Turn now for our New Testament reading, which will be the text for the sermon, James chapter 3. We continue through the epistle of James, James chapter 3. I’ll read in the first section there, verses 1 to 12. James 3, 1 to 12. Again, please give your full attention, this is the word of God. 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 and 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 salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

The Word of the Lord. Thank you, God. May He has add His blessing upon it. Now you may be seated. Let’s go to the Lord once more and ask His blessing now upon the preaching and hearing of His Word. Preach, would you join me in prayer?

Our great God and Heavenly Father, we come again once more before You, and we thank You that You have exalted our Lord Jesus Christ as Prince and as Savior, and that He continues to speak to His people through His Word. We remember, Lord, that He has come to preach peace to those who are far off and peace to those who are near. And we pray, Lord, that now through Your written Word and by the voice of a feeble man, our Lord Jesus Christ comes again to be our preacher and our guide and our Lord as well as our Savior, and we pray that we become more and more to recognize His voice as He calls His sheep by name, that we may recognize that it is Christ Himself who speaks to us, that He knows all things, that He has much to teach us, and most of all, that He wants to meet with us and to work on us and in us and through us for His glory. And so, with the joy and the anticipation of faith, we come to you. our Lord Jesus Christ, and we plead, speak, Lord Jesus, for your servants are listening. This we pray for your glory and our blessing, and in your name, and all God’s people said, amen. Amen.

Well, every summer, those who live on the West Coast, as we formerly were, as I was, are very familiar with the reality of the devastation of brush fires, right? I know most of you are not from the West Coast. And with the freezing weather coming in right now, it’s hard to think about heat and fires. But I’m pretty sure you see the news at that time in the summers when there are these huge wildfires, brush fires, that burn hundreds of acres. And the one thing that everyone wants to know, right, other than how close is it and is it controlled, the one thing they want to know is who started it, right? How did this fire start? And usually it’s a handful of things. Usually it’s someone threw a cigarette out of their car window, or somebody didn’t know how to extinguish their campfire, or a spark from a car’s muffler or a dragging chain. But this is made all the worse by an inept government policy over land management. But fires, regardless of how they start, are awful things. They consume everything in their path. Property is damaged and destroyed in mere seconds. People and animals are displaced, even killed. Even the threat of the fires moving towards where you live sets in a panic because of their destructive nature and the power of them. Well, James here reminds us of the painful damage that can be done almost instantly by the human tongue, right? The human tongue, that thing that Martin Luther called that bit of flesh between the jaws. And as we move through James and we think about what he set up till now, it makes sense that he would eventually get to the subject of our speech towards one another. James warns us here in chapter 3 of how destructive our words can be and why we need to struggle to tame our tongues. The whole chapter, As you probably know, in the first part of chapter four, right, three and then the first half of chapter four, are about discord in the body, about dissension in the church, if you will, and the community. And this section actually is structured chiastically. We’ve talked about that and we’ll look at this more as we go forward, but we’ll see that our text this morning, verses one to 12 of chapter three, is bookended and it’s linked with what James has just said, right, in 226. He talks about works prove faith real, right? And he’ll say afterwards in verse 13 of chapter 3, who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct, he should show his works done in the gentleness that brings wisdom, right? And so in our text this morning, in the middle of these two verses, James is talking about betraying our profession by action that’s contrary to that profession, right? But let’s now get back to the flow of James and see what’s going on, right? James, as you’re aware, doesn’t just grab this topic of the tongue and the damage it can do out of the blue, out of nowhere. He’s just argued that our faith is justified, remember, vindicated by our good works. And one of the things that we recognize about James’ writing, and we would expect this, is that it echoes, right? We see his teaching echoes the teaching of Jesus. Listen, if you will, to Matthew 12, 37. Matthew 12, 37 is potentially what’s behind James’ teaching here, and what he says, where Jesus there in Matthew directly links our speech to vindication, to justification. Matthew 12, 37, Jesus says, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned, right? So there’s this connection, we see the same thing going on. James is echoing those words from Jesus. And if our good works are the vindication or justification of faith, and Jesus specifically links this to our speech, it makes sense for James to do so as well. Right? How we speak must reflect our profession of faith in the Christ to whom we belong. Right? We are dead to sin and united to Christ, and therefore our actions and speech should reflect that reality. So when we think about what Jesus said in other places in Matthew’s gospel, about the connection between the sinful human heart and the tongue, we see James agreeing with or echoing the words and the teaching of the Master. Right? Remember Jesus called the Pharisees what? You brood of vipers. And then he asked them, how can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Right? And so the human heart is filled with sin. We cannot see into the human heart, of course, where sin lies hidden. We don’t usually have a problem with this, acknowledging this, that we’re blind to the hearts of others and the sin in those hearts, but we are often kind of blind to the inadequacy of evaluating the condition of our own hearts and the lingering, remaining sin that remains there. And as sinners, it’s a hard thing to be objective when evaluating our own sinful hearts. But what does Jesus say? He says that one of the best windows into our own sinful nature is our speech. It’s our speech, right? What we say often reveals what would otherwise remain hidden deep in our hearts. In our text this morning, James is making the same point as Jesus, that our speech reveals the truth regardless of our efforts to hide it. We are really sinners, we are sinners, right? Our mouths reveal our hearts, and sometimes that betrays our profession, right? How often do your words expose the dark pockets of your heart? or evidence scriptures testimony about the, the accurate testimony about the sinfulness of the human heart, right? And it’s a pain, it’s a painful shame how natural and easy and comfortable damaging words flow from our mouths, even though they are crushing and destructive to others. So when we think about the relationship between our speech and what we really are inside, we understand why the Jews valued a person’s knowledge of when to keep silent as a gauge of that person’s wisdom. They placed a very high value on this. And throughout scriptures, especially Proverbs, godly speech was considered a demonstration of someone’s faith and wisdom. Proverbs also says that ungodly speech reveals the true state of the human heart. For example, Proverbs 10 verse 8 says, the wise of heart will receive commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin. Writer of the next chapter, 11, 9, says, with his mouth, the godless man would destroy his neighbor. With his mouth, the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge, the righteous are delivered. To the next chapter, Proverbs 12, 18, there is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts. See that? But the tongue of the wise brings healing. So the power of the tongue to reveal what is hidden in our hearts, it’s an important topic in Hebrew wisdom literature, what we call wisdom literature of the Old Testament. And we’ll see as we move through James, right, that James is very wisdom literature-y, right? It’s very much like Old Testament wisdom literature. And we look at the structure of the book, James 3 to 5, of course presupposes chapters 1 and 2. James is dealing with issues in the churches that are festering and growing, and he needs to address them, and so he does. But these wonderful and challenging chapters give us much to think about as we seek to grow and to be more like Christ before a dying world. So if we turn to our passage, it’s clear that James, he’s drawing from both the words of Jesus and from the Old Testament wisdom literature, okay? And so in verse 1 of James chapter 3, he continues explaining one way that those who hear are to do, right? Remember in chapter 1 verse 22, he talks about be doers, not just hearers. And so he explains this, one way to do this, and he starts with the teachers, notice verse 1. Chapter 3, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. And so, although James starts with the teachers, we have to see that he’s not restricting what he’s saying to teachers alone. As we work through the text, we’ll see that this actually is for all of us, for all believers. And so let’s look now more closely from that head verse to the rest of this section, verses 2 to 12, and we see several important lessons as we do so. Three particularly about the tongue, lessons about the tongue. Okay, and the first lesson that we see is the unlikely power of the tongue, right? The unlikely power, why? Because it’s so small, but it’s so powerful for good or for ill. James emphasizes that in spite of its apparent smallness and insignificance, the tongue is disproportionately powerful in its effects, right? This is because it’s capable of controlling the whole direction of a person’s life as it spills over into others. Listen again to verses 2 to 5. James says this, If we put bits in the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also. They are so large and are driven by strong winds. They are guided by a very small rudder wherever the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.” Right? And so it’s easy to underestimate the power of the tongue. Our words easily roll off of our tongues and out into the world. And so we fail to realize that they do so, they come out of our mouth so easily, we fail to realize how significant they really are and what a profound effect they have and what an impact they have on us and on our hearers and on the entire community in which they’re spoken. And so although the tongue is very small, its effects are massive, again, for good or for evil. And the bit that’s put into the horse’s mouth is small. but with it, the rider can turn the horse wherever he wants. Just like the rudder of the ship is small, with it, the direction of that ship, the entire ship is controlled by that rudder. wherever the pilot desires it to go. And notice the connections here that James is making in these illustrations, in these analogies. There is the bit or the rudder, this small instrument that guides and controls. And then there is the horse or the ship, the large moving body that is being guided. And then there’s the person who’s controlling that small instrument, the bit or the rudder, controlling that body. Right, so you have the person controlling, the small instrument which guides the large thing. Right, the three things we see there. And these three elements, these analogies, correspond, they have corresponding elements in the church. I don’t know if you ever noticed that. But the bit and the rudder correspond to the tongue. Right, speech that appears insignificant in itself by which, but it has significant effects And the horse and the ship correspond to what? The community of believers. This body that needs direction and guidance. And the rider of the horse and the ship pilot correspond to the teachers of the church. Those who use speech as an instrument for leadership, for the community of believers. And more broadly, in our various roles to all of the community, this applies. The rider, the pilot. And so the first lesson is the unlikely power of the tongue. Again, don’t underestimate the power of speech. It may appear insignificant, like a small thing, but it has tremendous potential, tremendous potential for teachers and to all in the community as well. That’s the first lesson. The second lesson that we see is the usurped power of the tongue, right? We have the unlikely power of the tongue and then the usurped power of the tongue, right? As a result of the fall, The awesome power of speech has been appropriated. It’s been usurped by sin and demonic activity that has devastating effects. Listen to the second half of verse five and six. 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. Strong words, right? We have an example. James gives an explanation here that even though the tongue is small, it has power to produce huge effects in the church. He hasn’t yet said whether they are positive or negative up to this point, but as we just read, he talks about the negative power of the tongue in quite striking and strong terms. And he does so from the perspective of the fall. And if you notice that, right? The tongue is a world of unrighteousness, a raging fire that cannot be controlled, full of deadly poison. It sets everything on fire and it itself is set on fire by hell, right? All of these are what? All these statements are intentionally hyperbolic, right? They’re very one-sided and very forceful. James isn’t saying that the tongue can never be controlled, right? Even the worst of us can control our tongues sometimes. He’s also not saying that it’s always set on fire by hell. He goes on to explain that while no man can tame the tongue, grace is able to tame the tongue through the power of the Spirit working in the hearts of believers. So here James is merely describing the capacity of the tongue for evil when we look at it exclusively from the perspective of sin. And apart from grace, the tongue is so overcome by sin that it’s an instrument of sin, right? A tool by which sin and Satan do their work to accuse, to lie, to destroy, right? This father of lies, the devil himself. And so the power of the tongue has been usurped by sin. And see there when it says, when he says, set on fire by hell, right? This is further explained in verse 15, as we’ll look at next week, where he says that the wisdom from below is demonic, right? In contradistinction from the wisdom that comes from above. The wisdom from below is demonic. And so when James says that the tongue is set on fire by hell, he means that it’s doing its destructive work in service of those demonic powers. And ultimately, the profound damage that sinful speech causes and has caused throughout history is the damage that Satan himself would seek to do and seek to produce. Satan, as one theologian has put it, is a master arsonist. He’s a master arsonist. And human tongues, even of church leaders, are the dry brush that this master arsonist sets ablaze to create raging fires of sin, to do damage to Christ’s church. This is the usurped power of the tongue, usurped, appropriated, taken over by sin and Satan himself. That’s the second lesson. The third lesson is this, it’s the unperfected power of the tongue. The unperfected power of the tongue. Because even with the Spirit’s transforming grace being operative in the hearts of those who believe in Christ, speech is still difficult to discipline. And so Christians are at the same time capable of doing good and evil with their tongues, with their speech. Verse 8 says that James says the tongue is a restless evil. A restless evil. Literally, it says an unstable evil. Unstable. This is the same word used in chapter 1, verse 8, with reference, you’ll recall, to the double-minded man who is unstable in all of his ways. So also, the tongue is double-minded, if you will, and it’s unstable. It’s an unstable evil. in all of its ways. James highlights this double-mindedness of the tongue with this vivid illustration that follow in verses 9 and 10. With one minute we’re blessing God, and the next minute we’re cursing our fellow man who was made in God’s image. What a contradiction. How is it that we can both bless and praise God, and then turn right around and pronounce curses upon Someone who bears the image of God, right? The image of God. And so James here gives us, you know, by way of application, a wonderful motive to help us when we’re tempted to say evil things to another about a fellow human being, right? Whenever you feel like doing this, I know these things happen often in a split second, but when you feel like saying something truly hateful against someone, stop and remember that that person bears the image of God. He’s made in God’s image. Right? That image is, for sure, it’s been defaced and broken, but it’s not utterly annihilated. Think of a mirror that’s been dropped or broken. You can still see a reflection in the mirror, right? Through the cracks and through the missing pieces, but the image that you see is fractured, right? It’s splintered, it’s distorted. This is the same way with the image of God in fallen man. So we’re not to despise the image of God, even if in its fallen and distorted state, even though your fellow man may have done wicked things against you, may have done evil against you. We’re not to lash out, right, or issue hateful words against them, because if you do, you’re cursing a person that bears the very image of God, right? That’s motivation to be sure. And so James gives an additional motivation. not to speak against your fellow man, verses 11 and 12, and he paints this absurd image, right, again, this is a way of literary highlighting, right, this absurd image of a spring that brings forth both fresh water and salt water. James is pointing out the absurdity of the fact that we who are God’s people, who have new hearts renewed by grace, would speak both words of blessing and cursing, right? Christians whose hearts have been transformed by the Spirit because they have renewed hearts, right? The heart of stone’s been removed for a heart of flesh that beats for the Lord. They ought to bring forth words that are refreshing and sweet and in accordance with their heavenly character as the first fruits of the new creation. I know very often we’re so tethered to this earth, it’s hard for us to remember the reality of these things. But that’s what we’re told. Scripture says we are the first fruits of the new creation. We’re united to Christ even now. And for us, brothers and sisters, doers of the word must realize that despite the seemingly impossible struggle to do so, we must tame our tongues because our tongues can do so much damage to others. Our words can do great damage. Our tongues set fires that do unspeakable harm to those we love most. or to those we know the least. Although at times our cruel words are premeditated, as I said, at other times, our words of destruction just carelessly come out of our mouths, often before we even know what we’re saying. In both cases, our speech not only reveals the lingering sin in our hearts and the core of our being, but our words can do more damage than we could ever imagine. How do we remedy that? Work on these things. Well, as we say repeatedly, if you’re staying in and meditating regularly on God’s Word and filling your heart and mind with the truths of God’s Word and the grace that’s been shown to you and the love that Jesus Christ has extended to you and dying for you and he’s risen for you, he’s called you to himself, you meditate on those things and it has ripple effects in all that you do, right? Even your speech. So be much in the Word, be much in prayer. Fill your mind with that which is good and true and beautiful. The only hope for any one of us is to be found in that gracious Savior that died for us, right? One who not only suffered and died for all those times we’ve used our tongues to curse God or our neighbor, but a Savior who never once spoke to boast about himself or to demean another. The only person who ever lived who loved God and their neighbor as he should is Jesus. And the only person to tame his tongue is our Savior. And while James expects us to struggle to tame and to brighten our tongues, he also speaks openly about that difficult struggle to do so. He understands the inevitability of the fact that at many points in our lives, our tongues will reveal the depth of sin that remains within us. Right? James is not a perfectionist. Right? Mercifully. Mercifully and thankfully. Right? He says in verse 2, for we all stumble in many ways. Right? For we all stumble in many ways. He’s not a perfectionist. He’s a realist. But he knows our speech will give away who we are and what we are. But because the tongue is so lethal, James exhorts us to make every effort to tame that tongue. Well, how do we do what seems so impossible? In ourselves, we cannot tame our tongue. We cannot change our sinful, destructive habits of speech in and of ourselves. In and of ourselves, we cannot control our loose tongues or cause it to be used more for edification than for tearing down. That’s what James says. He says that every species of animal has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue. Literally, it says, no one of men can tame the tongue. No one of men can tame the tongue. The ESV gets it pretty well here, no human being. Augustine said of this, He said, James does not say that no one can tame the tongue, but that no one of men, so that when it is tamed, we confess that this is brought about by the pity, the help, and the grace of God. Only God, by His grace operating through the spirit of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, can tame your tongue. And tame it, He will. These are the problems of the text that we see, again, in verse 15, we’ll look at next week, right? For the wisdom that we need is a wisdom that comes down from above, right? Down from above, right? That will crush the demonic power, the demonic wisdom from below, right? The language from above points back to chapter 1, actually, in verses 17 and 18, where James first made reference to the doctrine of regeneration, how? By the word of truth. Word of truth. The new birth is one of the gifts that comes down from above, from the Father of heavenly lights, he says there. It’s the heavenly gift of new life that is nothing less than the down payment of the new creation. Again, that Paul tells us, we are the first fruits of that new creation. And James now brings this theology of the new birth, regeneration, into the argument in chapter three concerning the tongue. The wisdom that comes down from above is the wisdom of the heavenly life that is created by grace. In the power of that grace, you see, we are enabled to have this kind of speech that edifies, that builds up, that produces peace in the community of believers. Are you Christ? This is true of you. If you are Christ, then this is who you are. You are united to Jesus, and your true home is in glory. This is a colony, church is. It’s an outpost of the kingdom of heaven here on earth. That’s where we belong. You are called to be who you are, dear Christian, to live out the ethic of that true homeland, even now in this life, in between the times. And you know, we’ve all been both victim and criminal regarding the tongue. And I can imagine that in the quietness of your own heart and mind, you don’t know the pain and scars of being hurt by others’ words. By a parent’s words, even at a young age, that still cause you pain, right? Or from your children. right, that hurt, or from family, or etc., co-workers, neighbors, but also the guilt and burden of hurting others by our own words, right, to our children, to our parents. And what do we do? What do we do with the scars and the guilt? We go to Jesus again and again and again. This one, remember, right? This one, recall, who was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, right? Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Why? All so that all of our guilt and pain could be dealt with. also that those who name his name would have new life, would have a father they don’t need to flinch at and be afraid of, or fear, but who loves them. Let us praise our great God and Savior, brothers and sisters, that with him There is both healing and forgiveness because of His glorious words of freedom and forgiveness and mercy. Right? It is finished, He said. You’re mine. Live in me and be free. We praise Him, our Savior, for His perfection. We praise Him for providing that perfection for you and for the power to begin to live and to live more and more as you are transformed by the Holy Spirit as the new person that you now are, right? By virtue of the fact that your life is hidden with Christ in God. Praise Him indeed. Amen.

Let’s pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we come again before you We praise you for the gospel, for giving us life through Christ. And Lord God, we pray that as your Word goes out and has gone out, that you would feed your people, and that it would have its full effect both here and around the world. Work Dear Lord, through those whom you’ve sent out on the mission field, again, here at home and across the planet, work to bring people to life through the proclamation of the good news of the finished work of Jesus. Protect your servants far and away who do so. Lord, we pray, give us a true sense of the victory that is ours in Christ. We are no longer in bondage to our wicked mouths and speech, Lord, but we are free. Father, we pray that you would help us to have a longing to grow and to know our Savior ever increasingly. And Lord, that that knowledge and that communion with him would have its full effect in all that we do and say. Help us to see that fact, Lord, who we are, united to Christ, dead to sin, once and for all. We are so weak and feeble in remembering these things and believing these things. Lord, help us to believe. Lord, may we walk increasingly in the newness of life. Help us all, dear Lord, have hearts filled with your love as we care and love one another. Work through us to bear testimony to the love you’ve shown us in Christ. that we, to the outside world, would have a strong spiritual aroma of the love and forgiveness of grace and of hearts that care and live for you, all for your glory. Lord, we pray this morning for those who suffer in our midst. We pray for all those who are ill at this time with various colds and other illnesses, Lord. We pray for those in physical pain who suffer, Lord, encourage them, even through us, and we thank you and praise you that we can do so. May you grant us as we endure, grant us the comfort of your spirit and the peace that transcends all of our understanding. Lord, we pray for the children of the church, that you would bless them, and that they would grow to continually and more and more so love you, Lord, with all of their hearts. And that as they struggle in this life, and as they suffer, and as they fall, and even as they sin and fail, that the gospel would become all the more real to them, and truly become good news indeed as they embrace it by faith time and time again. Father, and so we pray for the parents as well here today, that they would love their children, rear them according to your Word in the true and holy faith. Lord, that they would speak to them words of grace and life. Grant, Father, husbands and wives to love one another with a Christ-like love, self-sacrificing to one another. And Father, even for all of us, married or single, young or old, help us to have swelled hearts filled with your love. Help us to find our full contentment in you. And help us to root out anything that competes with Jesus for our satisfaction and contentment and joy. We bring all these things to you in the name of our mighty Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.