So, have you ever been in a parking garage where you had to pay to park? You know, you, you pull in, you press the little button and you get that little ticket and then you take that little ticket and then you keep it in your car. And then when you get ready to leave, you go down to the little booth and you pay him for whatever you owe for parking in the garage. Well, there was a guy who parked in a garage and he was leaving and there was a big huge sign over him as he was heading toward the booth and he took a picture of that sign. Now, the sign was supposed to read like this, please pay your parking fee before exiting. But actually the sign said please pay your parking fee before existing. Yeah, somebody didn't proof for you. That's, that's kind of a, that's a big thing that's taking prepay to a whole another level, right? See one letter dramatically changed the message of that sign. Likewise, one word can dramatically change the message that we're sending. Let me ask you a question and you can think quickly as you can on this. Can you remember something that someone said to you? Just one time? Maybe somebody you met just one time you were around just, just one time. Can you remember something they said to you today? Has it stuck with you? Did that one word? That one sentence? Did, did it have an impact on you? My guess is we all have at least one story like that. You see our, our words matter and, and just one word can stick with us for years and years and years. Today might be the day that one sentence and one word that you use with someone could change their lives for bad or for good but but it could impact someone's life. Your words matter. Listen to the words we say in the hallway at the church on Sunday morning, they matter. You know, don't just get out in the hallway and about something. Ok. Life is tough. Life is hard. We need to be joyful but, but we need to be wise with our words wise in what we say, our words matter, the words that we are using, the message that we're sending it. It matters. So, so what kind of messages are we sending? See what just one word can change the message that we send to our spouse, to our kids, to our parents, to people we work with and, and go to school with to the the guy at the booth in the parking garage. Just, just one word can send a message that has a huge impact on someone's lives. Our words matter. So what kind of words are we using? What kind of messages are we sending as we text as we post on social media as we send emails as we um you know, talk to people in the breakfast spot as we talk to people over coffee as we talk to people at the, at the doctor's office, as we talk to people at home and work in school and all the places. What, what kind of words are we using? And what kind of messages are we sending? We continue our series Fresh Air and, and what we're doing is we're trying to look at this concept of the words that are filling the air around us, not just the words that other people are saying, but the words that we're using, the words that are coming out of our mouth. What are we filling the air up with around us? And we'll be looking in the Bible at the book of James, be looking at James chapter three and, and James is going to help us see a hard truth about ourselves. It's a, it's a hard truth, but it's a real truth and it's a real fact and it's a real fact that if we can get it can lead to real freedom. What kind of freedom are we talking about? Well, let's see if we can find out our message today is full words. We'll be looking in James chapter three, beginning with verse seven, James writes for every species of beasts and birds of reptiles and creatures of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. You may have seen it live or at the very least, maybe you've seen a video of a, a 16 ft long killer whale that weighs £34,000 jumping straight up out of the water to perform some kind of trick so that it can get a little fish snack for the trick that it performed. We've, we've seen that here there and yonder years ago readers digest out an article and they said, you know, you would think once you saw the word killer in the name of the animal, you wouldn't think about taming it. You know, you just leave that one alone. Now in the original language here that James is right. And the word that he used for Tamed, it means to restrain within proper limits. In other words, restraining is not permanently perfectly taming. See, you can train a killer whale to jump up in the air and jump through a hoop at Seaworld, but you cannot permanently perfectly train that killer whale tame that killer whale. You see we've seen this or that sometimes those killer whales will attack the one that's training them. And even if you can train that one killer whale and do a really good job of, of training it. You, you can't permanently perfectly tame it and you can't permanently perfect and tame the whole population of killer whales. Same is true. If you have a tiger, you can train a tiger to perform in a circus, but you can't perfectly permanently tame that tiger nor can you perfectly permanently tame the whole population of tigers. You might be able to train a cobra to respond and dance to the sound of a flute, but you can't permanently perfectly tame that cobra nor could you perfectly permanently tame the whole population of Cobras. What James is doing is he's saying something that, that everyone knows there's a difference between train and, and tame and in the ancient world, there was a sense of accomplishment that they understood and knew that there were many creatures in the world and, and they had learned as humans to train to uh restrain to, to even in a sense rule over and manage so many different creatures in the world. The reality is your cat may run your house, but your cat can't run your company. Ok. There, there's just certain things that we as humans have been designed to do that animals cannot do. It's, it's a reality and so there's some measure of training and, and restraining that we might be able to have and creatures great and small. But what James is doing is kind of given the reality that we all know and that is, is that there is this ability for humans to have some measure of training and restraining over animals. And that's a reality. But now he's going to give us another reality. A new reality. Look at verse eight, but no one among mankind can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. Well, in that special that makes you feel good. Right. I mean, this is not exactly fantastic news. It's a hard truth, but it's real truth. It's a, it's a real fact. No matter how nice of a person you are, you cannot tame your own tongue. No matter how many times you get your mouth washed out with soap for assassin, your mom. No matter how many times you get detention after school for talking during class. No how, no matter how many fines you have to pay for, you know, bad mouthing the officials at a, a post game press conference, there is nothing and no one who will ever be able to train and tame your tongue. There's no human that can do that. Humans can tame wild powerful animals, we can train them and restrain them, but there is no man, woman, boy or girl who can tame permanently perfectly the tongue. Now the tongue again is a two ounces of, of muscle constructed together and it's designed to strike the roof of the mouth or, or strike the teeth and, and help us form and say words that's what it does. And James says that those two ounces of muscle are a restless evil and full of deadly poison. Well, that's encouraging. Right. I mean, if, if he's saying that the tongue can't be tamed and if he's saying it's a restless evil full of deadly poison. I mean, what's the point? I mean, is he just trying to depress us here? I mean, James is, tell us, look from the White House to the state house, to the church house, to my house, to your house, all the mouse and all the tongues and all the words. They, they're full of a restless evil. They're, they're full of deadly poison. That's, that's depressing. Well, James isn't trying to depress us. He's actually trying to free us. Listen again what he said. But no one among mankind can tame the tongue. No human can tame the tongue. But, but that's not a hopeless message. That's a hopeful message. You see one of the, the greatest realities of the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the greatest things that the gospel says to every man, woman, boy and girl is this. You can't do it, you can't save yourself. You can't redeem yourself. You can't rescue yourself. You have to be rescued, you have to be redeemed. And that's what makes the gospel such a great and grand and glorious message of good news. That's why the words of the gospel are such fantastic news for our souls. Because see, we are drowning in the weight of sin and we can't drown ourselves. We have to have someone reach in and save us, pull us up out of the water. And the only person that can do that is your mom and dad. The only person that can do that is the pastor. The only person who can do that is the, is the youth pastor. The only person that can do that is your local politician. The only person that can do that is a priest or a pope or your best buddy out on the lake one day. No, the only person that can pull anyone out of the water drowning from sin is Jesus. He's the only one. Only Jesus can rescue. Only Jesus can redeem. We can't pull ourselves out and likewise, we cannot tame our own tongues. We can't do it. We're too weak. We are all just way too easily tempted to say that thing we shouldn't say to, to tell that joke, we shouldn't joke to write that letter to, to text that text to send that email to, to make that post on social media. We're, we're just too tempted to do the opposite of what would most honor God and what would most help others. So when it comes to taming the tongue, the only person who can do that is God himself. Only God Apostle Paul was writing to the church at Philippi and this is what he said Philippians 2 13 for it is God who is at work in you both to desire and to work for his good pleasure. This may be one of the greatest motivational tools ever. And that's this, that if you're a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, God is at work inside of you, uh look at all the other religions, all the other gods. We have the only God who lives and loves and works inside of us. This is a stunning reality. There is no other God like that in the universe. Dear Christian, the one true living, living sovereign almighty God. He lives in us. He works in us when it comes to our spiritual life. It's not our energy doing the work. It is the energy of almighty God. And why does that matter? Why? Why would Paul write about that? Well, he writes about that because it's important for us to remember where the power is. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth and he was writing about this energy and what it looks like. And he said this in second Corinthians 47. But we have this treasure in earthen containers and in jars of clay so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. This, there is some fantastic math in these words from Paul. Here's the first part of the equation. The first part of the equation is we're clay pots like we didn't create ourselves. We're, we're just jars of clay. We did not create ourselves. We were created by God. And then the second part of the equation is this, if we are Christians, we are saved. Christian, Christians are saved, but we cannot save ourselves. We can only be saved by God. And Paul is saying, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, don't stop looking at the surpassing greatness of the power of God that is at work inside of you. This, this power that, that quickens and rescues and redeems and save this power is at work inside of you. And why do we need to, why would Paul be so adamant to make sure that we would look at the surpassing greatness of the power of God that is actually working inside of us. Well, here's why because sometimes when it comes to salvation, we may think something like this. Well, God provided the way of salvation, but I gotta do my part. The Bible says that we were dead in our sins and our transgressions, dead. People don't do a part. They can't do a part is, it's the work of God or on the flip side, we may say, well, if God does all the work, then you know, he doesn't need me. Here's the thing. If you've been rescued and redeemed by the grace and mercy of God through the person of Jesus Christ, your response is never to go sit in the corner and pout because you didn't have anything to do with it. No, we're, we're clay and you know what clay does? Clay never tells the potter. I'm going to tell you what to do. I'm going to tell you how this works. I'm going to tell you my opinion and I want you to work things around the way I want things to work. Clay doesn't do that. You know what clay does? Clay is always stunned. Clay is always overwhelmed that it is no longer buried dead in the ground, but it has been brought to life and it has been shaped and formed into something absolutely amazing. That's what clay does take a moment to just consider in our day and age and in this time of, of the world and society and culture, some of the things that are most dominating, some of the, the biggest and most consistent realities that we face. These are realities that are not just at work or school, but they're at home, your home, my home, these are realities that are at work right now and in my mind and heart and right now in your mind and heart, what are some of those realities? Stress, anxiety, fear, worry, arrogance, anger, depression, discouragement, disillusionment, despair and many more, those are those are realities and our enemy. The devil says to us, oh, well, that's just how life is. So we're just supposed to look at it and say, hey, you know it, it is what it is. But you know, the gospel of Jesus Christ is constantly telling us a completely different story. JCR said it this way, we have a savior who was far more willing to save us than we are willing to be saved. If we are not saved, the fault is all our own. Christ is just as willing to receive and pardon as he was willing to be taken prisoner to bleed and to die. There's never a stoppage to this. Jesus is constantly willing to pardon, to save, to forgive and to set free. That's the message of the Gospel. That's the offer of the Gospel. Pardon, salvation, forgiveness, freedom through the truth of the Gospel, through the birth and life and death and resurrection through the ascension, through the promise return of Jesus Christ. God was not saying that our attitude should be, hey, it is what it is. No through the birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension and promised return of Jesus. God is not saying it is what it is. He's saying I am who I am. That's the message that God speaks into every millisecond of existence. I am who I am and everything that God is, is everything that you need the most. Everything that God is in and through Jesus Christ is what you need the most. Now, I'm not trying to be spiritually silly here. OK? II I realize we, we need food and we need clothes and, and we need money and we need jobs and there's a lot in medicine. I mean, there's a lot of things that we need. But when we peel away the core existence of who we are, when we peel away the reality that if any of us peel over right now, if any of us don't have enough breath to make it to the end of this sermon, then the most important thing is not who gets elected president. The most important thing is, is not the mortgage on the house. The most important thing is not saving for retirement. The most important thing is not your kid making the team. The most important thing at the core of our existence, the core of our mind and our body and our soul. The the spiritual being of who we are, the core of that. What we need the most is all found in the person of Jesus Christ. It's all found in Jesus and that includes the taming of the tongue. When it comes to our words, when it comes to the sinful issues that happen with our words, we cannot pull ourselves out of that. We have to be pulled out, we have to be rescued. The only one who can tame the tongue is the one who created the tongue and that is God and God alone. And how does God do that? Well, God tames the tongue through the heart, not, not the heart that's pumping blood in your body. But, but the part of who you are that defines your actual spiritual being, the, the the deepest part of who you are, the condition of your heart determines how tame your tongue is. If you are speaking or texting or writing in a way that is rude or, or mean or arrogant or, or critical or angry, then all of those things are coming from a heart that is rude and mean and arrogant and critical and angry. If the words that you speak or the words you text or the words that you email or write. If they are words that seem to stir up trouble at home, at work, at school, at church, wherever you are, then in other words, if you're, if you're, if you're just being a bully, then then that's coming from a heart that is arrogantly stirring up trouble, a heart that's a bully. And let me also add to that if you are not using words, that silence can sometimes also be a sin of the tongue when words should be said and they're not said when, when the silent treatment is given that that's a way of being rude and mean and angry and arrogant. That's a way of being a bully and stirring up trouble. There are times that there are words we need to say and there are times that we need to be silent and as a believer, we have to discern which one is, which but as I heard a counselor say many, many years ago, he said, the angriest people in marriage counseling are the ones that won't say a word. So silence is not always a good thing, but we have to be wise with what we speak and what we say. And in Galatians, Paul gives a general list of what the heart of a Christian should kind of be full of this is how the list goes Galatians 5 22. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. That last one, that's how God tames, the tongue, God tames the tongue through self control. So, so what's self control? I like Stephen Cole's definition. Self control means overruling your emotions because of a higher goal. So what's the higher goal of a Christian's life? Well, simply put it is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The glory of God. Self control means that we keep feeding our hearts and our minds, the truth about God. And when we're feeding our hearts and minds, the truth about God that changes our attitudes and our opinions. In other words, when we're feeding our hearts and minds, the truth about God again, we, we can't, you know, just perfectly sit there and read the Bible 24 hours a day. But, but it's a good idea when we read the Bible in the morning to make sure we get one of those verbs or one of those adjectives, one of those nouns, maybe one verse and just get it in our mind all day long. Let that be in our mind when the, the hard thing happens at school or the hard thing that happens at work or the hard thing happens in the car on the way to work. There's something about the truth of God. It's supposed to be the main God for our attitudes and our opinions. And when it is the words that we speak, they will become words that more often than not bring glory to God, not perfect because we're not perfect, but they would bring glory to God. None of us are ever going to be permanently perfect in our taming of our tongues because we're just too sinful. But what are we pursuing if you were here last week? I, I love toward the end of Philip's sermon when he talked about our posture as Christian, what, what's our posture? Is our posture generally speaking the glory of God? Or do we have other glories that are the most important? Is it the glory of our self or the glory of our family or the, the glory of our jobs or the glory of our savings account and our money or, or the glory of our favorite team? Even even the glory of being an American. There's nothing wrong with any of those things, but they're all secondary to the glory of God. In fact, everything in the universe is secondary to the glory of God. He is first. He is most and God's design is to tame our tongues through self control. And that self control is focused on a higher goal. And the higher goal is the glory of God. We will as someone has put it be the most satisfied in life when God is the most glorified in our lives. Now, some people hear the word self control and they're like, that's impossible. I mean, have you ever seen a plate of bacon? I mean, come on, you know, self control. Come on. Other people go. Oh, well, uh, self control. I, that's going to, that's going to limit me. You know, I mean, if I, if I see a plate of bacon, I'm, I'm eating it, you know, if they have that shoe in my size, oh, I'm buying it. Hey, if the rain holds off, I'm going to play another 18. You know, we, we kind of live and function in a way that, that self control seems to be the opposite of how we think we, we think self control is, is sometimes impossible or it's limiting. Like, oh, we can't have any fun if we've got to show self control. I saw something uh earlier this week about some research studies and some social experiments around the playground and, and what they did, it's been a number of them. What they did is they evaluated Children on playgrounds that had rules and boundaries. And they compared that to watching Children play on playgrounds that had no rules and, and no boundaries. And what they found is that more often than not in all of those studies, the kids that were on the playground with no rules and no boundaries, they were all paralyzed with fear. They, they didn't quite know what to do. They had lots of freedom but they, they didn't know what to do with it. And they were, they were afraid. They weren't free and fun. They were, they were afraid. And then when they analyzed and, and researched the kids that were on the playground that had boundaries and, and had some rules. They found that three consistent things popped up there that in those settings, the kids had this, they had freedom of movement. There was an increase in individual creativity and, and get this. There were higher levels of communal harmony. In other words, them kids got along better when there wasn't total freedom. Ja Kim puts it like this. Self control means setting boundaries that free us. And then he goes on specifically, it frees Christ followers from the paralyzing power of our deceitful hearts and its path of reckless indulgence. Self control can actually free us from reckless indulgence and self control can free us from restless evil. It can free us from words that are deadly poisons perfectly. No, but it can create freedom from restlessness, recklessness and the poisonous words that we use more often than we want to admit. And again, I would graciously say the poisonous silence that more often we are unwilling to admit self control, the kind of self control that sets the glory of God as the highest goal, that type of self control can stir us to have words that are not full of pride, not full of, of fear or worry or, or panic or, or anger or grumbling or whining or complaining or criticizing. Actually the, the type of, of glory that we're talking about this, this self control. The one that's focused is the glory of God. Makes it our highest goal. When that's our highest goal, we actually will have words full of grace, words full of mercy, words full of love. Look, I wanna be clear. One of the things II I struggle with in this series, I am not telling you to do better. And I'm telling you as a Southern lifelong Southern Baptist, we love sermons like that. That's what we want. Just tell me how to do better. Don't tell me how to repent, don't tell me how to get on my face before the God that saved me. Just tell me how to do better. I ain't telling you to do better. I'll never tell you to do better. Hopefully. But I struggle because these kinds of passages, if we're not careful, it's like, oh, just do better talk kind but, but that's not what's happening. It, it's a changing of the inside and that inside is my highest goal is the glory of God. And when the glory of God is our highest goal, it, it affects our words. It changes how we speak, it changes how we watch the news. It changes how we listen to talk radio. It just changes things. We will never be perfect, but we do need to be people about the glory of God. So what are our words going to be full of grace or grumbling mercy are mumbling, love or loathing? What are our words going to be like? What's the message that we're going to send? Tim Keller said, this self control is the ability to do the important thing rather than the urgent thing. That's, that's really good. I'm going to repeat it. Self control is the ability to do the important thing rather than the urgent thing. So what's the most important thing? The most important thing that we can ever do in any moment in life? What's the most important thing my youngest son has been working with, with wind shape camps uh this summer uh founded years ago by Cathy who, who started Chick Fil A and, and on Wednesday, they have what's called Gospel Wednesday. And so they have these camps all over the country and on Gospel Wednesday, everybody that's on the team. They, they communicate directly to the kids, the message of the gospel and, and it crossed my mind the other day that, that every Wednesday for the last few months that Holden has had the most important conversation that anyone could ever have with another human being every Wednesday with some kids that just happened to show up at a camp. So, what's the most important thing? What's the most important thing? If, if you have enough breast that only make it through the end of this service? What's the most important thing? Well, the most important thing, Jesus put very simply love the Lord, your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind and all of your strength. In other words, love God first and most you won't do that without Jesus, you'll love you first and most you'll love your family first and most, you'll love your country first and most you'll love food first and most you'll love your special team first and most you'll love a lot of things first and most, but Jesus changes the equation in our soul. Not perfectly because we're sinful, but we have a different movement and our movement is the glory of God. And we begin to love God with our heart and soul and mind and strength. That sounds too simple. Right? I mean, it really does. It sounds, if we're honest, it sounds a little religiously hokey. Oh, just love God. Ok. But that is it. And aren't you glad? Aren't you glad that the most important thing, the most important math, the one thing that you have to be self controlled with, aren't you glad it's easy? Aren't you glad the math is not difficult? Aren't you glad that, that you don't have to know Hebrew or Greek or, or Latin? And you don't have to understand mathematics to understand the one most important thing in the universe to love God first and most. I'm thrilled that God has been so kind to us thrilled that, that he's made moving toward him so simple and even more thrilled that Jesus made it all possible. So what will our words be like? What will the message that we send be like today at lunch tomorrow at work? Tuesday morning on the way to school Thursday night when you're ready to eat and dinner is not ready yet. When you're watching the news, when you're listening to talk radio, when you're drinking coffee at the breakfast joint, when you're in the waiting room, at the doctor's office, when you're stuck in traffic on the interstate, when you're arguing with your spouse, when you're disappointed with your kids, when you're distraught over the death of someone you loved in those moments, let us be fighting and striving to do the most important thing from the inside out. The most important thing. Why? Because Jesus loved us and Jesus gave himself up for us. Let's be full of that.