Continuing the Series on the Tongue

Pastor Ortiz reminded the church that last week's introduction to this series, on James chapter 3, had struck a nerve. Several people told him afterward how convicting it was, since no man can tame the tongue applies to everyone equally. Tonight's message went further than simply managing words. It aimed at the heart producing them, and he opened in James chapter 3 with the same verse the series began on, behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth, before backing up into chapter 1 to show where the fire actually starts.

Hearing Shapes Speaking

From James 1:19, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, Pastor Ortiz pointed out the order is deliberate. Being swifter to hear and slower to open our mouths is what makes a person slower to wrath in the first place. He said most anger in a conversation comes from not staying quiet long enough to hear the other person's position, then talking over them until frustration turns into anger, and referenced hearing on a podcast that overtalking is the single biggest reason people do not want to stay close to someone. Husbands who talk over their wives, or wives who undercut their husbands, only make the same problem worse from the other direction. He said the street goes two ways, and homes would be happier if people listened more than they talked, because hearing affects speaking and speaking affects emotion.

Looking Honestly in the Mirror

He moved to verse 22, be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, and read the illustration in verses 23 through 25 of a man who looks in a mirror, sees his own face, and walks away forgetting what he looked like. Pastor Ortiz pushed the picture further: if you looked in the mirror and saw food in your teeth or lipstick out of place and did nothing about it, everyone would call that foolish, yet that is exactly how many people treat their own speech. He told two stories to make the point personal. As a teenager, his uncle Will once picked him up from school after hearing him curse and told him that an ignorant mind cannot produce a vocabulary higher than profanity, that cursing is simply empty words revealing an empty mind, a comment Pastor Ortiz said he has never forgotten. He also described a recent visit to a chiropractor who, despite a heavy accent, had spent years deliberately practicing how he spoke to patients, even rehearsing lines from television shows with his wife, because, as the chiropractor put it, people depend on my communication. Pastor Ortiz said that is exactly the lesson of the mirror: look at your own flaw first, because you can only fix yourself, not anyone else.

He carried the same passage into verse 25's warning against being a forgetful hearer, someone who hears clearly what is expected and still fails to keep it. He compared it to a parent who asks a child to do three chores and the child only does one, then says simply, I forgot, when asked about the rest. The child heard, he said, but did not treat it as important enough to keep, and he said the church is full of longtime members who know exactly what they are supposed to do and have simply become forgetful hearers about it.

A Small Member, an Oversized Power

Returning to James 3:5-6, Pastor Ortiz read that the tongue is a little member yet boasteth great things, behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. He said fire itself is not the problem. A contained fire under a pot of marshmallows or in a fireplace on a cold night, something he said he loved doing with his own kids even though his wife Steph disliked the smoke, is a good and welcome thing. The same fire loose on a hillside covered in dry brush becomes dangerous within minutes. Every word functions the same way, as a tool, a weapon, or a loose fire, and he said the surest test of a person's faith is not what they say when calm but what comes out when they are angry, since that reveals what the heart actually holds.

What an Unchecked Tongue Costs

It causes relational destruction. From Proverbs 16:28, a forward man soweth strife, and a whisperer separateth chief friends, Pastor Ortiz defined a forward man as someone who speaks before he thinks. From Proverbs 17:9, he that covereth a transgression seeketh love, but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends, he said gossip works the same way: if something needs to be addressed, address the person directly, because repeating it to others only tears relationships apart. He set that against Proverbs 17:28, even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise, and told the church plainly that if someone is not strong enough to talk to a person directly about an issue, the wiser move is to keep quiet altogether. He made the point personal, admitting that just the day before he had mentioned something to staff that God convicted him about overnight, so he texted the friend involved to say the comment probably was not wise. The friend's reply, you're right, stuck with him as proof that how we speak matters not only to us but to everyone within reach of it.

It causes personal ruin. Pastor Ortiz read Proverbs 18:21, death and life are in the power of the tongue, before turning to James 3:6, that the tongue defileth the whole body, not just the mouth. He gave two examples from camp week: a young man who called his own father an idiot for spending his savings without permission, and a girl who told counselors that camp was the first week in a long time she had not had to worry about being abused. In both cases, he said, unchecked speech in a home does not stay contained to words, it shapes an entire life.

It affects spiritual life. Matthew 12:34, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, means speech is diagnostic, not incidental. A person can sing on Sunday and curse out a spouse or a boss on Monday and call it simply being angry, but Pastor Ortiz said the heart's actual condition is what leaks out under pressure.

It affects public witness. From Titus 2:8, sound speech that cannot be condemned, he said a weak Christian witness is rarely just a lack of Bible knowledge. It is often the negative, careless speech a person allows into their own ears all week bleeding back out into how they talk to others.

The Real Test

Closing in Matthew 12:33-36, Pastor Ortiz read that a tree is known by its fruit and that every idle word will be accounted for in the day of judgment. He described what that fruit can look like in practice: I just don't like reading my Bible, scary; I just don't want to give my money to that church, scary; I don't want to give my life in service, scary. A life with no desire for any of it, he said, is not primarily a discipline problem, it may be evidence that a person was never saved to begin with. He was careful to frame this rightly for a believer, though: this is not about earning or losing salvation, since Christ has already paid for that account, but a call to notice what a person's own words reveal about what is really in their heart. He said the point is not guilt but motivation, to want to speak words that matter because they come from His word. Several in the church responded to the invitation that followed, some indicating they recognized from their own speech that they were not yet saved, others asking for prayer to change how they speak going forward.