James 3:1-12
Let’s do give attention to God’s
word. This is James chapter three verses
one through 12. Brother of our Lord Jesus Christ
says this, 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
or 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 saltwater? Can a fig tree, my
brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs. Neither can a salt
pond yield fresh water. Amen. This is the word of the
living God. Not to add another illustration
to this passage full of illustrations, but I’m gonna do it anyway, because
I think had James lived in our current times, he would have
brought up the nuclear atom or nuclear particles. Nuclear particles
can create power, right? They can generate electricity
for millions and millions of people, almost without effort. But as we know, and as we fear,
nuclear atoms can cause great harm, great destruction. And
so this small, small particle tamed by the The smarts, the
science, the work of men, of humans, can do great things and
can do destructive things. We begin very quickly to get
the idea something small, such as the tongue, such as the rudder
of a ship, such as a nuclear particle, or a bit or bridle
that goes into a horse’s mouth, can cause great destruction,
it can cause great harm. It can cause what we might call
tragic inconsistencies. And so we want to think tonight
about the wisdom of our brother James, the wisdom of the New
Testament and think through the tongue. This is a wisdom issue,
right? This little bitty thing in our
mouth can bless and it can curse. And very often we use it to do
both. Our words have great potential
and they can also boast great destruction and great harm. I think I was, I’m incorrect
in remembering this. I heard recently that the average
human being speaks about 18,000 words a day. That’s a lot of
words. And so you think about the potential
of those words, the potential to do great good or the potential
to do great harm. And so we ought to listen with
great attention, thinking. tonight about how we use our
tongues this will probably be one of those step on your toes
messages you’ll wonder did your wife call the preacher did somebody
in your house say yeah you better look at my husband tonight or
look at my wife tonight when you speak you know give them
the dead I’ll just be neutral I’ll look that way and that way
but if I if I happen to stare at you it’s It’s the Holy Spirit,
right? This is a rather weighty matter,
a rather serious subject. And every single one of us, well,
we just need to hush, right? When words are present, sin is
not far off. Where words are many, sin is
not absent. We’re quick. And today, our words,
we might could, Add a little context. Not just the words we
say, but maybe what our thumbs are saying. Because, well, we’re
incessantly tweeting, right? We’re incessantly pontificating
as too gracious of a word. I don’t think many of us pontificate.
But we’re always putting our words out there. And if you’re
famous, and enough people are after you, you’re gonna have
to recant your words. or else, cancel culture. We’re living in a time where
we need to hush. And it’s not just with our mouth,
our tongue, but it’s probably with our fingers. Maybe some
of you have noticed I have no social media presence. That’s
purposeful. I don’t trust myself. What I
should say, I should say, in the few places where it’s called
for, you know, in my home and maybe in the pulpit or in other
context of the life of the church. But we ought to be careful. I
want us to think about the tongue in three ways tonight. The first
way would be its disproportionate power. You find this in verses
one through five, where it tells us something little can do something
big. He begins by saying, not many
of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that
we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. Now think
about that for just a moment. James is writing to Jewish folks
who’ve become Christians who are scattered around the Roman
Empire. One of the traditions of Jewish society is to have
teachers. Jesus was a teacher. In fact,
when we study the life and the ministry of Jesus, he sort of
eased into their culture and set up shop in a way that was
low-hanging fruit. What was Jesus called? Rabbi,
teacher. And everywhere he went, he sat
down and he taught. And because the content of his
teaching wasn’t pharisaical or legalistic, It was life-giving,
it was spirit-blessed. He was successful in his life
and ministry. And so, James here is speaking
to the church where, yeah, there would have been some pastors
and there would have been some rabbis, as it were, but because
of the culture, many had presumed and taken up the job of teaching.
It might be like the church of your youth where there was a
Sunday school class for every age and every little cohort in
the life of the church. And so you might have had 30
or 40 teachers in the life of your congregation. And so he’s
saying, he’s warning, he’s encouraging, not many of you should be teachers.
You know, we who teach will be judged with a greater strictness.
No different standard of righteousness. We understand that. but we’re
gonna say lots of words. And the more words we say, the
more opportunity to, well, to get it right or to get it wrong. And so we ought to be careful.
But notice how he says in verse two, we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble
in what he says, he is a perfect man. He is able to bridle his
whole body. And this is where he launches
into the small. The small things can do great
and mighty things. There’s disproportionate power
in the tongue. Little can do big. And he gives
the image of the horse. He gives the image of the ship.
And then he gives the image of the spark. Now we’ll start backwards
with the spark. I remember, I don’t know, this
was a good 20 some years ago. The property that my family had,
we had an ice storm and lots of mess had fallen. And so I
went out and gathered it up, put it in piles. And what does
every Boy Scout want to do? He wants to burn something. So I picked the windiest, driest
day. And of course I had my bucket
of water, but I lit one of my piles on fire. And it was the
greatest distance from the house. A hose couldn’t reach it. But
I had my Boy Scout bucket, five gallons of water. That put out
anything. So I lit it on fire. And next thing I knew, the ground
was so dry, the wind was so strong, it literally set about an acre
of woods on fire. And it quickly ignited all that
undergrowth. And all the wildlife was scurrying
away. And it was, well, it was something. And that was before cell phones,
or at least as commoners having one. And so I had to run back
down to the house while this fire was going, get on the landline
and call 911 and speak to the dispatcher, get a fireman out
there, run back up, and hopelessly use my five-gallon bucket with
this acre-wide fire. Well, it didn’t take much, and
the fire was wild. It was out of control and thank
the Lord, the volunteer fire department showed up, they circled
around the fire and they worked it from the backside and they
got it put out and chastised me about burning brush on windy
days and in the dry season and without a permit. So I learned
my lesson. But a little spark, a little
fire can go a long ways. We’ve watched on the news the
devastation of wildfires. Not too many years ago it was
in eastern Tennessee in the Pigeon Forge area. We’re always seeing
them on the news out in California. These great devastations, how
were they caused? By a little spark, a little flame,
maybe an errant cigarette or a campfire not properly doused
and dispatched. And so a small thing like a spark
can have great and disastrous results. Loss of life, lots of
property, loss of other important things. We’ll work backwards,
the illustration of the ship. A great vessel, it’s carried
to and fro, carries to and fro, frayed across the sea. The winds
can push it, it can be driven, but it has this little rudder.
Maybe you’ve seen a boat in dry dock, Boats are rather impressive. I love looking at the underside,
you know, when you get onto the coast and you see maybe at the
wharf, you see the boats that have been brought out of the
water and they’re, you know, they’re going to scrape them down and repaint
the hull and get them all fixed up. And on the back end of the
boat, there’s this little bitty propeller and this little bitty
rudder. And you look at it and say, how
does that little bitty thing move that great big thing out
in that big rough sea? And I guess the scientists and
the engineers have figured out it only takes a little to move
it and to keep it straight. And so the ships, though they’re
large and driven by the winds, they’re guided by a very small
rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. And then he goes
back to the first illustration. If we work through these backwards,
there’s the bit, there’s the bridle. I’m not much of a horse
and tack kind of person, but I assume it’s that little metal
thing. It goes in their mouth, their teeth, and if you, well,
you’ve ridden a horse, and you pull this way, it goes that way,
and pull this way, or you pull back. That big couple thousand
pound beast, if they’re in a good mood, and they’re trained, it
does what you ask. And that’s what James is pointing
out to us. Our big mouths, right? Our tongues, our vocabulary,
they have great and disproportionate power. We’ve got to bridle them. We’ve got to tame them. We’ve
got to be the captain of our tongues. We’ve got to be the
master over the bit and the beast of our voices. There’s disproportionate
power. We’ve got to know ourselves.
I love the proverb that says, even the fool is considered wise
when he keeps silent. That really ought to be a life
verse for many of us. Be, what did chapter one say? Slow to speak, quick to listen. But we’re generally quick to
speak. How many words? 18,000 words a day. How many
tweets? Thousands of tweets a day. We
complain, we yelp, and we tweet, and we just run our mouths, don’t
we? That’s our culture today. And
James is saying, tame the tongue. But you know what’s interesting
about him telling us to tame the tongue is if you look at
verse seven, he gives us a little dark forecast. Every kind of beast and bird
and reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed,
but no human being can tame the tongue. And this is a good reminder
to us. No human being can tame the tongue,
but God the Holy Spirit can. And we can say with the psalmist,
Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight. We can pray every day that the
Holy Spirit would restrain us from speaking. There’s a wonderful
little, is it an acronym? It’s the word think, T-H-I-N-K. Is it true? Is it helpful? What
is the I? I can’t remember that one so
well. The N is necessary and the K is kind. I’ll remember
the I in a minute. But we should think before we
should speak. We should be careful before we
talk. And so the tongue has disproportionate
power. The second thing we find in verses
five through eight is the tongue can cause devastation. So also
the tongue is a small member but it boasts. of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze
by such a small fire. The tongue is a fire. It’s a
world of unrighteousness. It’s set among our members. It
stains the whole body. It sets on fire the entire course
of life. And it’s a fire set on fire by
hell. And so great devastation can
be caused by our tongues. I remember as a kid, when we
would say caustic things, when we would say unkind things, untrue
things, we had a saying in our family, bite your tongue. And
what’s the implication? Bite your tongue, you’re gonna
drink your own poison, right? Your tongue is destructive and
you bite your own tongue, it’s gonna, well, the havoc that you
wreak on others is gonna come to yourself. Think about today
and how hard it is to be a young
person in school with social media. It used to be you went
off to middle school and you had some zits and maybe you weren’t
the coolest person in town and people might talk about you.
Now they tweet about you and they text about you and they
Instagram about you. And social media, the words on
social media can get around where we’re seeing such a higher suicide
rate among young people. We can destroy other people’s
self-worth. We can destroy their feelings,
their thoughts, their estimation of themselves very quickly. And
young people don’t seem to be phased by that. Devastation can
be caused when we don’t control our tongues. And so James tells
us several things about the tongue. It’s a great fire. The source
of this great fire is from the fires of hell itself. That ought
to sober you up. What’s the well from which my
tongue draws words to give? Is it the wisdom of the Bible
or is it from the pit of hell itself? The tongue is set among
our members. It stains the whole body. It sets on fire the entire course
of our lives. Our tongues have a power, a potential
of great and devastating magnitude. And so we ought to take great
care realizing where are our words from and what are they
doing to others? Are they building up or tearing
down? Are they edifying or destroying? The third thing this passage
shows us is the tragic inconsistency of our tongue or use of it. With it, we bless our Lord, verse
nine tells us. Come to church. Hey, Jesus, we
love you. Hey, Jesus, you’re great. You
know, rah, rah, hands up in the air, worship, sing, holy looking,
right? And then we get out the door
and we snarl at somebody, right? Sometimes it happens before we
even leave this room. Call it the worship afterglow,
right? After we’ve been in God’s presence,
after we’ve been touched by His grace, after we’ve been reminded
of how great Jesus is, you know, we go down the hall and we have
to talk about somebody, you know, get somebody in the corner. That’s
my gossip position. You know, we rah-rah praise,
oh God is great. and then we get in a corner and
we tear somebody down, we gossip and we slander or we complain
or we dispute or we get in the car and as soon as worship’s
over, maybe it hadn’t even been 10 minutes since the benediction,
we’re ripping somebody to shreds. And what does James say? With
it, our tongue, verse nine, we bless the Lord and our Father,
and with it, we curse people who are made in the likeness
of God. There’s a sense where James is
saying, don’t come into the house of God and say, oh God, I love
you, oh God, I worship you. And they get 10 minutes later
down the hall or in the car and say, oh, you who bear God’s image,
I can’t stand the sight of you. How contradictory that is. What a tragic inconsistency that
is. How many of us, I know the answer
to this, how many of us would love a playback of our words? And I guarantee you, the thing
you would be the least worried about is, oh, my voice sounds
funny. No, you would be horrified at
the words that you choose, the words that you employ. If we
had a playback of the day’s words and James says, what we do is
we bless out of this side of our mouth, you know, yay God. And we curse out of the other
side of our mouths saying you rotten, no good, whatever. And
we do that day in and day out. And he says, This ought not be
so. From the same mouth comes blessing
and cursing. My brothers, these things ought
not to be so. And then he gives an example,
a comparison. Does a spring pour forth from
the same opening, both fresh and saltwater? And the answer
to that question is no, it doesn’t. That’s an example from nature.
It’s not going to happen. You can’t have a freshwater spring
that’s putting out saltwater or vice versa. Or can a fig tree? Can a fig tree bear olives? Or
can a grapevine produce figs? No, that cannot be the case. So he says, neither can a salt
pond yield fresh water. A quick read through the Proverbs
tells us two things. One thing is to, well, to hush
up. The other part of the Proverbs
we read through, it tells us to speak up. There are times
to speak. There are times to not speak.
We need to figure out the two. There’s content to not speak. What does Ephesians tell us?
Let no unwholesome talk. come from our mouths, but that
which is, except that which is pleasing, that which is edifying,
that which is building up. There are times to hush. Answer
not a fool according to his folly. There are times where we should
keep our mouths shut. There is going to be strict judgment
for our careless words. And yes, by God’s grace, we’ll
be found righteous in his sight all of our words will be placed
on Jesus at the cross. That’s a great comfort, isn’t
it? All our careless words. You’ve heard the story of the person who spread a rumor,
spread a lie, and it hurt somebody’s reputation, it hurt their life,
it hurt their well-being, and when this person was finally
confronted about what they’ve done, Sorrow, the apologies,
the repentance were there. And the person said to them,
though, let me show you what you’ve done. And so they went
to the top of a roof. They opened up a pillow and they
ripped the pillow open and all the cotton in the pillow scattered
off in the wind. Can you go get each fiber? Can
you go get each piece? Can you go retrieve everything?
And our words are often irretrievable. We can’t get them back. They’ve
run their course, they’ve done their damage. And I think we’re
living in a time where we speak too many words, we type too many
words, we say too many words, and it’s hard to pull them back.
You know, if you decide in a few years to run for office, God
help you. Right, everything you say these
days is recorded, or tweeted, or typed, or recoverable. And so it’s very difficult. But we get the idea, we get the
gist of what James is saying. And so we ought to pray with
all our heart, like King David did in Psalm 141, verse three.
Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Let’s look to God in prayer.
Lord, we give you thanks. That your scripture warns us
about the dangers of the tongue, the power of the tongue. Lord,
we want to be. We want to be people who are
a blessing to others, not a curse. And so let every word we think
every word we say they be well thought and well placed and and
be of use to your kingdom to your. servant’s encouragement. Hear us and help us. We thank
you that we have the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ. And we pray by your spirit we’d
keep a watch over the mouth, even the door of our lips. This
we ask in the name of Christ. Amen. I sort of picked this next hymn
rather humorously. I wanted us to sing something
for Christmas. And so I picked let all mortal
flesh keep Silence. It’s a good Christmas song for
us to sing in anticipation of the coming of Jesus. But a good
reminder that even in church, even in church, sometimes our
silence, our reverence and our all is all that is required of
us. So let’s stand together and sing. you