Well, I have to sit down today, because Susie made me work in the garden. She wouldn't let me come in for dinner till I finished. [laughter] You don't believe me, do you? But it hurt my back. Well, this morning I want to begin differently, by saying that the importance of what I have to say simply cannot be exaggerated. It will determine whether your marriage is blissful and happy, or whether it has a lot of rough spots and a lot of difficult nights. It really will determine your eventual relationship with your children. It'll determine whether or not you're able to repair things with parents, or brothers and sisters. And if you work in sales, what I have to talk about this morning will absolutely affect your income. I'm speaking about how to tame the tongue. Most people don't pay much attention to their mouth, and they really never do any kind of self-examination of their mouth, and they pay a high price for that. They are very unaware of what they say. A few years ago, Duke University actually asked permission from several hundred families to put microphones in their homes to record their conversations, just to see what people were saying. And people let them do it. And when they played back the recordings after a month, the families were astonished at how caustic and cruel so much of their conversation was. They were oblivious to it. I wonder if you've noticed that America is becoming more and more verbally violent. You hear it on sitcoms. You hear it in the media, in movies. You hear it in politics. You hear it at work. Violent words. Civility is a vanishing virtue today. When asked how Winston Churchill helped Britain defeat Hitler and win World War II, historians unanimously answer that he did it by talking about the war. He just talked about the war. His speeches were as damaging to Hitler as four squadrons of bombers. They were classic. They did things to people. In 1940, when Hitler was poised on the shores of France to invade England across the Channel, Churchill gave this memorable speech: "We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. And we shall fight in the hills. We shall never, never, never surrender." That's how you'd say "never, never." That put steel into the hearts of the British people. Or later, when the Luftwaffe was raining bombs down on London and turning it into a gigantic bonfire, Churchill gave this famous speech: "If the British Empire lasts a thousand more years, the world will say this was our finest moment." That just rings in history. 80 years later, those speeches still inspire. Unforgettable words. Words are not puffs of gas. Words do things to people. And Churchill proved that. And so did JFK, didn't he, in his famous inauguration speech: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." And that mobilized youth to make a difference. Two sentences. And that is why the Word of God warns us in Proverbs 18, verse 21: "The tongue has the power of life and death." Words do things to people. When Macbeth discovers that his mother helped Duncan murder his father, Shakespeare puts these words into Macbeth's mouth: "I shall speak daggers to her, but use none." Words as daggers. He was going to make his words feel to her as painful as daggers. I wonder, has someone daggered you with words lately? Maybe even this last week, you've been daggered. All of us have been daggered by words at some time or another in our life. Whose name comes to mind for you, whose words hurt you deeply? Verbal violence. As anger spreads in America, the verbal violence is escalating exponentially. And that's a big reason why it's hard for Christians to control their tongue today. When so many people around you, at work and in your family, are not controlling their tongue, it tends to rub off on us. It really becomes the new normal. We really think, "Well, gee, if so many people are doing it, it can't be wrong." It's the new normal. C. S. Lewis, my favorite author, has a comment on that. He said, "When the whole country is running toward a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind." It's really true. You know, cigarette smokers want everybody to smoke. Drinkers want everybody to drink. And people with harsh, cruel mouths want you to have the same. They think you're crazy. But even a dead fish can go with the flow. We're called to be light in this dark world. This is our opportunity to be light like never before in the history of America. To be light. And surprisingly, it turns out that running away from the cliff is actually the smartest thing you can do for your relationships in life. Don't be like them. Be like Christ. Did you know that most divorces occur within five years of the wedding? Doesn't that surprise you? It did me, when I read that. Why would two people who said at their wedding that they could not live without each other say, within a couple of years of the wedding, that they are incompatible and can't live with each other? What's the answer to that? Well, Dr. John Gottman was curious to find the answer to that, and for 20 years he followed 3,000 marriages after their weddings and studied them. He wanted to find out why people were splitting up like this. What was the reason? Gottman found that in every case, the problem was the tongue. The mouth of one or the other was digging the grave of the marriage. He said, "You can't dig the grave of a marriage any faster than with your tongue." And so he found soul-stabbing criticism. You know, "just trying to help" your husband or wife. "I'm helping you." Hot, demeaning words said in anger. Words used as daggers, that mauled each other and eventually killed the marriage. Words do things to people. Some people can't remember names. But most of you have a perfect memory of when you were daggered by somebody's words. You may have been divorced for 15 or 20 years, but I promise you, many of you can remember hurtful words said by your ex, years later. Or by a parent when you were growing up. Or by a coach who humiliated you in front of your friends. Or a teacher who made you feel stupid. Tongue wounds. Tongue wounds. They are wounds that no one can see, and they are more hurtful and slower to heal than any physical wound that bleeds. Isn't that true? You can be hurt physically, and it heals amazingly fast. But for some people, tongue wounds never heal. They always remember. Tongue wounds can be forgiven, but they're a lot harder to forget. A lot harder. So James gives me my single purpose in this message, and that is to convert your tongue to Christianity. The most discouraging thing I have experienced in this ministry is that for years I've talked about gossip and slander and all these things, and it isn't changing people. It really just isn't. I've known some of you for years, and it hasn't changed you, and we pay a price for that. But I'm like Churchill. I will never, never, never give up. And so I have this message today. And that is that chapter 1, verse 26 of James says, "If you claim to be a Christian but don't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless." God's Word could not be any clearer. It's saying that so many Christians don't have a Christian tongue, and they need to convert their tongue to Christianity. Their tongue is not following Christ. It's living in rebellion against Christ's Word. So James says many of us need a second conversion: the conversion of our tongue. And that's where the blessing is. We'll be blessed. So how do you do it? Well, the implication of what James is saying here is that God measures our spirituality by our mouth. Isn't that shocking? He measures our spirituality by our mouth. It took years for that to sink into me and to motivate me to want to change my tongue, to convert it. So how do you do that? Well, first, by admitting that anger can make us temporarily insane, and we lose control of our mouth, and we say hurtful things. That's what anger is. It's temporary insanity, or temporary atheism. No one fixes what they will not admit needs fixing, do they? The first step is admitting this needs to be fixed, or it won't be. You can't change a person who does not see a problem with their behavior. You've tried, haven't you? Yes, you have. You've tried to talk to somebody: "You need to change here." And they don't see it, and they don't change. You can't change somebody who doesn't see a problem. So the first place to start is to take an inventory of our mouth, especially over the last couple of weeks or month. You don't have to yell, do you, to use words as a dagger? You can control your emotions and speak in a really soft voice and dagger a person. In fact, you probably know people who can smile at you as they dagger you. They smile as they say words that pierce your heart. Have you ever been daggered by somebody who's in total control of their emotions? Paul says in Ephesians 4:31, "Get rid of bitterness, rage, harsh words, slander, and gossip." He names the verbal daggers there. You know: harsh words; slander, running a person's reputation down behind their back; gossip, speaking against them, dividing people against them behind their back. All daggers. That's not a Christian mouth. It just isn't. We begin to wake up to the impact of our words, I think, when we start asking, "How would I feel if someone said to me what I just said to them?" Isn't that a good question? "How would I feel if someone said to me what I just said to them, or behind their back?" It's very clarifying. George Foreman won the World Heavyweight Championship twice. And the second time he won it, he was 45. No one had ever done that before. He's one of the greatest fighters in all of history. But he has had four failed marriages. He says, "I was a Christian, but my mouth was out of God's control and had dug the graves of my marriages." He finally realized that in his fifth marriage, when it was beginning to go downhill. And it dawned on him one day that she was not the problem. As much as he wanted to blame her, the problem was his mouth. And his mouth was digging the grave. He said he realized that he was his wife's critic and faultfinder, not her husband. Wow. And he wrote this: "I was a Christian, but my mouth wasn't a Christian." His mouth wasn't under the authority and control of Jesus. It was the same mouth he had before he was a Christian. He was in a Bible study. He said he went to worship regularly and heard sermons. But his mouth had not changed. It was the same mouth he had before he became a Christian. And he realized that he needed a second conversion. That was the first step in taming his tongue, because you don't fix what you don't admit needs fixing. So he wrote, "Remember, Jesus wants to use our mouths, but so does the devil." I have that on a stickum on my mirror as I shave in the morning, just to freshen my memory and to ask myself, "Today, who's going to use my mouth? Jesus or the devil?" C. S. Lewis famously said in his book Mere Christianity that if conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a person's behavior, then their conversion is largely imaginary. That's why Jesus says you'll know them by their fruit. And so if we're not changing, then our conversion is imaginary. And you know, I read this last week: "So many women marry a guy they love and then wait 40 years for him to grow up." That's a waste of life. We should be growing all the time and changing as Christians. When I was in Bible Study Fellowship, leading a singles ministry, Miss Johnson would ask people at conventions to give a testimony. They could not talk about anything in their life that was more than a year old. Whatever they talked about that God had changed had to be less than a year old. It's a good rule, because we should be changing. Don't talk about 20 years ago. This year, what is Jesus changing in your life? So would you say your tongue is Christian, or do you have more work to do? Secondly, taste your words before you speak. It's the Golden Rule that Jesus gave us: treat others as you want them to treat you. Boy, that'll save a lot of marriages, a lot of relationships. Speak to others as you'd like them to speak to you. So James, in verse 19, says, "Be slow to anger, slow to speak, and quick to listen." The problem is, most of us are quick to anger, quick to speak, and slow to listen. And that's why we have a tongue problem. That means people rarely taste their words, because they speak so quickly. The problem is, it's so easy to get in a tug-of-war with a person. You know what I mean by a verbal tug-of-war? Someone criticizes you. You push back. They push back. Your temperature rises. You push back harder. They push back harder, and it escalates. People call that an argument. It's not an argument. It's a verbal tug-of-war that's going on. I want to give you the way to solve this problem the next time you're in a tug-of-war. And I want to tell you, it works every time. Next time you're in a tug-of-war, drop your end of the rope. Drop your end of the rope. Now, I know what you're thinking. You think, "I can't do that. They'll think they're right. They're wrong. I've got to show them they're wrong, or else they'll just keep doing it. I can't do that." The problem is, you don't build closer relationships by winning arguments, do you? You will tame your tongue when you drop your end of the rope and stop arguing, and simply let them be wrong. Because as long as you stay in the tug-of-war, the more danger you're in, verbally. Let them be wrong. That's okay. Did you know you can never win an argument? A lot of you don't know that. You can never win an argument. If you think you're winning an argument, and you silence them and prove them wrong, you lose. Because what's happened is the other person feels defeated, run over, humiliated, unheard, and they're angry because you made them feel dumb. Yes. You cannot win an argument. You lose. Whose name comes to mind? Who do you need to drop your end of the rope with more often? Third, practice the 5-second rule. This is what James means when he says, "Be slow to speak, slow to anger." Practice the 5-second rule. That means, when we're angry, our mouth works faster than the Holy Spirit. Yes, it does. We speak before we think. And you need to pause for five seconds, to give the Spirit of God a chance to catch up with your mouth. Yeah. I read that science says women speak on average 180 words per minute, and when they're really excited, it's 330 words per minute. They gust up to that. I'm just reporting science. Don't be mad at me. This is just science. Got to follow the science. But this is why men can't win an argument, because their fastest speed is 60 words a minute. Unless it's the Super Bowl. Then they go up to 120. But they can't keep up with you. I'm just reporting science. But the problem is, when we're excited, we lose control of what we're saying. We need to practice the 5-second rule and let the Holy Spirit catch up with us. As an undergrad student at Stanford, I often went to the Memorial Chapel to pray and to think. I needed help with my grades. And there are wise sayings that have been chiseled into the sandstone around the chapel. And one that I will never forget is: "Guard your mouth. Once words are said, they are like feathers scattered by the wind, and hard to get back." They can be forgiven, but not forgotten. And it just reminds me: I think your words are like toothpaste. Once you squeeze it out, it's hard to get it back in. You want to try? That's how your words are. Hard to get back. That's why the 5-second rule is just so important: to give yourself a chance to taste your words. Remember, God gives credit for words not spoken. Amen. Some of us say whatever pops into our mind. Our mouth is uncensored. We speak as fast as we think. Our tongue is untamed. As soon as it pops in, it comes out. You've got to tame your tongue with the 5-second rule, because that's a really bad habit. We need to start practicing this rule. Pause and ask yourself, "How would I feel if someone said this to me?" Remember verse 26: "If anyone considers himself a Christian but does not keep a tight rein on his mouth, his religion is worthless." What does that mean? It means that if you can't imagine Jesus saying what you're about to say, then don't say it. That is just such a simple test. Pause. Five seconds. "Can I imagine Jesus saying this?" I read in my research about a guy whom the police found badly beaten up, I mean mauled, on the sidewalk in front of a beauty salon. And they asked him, "What happened to you?" And he said, "Well, the last thing I remember is my wife came out of the beauty salon, and she said, 'How do I look?' And I said, 'Well, they tried.'" [laughter] He needs this sermon. Leave three things unsaid every day. That's a rule I practice. Three things unsaid. And for some of you, five. You'll be blessed. James says, "Be quick to listen." That's part of this. Not just "Don't talk." Be quick to listen. Listening is the hard work of love. Listening says that their opinions and feelings are important to you. It communicates respect and value for their mind and opinions. Listening is walking a mile in their shoes and beginning to understand what it's like to be them. Listening is a form of love, because it validates the other person and helps you understand them better. And this is another saying I have on my mirror: "The more you listen, the more you understand. And the more you understand, the more understanding you become." I can't tell you how many times, when I practice listening, I change my mind, because now I understand. That'll save you a lot of grief. Listen. So many of us interrupt. Just start to be aware of how often you interrupt. "Hurry up." Especially with children. Don't interrupt. Listen. In fact, ask questions about what they're saying, to get them to say more. Help them to say more. Ask questions. Most people don't listen to understand. They're waiting for their turn to attack and to win. So many marriages and families have what you could call conversations of the deaf. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how good a listener are you? Really? It's a form of love. Practice the 5-second rule. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Lord, help us. I pray that today we leave determined to bring our tongue under control. To actually do what we've heard. To get the tape and listen to it until we really begin to do these things, and that we have a Christian tongue, Lord. A Christian tongue. Some of us are in very hard work situations, or have very provocative parents or brothers and sisters. Lord, help us by Your Holy Spirit to be different. And I pray this in Your name, Jesus. Amen.