James 3:1-12

Translation

1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, because it is known that we will receive greater judgment. 2 For in many ways we all stumble. If someone does not stumble in word (what he says), this one is a mature man, able to hold also his whole body in check. 3 For if we put bits into the mouths of horses so that we can control them, then we are able to guide the whole horse. 4 Behold also the boats that are very large and are driven about by strong winds, it is guided by a small rudder wherever the inclination of the navigator determines, 5 thus also the tongue is the smallest member but boasts great things.

Look how small a fire sets ablaze a great forest; 6 and the tongue is a fire; the tongue is a world of unrighteousness, put in charge over our members, defiling the whole body and setting on fire the whole course of being and being set on fire by Gehenna. 7 For all nature of wild beasts and also birds and reptiles and also sea creatures are being tamed and subdued by the natural man, 8 but the tongue no man is able to tame, it is restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless the Lord and Father and with it we curse men who are made according to the likeness of God, 10 out of the same mouth goes blessing and cursing. Thus these things ought not be, my brothers. 11 Can a spring pour forth out of the same opening sweet and bitter water? 12 Is the fig tree able, my brothers, to make olives? Or can a vine make figs? Neither can salty water make fresh water.

Outline of Text

1. V1-2 Warning to those who would be teachers
• V1, a stricter judgment on those who teach
• This does not mean a stricter expectation – all believers are expected to live the same goal: the life of Christ. But teachers will be judged harsher for failing in that goal.
• V2a, we all struggle in many ways
• V2b, the one who can control the tongue does not struggle
• He is a perfect man
• He is able to control his while body
2. V3-5a The uncontrollable nature of the tongue
• V3, a tiny bit in the small mouth of a great horse gives control over the whole horse
• V4, a small rudder controlled by a small wheel on a great ship turns the whole ship
• V5a, the small tongue is able to set the course of the whole body
3. V5b-8 The destructive nature of the tongue
• V5b, a great forest set ablaze by a small fire
• V6, The tongue is a fire
• A world of unrighteousness
• Set in our bodies, staining the whole
• Setting on fire the entire course of life
• Being set on fire by Hell
• V7, All creatures in nature can be tamed by man
• V8, The tongue is the thing which cannot be tamed
• It is a restless evil
• It is full of deadly poison
4. V9-12 The tongue: Either good or bad
• V9-10, With it we bless and curse
• Bless God
• Curse others
• This should not be!
• V11, Salt and fresh
• Can a spring produce both salt and fresh water from the same opening?
• By implication, neither can the tongue
• V12, Fruit and water
• Can plants produce fruit not of their order?
• Nor can a salt pond give forth fresh water

Sermon Manuscript

James has instructed us that we need to be practitioners of the word of God and not just listeners to the word. To do something more than sit in the pew Sunday after Sunday, something more than read your Bible throughout the week: to actually act upon those things which God in his Word has called on you to do.

Next James talked about speech versus action. Very similar to what took place before, James wants believers to live out the things God has called us to do. Enough of your talking about faithfulness! Get out there and be faithful! Show me your faith, do not just talk to me.

With this morning’s passage, James 3:1-12, James moves on to talk about the power of speech itself, the power of the tongue. Last week we saw how the tongue can be misused by replacing real, active faith with empty, hollow words. Now James continues to talk about our words, our speech, our tongues, and how deadly they can be. So let’s read together James 3:1-12.

Pray

James begins by warning people against being teachers. The teacher held a position of some prestige in James’ day. The teachers were treated with special status and honor. Because of the special status granted teachers, many people desired the position. This would be in some ways like doctors today, an occupation viewed as having great wealth and great standing in the community. Pastoral ministry used to be viewed in a similar way, with people at times desiring to be pastors in order to benefit from the special place it gave in society.

But James warns such people that they should not be so quick to desire the teaching role. Teachers will be judged with greater strictness. That is to say, those who have set themselves up as some sort of moral or intellectual authority will be judged stricter because they have made themselves examples for others to follow.

Do not confuse what James is saying here. There are not multiple standards of life within the church – one standard for pastors and teachers to follow and another standard for the people in the pew to follow. We are all held by the same standard of behavior – the life of Jesus Christ. We are all called to live like Christ and to follow his example. Church leaders are not expected to be more holy than church members. We are all called to be holy before the Lord. But leaders, by virtue of taking a position where they will show people how to be holy, will be judged more strictly for when what they do leads people astray.

Those who feel God leading them to be teachers and preachers should not shy away from such a calling – we must always be ready to do that which God calls us to do. But one should seek the will of God before serving God, and then serve God in order to glorify God rather than to build status for the self.

With all of that said, let’s move on to the main point of the passage. In verse two James gives one reason why it would be so hard for teachers to set a good example: the troublesome tongue. Teachers are not alone with this problem, and James’ instructions here are given for all believers. It is to you that James writes, “if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to control his whole body.”

James believes that the tongue is the hardest thing for people to control. The person who controls the tongue, is able to have discipline over his whole body. James says that we all sin in many ways, that all of us struggle in a number of areas. And yet if we can control the tongue, we will be able to control our actions in all of those areas.

How often have words escaped your lips before you could draw your teeth together? How many apologies have you had to issue because of what you said? (whether or not you actually apologized is a separate issue) I know how often I have said things to my wife that have made me cringe. I’ve developed a sort of permanent twitch, it happens so much. We are not good at controlling what we say. We let things spring out of our mouths, but if we had stopped to think, we would never have said them.

James goes on to give examples of small objects that can control big objects. Horses are large, powerful creatures. We admire them for their strength and speed, for their spirit and grace. And yet the magnificent horse can be controlled by a small piece of metal placed in the mouth. In a similar way the great ocean vessels can be controlled by a small rudder fixed at the bottom back of the ship. The rudder is itself controlled by a small wheel. With those small items the entire ship can be controlled.

In a similar way the tongue is able to control a life. This is not control in the sense that the brain controls the body, this is more like the ability to set a course and direction for one’s life.

One of my favorite movies is called Gun Shy. One of the characters in this movie is an overworked, overstressed man who constantly battles an overwhelming desire to blurt out inappropriate statements at the worst possible time. These urges usually hit him during meetings at his workplace. One day he finally gives in and launches into a tirade against one of his co-workers during a business meeting. Of course he is fired and as a result of being fired his wife leaves him. I don’t think any of us have quite his tendency to blurt out obscenities, but we do share with him the problem of a tongue that is very hard to control, and which can put us in situations that change our direction in life.

Beginning with the second half of verse 5 James begins to show us just how destructive the tongue can be. Continuing to speak of small things that can do great things, James says that great forest fires are started by small fires. Each year in the US thousands and thousands of acres of forests are destroyed by fires. Most of those fires are started by humans, usually someone who was careless in putting out his own campfire and smoldering sparks jumped to the surrounding woods. And with that small fire a chunk of God’s creation is wiped out.

In verse 6 James attributes a great deal of power to the tongue. The tongue is also a great fire, a raging inferno. It is a world of unrighteousness, James says. What in the world does he mean, a world of unrighteousness? To offer a paraphrase, James is saying that through the tongue the evils of the world can be expressed. All the evil that fills your heart will come out at some point or another, in some way or another, through your tongue. Jesus in Matthew 15:18 says, “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart” and again in Matthew 12:34: “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks”. That which is in the heart will be expressed by the mouth.

In James 1:27 James talks about religion that is pure and undefiled. This is what we are seeking: to live our lives before God in ways that are pure and undefiled. And yet here in James 3:6 we are told that the tongue is able to stain the whole body. This is so contrary to the way we often think. Who really cares what I say? Words are just words, right? They are empty things that are not a real expression of who I am and they have no real effect on me. James would differ with such sentiments. And since we view these Scriptures as being the word of God, God also differs with such sentiments.

Far from having no effect on us, James tells us that the tongue is able to set the course of life. This is the same thing he said earlier when he compared the tongue to bit and rudder. The destructive power of the tongue can consume a person as a fire, and the source of that fire is described as Hell itself. The source is evil, it is demonic. What does your speech reveal about who you follow? Is the source of your life God himself? Or is the source of your life found in the lowest pit of Hell? Your tongue gives you away.

In verses 7 and 8 James speaks of how difficult it is to control the tongue. The tongue controls the body, but who can control the tongue? We can tame all sorts of animals, we can exert many kinds of control over nature, but who can control the tongue? When James calls the tongue a restless evil he is using the same kind of language he used earlier in 1:8 to describe the double-minded man who is unstable, restless in all he does. The tongue often displays our instability, it displays the battle of the flesh against the Spirit. Going back to the things I regret saying to my wife, I often know I should not say those things. I know, as I do it, that I am doing something stupid, something wrong. And yet the words come and I soon have to find myself apologizing. I am sure that I am not alone. So we can cry out with Paul in Romans 7:24: "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Wretched man that I am, evil tongue and all, and yet saved by the grace of God and rescued for his own purpose.

The great theologian Augustine commented on James 3:8 that while no human person can tame the tongue, God can tame the tongue and with God’s help we can find control over the tongue. We will never be perfect in this life, and so we will never find complete mastery over the tongue, but God is merciful to continue to grow us and deliver us from our own tendency to sin and as we continue to yield to him we will find greater control over the tongue.

The old child’s saying is so very wrong. Sticks and stones are often much to be preferred over the deadly power of words. Words can do so much harm to a person. As James says, words are a deadly poison. They have so much potential to consume and corrupt the person speaking the words, and they have so much potential to destroy those around us. Thanks be to God for the Holy Spirit who works in us to grow us and lead us away from our own evil ways.

Bringing the passage to a close, James in verses 9-12 shows how two conflicting things should not come from one thing. With my one mouth I praise God; with it I also curse my neighbor. With my mouth I bless those I like and curse those I dislike. But this cannot be! Go find a stream in the woods. The water will be fresh or salty, it cannot be both. Take a bucket of water from the ocean. It will all be salty. Go up to an apple tree and see if you have any luck finding oranges. If your mouth is stained then everything coming out of it is stained. Our words are not so fleeting that they disappear the moment they are spoken. The stain of evil remains long after the evil words have left our lips, and the stain effects even the good things we say.

Consider a pipe from which you draw water. The water may be the purest, cleanest water in the world and yet if the pipe is filthy, corroded, filled with mud, nothing will emerge but dirty water, tainted by all the muck in the pipe.

With the mouth you use to bless God, you also curse your neighbor. Can your words to God be pure words if you have used your mouth for so much evil?

In Isaiah 6:1-8 we have an interesting account of Isaiah being called and equipped to serve God as a prophet, as the mouthpiece of God. Hear what Isaiah says when he stands in the presence of God - Isaiah 6:5: “’Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.’” He could have spoken of the evil of his hands, the evil ways his feet have walked, the evil his eyes have delighted in seeing, but he says that he is a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips. The unclean lips, the unclean mouth, the unclean words demonstrate the evil of the whole person. And here is Isaiah, being called to deliver the Word of God to the people, and yet he has unclean lips.

God does a work with Isaiah to equip him for service. We are all like Isaiah – we are people of unclean lips. We are not worthy to serve the Lord and yet he has called each of us for service. But something has to be done about these lips of ours, about the evil that fills our hearts and finds expression through our speech. Isaiah 6:6-7: “Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.’”

Through Jesus Christ we have been made pure. Jesus Christ has cleaned away that muck and grime from our lives, he has atoned for the evil in our hearts, and he has made us new. Though made new we continue to sin and continue to fill ourselves with evil. Let’s not pretend otherwise, but let’s not be content to praise God with the same lips that we use to curse others. Through repentance and confession we are continually made new. By approaching God with humble hearts and confessing our sins to him we are renewed. In 2 Corinthians 4:16 Paul tells us that we are “being renewed day by day.” Trust in the Lord your God to make you an instrument that pours forth pure speech, clean words from a clean heart that can be used for the good of the kingdom of God.

In Colossians 4:6 Paul instructs the believers: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt”. And in 1 Timothy 4:12 he tells Timothy to “set the believers an example in speech”. So much trouble from such a little part of the body! So much discipline needed to control it. And yet your speech does need to be controlled, used in a way that spreads a positive influence over others and does not cause you to be stained.

Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. What flows from your mouth and what corruption does it reveal? Or is your speech gracious and seasoned with salt, able to set an example for other believers? Do the things you say demonstrate the grace and love of God, or does it reveal your own unrepentant sinfulness?

Let your speech be full of the grace of God, seasoned with salt for the earth. You are salt and light to the world. You are, like Isaiah, the mouthpiece of God proclaiming the word of God to a world that is lost and dying. What is overflowing from your heart? What will the world hear coming from you?