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Sean Tames His Tongue, By Lancing His Heart

Writer's picture: Judah NewsroomJudah Newsroom

Updated: Jan 31


Sean Lance of Judah Christian School

Senior Sean Lance spoke at chapel on January 23, becoming the first student speaker of the new year. Sean was a first with his message too. Unlike every student speaker before him, who generally shared some part of their testimony, Sean went back to God’s Word again and again. For the first time, a student authoritatively taught the Word of God. Here is Sean’s message:   


James 3:8 says that “no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” 


I have a history of using my tongue for evil, specifically when I’m angry.


If you know me, you know that I do not typically cuss or use the Lord’s name in vain. But when I’m angry, that filter drops and I start cussing out a storm. 


One day last summer, I was having a really bad day. Nothing seemed to go the way I wanted, and I just lost it. I started screaming, and cussing, and slamming things, and being extremely rude to everyone I saw. I said things that I shouldn’t have said. I lost control of my tongue. 


Looking back now, I can’t believe that I lost control like that. I resolved to learn how to control my tongue so that something like that would never happen again. That’s when I found the book of James, specifically James chapter three, which discusses controlling our tongue.


James 3:2 says, “Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.” This verse hints at the claim James is making. But it also raised some questions for me. Romans 3:23 says that every single one of us has fallen short of the glory of God. All of us are imperfect. All of us are sinners. So how can someone have no fault in their speech? 


James 3:5 says that the tongue is a small part of our body but that “it makes great boasts,” like how a small spark can set an entire forest on fire. Verse six expands on this, saying that the tongue “corrupts the whole body.” Verses seven and eight contain James’s main point. The tongue is untamable by mankind. We can tame the animals of the earth, but the tongue cannot be tamed. “It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” It’s uncontrollable.


We use the tongue to glorify God, but we also use it to curse human beings. James makes clear that the tongue should not be used this way. Praises and curses should not come from the same mouth. So why does our mouth express both love and hate?


This was very convicting for me. I use my tongue for evil. I talk about people behind their back, complaining about them, thinking it’s okay since they’d never know. But it’s not. I may not be hurting the people I’m gossiping about, but I’m hurting God. God loves them, and by gossiping about them, I’m hurting God. 


And really, I’m hurting them too, even if I’m not hurting them directly. Nobody likes to be talked about behind their back. I don’t like it when people do that to me, and I don’t want to do it to you.


James puts great emphasis on the power of the tongue, using analogies like a small spark setting a great forest on fire. The tongue is a small part of our body, but it corrupts the whole body.


So what can we do about it? If no one can tame the tongue, how can you and I control our speech? The answer to that question lies in a different part of the body: the heart. The solution to rid the tongue of evil comes from the heart. The heart is the solution to our problem.


But why is this the case? Jesus tells us why. Jesus says, in Luke 6:45, “The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” What Jesus is saying here is that whatever your heart is filled with is what will come out of your mouth. Jesus, in Matthew 15:18, says again, “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart.” 


The heart is what controls the tongue. The reason the tongue is a restless evil is because the heart itself is evil. Jeremiah 17:9 says that “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.” 


My heart is sick. The evil nature of my heart was hurting not only the people I care about, it was also hurting my relationship with God.


I didn’t know why my heart was still full of evil. I had given my life to Christ over a year ago at this point. But I hadn’t been doing one very important thing: asking God for help, asking Him for a new heart.


Only changing our heart will allow us to control our tongue. God is the only one who can change our heart; no one else can, not even ourselves.


We can’t remove the hate from our heart. To do that, we need a higher being, one in the spiritual realm, to rip it out of us. God is the one in control, but how can we get Him to change our heart? 


The solution is quite simple. God is Lord over all, meaning He can do anything, including giving us a new heart. 


In Ezekiel 36:26, God says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” The heart of stone is a heart that is hardened, one that won’t really listen to or love God. It’s our heart, unless God changes it. He can make our heart into a heart of flesh, soft and willing to humble itself before the Lord. 


To get this new heart, we need to ask God. It is that simple. 


I had been doing it all wrong. I had been trying to fix my tongue myself, forgetting how much I needed to rely on God. I had been forgetting that I needed God’s heart. 


After this revelation, I began asking God for a new heart. But even after asking God for a new heart, I still messed up. I didn’t know why. I did everything the Bible told me to do, but nothing changed. I’m still the rotten no-good sinner that I’ve been all my life. 


I was missing something. I knew that I needed to ask God for a new heart. But there had to be more.


James 1:5 says that God gives generously to those who ask Him. God won’t judge us for the things we ask, but He isn’t going to give us a new heart unless we ask. 


Matthew 7:7-8 goes into depth with this idea. In these verses, Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” 


For our heart to change, we need to ask, we need to seek, we need to keep knocking. Asking, seeking, and knocking isn’t a one-time thing; we need to ask repeatedly. When you’re looking for a lost dog, you don’t look for one day and then give up. You seek day after day until you find him. 


I need to seek a new heart day after day until I find that it is in me. Until God’s heart is completely in me, I need to keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking. 


Jesus is the only answer. If we need wisdom to solve a problem, we ask Jesus. If we are depressed and need to be filled with joy, we ask Jesus. The same goes for our tongue. Controlling our tongue isn’t about trying to tame the tongue itself; it’s about asking God to change our heart. As James said, taming the tongue is impossible. The way to have our tongue only speak love is to ask God to fill our heart with His love. 


Jesus has changed my life. The more I ask, the more I feel His love within me. I still mess up. But as long as I am alive and breathing, I’ll keep asking Jesus for His love. I’ll use my tongue to ask for a new heart until my tongue only speaks love.


Sean talked about the impact that our words have and about how they reflect what is truly in our hearts. After Sean’s testimony, Mr. Himick approached the podium with a call to action. Complementing Sean’s speech, he challenged us to examine our hearts and, for the next 49 days, to pray daily to God to change them. 


The next morning, Principal Moxley reminded us of Mr. Himick’s challenge and said he would change the morning prayer for the next 49 days to reflect on it. He prayed:


“Heavenly Father, I think about our chapel service from yesterday, where we were challenged to ask God to change our hearts. And as we heard yesterday, it is not a one-time thing, but to be daily in prayer asking you to change our hearts. So, we ask you, Lord, to give us hearts that are obedient to you. We thank you that you love us and that you hear our prayers.”


Despite being just three weeks into the new semester and new year, Sean’s speech brought into focus a clear mission for Judah for the next seven weeks going into our spring break: asking God to replace our hearts with His heart. 


—Zach Schaefer, class of ’25

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