1. Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged by a greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also, though they are large and driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire, and the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening, both fresh and saltwater? Can a tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. Let's pray. Father, you've given us wisdom, you've given us warnings, We ask that your spirit would do his work in us to confront our lives, to convict our hearts, Lord, to change our affections. We cannot simply restrain an untamable tongue, Lord, but we need to have it changed. Lord, we could eliminate our tongues from our bodies. It will not restrain us from evil. Lord, work in our hearts. Convict us, Lord. For the name of Christ. Amen. We're gonna break this down a little bit. Because I have two parts in the book of James, I wanna give a little bit of introduction and background to James. It'll help with the way that we read the book. And then we're going to look today, two big blocks. One being the power of the restless evil and the power of the restrainer. the power inside of us and the power we need outside of us. So as we look at James, James is a very common name at the time, there's two apostles named James, but, and I take this from a common commentator, Donald Burdick, in all of his research he says most likely this was not, and it's held by the early church, that this James was not one of those two apostles. It's strongly believed that it was authored by Jesus' biological-ish brother. Same mother, different daddies though. Amen, amen. Yeah, this James, the brother of Jesus, early records show he was martyred by 62 AD. Acts 12 talks about a James that was a brother of John, so it was a different James that was martyred there. So we just have to go on church records that this James was likely martyred by 62, which puts the writing of this book in about 50 AD, which if that's accurate would make it probably the first book written of the New Testament. You can see some of the evidence as we begin dissecting what he says. So that's the person, the context, which would lead us to believe this was an early writing, is that Whenever he writes it, it is, if you look in chapter one, it's just to the 12 tribes of the dispersion. He doesn't have a specific church, specific group, neither does he have a specific teaching that had arisen that he's addressing. He's not focused on a heresy or even correcting a certain bad teaching. He's sending this out wide. But also you don't hear a lot of influence, like whenever we've been in 1st Peter, we see the influence of Peter on Peter, of Paul. We don't really get that from James. It doesn't seem to be one that is influenced by other apostles. But to add to that, James says, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers. He's addressing a universal concern. If this was the first book, then they would not have had the Gospels, so anybody teaching would not have been teaching from an apostle-authored book. They would have been teaching from their own experience, their own interpretation. Could have been a little like the Wild Wild West. So you can almost get the sense that James, his statement is like, hold the reins here, guys. Hold on, not many of you should be teaching, because there's a stricter judgment. So he begins to give evidence of these things, but you can see why he would start with that, that they should not be teaching. So I believe that it was an early writing, which gives some of this context. As the church was being organized, James is writing these things. The theology of it, back to the commentator Burdick, he says, James is the least theological book in the New Testament, save Philemon, and slowed its canonical recognition. Much of the thought theology is assumed, making it a more practical book. And as we go through it, I mean, you look, James does not follow similar patterns that we have in other epistles. You'll notice from our passage, you don't get James saying, since the tongue is untamable, therefore it lays out instructions or commands. We're familiar with Ephesians, the book of Ephesians. He gives the first three chapters of theology and then application. We don't get that in James. There's an assumption that James has assuming that his hearers, the readers of this letter, already knew some of these things. For example, James 1, verse 27, we're familiar with this passage. That's James' statement, that assumes that they would already have been familiar with Exodus 22, verse 22 to 24. But just a part of that, he says, you shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. There's a theology that whenever James is writing this letter, he's assuming the theology. He doesn't lay it out clearly. And we can understand this teaching. Some of our best teachers taught this way. Think of an example, if you were in school and the teacher told you, in order to get an A on this test, you need to study for two hours tonight. What would you think? Well, I don't need an A. A D is passing. How many minutes do I have to study in order to get a D? I just want to skate by. We might argue with these things. A command comes to us, and there is a rebellion that rises up. But consider a teacher who might say something like, the best students are going to study for this. I mean, you might think, well, I don't need to be the best one, but there's this pull in there where they're just giving a self-evident truth, something that you really wouldn't argue with. These things are true, as the teacher might say, and if you wanna be perfect, if you wanna pass, you would study. It's not a command. These are things that we would follow. Likewise, that's how James presents us. If you would be perfect, control your tongue. It's a different pull on us. You can assume James was around whenever he hears Christ, his brother, Jesus, say things like Matthew 15, 17 to 20. But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. You think that that was assumed, that James would assume that his readers understood that? I believe so. He assumes out of the heart the tongue speaks. I rely heavily on a commentary by John MacArthur, so I can't always name drop on him, but one of his statements was very poignant to this. He says, nowhere is the relationship between faith and works more evident than in a person's speech. What you are will inevitably be disclosed by what you say. It might be said that a person's speech is a reliable measure of his spiritual temperature, a monitor on the inner human condition. The theme of James, if you just go through it, it's all about the tongue. Chapter 1, and I'll read some of the verses that you're familiar with. Chapter 1, 26, if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, it's about our speech. Chapter 2, verse 14, what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Chapter four, come now you who say, today or tomorrow we'll go and do such and such. Chapter five, but above all brothers, do not swear either by heaven or earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no. The whole book is about our tongue, about the way we speak, the things we commit ourselves to, and chapter three is the central evidence of the importance for all that we speak. So we're in chapter three. Speaking of our tongue. That's a fast outline for the book of James. We're at the heart of speech. So, we're going to look at the power of a restless evil. Why is speaking so dangerous? Have you thought about that? I love this verse, Proverbs 17, 28. Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise. When he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. That has guided me in many times. Even a fool who remains silent is deemed wise because he doesn't let his foolishness out. Why is speaking so important? Well, what comes out whenever you open your mouth? your heart. That's dangerous. Opening your mouth lets the heart out of its cage. Consider that the tongue in scripture is described as wicked, deceitful, perverse, filthy, corrupt, flattering, slanderous, gossiping, blasphemous, foolish, boasting, complaining, cursing, contentious, sensual, vile, And we're familiar with Paul's treatment in Romans 3. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is on their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. And James adds a few, including a restless evil and the world of iniquity. We have, each one of us have one of these attached to our hearts. You thought it was bad enough if I could broadcast your thoughts on the wall? I mean, who'd sign up for that? Everything that I'm thinking, put it up there in front of the church. Absolutely not. But yet our mouths are the picture of our hearts. We're afraid of it being seen by others, yet we go around liberally passing out words revealing our hearts. I'm going to break this passage down in a very similar way to MacArthur does. I did mine first, and then you go to the commentary. So lucky for y'all, he got it right. We're going to go through and just look at the different categories. Because we don't have commands, we've got to approach this a little different. So thank you in advance for allowing me to MacArthurize y'all. So I'll give you five statements that the tongue, and first is condemns. And this is verse one and two, the first part of verse two. Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness, for we all stumble in many ways. Now this is James' context, brothers becoming teachers. And he uses this to warn of the dangers of speaking. So in his context, while it's very applicable to that, it's easy to see that this applies to everything because he gives a much more broad and universal teaching on the tongue. I mean, dangerous to speak? Yes. It's even more dangerous that people would listen to you. And it's even more dangerous than that to endeavor to teach them something while they're listening to you. But if the content of what you're going to teach is that you would endeavor to teach somebody about God. there's a much, I mean, much, much doesn't quantify the amount of seriousness and strictness that you would stand as a mouthpiece for the almighty God to take his word and apply it to somebody else. Or the way that you live that you would then speak and interpret the way that you live for others. That, I mean, we're not representing ourselves or our family or our country, and we take those very serious. We're representing God. And in the context, you know, not many of you should be teaching. Many more of you should be learning is, I mean, we could flip that around. Because we speak and we teach, we counsel, we instruct people much more than we think we do. And if this passage were just limited to teacher-student context, we could all avoid evil by just never signing up to teach. I mean, I've had that thought. You know, do not lie. So what's an easy way to get around that? Don't say anything. But what does the Scripture really say? Speak. Yeah, so I can't just stay silent? No, I must speak. But the implication of what James is saying is not to avoid teaching. Look at that verse, it's not to avoid teaching, it's to become perfect. As he continues, for we all stumble in many ways, And if anyone does not stumble on what he says, he is a perfect man, also able to bridle his whole body. This increased strictness comes when we're responsible to follow and obey the very things that we teach. I mean, how many of us have just cringed whenever we're telling somebody something that we ourselves don't do, that we fall short in? Yet we know it, we know it well enough to communicate it. And it's important enough that I need to tell you that this is the solution. But yet we find ourselves falling short. Just try preparing this message and you see what falls out of your mouth each day and you wouldn't find yourself qualified to teach anything. Because this is the catch. As God says through the biblical writers, the tongue is our constant source of stumbling. The word stumble, in verse two, is literally to stumble and fall, to sin, to error, to transgress. Spiritually, we just fall down. The things that we say, we spiritually, in our walk, we just fall down. But consider what Christ said even about these things that just fall out, even the times you just blurt out, what an idiot, right? Even if they can't hear you because they're in a different car, it comes out. Matthew 12, 36 and seven, I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak. For by your words, you will be justified and by your words, you will be condemned. Our tongue has the power to condemn us. But think of all the promises we've made. Think of all the commitments. Think of all the songs you've sung along with. And those are careless words. If we're gonna be judged by the careless ones, what about the intentional ones? You think that they would carry a greater strictness? Yes, they will. There are much higher stakes whenever we endeavor to proclaim truth on behalf of God. Not everybody who hears us has a Bible. They can't read it directly from the word of God. Sometimes you're their interpreter. But the tongue condemns, secondly, the tongue controls. We look at verse three through five. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also, though they are large and driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder, wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. You know what it's called whenever you try to ride a horse that doesn't have a bit in its mouth? Call it rodeo. As soon as you drop a bit in its mouth, you know what it's called? It's called riding a horse. No bit, you know what it's called? It's called, you know, hold on. Is the tongue not similar? I mean, if you, like a rodeo, if you got to eight seconds before you fell, that'd be a remarkable feat. The tongue is a restless evil, it says, but it's gonna go wherever it wants. Previously, James had said this, how do we get a bit in the mouth of a horse that's gonna go wherever it wants? Chapter one, we're familiar with what James had already said in chapter one, verse 19 to 21. Know this, my brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, That's the restraint, the bit in its mouth, that you would actually be slow to do these things? For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness, words, and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your soul. Where's the word implanted? James could rightly say, receive the bit, receive the rudder, let the pilot direct you, let the rider guide you where it should go. That's the eternal safety, which is how he ends verse 21, which is able to save your soul. Because as things are assumed, James does assume there is a way to tame the horse, there is a way to steer the ship, and there is a way to tame the tongue. He doesn't say that clearly, there is a way to tame, no, verse 80 says it's untameable, but he doesn't leave it there. There's this assumption that there is a way to overcome these. Commentator Tasker, he said, What is true of horses, James asserts, is also true of men. If we control their mouths, we can obtain their obedience and turn about their whole body, guiding them in a direction we desire. MacArthur says, even gentle horses, which have been ridden for many years, are not controllable without bits in their mouths. As long as they are expected to perform service, whether riding or for pulling a wagon or a plow, they require that control. So it is with believers. To be useful to God, we need our tongues controlled with everything else following in submission. And just think where our tongue would control us to go unrestrained. And I know these points are a little quick because I'm getting to, this is just our first block, so these are many points, sub-points. Third, the tongue corrupts. Verses five and six, how great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. Satan is the father of lies. What are lies used to spread? The tongue. And finish this phrase, they spread like? Wildfire, that was good. It's amazing that we know that. Because, verse six, look at this. It does not say the tongue is like a fire. It does not say, or like a world of unrighteousness. It doesn't include those words. Literally, the definite article is before tongue and world. You would understand this to say, the tongue, a fire. So we put the word is in there. The tongue is a fire, the world of iniquity. It's not like it, he's not making a comparison. The tongue is the world of iniquity. The father of lies would use our mouths, our tongues, to manifest these lies, to spread these lies. It is the world of iniquity, literally the cosmos of iniquity. And in most contexts, this word iniquity, it is the unrighteousness by which others are deceived. It is a deceptive, a lying tongue. That's naturally what we have. Anytime we are not being restrained, that is what's gonna come out. Plain and simple. Proverbs 18, 21, death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. But the tongue is not like a fire, it is a fire. Does anybody need a visual? Have you seen the news? Seen California? The time that I gathered my statistics, there are up to 83 people dead so far. You know how it started? A campfire. Now, I've made some big campfires. But generally, they're pretty small, and they spread. A lot of these actually start from people throwing cigarette butts out their window. We'll start grass fires, which then turn into forest fires. You remember 2016? Seems like a long time ago. Gatlinburg, Tennessee? One of the greatest natural disasters in Tennessee history was in Gatlinburg. 14 people killed, 134 injured, a fire consumed 2,500 homes, started with two kids playing with matches. Playing with matches. Think about fire. Fire reproduces itself. Compare it to water. You throw a match on the ground, what's going to happen? It's going to run wild, it's gonna multiply. Pour out a glass of water, does it turn into a flood? In the same way, gossip, slandering, complaining, cursing, blasphemy, all the sins of the tongue are not satisfied with the small amount that you give them. If you give cursing a starting point, it's going to run the race. Just listen to the uncontrolled tongues. Are they ever satisfied? Have they ever complained enough that they sit down and say, there, now I'll praise the Lord. I mean, cursing only fuels the fire that people go more and more. And it's the restraint to not even let it out, to not even strike the match or start the small campfire. You give it oxygen, it's going to grow. I can give you a very personal story of somebody close to me who simply wrote a joke on a text and sent it to two friends. One of the friends screenshotted it. Within the day, he was on CNN, The Washington Post, New York Times, magazines across the US. I watched him on the news. And it took about four to five hours. Lost his career. And his boss was on CNN defending the company and not him. Career's over. 27 years old from a text. And he thought it'd just be funny. The tongue also is combative. Verses 7 and 8. Every kind of beast and bird and reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. We may be restrained by circumstance, maybe nobody can hear us, We might not be in a situation where we could commit acts of sin, but we can always sin with the tongue. Even if you cut it out, you just send me a text, draw a picture, grumble in our hearts. We'll make hand gestures if that's what's needed. But whenever we are disgruntled, whenever we have a complaint, by golly, it's coming out, unless Our fifth one here is that our tongue curses, verses nine through 12. These, James gives many of the contrasts here. Blessing and cursing. Fresh water, salt water. Figs on a tree, or the olives on a grapevine. Cursing is, I mean, this is really low-hanging fruit. Don't curse. Christian cuss words, no. Let me just give you a rule of thumb. There is no set of curse words that you can blurt out that God is okay with. In the world, just change a few syllables and now they're not okay. If God created it and the world corrupted it, then we can redeem it. If the world created it, we can't sanctify it. So all of the darn and shoot, those things, who are you kidding? Who are you kidding? The jokes are the same way. But this one, blurting it out, sure we would see that, we try to sanctify that, but what about areas that we don't see things coming out of our mouth like blessings and cursings, but praises and cursings. How do you talk about your enemies? Do we love those we love and hate those we hate? How do we deal with issues? Do you deal with them in the moment? Or is it a lot easier to not say anything and go home and let them have it whenever you're at home with your spouse? How do we talk about life's inconveniences? Other people may not hear us, but what really comes out? Or maybe you use it misapplied. Jesus called people whitewashed tombs. Have you ever spoken that about people? I mean, are we okay to talk about people that way? No. I mean, that's obvious. But we don't see, whenever there's two different languages coming out of our mouths, we're guilty of this. The world of iniquity is being manifest. If there's jokes that you would love to send to a friend, but you can't because he's a church friend, is the issue to just, I mean, is the solution just don't send it? Or is it to repent of thinking those things are funny? That we would deal with a heart that enjoys that. then there'll be no pull for us to speak those things, to manifest those things. I'll get into this more in just a moment. Just whetting the appetite. Beyond James being a lot about the tongue, the book of Proverbs, I just grabbed a few that we're familiar with. Proverbs 10.19, when words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent. 15.1, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. 18.2, a fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his own opinion. 18.6, the fool's lips walk into a fight. His mouth invites a beating. Yeah, now we don't have to wonder why our mother would always say, I'm gonna bust you in the chops. Foolish talk invites a beating. But we've got a mouth full of cursing and bitterness. How do we deal with this? The way that James is talking about it, we get a statement of, these things should not be so. which means we could invert these things and understand them right. It shouldn't be this way. We rightly, with the theology being assumed, understand that A, it's possible to not be that way, but also there's a repentance needed, that we would line up the things coming out of our heart, that implanted word would be what comes out of our mouth, that our tongues would line up with a regenerated heart. So that is the power of an evil tongue, unrestrained. And I could give examples upon examples. But if I changed places with you, I'm sure you'd have examples upon examples. We all need the power of the restrainer. You cannot tame the tongue from inside. A horse can't put a bit in its own mouth and restrain itself. it needs a restraint outside of itself. So it'd be, as a main second point, the power of the restrainer. Guys, it'd be easy for me to send things out of conviction. We're all convicted by dealing with the tongue. But God, but there is a greater power than what's inside of us. There's a greater power than that which controls our tongues. If we set our hearts on that verse, verse two, if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. That's something, can we change our own hearts? No. But where we put the effort is at the restraint of the tongue, of holding these things back, of letting our hearts be changed, let them be affected so that the things coming out of our mouth are now a blessing and not a cursing. So in order for us to be restrained, the theology needs to be of a changed heart that would change the tongue Again, I'll remind us of Jesus' words, Mark chapter seven, not Matthew, but Mark. And he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery. All of these things come from within and defile a person. Jesus' words here are a lot like the way that James describes these things. No imperatives, no commands, just statements of fact. Jesus' theological assumption was that we needed our hearts dealt with. There's a new covenant, right? A new covenant that would deal with our hearts. You're familiar with Jeremiah 31, 33. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts. Complimentary to this, Ezekiel 11, 19, I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes, my rules, and obey them. How many people just try to avoid saying evil things to never have their heart changed? That's the evangelism. How many people have you run into, they notice, and I've had people notice, you don't curse like I do. Somehow you said the same sentence I did, communicated all the same, but there were a lot less profane words. They don't say, how'd you do that? What do they say? Ah man, I need to quit cursing. You almost want it just like good luck, you know? That is the diving board for evangelism. I didn't choose to stop saying these things. It's something that has happened inside of me. I'm not some holier-than-everybody else because I've learned the way to restrain profanity. God's done a work in me, man. Praise the Lord that you'd see those things and praise His name by saying you'd want to be like that. Praise God. That's a much different way than the world is expecting you to respond. But we can give voice to this, it's our evangelism. As we remember, much of this theology is assumed. So whenever James gives us this verse, he does not say, if anyone does not stumble in what he teaches, but he says, if anyone does not stumble in what he says, He's a perfect man. The Greek word there for perfect, telios, means perfect, complete in all its parts, full-grown, specifically of the completeness of Christian character. So it's mature, it's been consummated, reached its full end. Telios is spoken of regarding God and His absolute perfection. Matthew 5, 48, Jesus says, love your enemies. You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. There's the word. And so there is absolute perfection, but it's also spoken of in regards to men. Whenever Jesus was talking to the rich young man, all of these things I've kept, what do I lack? If you would be Perfect, same word. Now he didn't say if you would be sinless, if you would be, you know, he didn't say if you want to be God, you do these things. And we really get these things mixed up, as though perfect means the sinless righteous one. I mean, we're not gonna become messiahs if we clean up, you know, clean up everything that we say. We're not gonna be sinless in completion in this world, but we can be mature in direction. It is mature to be maturing. You read the Proverbs, the fool is the one who never learns from all of his beatings. You can beat him and he still will not learn anything, that's my paraphrase. Maturity is that we are maturing in the things of God. Another commentator, Motyer, said, if our tongue were so well under control that it refused to formulate the words of self-pity, the images of lustfulness, the thoughts of anger and resentment, then these things are cut down before they have a chance to live. The master switch has been deprived them of any power to switch on that side of our lives. Listen to this statement. The control of the tongue is more than evidence of spiritual maturity, it is the means to it. And we're familiar with that, because that came out of our Saturday morning book. But I want to add this. Make a note, Luke 16, 10. Luke 16, 10. Jesus has given a parable, and then he makes this statement, summing it up. One who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much. And one who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much. If we can control the little, If we can control the things that we find to be insignificant towards our godliness, if we put our attention towards those, we will be able to control the large ones, or what we find to be large. The small determines the much, it's not the other way around. Our society is going to tell us it's the other way around, that if you do well in the large things, you can make compromises in the small. And we join them in their thinking on those, right? Just listen to how many people will say, oh, I'm working on that. That's not my issue. My issue is this over here. The world thinks that as long as you get the big stones right, then you have freebies. But mastering the large issues of life and letting the small ones go, I mean, that would actually be pretty difficult. Just consider murder. It'd be easy not to physically murder an entire people group. That'd be a lot of work. It'd be hard to find them all. And if you found them all, they're not going to hold still. But to murder him with your tongue, to murder him in your heart, to say statements about entire groups of people, you can murder him like that. It's easy to do the small ones. And if we would put our hearts and our intentions towards being sanctified in the small, you listen to James, he says, the rest of these things fall in line. We're so much focused on the big things. Just cut those out and you can live a comfortable life, decent amount of sin, you'll be all right. You can get just enough of God that you'll be happy, you can have enough of the world that, you know, balance these two things out. You're not gonna be perfect. You're not gonna be mature. You're not gonna be full grown. We pay attention to these details. You set your heart on following and honoring Christ in the small daily battles, you will be ready for the big ones. You will be. I find it so often that the answer to sinful speech is, I shouldn't say that. Okay, so you hold that in. What happens whenever you hold it in? Well, let me give you a hint. What happens when you hold it in? Where is it then? Still inside of you. And if you give it enough time, it's gonna come out. It's going to come out. I mean, that's kind of the, sorry to announce this, but that's kind of the restless part of the restless evil. If you hold it in, it doesn't atrophy. Oh man, you know, I forgot to curse, I haven't been doing it in so long, I don't even know how to anymore. Restless evil, it is always seeking to produce these things, therefore we must always be repenting of these, and if you would repent of the small things that you want to say, It would be no problem. How many of us would avoid trials and aches and pains and decades of fights if we controlled our tongue? If we controlled our tongue, it's a restless evil, it's not going to atrophy. But I don't want us to miss this, that the wrestling inside of our heart holding back that criticism in the break room of somebody you want to let it out. Man, what an idiot. I need to find somebody and tell him what an idiot this guy is. And there's this longing that is growing. I'm not talking about you, so I'm talking about me. You find a joke that's funny, and it's like, oh, man, who can I tell? No, not him. No, not him. I don't have anybody I can tell this joke to. I need to find some more evil friends so that they can think I'm funny. And you find this joke and you're over there laughing. I mean, you should feel like a creepy little gremlin over there in the corner laughing at these jokes. I mean, fair enough? 1 Corinthians 14, be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. This maturity is maturing us into a bridled perfection, that the Lord has the reins. A few comments and then we conclude. Also in our book, The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges, he quotes William Law. He says, now the reason for common cursing is this, it is not because men not so much have the intention to please God in all their actions. That's why we let the little things slip. We haven't purposed it. He continues, and if you will hear, stop and ask yourself why you are not as holy as the primitive Christians were. Your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it. We get far enough. That's good enough. I didn't curse as much as this person. Man, look at this guy. He's cursing all over the place. I got a freebie to tell all the jokes that I want. This guy will distract the Lord while I'm over here letting loose. No, by no means. But just think, with all of this said, just think, you know saints here in this church, saints that you've been around. Nothing exposes you as much as what you think is funny. And you've told something, or you've said a story, told a joke, and they don't respond like you thought they would. and they give a much more sanctified response than you do, you really do have to ask yourself, is that a facade? Are they serious? They don't laugh about anything, do they? Or is it that the things that we enjoy speaking, the things that we enjoy letting out, the way we want to communicate our heart, whenever it's let out of its cage, we run into a saint who is more sanctified than we are. And it's a reflection on us. I mean, we cringe and we shudder that we're not like that. But praise be to God, we can. If we would put our intentions toward it, if we would set our heart to bridle our tongue, Give the Lord the reins to do these things, and He will do it. Let's close in prayer. Lord, we see so many unintentional and intentional things come out of our mouths. Lord, whenever you shine light on them, it is troublesome. Lord, let it not just be troublesome, but let it burn within us. that this mouth you've given us to pray to you, to praise you, to bless others, to build others up, to give grace, to encourage, to admonish that people might be made right with you. We use it to our own ends. Lord, our tongue is a fire. We're born in a world where Satan is the prince and the father of lies. Lord, help us. We see no ability within ourselves to restrain our tongue. So Lord, help us, sanctify us, purify us. Lord, may we not resist you. Whenever there's something we want to say, for whatever reason, and the Holy Spirit would convict us not to say it. Lord, let us not be, not harden our hearts and resist. But Lord, I pray that we would submit to you and not say it. but we thank you for your word. We pray all these things in Christ's name. Amen.