True Religion: Taming The Tongue

James 3: 1 - 12

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SPEAKER_01 0:18

Would you now stand for the reading of God's Word? Our passage comes from James chapter three, beginning at verse one. It's page one thousand seventy-six in your Red Pew Bibles. If you didn't bring a Bible of your own, if you want to hunt one of those up, it looks like this. Again, that is James chapter three, beginning at verse one. We'd like for everyone to be able to see the passage as it's being preached.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal, or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 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. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and it's and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind. But no human being t be but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives or a grapevine a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water, the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. May be seated.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Thank you, Kevin. And would you join me in prayer as we come down to God's word? And after that, as we come to his table, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the gift of the Sabbath. This day that we can gather together as your people into your presence. Lord, that we can be reminded in this time of what's true. What's true of us, what's true of you, what's true of the world. Lord, that we would be renewed by this time of worship, that we would see Jesus, that we would enjoy him, that we would be driven to him, that we would be awakened to our continual need of his rescuing grace. Lord, would you come and would you speak through your powerful word? In Christ's name we pray. Amen. So I have a question for us, young people, as we're getting started here. Have you ever had this experience, and this oftentimes happens in school or when you're with a group of friends? Have you ever had the experience of being in a group and you become the brunt of the joke? Have you ever been made fun of? Have you ever had that experience where everyone is laughing at you and maybe it's one person kind of leading the assault and they're they're attacking you and making fun of you? Have you ever had that experience before in your life? You know, it's so common when when when we're growing up, I can just remember in childhood. I mean, that that experience, that setting, whether it was in a classroom, on a playground, in a locker room, I mean, it would just it seemed like that was always happening. There was some something in us that just kind of created that dynamic. And and as I've shared before, whenever I was a kid growing up, I was a very insecure kid. Um I I was I was an overweight kid, and I I found myself many times being the one that was the brunt of the jokes. And it was very painful. I remember at one point sharing this with some uh wise adult in my life and and being armed with a with a good, solid comeback because that's what I would always wrestle with. Like, God, how do I come back at this? I'm just getting killed. And and they said, you know, you should say to them, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Have you ever heard this? Mm-hmm. It didn't work. Right? I come back and I'm like, I'm coming in this time. Here we go. And I'm getting lit up and I'm like, oh yeah? Well, sticks and stones may break my bones. I mean, it it went south bad, right? And the reality is, is that words are far more destructive than sticks and stones. And and we often don't realize that, especially whenever we're the person who's dishing it out. You know, the reality was that I was not only a kid that caught the brunt of it, I was also a kid that in order to compensate for that and all of my insecurity, I dished it out too. I tried to learn how to how am I gonna use uh humor? How am I gonna maybe find somebody below me that I can attack, you know, to raise my own self. That's why we do that. It's born out of our insecurities. It doesn't always look that way. But but when we use our words to pull someone else down, it's a way of trying to elevate ourselves. It's a way of trying to cover and mask our own insecurities. Our words can seem so harmless or small. It can feel like not a big deal, right? If you're the person dishing it out, you're like, what's the big deal? It's just words. It's just things I'm saying. If we're maybe sharing a report about someone else, also known as gossip, it can just feel like, hey, I'm just sharing news, right? Everybody knows this. Right? It can seem, words can seem small. They can seem like not that big of a deal unless you're the person receiving the brunt of it. Right? Here's what we're gonna see in our passage this morning. Jesus redeems us from the guilt and the power of our sinful words. And he enables us to use our words to bless and give life to others. Jesus redeems us from the guilt and power of our sinful words, and he enables us to use our words to bless and give life to others. So we are in our series where we're walking through the book of James, we're looking at chapter three today, and we're calling our series in the book of James True Religion, because really a central concern for James is he's writing, and he's writing to believers, he's writing to those in the church, those who are professing faith in Christ, and he is writing to help us to understand what is true and authentic Christianity, what is true faith? Because the reality is that it is incredibly easy to be deceived about our faith, about our salvation. This is especially true for us in the Bible Belt, where we see this kind of common reality of people claiming Christ, and yet there's no impact of that on their life. Their lives are not changed. There's a contradiction between what they say and what they do. And so this is a concern of James as he's writing James, where he is trying to help us to understand, don't get deceived by a counterfeit. And in chapter one, he says something really stunning. In chapter one, he says, whoever does not keep a tight rein on their tongue, okay? So the the picture there is that your tongue's like this wild stallion that just takes off uncontrollably, and that you gotta bridle that thing. You gotta you gotta stay on the reins because it will run wild. And so he says, if someone, if if anyone considers themselves religious, that's how he starts it out, considers themselves religious. So he's talking to those of us who profess faith in Christ, those of us who are in the church, if anyone considers himself religious and does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, fighting our mouth and the ways that it can shoot off, here's what he says. Their religion is worthless. That is a chilling kind of statement, is it not? One that ought to make all of us just kind of pause and say, Oh my gosh, what do I do with this? Right? And so amazingly, and and one of the reasons that that's such a shocking statement for us is because our words seem so much like not a big deal. Words seem like, yeah, it's just something I said, right? I didn't do it, right? We fail to see the full magnitude of our words. So here in chapter three, James goes back to it. Now it's amazing just to look at the book of a whole, how much of the book of James is about words. I'm just taken back by that. I mean, just in wrestling with that, like, really, God, this is that big of a deal to you? Because it's so easy to think. Oh, it's these certain actions in my life, and then there are many actions that are extremely important to God. But I I tend to hold those so much higher and to think my words, what's the big deal? And we should include in our words here what we say online, what we write, what we text, all of those things. Those are all our words. So as he comes here to chapter three, he wants us to understand the power of our words. Now, he starts off in verse one, and verse one is one that just makes me shake in my boots and want to hit the road, right? Makes me want to run out the back door. Now, he's not talking about something different than words here. It's all about words, but he he first here addresses those who would be teachers. Look at what he says in verse one. Not many of you should become teachers. That's a stunning statement. Hey, like you should avoid this if you can. I remember being in seminary and one of my professors saying on almost the very first day, y'all don't need to do this. You know, we were in seminary, we were there, we had moved there, we we were there to study theology so that we could become pastors and teachers. And he would say to us on the first day, like, don't do this. Like, run. If you can do anything else, you could do it, you should go into vinyl repair at least, whatever. That was his statement that he loved to dish out. But but but he was he was discouraging us from becoming teachers. And that and that was shocking. It kind of took you back at the beginning because we kind of had this thing like, oh, we are just God's gift to to God, right? We're we're he's just he's tickled with us. And the church, all that church out there that just so needs us, and and my wise teacher was like, what you're about to do is a dangerous thing. And why is that? Because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. It makes me shiver, it makes me run to God's mercy. Now, why? Because again, words. If you are a teacher, you are using your words to influence and impact other people. And what he's about to say about words makes that a very serious endeavor. Well, then in verse three, he kind of moves to beyond just teachers to all of us, all of us in general, and again, the power of our words, he's gonna use three different metaphors to help us to understand the power of our words and how they impact our life. The first image that he uses here is that of a horse, verse three. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Now, if you've ever been around a horse, a horse is a big, powerful animal, far more powerful than a human being. But the amazing thing is you can put this bit in their mouth and you can take them wherever you want to go. I mean, it's a small thing, the bit, right? And it's connected to the mouth, a small part of the body. And you look at an uh at a horse and they're just ripped up with muscles. And yet, if you control that mouth, you can tell them, take them wherever you want them to go. Then he uses the image of a ship. Like consider a big ship, like a big battleship, a big aircraft carrier. You know, if you were to take a ship in the ocean and you were to lift it up, you would see what's at the very back of the ship is this little rudder. Now, you know, proportionately little, like, you know, aircraft carrier rudder is probably big, yes. But in comp in comparison to the whole ship, it's tiny. And his point is this small little thing, the rudder, can take that ship wherever it wants to go. Right? The point here is something that looks small, looks like that not big of a deal, that looks like it doesn't really have power. It has enormous influence and power over the whole thing. That's what he wants us to see about our words. Our words have power. You know, we can think. I just had to get it off my chest. I just had to say it, or everybody knows this. I'm just sharing everything, uh, something everybody knows, or or maybe it's a complaint or a grumble, right? Or maybe it's a boast. Maybe it's a way that we kind of name drop or or slip into a conversation, something that that elevates us in some way, or maybe it's slander about another person. You can feel like not a big deal, and it just comes out so easy, doesn't it? Before you even realize it just comes out, and you sometimes you can walk away from a conversation. Have you ever had this experience and you're like, why did I say that? I didn't mean to say that. I'm so embarrassed I said that, right? James wants us to see our words have enormous power over us, they affect the whole person. The third image he uses is that of a wildfire. Says, consider this second part of verse 5, consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. You know, we see this a lot of wildfires are in the news. I think there's a huge one right now in Europe and Spain, years ago in California. And I don't know how they do this, but they'll investigate the wildfires and they'll often share how it originated. I it just boggles my mind, like, how do you figure that out? But they but oftentimes what they do is they trace it back to some little small spark. Maybe a single campfire, maybe maybe a cigarette thrown out the window. Many times you will hear that, right? And you think this little tiny spark set this whole fire ablaze that destroys all of this property. James is saying, that's what the tongue is like. It's powerful, it consumes, it affects you. When you say it, you we might think words are not a big deal, but when you say it, you're gonna feel it. Have you ever experienced that? When I complain, I'm gonna feel discontent, right? When I begin to talk about another person, it's gonna affect me. It's gonna guide the whole body, it's gonna direct my life. It can seem like a small thing, James says, but it affects the whole person and not only you, it affects everything around you. Words have the power to destroy a marriage. Happens all the time. Words have the power to end a friendship. Words have the power to shape a child for the rest of their life. Some of us in here can remember things that were said to us when we were young that have influenced our entire life. For some of us, we're still trying to deal with words that were said to us, right? This is what James wants us to see. The power. He gives an example. I think it's like the ultimate, like southern religious example in verses 9 and 10. I mean, just look at this. And again, he's wanting to warn us who consider ourselves religious. He's wanting to warn those of us who are professed believers and followers, followers of Jesus, believers of Jesus. Look at what he says in verse 9. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who've been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing, my brothers and sisters. This should not be. You see, the the particular thing about our tongue that he wants to highlight here is how we use it to cut and attack other people. You know, sometimes in the church we can kind of think, when we're talking about words here, when we're talking about our mouth, we're like, oh, I know what we're talking about. We're talking about cussing, right? We're talking about not cussing. Well, you know, cuss words, they matter, right? We we if as believers, our words should build up, they should have taste to them. You know, we should not just use language that is crass and that, you know, primarily for the impact on other people and our own, right? But sometimes in the church, we take these certain taboo words that we have, right? And we kind of lift it up, and it's almost like a matter of salvation, not saying certain words, right? So I might not say the S word or I might not say fudge, you know, as uh Ralphie says in Christmas Story, right? I might not say those really bad words, but I'll rip somebody in half in Jesus' name. Bless their heart, right? Hey, y'all, y'all pray for such and such. Let me tell you about what's going on in their life, right? You see what he's trying to say here is there's an incredible danger in which we can praise God and we can have this sense of how spiritual we are, and yet we can go and use our words to cut someone created in the image of God. He's not even just talking about other believers, especially other believers, but he's talking about anybody, right? Some of us say things online about other people we ought not to say. Period. Period. And and we might think because I don't know this person or because they're some elected figure or whatever, it doesn't matter. James says it matters, it matters deeply, right? Verse six. He just kind of drives it home like a boot to the face in verse six. The tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. Whoa. That's a terrifying description. And he's not talking about like the tongue of some people, right? You'd be tempted to hear this and be like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know who you're talking about. I know people in my life, and they just shoot off at the mouth all the time and hurt all kinds of people. I know who you're talking about. No, he's talking about you and me. The tongue in general. That's our tongue, he's talking about. It is a world of evil, it corrupts the whole body. Disproportionate power. And the power of hell is in it. Oh, that's chilling. So, what do we do with that, right? Gosh, what do we do with this reality of the dangers of our tongue, our words, our mouth? You know, it's interesting in chapter one. James seems to be saying, you know, you need to bridle and rein. In that tongue, because it's dangerous, that's what he's saying, right? So fight that thing, and we should. But in this passage, he's not so much saying fight it as you can't. Your tongue will own you. Look at what he says in verse 7 and 8. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind. You know, I've I've seen this before. If you, I remember whenever I was young, I went to SeaWorld, you know, and you see you see the orcas, the killer whales, you know, these huge, massive fish. And literally, these trainers had them bouncing beach balls on their notes. I mean, just to watch that, it's like, how can you tame a creature like this? You know, a killer whale. Humans can tame anything except for their tongue. You see what he's saying? This thing is evil, this thing's in you, this thing is just taking off on its own, and it's more powerful than you are. You know, James is not saying, hey, get determined. Let's go out, let's work on this thing, let's do better. And if you do good enough, then God's gonna accept you. And he's saying, no, no, no, you're evil to the core, that tongue of yours. It's out of control. There's no bridling it. Why? Why is this the reality? And Jesus is very clear about it. Jesus talked a lot about words. But in Matthew chapter 12, he's talking to some Pharisees, some really religious people that had a tongue that was sharper than a sword, and they knew how to cut. And he looked at them and he said, It is out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. See, the reason the tongue's so evil is it's like the discharge valve of the heart. The things that we say, the evil things that we say is just what's in our hearts. The evil that is in our hearts just blowing out. You know, a discharge valve is like, you know, you got some appliance or something, it gets too built up with pressure, a discharge valve just shoots out. That's what the mouth's like. The evil in our hearts just breaks out of the mouth. But Jesus wanted us to understand the problem is not just in things that we say as if we somehow can put a guard over our mouth. The problem is in our hearts. We don't need to modify our behavior so much as we need heart surgery. We got to be rescued. We need rescue, we need grace. Uh, it's there's a discipleship material. It was made into a book. It's it's called uh Sonship. And I love in this manual, there's an assignment in there, like this little assignment that you do is a part of your discipleship, and it's called the tongue assignment, okay? And here's what the tongue assignment is: the tongue assignment is for one week, do not complain, do not make excuses and blame shift in your life, do not gossip and share a bad report about another person, and do not boast and justify yourself. Right? And so that's the tongue assignment. You you do that for a week and you keep up with it, and at the end of the week, you take a look back and you say, All right, how did it go? Now, the purpose of that assignment is not somehow to train you into someone who doesn't sin with your mouth. The purpose of the assignment is to show you what James is trying to show us here. My tongue is a world of evil, and I need rescue. The purpose is to drive us to Jesus. And that's where James wants to take us here. We need the pardoning grace of Jesus, and we need the transforming grace of Jesus. The pardoning grace of Jesus is the to be pardoned is to have our guilt taken away. The reality of our words is that they condemn us. We have guilt because of our words, and the pardoning grace of Jesus takes that guilt. Jesus died for our words. Isn't that glorious? Jesus died to take all of the evil things that we have said upon himself, and he spoke. You know what he spoke? Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they're doing. Right? He spoke words of forgiveness over us. You are forgiven. And we also have the pardoning grace of his righteousness that's given to us. What is Jesus' righteousness? Jesus' righteousness is his perfect record of using his words. You know, Jesus never complained. He never gossiped about another person. He never lashed out in anger against another person. He never did it. Right? He never boasted of himself. He never worked something into a conversation to make himself look better. He never did it. He was perfectly righteous. And when we are united to Jesus, that righteousness is clothed around us like a perfect robe. That's pardoning grace. That's what we need. We need his pardoning grace. We also need his transforming grace. Jesus' transforming grace is his power and work in us to change us. We need to be changed in our words with our use of our words. His transforming grace works in us as we apply the gospel to our hearts through repentance and faith. The very next chapter where James takes us is to repentance. What is repentance? Repentance is what James says here. When you humble yourself before the Lord, he will lift you up. God gives grace to the humble and he opposes the proud. And repentance is simply getting humble before God. With our sin. And it's important for our repentance to be deeper than just the action, to go deeper. One thing that I've found very helpful in my life in this area is that when I'm repenting of my words, really in repenting of anything, to just simply ask yourself, why did I do that? What was underneath that? Because all of our behavior is purposeful. Why did I say that in that moment? Why I lashed out at my kids in anger in that moment. Why did I do that? Why did in that conversation? Like, I just started talking about these other people in that conversation. Why did I do that? That wasn't necessary to do that. What's I slipped in something that made me look better, a little boasting in a why did I do that? So when you ask that question, you're doing the work of repentance and you're saying, what is the sin underneath the sin? What is it I'm believing? What is it that in place of Jesus and the gospel has become my treasure that's leading me to do that? And what I discover is things like, you know, I lashed out in anger towards my kids because I'm afraid. I'm afraid I failed as a father. Right? Sometimes that's what's underneath it. You know, I lash out in anger. What's underneath it is that I just feel guilt and shame over my shortcomings as a father. Sometimes I'm working that thing into a story to make myself look better. What's underneath? What is the sin underneath the sin? I'm trying to build my identity on something other than Jesus. You see, in repentance, you gotta you gotta identify, you gotta name it, you gotta own it. And turn in faith to the grace of Jesus. You know, we we turn and say, you know, I'm trying to build my identity on what these other people think of me. That's why I shared that embarrassing story. I was trying to get approval, but I was doing it because God, I'm seeking my identity, my value on what people think of me. But what's true, I know, is that I am in union with Jesus. Like the the only eyes that matter have looked upon me in Christ and have said, I find no fault. You are my son whom I love. That's what's true. So you see, in believing the gospel, we're we're returning to the truth. My identity is not in this. Jesus, it is in you. You've declared me righteous. That's what repentance and faith looks like. And it ought to be something not only that we do on occasion, but that we do constantly. And as we repent and believe the gospel, the work, the transforming work of the grace of Jesus changes us in our life. So this morning we get to apply this, we get to do that, we get to put it into practice as we come to the communion table. And as we come here to this table, we come in repentance, we come in confession. We begin with a prayer of confession where we come before God and we say, I've done this. Not somebody else, me. I need your grace. You see, the wonderful truth is exactly what James tells us in the next chapter. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. The posture of repentance is the posture of receiving grace. And we need grace. Father, we do acknowledge before you, with your very words through your servant James, that this is talking about us. This is talking about me, Lord. And we confess and we repent and with joy we take hold of the free grace of Jesus, the only thing that makes us right with you, the only thing that rescues us from the guilt and shame of our sin. And I pray that, Lord, as we come now to this table, that you, by the power and presence of your spirit, would take these common elements of bread and wine and that you would set them apart for your holy use, that we would be more deeply rooted in Jesus. That He would be our hope, that He would be our identity. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.