“1 Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.
3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 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. 5 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. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8 but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt a water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
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You have a remarkable power. You can use words. “Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity,” as one teacher put it. “We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have…the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”
That teacher wasn’t talking about Shakespeare’s use of words. He was talking about your use of words. You can heal. You can humiliate. You can encourage. You can harm. You do remarkable deeds with your words.
You make meaning with your words. When you say, ‘I love you,’ to your girlfriend, you have certainly made meaning. You have ushered in a new reality. When you say, ‘what are you doing? Are you a fool?’ to a child, you’ve made meaning. When you say, ‘daddy is so proud of you for sharing that toy,’ you’ve made meaning too. Tell a man that you respect him, and you’ve made meaning. Tell a man that you don’t respect him, and you’ve made meaning. You’ve created something between you two. You’ve changed something between you two.
Your words also change you. The young man who says, ‘I love you,’ for the first-time changes as a result of saying those words. Something deep within him has been released and that brings changes. The father who says, ‘what are you doing? Are you a fool?’ to a child is in danger of becoming comfortable saying those words. Your words not only change others, they change you.
Your words reveal you. Your words are you gone public. God’s word, the Bible, is an expression of who He is. God’s word written and His word made flesh are God gone public. Your words, like His words, reveal. You are made in the image of a speaking God.
You have a remarkable power. You use words. Words bring with them an awesome responsibility. Use your words wisely. They make and reveal you. That is the claim of this sermon: Use your words wisely. They make and reveal you.
We will see this in three points. First: the teacher and the tongue. Second: the power of the tongue. Third: the source of the tongue. In verses 1-2, we see the teacher and the tongue. In verses 3-8, we see the power of the tongue. In verses 9-12, we see the source of the tongue.
First: the teacher and the tongue. “Poets, priests, and politicians have words to thank for their positions,” sang the Police. There is truth to that.
I deal with words every week and every day. Now I’ve worked with bricks too. I’ve done it in freezing temperatures. I’ve done it in sweltering temperatures. I know that working with words sounds cushy by comparison.
It also sounded cushy to many of James’ readers. It seemed that many of them wanted to go into ministry. They thought it might be a good way to make a living. James warned them that this was emphatically the wrong way to think about the ministry. “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”
If you answer the call to preach, you answer a call to speak on someone else’s behalf. You answer a call to speak not your own ideas, but God’s word. You have agreed to verse 2 of Deuteronomy 4 which we studied this morning, “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.”
Now adding assumptions which have nothing to do with God but which are pleasing to man is always an occupational hazard for preachers. Subtracting what is offensive to man is always an occupational hazard for preachers. That was happening in James’ day, which is why James wrote these words, and that is happening in our own day just as it has happened in every age of church history.
Preachers add to God’s word and subtract from God’s word to avoid conflict with people, but by so doing, they invite conflict with God; “you know,” said James, “that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”
Preachers who affirm as proper what God names as sin will answer for that affirmation. Preachers who condemn what God names as righteousness will answer that for condemnation. A preacher is an ambassador tasked not with sharing his own interpretations but with sharing the words of the king. To do otherwise was and is a violation of the third commandments, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name.” If you tell someone else that I have said something that I haven’t said, you have misused my name. If I tell you that God has said something that He hasn’t said, I have misused God’s name.
Now the world wants God’s name misused. The world wants the preacher to violate his call. Sadly, sometimes even people within the church want the preacher to violate his call. As Paul said to Timothy, “the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
Paul wasn’t talking about the world in those verses. He was talking about the church. Don’t assume that every gathering of people who call themselves a church will put up with sound doctrine. Don’t assume that every gathering of people who call themselves a church will tolerate God’s word preached.
Don’t imagine for a moment that the call to preach is about your willingness and ability to speak in public. It is a call to keep yourself in check so that you can say what God wants said rather than what you want said. That is verse 2, “We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” James wasn’t saying that preachers must be perfect. He was saying that the call to preach God’s word is a call to speak words and these words come out of who we are. God’s word must so dominate the preacher that God’s word comes out of him. The hard work of the sermon is to be done by the Spirit in the preacher’s heart before that preacher ever opens his mouth.
Now simply giving a talk about religious ideas to people is far more palatable than preaching, “thus saith the Lord.” No one has ever been offended by a man’s kindly reflections on goodness, beauty, or life. No one has ever been taken from death to life by such reflections either. No one has ever been turned from the way of death by a mere man’s thoughts. As God said through Jeremiah, “I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied. But if they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds.”
Pray for the man who brings you God’s word. Pray that he would bring you God’s word and not his own word. You might agree or disagree with my thoughts on any number of matters but what does it really matter if you agree with one of the 7.7 billion people alive right now? It does matter if you agree with the God before whom you stand every moment of your life. Pray that you might hear His word well. Consider reading His word before you come to hear it preached. That is one of the reasons it is in the bulletin the week before.
Take these words to heart if you have any teaching ministry within this church. Speak in such a way that you expect your students to take your words seriously and speak with appropriate confidence because you are speaking the word of God. Speak that way if you are teaching five-year-olds. Those children accept what you say as self-evident truth. That is an awesome responsibility, which is why Jesus said, “if anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
If you want to say what Jesus has said, don’t be terrified of that warning. God knows your heart, but be sensible of that warning if you have no expectation that you will stand before God for what you’ve said. Be sensible of that warning if you want to talk about God with no expectation that you will answer to God.
That warning is, in many ways, for all of us because we will all answer for our words. We will do so because words have power. That is our second point: the power of the tongue.
The tongue has an incredible amount of power. James explains that power using the illustrations of bits and rudders. Look at verse 3, “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.”
The tiny tongue can do big things. A man’s tongue can forge or destroy a business partnership employing thousands. A woman’s tongue can ruin or renew a friendship. A father’s tongue can emotionally cripple or cure his daughter.
The tongue is a small muscle, but it has an outsized effect. It can rightly boast in what it can do. The International Standard Version gets verse 5 right saying, “the tongue is a small part of the body, yet it can boast of great achievements.”
Words seem like tiny things. They seem so ephemeral; you speak them, and they’re gone like vapor on a cold day. That’s how words seem, but you know that’s not how they work. Words remain. Our momentary words have years of effect. We all know that the following saying is not true, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
Our words have such power because we are made in the image of the God who speaks. Our words have power because His words have power. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” God’s words make things happen and so, in much smaller way, your words make things happen.
You reflect God every time you open your mouth. That’s power. God’s words make things happen. What do your words make happen? “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing,” Proverbs 12:18. “Words from the mouth of the wise are gracious, but fools are consumed by their own lips,” Ecclesiastes 10:12. “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock,” said Jesus in Matthew 7:24. What would happen if a child tried to build his life upon your words? Your words do things.
Your words are powerful because God’s word is powerful. God showed us the power of His word in the incarnation. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
My words should aim to do what God’s word made flesh aimed to do. My words should aim to do what Jesus’ ministry aimed to do. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” That’s speech that does what Jesus does. To paraphrase Philippians 2, “say nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” That’s speech that does what Jesus does. Your words have massive power. Use them well.
We see what happens if we use our words poorly in verse 5, “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 person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”
James says your words can corrupt your whole person. Once you’ve said something against a person, even in private, you will find it easier to dislike that person or even hate that person. Once you tell a friend that you find a mutual acquaintance tiresome, you will find that mutual acquaintance even more tiresome. Your words solidify your thoughts. Don’t solidify sin.
Your words can multiply your sin. If you gossip aloud and receive validations for your gossip, you will gossip more. Your grumbling encourages others to join in. Validated sins of speech compound sin.
Your words can also set your whole life ablaze. They have the power to destroy you. “It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire,” says James. We see that with sad regularity in public figures. Two decades ago, Bill Clinton publicly lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinski. The lies that surround that affair still determine the totality of what many people think of that man. He thought he was giving himself space with those lies, but they wound up being a noose around his legacy. Proverbs put it this way, “truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.”
Your tongue is dangerous. It is happy to do the work of the devil; it “is itself set on fire by hell,” as James puts it. Maybe you’ve seen that in a fight with a friend. You are very happy to get something off your chest, but moments later you realize it about the meanest thing you could have said. Maybe you’ve seen hellfire in your words with your children. ‘Why would I say that to my kids? I wouldn’t speak that way to my worst enemy.’
There are spiritual realities at work in and through your words. The devil doesn’t make you say these things, but he, like God, works with words because they are powerful. How many marriages has Satan destroyed using words? How many churches has Satan destroyed using words?
The tongue is not morally neutral. The tongue is not simply a tool that has no morality of its own. A hammer has no moral disposition. A screwdriver has no moral bent. The tongue does. Verse 7, “All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”
Once in a while I find myself in a strange mood and I just say whatever is on my mind. I’m amazed at how quickly I wind up saying something I regret. My tongue is ready to break out with sin. It needs constant monitoring.
That’s a word for today’s culture. We say words online we would never say in person.
If you look at online discussions, you can see James’ words in action; the tongue “is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” James’ teaching is humility for an arrogant age and wisdom for a foolish age.
Our tongues are far more powerful than any of us understand. They also reveal us more clearly than we understand. What you say comes from somewhere. What you say comes from somewhere deep inside you. That’s our final point: the source of the tongue.
James is all about consistency. We saw that in chapter one. The double-minded man, the man who claims to trust God but doesn’t, is inconsistent and will receive nothing from God. We saw that in chapter two. The man who says he has faith but doesn’t express that faith through good works doesn’t really have faith. He is inconsistent.
James makes this same call for consistency in verse 9, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.”
Your words reveal your consistency or inconsistency. You might see no disconnect with singing ‘O Worship the King’ at the beginning of this time of worship and then going home and cutting down a member of this church, a soul for whom that king died.
If you use your tongue to praise God and you are fine using your tongue to speak ill of those made in His image, James tells you are inconsistent because your heart is polluted. Verse 11, “Can both fresh water and salt a water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”
James learned well from his half-brother Jesus, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” What you say about God reveals more about you than it reveals about God. What you say about others reveals more about you than it reveals about others. Your words are evidence about you. This is why Jesus said, “I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Jesus can say that for the same reason that James just said that, “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” Living faith can’t help but burst forth in good deeds. Living faith can’t help but produce good words.
Last week we heard what James teach on faith and works. In many ways, these verses just change the letter ‘k’ of the word ‘works’ to a ‘d’: faith and words. James wants us to see that just as faith without good works is dead so faith without good words is dead. Just as good works reveal our living faith, so good words reveal our living faith.
“O it is a living, busy active mighty thing, this faith,” said Luther. “It is impossible for it not to be doing good things incessantly.” “O it is a living, busy active mighty thing, this faith,” to paraphrase Luther. “It is impossible for it not to be doing good with words incessantly.”
Your words reveal you as the word made flesh revealed God. “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made Him known.” Your words make you known just like Jesus makes the Father known.
“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”
You will use words. Use them wisely. Pray for a heart out of which wise words come. Pray for a heart that produces words that do unto others as the word made flesh has done unto you. Amen.