The Boasting Tongue

Series: Taming the Tongue

Sermon: The Boasting Tongue

Introduction: James uses a word to describe bragging and boasting come natural early on in our lives.

----My daddy can do this or that.

---- We beat you guys! We’re going to win!

We are told to not boast or brag to be good sportsmen and act humble.

We talk about “bragging rights”

---Boasting

1. We are given the proverbs and cliches---The proverb "pride goes before a fall" Book of Proverbs, 16:18) “Don’t count your chickens before the hatch.”

2. We are taught children’s stories about bragging and boasting!

Aesop’s fable --The Hare was once boasting of his speed before the other animals. "I have never yet been beaten," said he, "when I put forth my full speed. I challenge any one here to race with me."

The Tortoise said quietly, "I accept your challenge."

3.Of course the world Bible illustrations:

A--How a giant named Goliath stood before God and we can not help but cheer when that rock slams between his eyes! The young shepherd brings down the mighty!

B---According to 2 Kings 15-16,--- Hezekiah gave the Assyrian king all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the royal treasury. He also stripped the gold from the doors of the temple and from the doorposts of his palace and gave them to the king of Assyria. In addition to the silver and gold, Hezekiah also gave Sennacherib precious stones, ivory-inlaid couches, ivory-inlaid chairs, elephant hides, elephant tusks, ebony, boxwood, all kinds of valuable treasures, as well as his daughters, his harem, and his male and female musicians.

Sennacherib described his subjugation of Hezekiah by bragging that he shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem “like a bird in a cage”: The deliverance of Jerusalem came through a divine intervention. An angel of the Lord struck down 185,000 Assyrians in their camp and as a result, Sennacherib went home to Nineveh without destroying Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:35-36). According to Herodotus, a Greek historian, mice destroyed the leather equipment of Sennacherib’s soldiers and a plague caused the high number of deaths.

C- Remember King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4? He exalted himself (my kingdom, my residence, I built, my splendor, etc.) and stole the glory that belonged to God. And for that he got to wander as an insane man in the fields for several years… until he acknowledged God as master of the universe in all His glory.

3. Real historical events about boasting and pride!

---Titanic,

With its sixteen watertight compartments, the ship was believed to be unsinkable even if two of those compartments flooded. The designer himself boasted, “not even God could sink the Titanic.”

On a much celebrated morning in April 1912, the Titanic set off from Southampton, England on its maiden voyage across the North Atlantic headed for New York harbor. At about 11:40 p.m. on April 14th, somewhere in the North Atlantic, she collided with a “small” iceberg that was believed to have torn a huge gash in the ship’s hull. About 2 ½ hours later, Titanic broke in two and plunged to its watery grave 12,500 feet below the surface, taking over 1500 passengers with her. The ship that “not even God could sink” was history. After the wreckage was discovered in 1985 and no gash was found, scientists concluded that the ship’s steel became brittle in the frigid water and fractured on impact. There is also reason to believe that in spite of warnings, the ship was travelling too fast for an area known to contain icebergs.

--Hitler and Mussolini

Despite all of these warning we still find it very difficult to tame our tongues to not boast or brag!

Many Christians believe that they can still boast about what they have done or what they have if they do so “in the Lord”

Let’s look at a few excuse that Christians use as an excuse to boast:

I.It is okay to talk about what you have (materially) as long as you give God the glory. Boasting is okay, as long as we're boasting about the Lord.

TO BOAST OF THE LORD IS BETTER THAN IN THE LORD!

The phrase “boast in the Lord” is found in 1 Corinthians 1:31 and is heard commonly today in the prosperity gospel and Word of Faith movement.

We may even cloak our boasting in ways that sound spiritual in order to avoid the appearance of pride.

We've all heard people who "give all the glory to God" when they get up to give a testimony, and of course all glory should be given to God. But sometimes even when people say, "It was only because of God," or, "I couldn't do it without the Lord's help," they are still trying to bring attention to the fact that they did something great.