The Tongue, Treasure and Truth Telling

I'm so glad to be sharing with y'all tonight. We're gonna go back to a discussion that we had in our small group a couple weeks ago. I can't remember the last time we met for small group, but it's been a couple weeks. But we were on the topic of the tongue from James chapter three. I wanna revisit that. We're gonna recap a little bit, and we're gonna dive a little bit deeper onto the subject of the tongue. And if you are a title person, if you take notes, tonight's gonna be the tongue, treasure, and truth telling. The tongue, treasure, and truth telling. So let's revisit James chapter three, verses one through 12.

If you wanna go ahead and flip there, we're gonna be in a lot of places in scripture tonight. Don't feel like you have to jump around with me, but let's do look at James chapter three, verses one through 12. 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, 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 so large and are 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 come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. So a couple of points to refresh our memory on this. James, remember James teaches that if anyone ever did managed to have total control over their tongue, that would make that person a perfect person.

He would be perfect, but he also says that no human being can tame the tongue. And the illustrations that James uses for the tongue are destructive fire, a stain that spreads through the whole body, an instrument full of deadly poison, a fountain of cursing. And scripture gives us so many of these vivid illustrations, and we should really read these things and allow our imagination to be fueled by these things. We should imagine what it means for our mouth to be like a fountain of cursing or a deadly instrument full of poison. And I have a little confession here to make. Do we have any Indiana Jones fans here?

It's okay to be an Indiana Jones fan. Anybody? People? Indiana Jones. Do you know who Indiana Jones is? You? I am like Indiana Jones in that I do not like snakes. Any other way is pretty much out of the window, but in the sense that he does not like snakes, I do not like snakes. They just looking, Tommy texted us a picture of a snake the other day, and Patty's raising her hand in praise and worship, I don't know, affirmation. Tommy sent us a picture of a snake, and my whole body recalled when it popped up. I don't like snakes.

Years ago, and I'm going somewhere with this, I'm sure you're already wondering, years ago I worked for a company out of Jackson that did marketing for the Museum of Natural Science, and they had a special show, it was a reptile show, and part of our job was to do the marketing for this reptiles event they were having. And so we did commercials, we did some graphics posters, but we also did, we videoed a commercial on site.

So we went over to the Museum, and a snake handler, a reptile handler was there with tons of cages, and we had a table, and we had our camera equipment set up, and I was the web designer then, I'm a web designer now, but for some reason I got roped into coming and helping with this, 'cause there was a lot of equipment, a lot of things needed to be set up.

And the first couple of things were the reptiles, the geckos and bearded dragons and other stuff, they would bring them out, put them on this white open table, there was no restraint or anything, but it was just this open table, and we would film them, and I think we were doing funny voices or something, 'cause it was for kids, but then the snakes came out, and I looked at my boss, and I said, I'm out, I'm done, y'all can handle this, you got this, I believe in you, and I just, I left. I remember, and I think they still have it, the two-headed snake there at the Museum of Natural Science. No, no, I don't like those things.

But you know what, I thought of that, as I was reading and studying this, and considering the tongue being full of deadly poison, I thought, I'm scared to death of snakes, but I've never been bitten one by one. But I have been abused verbally, I've been accused of things, I think we all could say that we've suffered by the tongue of somebody else, right? But I've never been bitten by a snake, but I don't go around and recall at people when they open their mouth, but it's just kind of strange to me. So James says it's like an instrument full of deadly poison.

And there are three questions I want us to try to answer and meditate on tonight, three things. How does God react to our sinful tongue? That's question one. Question two will be, what does it mean to be a truth-tiller? And question number three, how do we tame our tongues? How do we tame our tongues? Is James correct? Is the tongue untameable entirely? So let's start with question number one. How does God react to our sinful tongues? And at this point, if you want to turn to these passages, that's fine, or if you just want to sit and listen, that's fine as well, make notes, however you want to do it.

But don't feel like you have to flip to all these places. Proverbs six, familiar voice, 16 through 19, familiar verse, "There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies and one who sows discord among brothers." Of the six slash seven things that are listened here that the Lord hates, three of them are activities of the tongue, three of them in that list. The tongue is capable of great evil.

James knew it, he wrote about it, other places in scripture deal with this as well. And I think it would be helpful to explore the origins of sinful tongues from biblical history. And the origin of sinful tongue goes all the way back to the beginning when the serpent came to Eve and told her lies, half truths and lies, and sowed the seeds of discord between God the creator and those he created in his image. Genesis three, one through five, let's revisit that real quickly. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?" And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. And I want us to remember that Proverbs six says that God hates a lying tongue, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

And we found all those things here in Genesis chapter six, here, Genesis chapter three, excuse me. We find all those things in Satan, the enemy of God in Genesis chapter three. He's lying, he's bearing false witness, he's breathing out lies, and he is one who sows discord. Well, you may think, well, how is he doing that? He's sowing discord between God and his creation. He's trying to unravel the relationship that Adam and Eve had, that perfect relationship they had with the Lord. He is one who sows discord.

I love when New Testament commentary and Old Testament commentary just kind of speak to one another, but John eight speaks to this as well. This is verse 31 through 47. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word and you are truly my disciples, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. They answered him, we are the offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever.

So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you were the offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my father and you do what you have heard from your father. And they answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did.

And if anybody was unclear about the direction he was going with, Jesus makes us exceptionally clear to the people he's speaking to. They said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. So what can we take away from these verses that's gonna help us in our thinking about the tongue? I think first of all, Jesus was a sinless truth-teller. Every single thing he spoke came from the mouth of God and the will of God.

And Jesus pointed out that these Jews could not receive the truth because they were children of their father, the devil, who is, quote, a liar and the father of lies. And as much as God is the source of truth, the devil is the source and originator of all lies and lying. And a question for us tonight, which father are you like? Are you a truth-teller like your father God? Or are you the source of lies, abuse, and discord like your father the devil? In our culture, we would say that the, about children, that the apple does not fall far from the tree.

I've got a friend in Laurel, who every time he sees JP, he looks at him and says, "Cloning is real." But the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, right? That's what we would say in our culture. Jesus says here that the sinful activity of the tongue is evidence that the sinful apple has not fallen far from the sinful tree. And inversely, those who know the Lord will consistently bear the fruit of their father, who is the source of truth. It's really interesting how Jesus phrases the truth that he has. He says, "I speak of what I have seen with my father, and we should do the same.

With by drawing near to God in the study of his word, personally and corporately, we should speak of the things that we have seen with our father because we have drawn near to him, we have heard from him from his word, personally, corporately, those should be the things that we're speaking of." Jesus had perfect fellowship with the father. The things that he spoke were the things that came from his father. He was a truth teller. He was a truth teller. Another question for us tonight is, how are we drawing near to hear from our father? Are we making time for it? Are we making headspace for it?

We have many things that compete for our attention and time, but are we being faithful to protect both for our relationship with our father? And I would say, beware of that. You can make time available in your day, but still somehow neglect attention. And I'm preaching to myself in saying this. Sometimes you can make 30 or 45 minutes available to sit down and read and pray, but because of everything else that's encapsulated those 45 minutes, your brain is just cooked. I have to be very careful with my time and attention.

I can spend my time being so engrossed in distraction that when I do try to make time for the Lord, I can't focus because there are so many other things fighting for my attention. I don't think it's strange to say that we can be so engrossed in our phones when we put them down sometimes. We can just kind of feel like we don't have anything left to give mentally. And in thinking about this, I kind of thought about it this way. My wife and I always look forward to the next time we get to have a date night when the boys can be somewhere else and be taken care of and we can slip away and have a date night.

But if all the things that I did during the day, if I went out and worked physically or I worked hard mentally all day long, and then I immediately switched gears to trying to have a date with her and I sat down at a restaurant with her and my brain was cooked or my body was tired, I would not really be present there with her. It wouldn't be very good time. Or if I'm sitting there in the restaurant with her and I'm constantly picking up my phone and looking at it, it wouldn't be, I wouldn't be a very good date. The food may be good, we may have that time, but I wouldn't be a very good date to be with.

I have to give time and attention to my life for it to be meaningful. And we have to do the same. We have to protect our time and attention. I've talked about this with our men in our small group before, but Wednesday nights are especially difficult for me. Because sometimes I can work throughout the day and I feel like I don't, I don't literally close my laptop lid, but I shut down the computer, get up, go brush my teeth and come to church and sit down and I'm like, okay, try to focus, come on brain, you can do it. Just hold on for a little while.

And I have to maybe do some things during the day that help me anticipate being under the preaching and teaching of the word on a Wednesday night. Whether that's spending time, maybe during my lunch break, reading the things that we're going to be studying that night. If I know the direction we're going, taking time to read that scripture and get my brain going in that direction. Sometimes it feels like on Wednesday night, you're trying to make a hard U turn to go the other direction mentally and it's tough. It can be real tough, but we have to protect our time and our attention. Jesus spent time with the father.

He had perfect relationship with the father and we must pursue these same things. If we want to be truth tellers like Christ, then we have to be with the father. We have to be in his word. We have to be under his word corporately, personally. We have to be close to the father in order to know what the father is saying. I thought about Jesus clearing the temple when I was reading through this. So we know the story that Jesus very violently cleared out the temple at one point. There were money changers there who were taking people's money and giving them animals for the sacrifice.

It was kind of a pop-up economy where tourists were being exploited might be a word that you could use for money in their religious journey here to Jerusalem. They wanted to be able to make an offering at the temple and there are people there who are ready to make a quick buck by giving them the animals that they need. If you're traveling to Jerusalem in this day and age, it's not like you could bring your animal with you that you're gonna sacrifice, you'd buy it there. And Jesus, we know the story.

He made a cord of whip out of some ad hoc whip and ran everybody off and overturned tables and probably his disciples got to see that side of him and maybe were shocked by what he did, but why? Why? Why so such a strong response to these people who are in the temple? And there are probably a lot of reasons, but I think one of the primary ones was that what these people were doing competed with the primary purpose of the temple, to be a place of prayer. And yet they were diverting that purpose.

They were exploiting people and diverting that purpose and being a distraction right in the middle of the temple that was supposed to be out people's time, beholding their God and being reverent and breaking an offering. And Jesus saw this competing with their worship and he violently ran the money changers out of the temple. And I think sometimes God wants to violently run through my life and remove distractions, remove things that have gotten way too much of my attention. We have to be careful with these things. What competes for your attention in life and in worship? So question number two, what does it mean to be a truth teller?

So James wrote that the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. And there is another place in scripture that speaks of tongues and fire. And you may have studied this with your small group a couple of weeks ago, but in Acts chapter two is another place in scripture where tongues and fire are mentioned together. So Acts chapter two, first four verses says, when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind and it filled the entire house where they were sitting and divided tongues as the fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterances. And some parts of our religious culture today, I even saw it in social media recently and flipping through videos. There was some church somewhere where a lady preacher was running across stage and there's no such thing that's just using that term to describe what I was seeing. This lady was running across the stage. She's preaching, saying something in English and then she stops mid-sentence and just goes into some made up dialect.

And she's fist pumping and everybody in the crowd is freaking out because she's speaking in tongues and then she stops and then just continues with her sentence. And it was funny, it was funny because the video had captions of everything that she said right up to the point where she started boom shakalaka and then it just stopped. There was nothing there, nothing in the captions and then it picked back up when she started speaking in English again. I just thought that was funny. Even they can't interpret what she was saying. They have no idea what she's saying. It's just theater. That is not what's happening here in Acts.

You have to remember that in Jerusalem, you have all these people visiting from other places, people who spoke different languages from all different parts of the world. And you have this gathered group of people, all kind of different dialects. Not everybody speaks the same language and God gave a very practical, a very effective gift for these men who had this manifestation of the spirit of tongues of fire coming to rest on them. They walked out and they started preaching the gospel in the languages of the people that were there. Extremely practical. It wasn't mystical. Nobody was speaking gibberish.

People who were there were in awe because suddenly they're hearing their own language. They're hearing gospel being preached to them in their own language. So the point in contrast that I wanna draw our attention to here is that James says in our sinful flesh, our tongues are a fire, a world of unrighteousness. But in the book of Acts, tongues of fire came to rest on these men and they preached the gospel. They preached the gospel. In our sinful nature, our tongues are like destructive flamethrowers. But in our redemption in Christ, our tongues can be a fire for the gospel.

James said that a small sinful spark from the tongue can set a great forest ablaze. And that's real relevant to us. You can't turn on the news today without seeing the news about a wildfire somewhere that's just gotten entirely out of control and has burned houses down, has burned entire neighborhoods down and was probably started from a very small spark, a cigarette that was thrown out or somebody intentionally setting a small fire. We know what it's like when fire grows and becomes destructive. That's what James compares the sinful tongue to.

But in the Holy Spirit and with the word of God, we can spark fires throughout the world for Christ. In Acts 17, six, they were accused, the evangelists were accused of turning the world upside down with their preaching. A great forest was set on fire by the relative small spark on the day of Pentecost. And being like our father means being a truth teller and there is no greater or more valuable truth to be told than that of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And our people, I'm very thankful for this, that we sent out a group of people to Selkirk, Manitoba to go and speak the gospel to kids in that community. That's what they're going forth to do.

They're going forth to be truth tellers like their father. So 3 John 1.8 says, "Therefore we ought to support people like these, "that we may be fellow workers for the truth. "We want to be truth tellers. "We want to be partners in the gospel "and spreading the gospel." The redeemed tongue isn't just redeemed to speak kind words, it's redeemed to speak the gospel primarily, purposefully. Some people have an expectation of Christians that we're just going to be nice, that we're gonna be pleasant, that we're gonna be nice people. And that should be true.

We should be kind, we should be loving, but our tongues are redeemed primarily to speak the gospel to people. Not just to be nice to people, but to speak the gospel to them, to be truth tellers like our father. So our third question tonight, how do we tame our tongues? James says the tongue is an outlet, a well, a fountain, but the source is always the heart. The source for that well, the source for that outlet, the source for that fountain is always the heart. And in my imagination, the heart is like a warehouse and the tongue is like a delivery truck. What gets delivered by the truck is what comes from the warehouse.

Matthew 12, 34 says, for how the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Proverbs 4, 23, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Luke 6, 45, the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good. And the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. And I want us to see the language that's used here in Luke 6, the good person out of the good treasure and the evil person out of his evil treasure. The picture that's being painted here is that our hearts are like treasure chests.

They're where we store up the things that are valuable to us. So the question for us tonight, what are we treasuring up in the warehouse of our heart? What are we filling up the warehouse of our heart with? I've already invoked Indiana Jones, so I'll do it one more time. So Raiders of the Lost Ark has this scene at the very end of the movie. If you have seen it or know the context of it, Indiana Jones finds the Ark and returns it to America. The government gets it. And the last scene in the movie is they take the Ark, they put it into a wooden crate, they seal it up, and they stick it in a big warehouse.

And you get this tight shot of a guy kind of pushing the wooden crate into this warehouse, and then the camera starts to zoom out and you see this enormous warehouse full of crates. And it's an incredible scene. It always sparked my imagination as a kid because the implication is that this is where they put the Ark. What is all this other stuff? What's in all these other crates? 'Cause all you see in the picture is just a bunch of wooden crates and just rows and rows of a warehouse. And one guy with a little trolley and there's nobody else there, but all these crates. And the implication is that there's probably powerful or important stuff.

This is where they're storing the Ark of the Covenant. Then what else is here? It's a great picture because it's a picture of a warehouse full of treasure, hidden things. So what are we treasuring up in the warehouses of our heart? What are we keeping there? What are we storing up in our hearts? What would be on the shelves? If you wanna use your imagination for a minute, if you were walking through the storehouse of your heart, what kind of things are you keeping on the shelves there? What kind of things make up the rows and rows in the warehouses of our heart? So here's the important implication from this for the tongue.

The business of heart treasuring is the business of tongue supplying. And that's just the way I would put it. The business of heart treasuring is the business of tongue supplying. Psalm 119.11, "I have stored up your word in my heart "that I might not sin against you." Joshua 1.8, "This book of the law shall not depart "from your mouth, but you shall meditate it on it day "and night so that you may be careful to do "according to all that is written in it, "for then you will make your way prosperous "and then you will have good success." So what are we treasuring up through our eyes and ears?

And I told the men of our small groups a couple weeks ago when we were studying this, be careful what fascinates you. Be careful what fascinates you. And this may be a men thing, it may be a women thing, but I know it's a guy thing. We can get real fixated on a hobby and we can get really into it. But in that process of being fascinated with something is the process of treasuring up something in our heart and mind. And for men, sometimes it can get out of hand very quickly.

I've heard Tommy talk about his hobbies of playing golf before and how he treasured up those things to a point in his life where he felt like it'd become an idolatrous thing in his life. It'd become something that competed with his worship of the Lord. It became something that he treasured up far too much. The business of heart treasuring is the business of tongue supplying. And a sad, sinful reality is that, and there are a lot of people in the world who are treasuring up a lot of pornography in our world.

I don't know if that occurs to you like it occurred to me in studying this in terms of what are people treasuring up with their eyes and their ears. We've got a lot of people in the world who are treasuring up a lot of pornography. That is what's in their heart warehouse. And I hope that just gives you the ick or disturbs you or whatever you wanna call it. I hope that grieves you. I hope that grieves you. And I would also say this, teaching and preaching in our church is not going to be very effective for us unless we are treasuring the teaching and preaching in our church. And we may be hearing, but are we treasuring?

Are we meditating over what's being preached and taught? Are we praying and wrestling with what's being preached and taught in our church? Are we mining it, purifying it through study and meditation? This may sound strange, but I want you to think about a question for a second. What's the difference between somebody who is a hoarder and somebody who is a collector? How many of you watch reality TV shows about hoarding? Be honest. We're in church, can't lie. Patty's got her hand up. Thank you, Patty. I've seen them. I can't watch it. It's just, it is emotionally disturbing for me to watch those things.

But, and I'm not speaking as a medical expert here, but someone who is hoarding has lost the ability to discern what is truly valuable. So they wound up not being able to let go of anything. When I was thinking through this, I had this memory back when I was, I think in college still, I took a group of youth from my church out to one of our members' houses after Hurricane Katrina to help clean up her yard. It was the elderly lady in our church. She was a member. She had some needs in her home and in her yard where we just went out and we were gonna clean up.

And I maybe kind of halfway knew that she might be a little bit of a hoarder, but when I got there, it was 100% confirmed that yes, she is definitely a hoarder. She had a big suburban. And I feel like there was an era where suburban's were more enormous than they were now, but she had one of those really, really big suburban's. And she was an older lady, pretty small. Of course, everybody's small to me. I'm six-four, everybody looks a little short, but she was a little lady with this big suburban.

And from the passenger seat, from floor to ceiling, from front to back, basically everywhere that was not the driver's seat was stacked with things, papers, random things, bags, packages, just from bottom to top filled. And I always saw our vehicle and I just went, huh, I wonder what's up with that. And then I got to her house and I realized, okay, this is what's up with that. She had cars parked in her yard and it was like a museum of history of cars going back and further into history where it looked like she drove them, just like she drove the suburban, filled them up with stuff. At some point that vehicle quit.

She parked it, went out and bought another one and started the whole process. And she had three or four cars lined up in the yard that were not moving and had not moved for a long time. Tires blown, they're half sunk into the grass, or there really wasn't any grass 'cause it was just literally a foot of leaves on the ground in a row. I didn't go into her house, but the people who did came back and told me the same thing. You can barely walk down the hallway because there's stacks of newspapers and just the whole house is just a collection of things. So why talk about that? Why bring that up?

I think the difference between collectors, people who go out and look for things that are valuable and a hoarder is the ability to tell, this has value. This has value, this does not. This can be thrown away. This does not hold value. This does, you should keep this. A collector has the ability to see an object that is rare. It's worth a lot of money, whether it's coins or stamps or whatever thing that you collect. They have the ability to see something and recognize it for its value. But people who struggle with this condition, they can't figure out, is this piece of paper worth something? Should I keep it?

And they have this inability to throw that away, that this emotional attachment to it. What about us? Are we treasurers or are we hoarders of things? And what I mean by that is this, what are we treasuring up with our eyes and our ears? And are we more like a collector, finding things that are truly of value, things that are worth holding onto, or are we more like a person who would be called a hoarder in our culture, just gathering up all kinds of things with our eyes and our ears by the things that we watch, the things that we listen to, the things that we treasure, the hobbies that we have?

Are we just in the business of collecting things that don't have real value? Are we spiritually treasure collectors? Are we more spiritually like hoarders? What are we collecting up in our heart of hearts? So, I got really off track here, just a second. What are we collecting with our hearts and minds? Is it junk or is it things of value? And I don't think it's very hard for us spiritually as people who are engaged with the word to really know what is valuable, what is worth investment of my time and attention, and what is not. So, I don't know if that sparks your imagination like it did for mine, but maybe meditate on that. Think on that.

Are we spiritually treasure hunters, or are we more like somebody who is hoarding up things? We should be careful what fascinates us. And I'm certainly not here telling anybody what they should or should not listen to. These things are matters of conscience. They're matters of discernment. But I would say this, be a treasure hunter. Be a treasure hunter. I don't know if that sparks your imagination. I think about Indiana Jones, or I think about people who actually go out and dig and dig for treasure or dig for gold. But we should be spending our time and attention going after things that hold value in eternity.

Not just things that are temporary, things that are really just refuse. And I'm not going to say you shouldn't spend time looking at your phone. I'm not gonna say you shouldn't spend time listening to podcasts or watching television or watching movies or listening to this kind of music or that kind of music. I would just say this, be a treasure hunter. Be somebody who treasures up the word of God. Be somebody who treasures up the preaching and teaching of God's word because out of the supply of the heart, the mouth speaks. So what's coming out of your mouth are the things that you're treasuring up in your heart.

So let's recap some of the big questions that we can meditate on. Are we being truth tellers like our father God? Or are we more like our father, the devil, the source of all lies and lying and discord? Are we telling people around us the most important truth of all, the gospel truth? Are we using our tongue as a redeemed instrument to share the gospel? Are we treasure hunters of valuable things from God's word, from the preaching and teaching of the church, or are we hoarders, more like hoarders, gathering up useless trash from the world? Let's pray and then we'll move into some prayer needs.