Episode 34 - Taming the Tongue

We press into the power of words—how the tongue, though small, can steer lives toward Jesus or away. Scripture guides the hour as we move from James 3 and Ephesians 4:29 to everyday moments at home, on the road, and in church, choosing construction over demolition.

• Philippians 2:14 - Do all things without Grumbling
• James 3:2–10 on the tongue as spark and rudder
• Ephesians 4:29 as a filter for timing, tone and purpose
• practicing repentance in speech and building new reflexes
• encouragement that lifts without flattery
• Luke 6:45 reputation, language and credible witness
• legacy over minutia and what words outlast us
• practical habits to pause, repair and bless

Join us this Sunday: donuts, coffee and fellowship at 10; service at 10:30. We meet at the American Legion Post just north of town. Children’s church and nursery available

Transcript

Welcome, Rockdale and Housekeeping

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Let's Connect, the official podcast of Connect Church in Rockdale, Texas, where we want to help you to live a life that matters. One that is both on mission and has a purpose to follow Jesus and make disciples. So let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

All right, welcome into Let's Connect, the official podcast of Connect Church here in Rockdale, Texas. I'm your host, Bill Whitmeyer, and I've got our pastor, as always, Ken Ansel, right here with me this Friday morning. We got a little delayed. We didn't get to tape yesterday because uh as bad as it sounds, the uh elevator in the courthouse caught fire. I was here. I was like three blocks from your house when I got the call, and I just called you and let you know and turned around and went. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

But it's kind of weird hanging out on a in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yeah. Yeah. But it's nice and cool. It feels good. Feels good out there, huh? Yeah. Are we in fall yet? Is it officially fall or are we still summer at this time?

SPEAKER_02 1:13

I think it's still summer.

Why Words Matter for Christians

SPEAKER_01 1:14

We're in that weird time of the year, so halfway through football season and it's starting to feel like fall, but no, we gotta say we're still in summer. So this is Connect Church here in Rockdale, Texas. Um, if you're here in Rockdale, you're always welcome to join us. We uh we won't I'll mention this at the end also, but you know, we have donuts, coffee, and fellowship at 10, and then service starts at 10 30. We have children's church and a nursery. We meet at the American Legion Post here in Rockdale. It's actually just north of town, but put it in your Google, you'll find it. So you you texted me um earlier this week about how our speech basically you you said, you know, using our tongue and and and you can go in the Bible and and look in your index and find tongue mentioned multiple times or words, that kind of stuff. And and I was just wondering, you know, kind of where you got that uh idea from.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Yeah, well, as Christians, you know, the church is supposed to be counter-cultural, and you brought up Luke 6 earlier that says, you know, out of the overflow of our heart, uh our our mouths speak. And so as Christians, if we're gonna be counter-cultural, we live in such a depressed, right, discouraging culture, like why not um realize one of our things we're supposed to be doing is encouraging people and uh not complaining, right? Complaining is a big deal. Philippians 2 14 tells us not to do that. So why not, why not uh it's Colossians says, let our uh conversations be seasoned with salt, right? We are salt, so we're to be a flavor enhancer, uh, we're to be light, we're to be a city on a hill. So, like, man, church, take advantage of that, right? Of this great mission God has given us. I mean, man, let's say good things. Toby Mack would sing, as you said, speak life. Yeah, sing it.

James 3: The Tongue’s Power

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Yeah, I you know, it's um our tongues can be used and and should be used to glorify God. And in our lives, our speech should show that example on a day-to-day basis. We also our our speech should be used for as we've talked about also that purpose of um I hate to use the word criticism because that's not a great you know, you'll hear people say constructive criticism, but but I I like to think of it more as instruction, you know, to to you know, using it to as an instruction on how we should be or what we should be doing or what we should be thinking about. Sure. And you're gonna get that in and like we always stress, you're gonna get that instruction, you're gonna get that word from from sinners. Because we're all we all sin. Even if we're saved, we still have that sinful nature that we'll do that from time to time. And so, but the when you when you talk about the tongues, you know, and you brought up some Bible verses, and then I I looked at it a little further, you got me inquisitive, so to speak. And so I went through and I wrote down some things and and and I thought we'd just touch on those. You know, we we talk all the time about we need to open our Bibles and stuff, and so I think sometimes on our podcast we probably need to, you know, look at those verses and talk about it, and that way folks can go back and flip through it. So wherever you download this from, you'll you you'll see a summary and and we'll list those verses in the summary as well as we talk about them today. So if you're not where you can write things down, if you're driving, please don't write anything down. But if you are where you you you can write it down, go ahead and write it down. And if you're not, you can look in that summary later on and find these verses and such. So but the first one that uh you know you mentioned in in your text to me in James, and so I went and James is not a very long book, so you can read the whole thing, and I decided instead of looking this one up, I was gonna read through James again because it's always it's it can be a hard book to read through, but it's a very informative book. And so in this case, it it was a you know James 3, 2 through 10, and just the short summary of it is it gives a lot of examples about how using your tongue, that small part of your body, can have such a big effect, and it relates it to say the rudder of a large ship. You know, the rudder is one of the smallest pieces of that ship, but it steers the ship or how just that small ember, you know, right now we're in a burn band here, you know, and the small ember can start a huge fire. And it's the same with your tongue. Your tongue can be used for good or for bad, just that one small muscle.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Yeah, small, sm maybe, yeah, exactly. I mean, and when we think about using our tongues for good, if that's the way we want to put it, uh we're talking about obedience, really, like Ephesians. You may I may be jumping ahead, but Ephesians 4 29 that says, you know, we're to say things that build up, not to tear down. And uh, yeah, again, you know, in in 2025, what does our culture need? You know, it needs a church that's gonna speak truth and love, but it's gonna encourage, say things that encourage, not discourage. I remember when uh years ago we we were going to St. Louis to prior to my call to ministry, we're going there to uh to find some, to start a company, start a business, and we were downtown and we were um, I mean, this is man, I don't know, 30 years ago. And uh I mean it was like stepping back in time. St. Louis wasn't Dallas, it didn't have a bunch of skyscrapers and glass buildings. And we started going through looking for office space downtown and and uh to to do demolition was was free, but to to build walls and construct uh those those office buildings wanted money for that. And it always sticks with what we're talking about for me, like to tear things down was basically no cost. I mean, they can get guys in there with sledgehammers and fill up a dumpster, but to to build walls and to construct costs something, and I think that's true for us as well. It's easy to tear people down, say things that tear down. It's much harder to construct, build people up. And uh just what a privilege and honor God has given us to to be people that are instructed to do that and to be obedient and what a joy, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah, it I mean the the the passage actually reads, it says, so also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. And I put the good and bad in there when I was writing down, you know, but but when it when when you say great things, I think a lot of times when we read the Bible or when we're looking at our churches, we just when we see great things, we always think, oh yeah, it's gonna be a great life, you know. And and sometimes those great things can be hard things too.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

And when we go to church, we want to hear that message that lets us know where we need to be. And sometimes that great thing is something great that really you think to yourself, wow, I I've got you know, I'm I'm not there. Yeah, you know, and it and and in a lot of cases it is great from the standpoint of to know how much God loves you. Because so many people think I have screwed my life up so much that there is nothing in this world that's gonna make me be able to come to God again or let God love me. And without folks using that tongue to give them that good message, they're not gonna know. They're you know, so many people won't even get up and go to church because they're just like, I've made a mess out of my life. God doesn't want anything to do with me, but he does.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Yeah, that's a lie from our adversary, right? That uh that they've shared. Yeah, that and we say they need someone to speak the truth in their life, you know, it's kind of what we're talking about.

Build Up, Don’t Demolish

SPEAKER_01 9:09

And so, you know, I kind of wrote down something to think about for yourself. I'm not telling you what to do, just something to think about. It's something that I thought about when I was reading it. Is this are are my words steering others to Christ or or away from him? Yeah, that's good. I know.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Then uh That didn't sting at all. That didn't hurt.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

No, it you brought it up, I think, in Bible study two weeks ago, and you you know you made the point. Um when's the last time you shared the gospel with somebody? And I was like, wow, you know, we may not cover everything that I have written down in my notes, but it I'll make sure that we put it in the notes with the podcast. But yeah, but you you brought that up the other night, and it was just about as bad as when you brought up the uh gospel detector, Christian detector thing. If we walk through there, is it gonna proclaim it? And and you start thinking about that, and you're like, wow, or or the other one was, how many people have you brought to Christ? Because that's what that's what Christ you know commissioned us to do was spread the gospel and bring people to Christ. And if we are Christians, those were two questions that it was like, wow, that was convicting in a way. You know, I wrote that down and I have thought about that just about every day since then. Yeah, and it was like, wow, that was that was heavy.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

That was heavy. That was heavy. And what you just said, I think was really heavy because I mean I was just praying yesterday that you know, I want to, I want to be that example or use my words uh properly for God first and foremost to bring him honor and glory, like you said. But but I think about in my home to to Jennifer, like I don't want to be a stumbling block, you know, I want to build her up in Christ. I want her to not be discouraged. I want her to uh for me not to bring her down or or to get her mind, you know, thinking uh a direction rather than you know rejoicing. I mean, it doesn't mean things aren't hard, but but yeah, we don't need to be um nobody likes Debbie Downer, right? And so if we're Debbie Downer all the time, what kind of example are we? Like I don't I don't see Christ as as as being a Debbie Downer. No. So I mean I speaking truth and love, like you just said.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Some people may find that I'm sure there were people that left the Sermon on the Mount thinking, you know, we uh we have this we have this fantastical idea that the Sermon on the Mount, everybody that left there was like, Yeah, you know, oh I'm I've I'm gonna make all these changes. And some and most people probably thought that. But I I always think to myself, you know, how many of those people left the Sermon on the Mount thinking, oh, that guy's crazy? What's he talking about? Most do you know, to turn the other cheek, you know, just what's he, you know, when you read through the Beatitudes and you read all of those and you're like, we sit here now going, Oh, this is great.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

But in reality, you know, when we go to church and a pastor or or someone that's that's I don't want to say in authority, I don't like that word, but you know, somebody who's thought of well in the church or is high on the church and challenge says something that challenges you, you know, we think you're just human. But you know what? There were people probably at that Sermon on the Mount that thought the same thing of Christ at the time. But when we read it, we're like, oh man, if I was there, I would have. Yeah, that's that's all that's perfect. Oh, yeah, yeah. But you know as well as I do there were people there going, this guy from Nazareth is crazy. Yeah, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

You know, these counterintuitive things that he's saying makes no sense.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

One of the things that uh last year was was a big focus on on our ministry was uh Philippians 2 14. It's do all things without grumbling or disputing. And uh, you know, complaining and negativity poison our testimony and discourage others. And um poison. You know, so I still have that wristband. Yeah. Did you make 21 days? No, I never did. I still I still I quit flipping it around because it's getting a little loose. I may need to get another one, but yeah, I've got some. But uh no, I I I I don't think anybody made it. I don't think anybody did either. I I don't I don't know that you can as a human being on the 21 days with extra. Especially if you drive. If you drive in the big city, you're really gonna have a hard time there. But but um keep going. That was cool. When you have those things, when you when those things come up and you realize that you're grumbling or that you're upset, that's kind of what we talked about with with with repentance a few weeks back. Was that's that repentance. You you do it, you've you realize you did it, and now you're like, oh man. And so those are the things that you do that to where you work towards eliminating that from life. You know, we've talked before about you know, I served in in several combat situations while I was in the Navy, and I had some PTSD, and and um I went through about five or six years of counseling, and one of the things they do is they teach you some coping mechanisms that at first you really have to think about, and you have to, you know, visualize using it and then use it and make sure you follow through with it, but those actions eventually become instinctual to where you don't have to voluntarily think about it, just becomes an involuntary type deal in your life, and as a Christian, that's the that's the kind of same sort of philosophy we should be working on. And there are still times when certain things will trigger me. Fireworks are the worst. I have to when I go in to watch fireworks show, like 4th of July, I watched the fireworks show that we had here in the county. I have to be deliberate about watching fireworks.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Oh bad.

Encouragement vs. Negativity in Culture

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Um, the other day I was standing on the street and somebody drove by and they rev their truck doing it and they backfired on purpose. And ten years ago I would have dove behind a truck or something. Now it's just startling to me, even more than it is for most people. But I've learned those. And as a Christian, we have to learn those things that are it's very similar that we have to take the things that by the world are not natural for us to do or how we act or how we react to people, and we have to learn to make that that's not instinctual. We have to learn to make that instinctual. And I think to me, when I when I think about repentance and when I think about how I speak to others in this case, or we're talking about today, am I doing things the way I should, and has it become instinctual, or is do I still and I still have to work at it. We talked earlier before we went before we started taping that last night I said something at home. It wasn't horrible, I wasn't ugly, but it might have been a little insensitive to the way one of our daughters thinks, and you know, she was hurt by it, and she left the room for whatever reason, good, bad, or ugly, she was she was hurt by it, and I had to stop and think about it, and I apologized and we talked about it just a little bit, but you have to think that's hard for me sometimes. You have to think before you do something. And and when you're you know, in this case it was something I said, you know, and and and uh so you just have to be careful when you're growing, you know, when you go back to Philippians 2 14, do everything without grumbling. Man, how many times do we know we need to do something? It's gotta get done, but we still complain about it.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Yeah, and it's a sin. Yeah, I mean, we need to make sure we categorize that.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Yeah. Especially when you have either the mental or physical ability to do something, but you still complain about it. You know, you the other day, the trash, one of my pet peeves is we have one of those closing trash cans that closes on both sides. And when I come home and the lid's not level because they've overstuffed it and it's lipped up or something, yeah. Oh, that drives me nuts. Yeah. Cat might get in, right? Or something. Or dog. No cat in this guy's house. So uh, so you know. Oh, this is inside the house. Oh, yeah, inside the house, in the kitchen. You know, we have one of those fancy ones somebody gave me where you when you push your foot down, it lifts up, you throw something in there, and then you take your foot off and it slowly shuts. I got you now. And it shuts level, but if it's overfilled and it drives me nuts, it's one of my pet peeves. Yeah. But and I'll, you know, I have to check myself when that happens, and I'll take the trash out. It doesn't bother me. But those things, those minor things like that, that that that that's how that's how evil is. It's that spark. Yeah, that's that spark.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

And so the next thing you know, nothing's right.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

And you and you start saying, you know, I I I the nurse still gives me a hard time when I'm driving because I I give people advice.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

You know, used to be it was not the nicest advice. Now it's just advice like, you know, I'll say things like you should consider having somebody else drive you around from, you know, kind of a driver's head, remote driver's head. But even then, you know, it's still not to where you want to be. But yeah, yeah, driving, driving more than anything tests my faith, as I always say. But but you know, it goes back to what I wrote down on that was before speaking, pause. And am I reflecting, you know, am I reflecting trust in God's goodness when I speak? Am I saying what what God would want me to say? And you have to stop and think about that. And so we go to Ephesians 4 29, which you brought up earlier, you know, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as good for building up, which is you know what we talk about from time to time, and and and if you want to call it um constructive criticism, I don't like using that, but I do like building up, building up as fits the occasion, yeah, that it may give grace to those who hear. Yeah. You know, our our words should be tools of construction, not like you said, demolition. That's funny. I wrote that down and you used the same thing. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Yeah, Proverbs is and we don't share notes beforehand, so no, Proverbs is just full of, you know, the using the right word at the right times, like like honey, or you know, it's it's something good. And and uh so yeah, we always want to be reminded of of that and um have a reputation, right? As Christians, have a reputation for what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Well, we talk about that a lot. You know, people should be able to just, you know, when when they see you, they should say, Man, that guy is a Christian. That guy believes in God. And and a lot of the way that people make that determination is by what you say. Yeah, they they can tell your heart, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:12

I mean, some people you tell their heart is dark.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

And here's the fact it's not an act. Um man, that rhymed. I didn't mean to do that. Ooh, rapping. I do that sometimes. But um, you know, the fact is is that it can be an act how you talk when you're around others, but when you screw up and you don't talk right, that's not an act also. Oh, I mean, that's you, that's who you are, you know, and so well, it's a little metric for you.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yeah, you can measure your own heart, right? You sure should be able to, yes. Because other people are gonna be judging your stance on where you are as a Christian based on how you talk and how you act. And and and unfortunately, talk and and our speech is probably way more than 50% of how people judge the way we act.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Yeah. Yeah, I was talking to a guy the other day. I thought he was a BTC, a big time Christian, man. The coarse language coming out of his mouth while he's talking about the Lord, and I mean, I'm just like, dude, I that's in your heart.

Repentance, Habits, and Speech

SPEAKER_01 21:21

I remember sometime it's a while back, and somebody was telling me how wonderful Joyce Meyer was, and because she used real talk. She uses some cuss words when she's talking about God, and I'm like, well, I don't think so. That's not right. Nope. You know, I mean that's not where you want to be. And as a matter of fact, I I heard her on a on a deal the other day, she was being interviewed, and she said she said something that was offensive that was that was a cigarette too. Maybe maybe. So I mean when you're talking about Ephesians 4 29, you know, you you you want to think to yourself, well, my words leave someone stronger in faith, hope, and love. Yeah. That that should be our angle when we're talking to somebody. And and here's the thing, that should be our angle when we're talking not only to the people we go to church with, but the people that we don't go to church with that are in our everyday life that we don't know if they even go to church. I I this is not to brag, but I was telling you, I ran into somebody that that that um he's older than me. He he was he already had kids and was an adult when I was still in high school, and we were talking and and um he was telling somebody there, and we were right here in town, and he was telling somebody at that meeting, because I didn't realize they knew my grandparents also. Um and uh he just you know he made me really think about how people describe me, but his his you know, his description, his his grandparents were some of the strongest Christians I've ever met in my life. And I thought, wow. And and they were, I mean, there's no doubt about it, but that's what their lives. We talk about this from time to time, you know, and recently there was um, you know, Charlie Kirk was was was killed, and and uh he uh he had said when in many interviews when people asked him, What do you want people to remember about you? And he said, I want people to remember my faith and how that was the most important thing in my life. And then like two weeks later, Robert Wedford died. And in in multiple interviews, they'd asked him what people wanted him to remember him by. That then he said that he was a professional actor, a good actor, and that the environment meant everything to him. And I thought, wow, you know, and so when when that gentleman said that about my grandparents, I thought, you know, I want to be remembered like that. Not that I ever need to be remembered for anything, but when if I am, I want to be remembered like that, because if that's how people remember me, then that means that I did the best I could while I was here on earth. Because here's the thing is when we talk about all this, and we're getting long right now, but when we talk about all this, our time on earth, our life is should be is infinite from the time we're born, it just goes on. But our time on earth is extremely finite.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

You know, you you think about the people who were alive on earth who were Christians during the time of Jesus or shortly after during that first century, they're still alive. They're just in heaven. Their time on earth was maybe 70 years.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Yeah, less than that back then, I think.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

But their time, let's say they were born in the year 20. Their time 2,000 years, which time means nothing in heaven, but still when we talk about our lives on earth and how much we spend worrying about minutiae, which that new boat, that new car, that new house, our vacations, our everything else, the clothes we wear, all that's minutia. It doesn't mean anything because you know one of my brothers learned it the hard way, you know. Of course, my my brother, one of my brothers passed away just a few weeks ago, and and one of the other brothers learned from that we were going through his office, and he's like, Man, none of this matters. All this stuff was so important to him when he was alive, and now to us, it it it it's just his stuff, and it and you know, it really doesn't matter to most other people. And so as you're going through your daily life and you're thinking about that thing that's so important, that new vehicle, the the trip you're fixing to take, this, that, or the other, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter because the day your body stops working here on earth, you're not dead. You're yeah, you're you're just in another place, and you know, like we talked about one time, you have two places you can go. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Where do you want to be? You've got a great story. Uh we don't have time today on that. But and you know, you get extra credit if you can spell minutia.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah, I'm not doing that. I can say it. I can say lots of words I can't spell.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

You know, you you and I uh let me share this, and uh yeah, I know we need to go, but uh I've got a good friend, you know, out in California that is probably the only one that's really discipled me outside of my parents, and he still invests time in me. I talk about him all the time, and and uh just he sends me cards, you know, we correspond old school with stamps and everything, and uh the last few cards he sent me, super encouraging. I mean the very thing we're talking about, just all the time encouraging me, but but truthfully, he's not false flattery at all. And and I know we both feel the same way about pride and using that term, you know, like we're proud of people. Uh because it's it's such a pride is such a a negative thing, you know. Um but in the last three cards he sent me, he said, I'm so proud of you. And um, you know, I don't know, take this in the same spirit, but like like wow, that made me feel good. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like for him to go, can I'm so pleased, pleased with you is probably maybe a better word, but I wouldn't want to correct him. But it's just like, wow, thank you for for just noticing, validating, maybe noticing the work that I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

You know, the thing is we shouldn't need that, but in in in it was a choice word at a good time. It's it's sometimes we need that. And you know what? God puts those people in our lives to when we when we start to question ourselves or when we start to have issues, he puts people in our lives, maybe people that aren't Christians, but he'll put people in our li people in our lives to, if you want to say validate that, that to validate where we're going or what we're doing. Infirm, yeah. Yeah, it's good.

Ephesians 4:29 Applied at Home

SPEAKER_02 28:09

All right, heads up today.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

You are, sir.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

All right, let's do it. Oh gracious Father, we love you. We're amazed by you. We we can't believe you have given us eternal life, forgiveness of our sins. Lord, you know, help help Bill and I and those that are listening to to take your word, the scriptures that we've read today, and and have them become part of the fabric of our life. Father, let us really take on the the uh the yoke of encouraging others, saying the right thing at the right time, and seeking to be a blessing because our hearts are filled with with you. In your son's holy name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Amen. All right, well, that is episode 33, I think. I'm starting to lose count now. 34? It's one of it's one of those. It's either Tony Dorset or Earl Campbell. I'm not certain, but it's one of the two. Hey, if you're local on Sunday, come visit with us. We open the doors at 10. We're actually there a little earlier than that because we have to set up, but we open the doors at 10. We have donuts and coffee and fellowship. Service starts at 10:30, and you're more than welcome to join us any Sunday you're here. If not, well, we'll be back next week with another episode of Let's Connect. Till then, God bless you.