Latest / The Daily Word / July 19 – Only You Can Prevent A Forest Fire
Transcript
- Cory: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night. Whenever you are joining us, welcome to the Daily Word Podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey, and it is my privilege to pastor our Catabus. And I'm excited to be sitting down with you for another Daily Word episode. Now, today is July the 19th. It's been a hot week, and Pastor James is also serving up the heat here today in chapter three. in James chapter three, James deals a lot with our tongues and the power of what we speak. How hard it is to tame the tongue, how hard it is to make sure that everything that comes out of our mouth is pure. And he uses a lot of different analogies in this chapter to really talk about what what power the tongue has. And one of those we can see in verse five, where he says, likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. Now this was particularly poignant to me. Just just a couple weeks ago, my wife and I went on our baby moon. We took a trip to Southern California and we drove along the coast. And what and and we don't really see it all that much here in the Carolinas, but there they have a lot of wildfires. They have a very dry climate, so there are signs with smoky the bear everywhere over there. In fact, I I went into a Target because I needed a baseball cap because we had a convertible and my forehead was roasting. And one of the hats that they had, I I bought it because I thought it was cool. It's just a smokey the bear hat. b only you can prevent a forest fire because, you know, this is this slogan has been around for a long time because people would carelessly go out in the woods and especially back when smoking was More popular than it is today with cigarettes, and they would throw out a a cigarette butt or or something of that nature, and it would catch a forest, a whole forest on fire from just one little cigarette. And that is a picture that James is leaning into to show us the the the enormity of the mess our mouths can make. And you don't have to walk with Jesus long to realize just how true that is. We all know what it's like to be caught up in in the heat of the moment and say something that we didn't really mean or that we didn't think out. And we see the great harm that it can cause to the people that we love. We've all experienced this in our our families, our our marriages if we're if we're married, especially us husbands. I know that I've lived it. I remember I remember back when when Megan and I were were first dating. It took a little while for my in-laws to warm up to me. And and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I was like the first serious boyfriend and and their children and Megan was the firstborn. Anyway. I remember on one of my first couple trips, I I did what I did and and still do, just thankfully less often. I I said something dumb, just just dumb, regrettable. And I remember Megan's father Dan quoting Jesus and saying, you know, I understand that that that we're all A work in progress, but you do realize when you said that that Jesus tells us in Matthew 12 34 that the mouth speaks out of what the heart is full of. He he quoted the New King James Version, which says, Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. But it's true, and those are the words of Jesus that out of our mouth full. Flows what our heart is full of. So James in this chapter goes back to time and time again how unruly the tongue is and how it is untamable by man short of the grace and mercy of God. No. So I suppose for our application today, it's not gonna take us all that long to look back on the last couple weeks and and remember a time. that our mouth got ahead of us and we ended up saying something that was just a little a little spark that could set a forest on fire. recognize like what was it that led up to that to that moment? What is it that you need to bring to Jesus? Like when when we lose control of our mouth, what is it that's like Precipitating that? What is leading up to that moment? Is there a is there a is there a theme that we can notice in our life that when this topic or this situation comes up, that our mouth gets ahead of us? Are we are we always wanting to have attention on us and we're willing to say things to to garner that attention? Is that when we feel our our pride getting poked, that we kind of snap. Back. What is it in our lives that we are struggling to have our mouth be tamed? Isolate that and just take it to Jesus. Talk to him about it. Say, Lord, I recognize that there's this pattern in my life and I need your help to overcome it. Because I don't, I don't want my heart to be full of that. I don't want my mouth to be to be spewing these things out. I don't want to start a forest fire. Only I can prevent those. And just and just talk with Jesus, talk with the Holy Spirit, and see if He can't lead you in the path of healing your heart in whatever area that is so that the next time it comes up, your mouth won't get ahead of you and won't get you in trouble. Let's pray today. Father, we just thank you that every time we come to your word, you have such beautiful things to share with us. We think that it's active, it's breathing, it's living, it's sharper than any two-edged sword, and it divides right down to the joint and marrow, right down to the spirit and the soul. And it points to the truth every single time. So we thank you, Lord, that as we came to you today, you showed us something about what our words do. And we pray that you would grace us. And that you would help us to get down to the bottom of the areas where we're still struggling to tame our tongue. And I pray that you would give us the grace to do that. Thank you, Lord, for making us aware of your holy standards in every area of life and for equipping us and gracing us to be able to meet those standards and have your forgiveness when we fall short. We praise you and we love you, Jesus. We thank you for who you are. You are wonderful, Lord. Amen.