28 Jun James #8 – Jesus’ Works, Your Works (James 2:14-26)
– [Preacher] All right, we’re going to take a vote. You ready to vote? You ready? I’m going to ask you a question and then you’re going to vote and then we’re all going to submit to the vote. All right? Will you do what I ask you to do in just a moment? Yes or no?
– [Congregation] Yes.
– [Preacher] Okay, two people trust their pastor, the rest know him, okay. Okay, I’ll ask again, in a moment I’d like to ask you to do something, will you do that? Yes or no?
– [Congregation] Yes.
– [Preacher] Oh, look at that. Now we’re growing in faith, all right. The Holy Spirit is now working and you’re ready to obey. Okay, here we go, on the count of three, if we did it individually, it’d be awkward, but if we do it together, it’ll be really awkward. So we’re going to do it together at the count of three we’re all going to stick our tongue out. You ready? I know you’ve been wanting to do this since you first showed up so now is your opportunity. On the count of three we’re all going to stick our tongue out and keep it out for a second, okay? One, two, three. Okay, that’s what we’re talking about today. Talking about our tongue, all right? So before we can affect any change in the world we’ve got to start pretty close to home. We’re in the book of James. We’re going to talk about the tongue today and he’s echoing a ton of stuff in Proverbs. So there’s a good book of the Bible for you to read to get more on this issue of taming the tongue, but we’re looking at Jesus’ tongue and your tongue and we’re in James 3:1-12 and what we’re looking at is the instruction of Jesus’ little brother, who is now a grown man pastoring a church in a great city called Jerusalem and he knows that the wellbeing of the church, because it’s not just you and Jesus, it’s us, that God is a father and he’s made us a family, and how we communicate with one another, it could honor or dishonor him, it could help or hinder the wellbeing of our family. And so we’re going to start with teachers and hearers in James 3:1 and 2. Here’s what he has to say. “Not many of you should become teachers my brothers,” speaking of the Christians, “For you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness for we all stumble in many ways.” I’ll read that again. There’s a big idea there and we’re going to revisit it a lot today. We, how many of us? “All stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he’s a perfect man able to bridle his whole body,” using language there from guiding horses, which we’ll get into in a moment. So he starts with teachers and then there’s something here for hearers as well. So, since we’re starting with teachers, let me start with me. The things I regret the most in 18 years of ministry since we started is when I said the wrong thing or I said it to the wrong people or I said it with the wrong tone. Hands down, for me this text is the most convicting in the whole book of James. Before I teach you anything I’ve got some things to learn, and he says that we shouldn’t just seek to be teachers because there’s a responsibility that comes with teaching. I love the fact that I get to teach the Bible but I also live under this tremendous weight that, I don’t want to make the sermon about me so let me just deal with this briefly and then proceed forward. But I love you very much and I want to do the best job that I can, and I’m devastated when I don’t because Jesus gave his best and you deserve the best. And when we started I definitely was more of an angry young prophet, right? Some of you were here and you we’re like, “Yes, he yelled a lot, he yelled loud. He was a good yeller, that guy.” It was like a drill sergeant for Jesus, right? Just very loud, very intense all the time, oftentimes infused with anger. As I’m getting older, I’ve earned all the gray in my beard, what the Holy Spirit has really convicted me of, especially in the last year, is that my role going forward is to be a spiritual father. That my tone needs to be fatherly. That what I say and who I say it to and how I say it has to be more like a father dealing with a son or a daughter, which means you can say hard things but you say them in helpful ways and in appropriate ways. So if you could pray for me, that’s really my heart’s desire is to be a better spiritual father and to help us become an increasingly healthy spiritual family. And that’s the heart of James here, the pastor, and why he talks about teachers. He’s talking about himself and the other leaders at the church of Jerusalem. So pray for me, pray for the leaders and the elders across the church, and his main point is that really the mouth is a revelation of the heart. So sometimes we’ll say things like you don’t know my heart, and you’re like, well, but I hear your words. And what they are, they’re an overflow of your heart. This is what Proverbs says. This is what Jesus says, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” And so one of the ways that we get insight to our heart, the seat, the sum, the center of who we are is by hearing our words and letting others speak our words back to us because sometimes we don’t understand what we’re saying or how we’re saying it, or how devastating it might be. And so I want you to know upfront this is a personally deeply, practically convicting section of scripture for me. And so as I seek to teach it to you, I want to teach it to you faithfully, but also humbly and say, I, by God’s grace, am not the man that I was, but I’m not the man that I should be. And that God has been working in me and on me on this issue for many years. And I’m a man who lives with some regrets, and I’m not the man that I was, but man, I’m not yet the man that I want to be. I’m somewhere on that continuum and process by God’s grace. And so I would invite you to also evaluate yourself and your heart and your tone and your language and your words, and I would ask how many of you do, already, hold a position of teacher? He starts with teachers because teachers teach and then people learn, and if the teacher is off, then the people are off just like if the parents are off, the children are off. So I’ve got a little list here. How many of you are a pastor, or an elder, or a deacon, or a community group? Raise your hand, right? If you’re any of these pastor, elder, deacon, community group leader, kids ministry, student ministry, women’s ministry, some other ministry. How many of you are teachers, coaches, trainers in a school? Whatever the case may be professor, counselor, tutor, a mom, a dad, a grandma, a grandpa, raise your hand. Right? Blogger. Right? Reporter, whatever. That’s a lot of people, right? What he says is there’s additional responsibility that God lays on those who are teachers, and he says, you shouldn’t just aspire to be a teacher. So let me relieve some pressure from some of you. If you’re in church for a while, you can feel this pressure like, “I need to be a teacher.” That there’s like junior varsity and teachers and the teachers, that’s varsity, no. If you’re not called and gifted to lead, don’t feel any pressure to lead. If you’re not called and gifted to teach, don’t feel any pressure to teach. That like every family everybody’s got some different contribution to make to the family. So I want to pull the pressure off of you because sometimes, especially when you’re a young Christian or a new Christian, you feel like, you know, you’re starting with your salvation and that ultimately everybody should end up as a senior leader. And if you don’t make it there, you’re a failure. That’s not the case at all. If God has called you to lead, grow, and qualify to be a leader. If God has called you to teach, grow and qualify to be a teacher, but don’t feel any pressure to be a teacher. Don’t feel any pressure to be a teacher. The reason I teach is because God called me. When I was 19, some of you know my story, I was at a men’s retreat and God spoke to me, he said, “Marry grace, preach the Bible, train men, plant churches.” I brought that to the leaders in my church because I don’t believe you could just say, “God told me!” Those guys are dangerous. So I brought it to the leaders in the church. I think this is what God told me but you need to confirm that because I’m under authority. And they said, “We believe that’s what God told you and we believe you’re not ready.” Which was very true. They said, “So here are some things you need to do to get ready if you want to be a teacher.” So let me do that same thing for you. Three recommendations I would give to those of you who do feel called to be a teacher or you are teaching, and then I’ll have three for those of us who are hearers. Number one, I would say, and these are all out of regrets of mine quite frankly. Be more patient. If you aspire to be a teacher, be under teaching. If you aspire to be a leader, be under authority. And I was not as patient as I should have been. I needed more time under authority, I needed more time on a team at a healthy church. There were a lot of things that I needed to learn and I wasn’t ready for it. “Pastor Mark started at 25.” Yes, and ruined his life. So wait a while, okay? Because I love you. Yeah, because I made some mistakes and I committed some sins that I wouldn’t have if I would have been under authority and under instruction and learning. A friend of mine always says, “Let somebody else pay your dumb tax.” Right? The dumb tax needs to be paid. I paid all my own dumb tax, okay? And my encouragement to you would be allow someone else to pay your dumb tax, be more patient. Be more patient, which, especially as a person who aspires to teaching, it can be hard to be patient. Number two. Some people are teachers some of the time but they must be students all of the time. Some people want to teach, but they don’t like to learn. They like to be an authority but they don’t like to be under authority. They like to tell everybody what they think but they don’t really like to do their homework. So I wanted to get a formal theological education ’cause I didn’t have one. And so I decided I’d go to Western Seminary in Portland ’cause they’re a good Bible school, they were number three, just something practical. “Teachers are judged more strictly,” that’s what he says, right? “Not many of you should become teachers. You know that when you teach, you will be judged with greater strictness.” This is by God and others. One of the most devastating experiences in pastoral ministry for me is when somebody is a very gifted communicator and then they start to wander away from the Bible because people still follow them. So having done this a while, I personally know people who started off teaching the Bible and then it’s like, “Yeah, I think the Bible maybe has some mistakes, I’m not sure it’s perfect.” “Yeah, maybe Jesus isn’t perfect, maybe he made some mistakes.” “Yeah, maybe the resurrection was kind of a metaphor not really a literal historical thing.” “Yeah maybe hell is just sort of a metaphor for grief over what we’ve done, but it’s not actually, you know, an eternity for people who reject Jesus, or maybe other religions can save as well and you don’t,” and all of a sudden, they’re headed down a bad path and some people still follow them because they see them as a teacher. So you need to know, you know, when Paul says, “Save yourself and your hearers.” For those of us that are in the teaching position, we live under this weight of responsibility that, man, if I go astray, I know a lot of you are not going to follow me, but some of you will. And that haunts me ’cause I want you to follow Jesus and I want to follow Jesus, and my hope is to follow Jesus, and my hope is to follow Jesus with you. But when a teacher is no longer following Jesus and people are still following them, that’s devastating, that’s horrifying. And they’ll be judged more strictly because if you ruin your life, that’s one thing, if you ruin the life of your family, it’s another thing, if you ruin the life of the church family, that’s an entirely different thing. Secondly, you’ll be judged more strictly not just by God, God says this is very serious, and I want you to know that I feel this continual weight of burden and responsibility. It’s not crushing, but sometimes it almost is. To think that we’re a big family and I bear the most responsibility? Grace would tell you that there are times that it is a load that is difficult for me to bear because I do love you and I do care. And he says that you’ll be judged more strictly. This is by God and it’s by others. I’ve got a good friend of mine, he’s a pastor, way more successful than me, and I’m not going to name drop but he called me up one time and he said, “Just accept that 5% of people will always hate you if you teach.” I was like, well thanks Barnabas, for all the encouragement. That’s super helpful. So let me say what that means to you. Let’s say you’ve got a large community group of 20 people, there’s going to be one person in that group that really doesn’t like you. Let’s say you’re a community group coach overseeing multiple groups and 100 people. Maybe five people really don’t like you. And if you’re me, it’s a parade, okay? It’s a parade. It’s a pitchfork parade. And sometimes it’s because you did or said something wrong, and sometimes it’s because people have got it wrong and nothing is ever 100 percent either way. And I would say, this is why, because I love you, I don’t want to push you all into teaching positions. If you’re going to get more strictly judged by God and more harshly opposed and criticized by people, unless God calls you to that, you won’t be able to sustain that. It’s one of the reasons my sons are here. I would never push my sons into ministry. “Dad’s a teacher, be a teacher.” No, no, no, dad’s a Christian, be a Christian, the end. If God wants you to teach, I guess you have to. But if God doesn’t want you to teach, dad is not nominating you because you don’t want to put someone in the wrong position under that crushing weight. It’s not good for them. And some of you, you want more than anything to be a teacher and because I love you, I’d say, check your motives, check your heart, see if that’s what God’s called you to, and if he has, make sure you’re ready, but understand you’ll be judged more strictly. That’s the word for teachers, how about for hearers? Well, I love this line ’cause I think it’s helpful. “For we all” what? Okay, “For we all” what? Stumble. You ever tripped? Maybe you we’re like, “Gosh, didn’t see that curb.” “Should have tied my shoe.” You ever stumbled? Here’s what he’s saying. We all stumble. Just as we stumble physically, we stumble verbally, that’s what he’s saying. So how does this pertain to the hearers? I’ve got three points of pastoral counsel I would give you. Number one, if you’re looking for rocks to throw, there’s always a pile. Let’s say it’s a teacher or a leader, you’re like, “I want to throw a rock at them. Did they say anything wrong?” Yeah, in fact, a perfect teacher over here writing the Bible, Jesus’ little brother says, “We all stumble.” What he’s saying is there’s a pile of rocks. Like if you don’t like somebody, you’re like, “I want to find something they said wrong.” Well, there’s a pile because we all stumble. But here’s the key, there’s a pile for you too. And what happens is we’re like, “Hey, put that rock down. Don’t throw it at me. That was a bad day, I didn’t mean to, you took it out of context. It was Mardi Gras, it never counts on Mardi Gras,” right? You got a reason. “Put the rock down.” What James is saying, everybody put the rocks down because who stumbles in many ways? We all do. So there’s a pile of rocks that they could throw at you for things that you said wrong or didn’t say in the most effective way, but there’s a pile of rocks that could go both directions. It’s like the woman caught in adultery. Everybody grabs a rock. Jesus says, “All right, that’s fine. The guy who gets to throw the rock first is the guy who’s never sinned.” What does it say? Everybody dropped their rock, walked away. The only guy who could have thrown the rock was Jesus. And he didn’t throw the rock, he forgave her. The only one who’s never sinned with his speech is Jesus. We’ve all sinned with our speech. And if we don’t want them to throw rocks at us we shouldn’t throw a rock at them, and the truth is, there’s a quarry . If you’re looking for a rock, they’re not hard to find. There needs to be a little grace, a little mercy, a little forgiveness. The Bible says, “It’s a glory to overlook an offense.” The Bible says that, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.” The Bible says that, “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Okay, what rock do you need to drop? You’re like, “You know what? I’m just going to let that go. I’m going to let that go.” Number two, a coach is different than a critic. A coach and a critic can say the exact same content with completely different reactions. You know the difference? The difference is time and tone. When do you say it? How do you say it? A critic, public, not private because the goal is to crush you not build you. A critic will wait until you’re vulnerable, a coach will wait until you’re teachable. A critic’s intent is to make sure that everyone is invited to join them in the criticism, and the coach is trying to protect you from the criticism to help you learn and grow. How many of you have somebody in your life that’s a critic? Every time they come to you, they’re like, “I want to talk to you,” you’re like, “Ah, what did I do? What did I do now?” How many of you have a coach in your life? When they approach you like, “I need to talk to you” you’re like, “Okay.” They’re like, “Look, not in front of everybody else, we’re not going to gossip, this is look, hey, I love you, I’m trying to help, I’m for you, I see this, so I’m pointing it out, I’m praying for it. How could I help? Do you see this?” “Gosh, thank you. I feel loved by that, helped by that, served by that.” There’s a difference between a critic and a coach. Being a critic is very easy, being a coach is very hard because you don’t have to know someone or love them to be a critic, but you have to know them and love them to be a coach. So for those of you who are here, as you hear something from someone, you got to ask, “Okay, will I deal with this as a critic or a coach?” Number three. If we love someone, we present them on their best day. If we hate someone, we present them on their worst day. The truth is that we’ve all got our best day, we’ve all got our worst day, and it really reveals your heart how you present them. Let’s say you’re in a community, there’s social friendships network, somebody comes up, you know somebody better than they do and they say, “Well, tell me about so-and-so.” “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” If you say, “Well, let me tell you about their best day. They were loving, they were gracious, they were kind, they were humble, they were teachable, they were fruitful.” Whatever. “Let me tell you a story about their best day.” What you’re doing is you’re encouraging that person to see them in the best light and to want the best for them. But, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” If your heart is bitter or self-righteous or judgmental or envious, you’re like, “Let me tell you about their worst day. Here’s what they said, here’s what they did, here’s what they failed to say, here’s what they fail to do. Do you see who they are? Now interpret all of their data you get about them in that negative light.” You and I have to choose, and I would hope we would learn. I’ve failed, you’ve failed to mirror, to image, to worship to reflect Jesus. When we stand before Jesus, it’s not going to be about our worst day. It’s going to be about his best day in our place, making that our best day. We need to be very careful the stories we tell, the details we share, because the heart is revealed in the words that are said. And immediately, some of you get very defensive. How do I know this? Because I’m defensive. So they put the hypocrite up front so you all feel invited to join us on this little conviction journey, and usually what I like to say is, it’s true. And so is their best day. And so is the sinful nature of the heart that is communicating the worst day instead of the best day. That’s for teachers and hearers, he then goes on, pastor James does, to talk about taming the tongue. “If we put bits into the mouths of horses,” okay, let me tell you this. James is like Proverbs, it’s wisdom literature for the New Testament, lots of great practical imagery. You want to learn more about the tongue and these kinds of illustrations? Read Proverbs. “If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.” He jumps down, “For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It’s a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” Here’s what James says, “It’s amazing the animals we can tame.” We were watching “Swiss Family Robinson” not long ago. You’re like, they got a tiger to be a pet and a bear. That’s amazing. I still can’t get myself to say nice things. What he’s saying is that the tongue is like a wild animal that refuses to be tamed. All other wild animals can be tamed, but this wild animal, the one that lives in my head, it’s the hardest one to tame of all. So he uses the analogy, he’s going to use three analogies, he’s going to talk about bits in a horse’s mouth, he’s going to talk about rudders on a ship and he’s going to talk about a spark and a forest fire, and his point is this, little things have big power. Little things have big power. Your tongue is a little thing, but it has big power. Just like the tongue in your mouth, it’s like, it’s akin to a bit in the mouth of a horse. Okay. I’m going to introduce you to somebody, you guys want to meet somebody, okay? Yes or no?
– [Congregation] Yes.
– [Preacher] Okay, I’m going to introduce you to Claire. I have never, I rode a horse once. Come on up Claire. I rode a horse once for three seconds and fell into horse stuff. So I’m not really an expert on horses but I brought Claire along, Good to see you.
– Hello.
– Thank you for joining us.
– Yeah.
– And you are a horse expert. So you are going to help me explain this today.
– [Claire] Okay.
– All right?
– Sounds good.
– So maybe tell them a little bit about your story, whatever you want to share.
– [Claire] Okay. So I’m Claire and I became a Christian when I was 16 years old, I’m the only Christian in my family, and I started riding horses just about the same time. Still serving the church today and I love it, and yeah.
– [Preacher] And that’s you right there?
– [Claire] Yes, that’s me and my horse, Tommy, at the World Show last year.
– So the good guys-
– Yeah.
– [Preacher] Always wear the white hat, the bad guys always wear the black hat.
– [Claire] Yeah.
– I would have a black hat-
– Yeah.
– [Preacher] But you’re wearing a white hat.
– I am.
– That’s good.
– [Claire] There I am, yeah.
– [Preacher] So tell us about your horse.
– [Claire] So this is Tommy, he’s an Appaloosa, he is 12 years old and he is 15′ 2″. He’s a little, he’s a tiny dude, but he’s really sweet.
– [Preacher] So how much does he weigh?
– [Claire] He weighs about 1200 pounds, yeah.
– [Preacher] That’s a lot.
– [Claire] Yeah, it hurts when he steps on you, so yeah.
– [Preacher] Do you have any other horses?
– [Claire] I do. I lease a horse actually, and he is a Hanoverian thoroughbred and he is 17 hands and-
– So what is that?
– [Claire] So at his withers which are like where his leg meets his neck, he stands about six feet tall. So he’s huge. So, and I jump him, so.
– [Preacher] Jump him over?
– [Claire] Fences and poles and stuff like that. So it’s fun.
– [Preacher] And how do you get a horse to do that?
– [Claire] A lot of training-
– [Preacher] Because there’s a lot of people here that are trying to get their dog-
– Yeah.
– Just to sit down.
– [Claire] Yeah. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of leg. Like, I can’t walk sometimes after ’cause it’s just so much leg and it’s just controlling their body, and honestly, a lot of it comes from the bit. It’s actually kind of crazy how much you use it to get the horses body to go where you want it, so.
– [Preacher] Yeah, explain the bit.
– Okay.
– I mean, most of these are city folk-
– Yeah.
– [Preacher] You know, they don’t know-
– [Claire] So this is a bit, this is a little-
– [Preacher] So that goes in their mouth?
– Yes, it goes in their mouth.
– How big of a horse could you control with that bit?
– [Claire] You control a little dude like my pony, Tommy right here or you can control a 17 hand horse. It doesn’t really matter how big the bit is itself. It’s a lot of like the temperament of a horse like corresponding to what bit that you use. So my horse Tommy is a little stubborn so he takes a little bit bigger of a bit than maybe my horse, Spider does ’cause he is very sensitive in the mouth. So this goes in their mouth and this is a hunt seat bit. So you would use this when you’re riding English, and it goes in their mouth like, well kind of like that, I don’t know.
– I’ll help you. So it goes like this-
– Yes.
– [Preacher] Just like this-
– Yes, exactly.
– Like right here?
– [Claire] Just like that.
– [Preacher] How big of a bit would I need?
– [Claire] Probably a big one.
– [Preacher] Probably a big one. That’s kind of what I expected, yeah. It’s okay, and we’re in church Claire-
– Yeah, exactly.
– And you can be honest. Yeah, it’s all right. So it goes in the mouth-
– Yes.
– And then you’re in charge?
– Yeah.
– And so this-
– I mean, hopefully.
– [Preacher] I mean the horses are 10 times-
– Yeah.
– Plus your size and weight, but all of a sudden you’re in control, you’re an authority-
– Yeah.
– [Preacher] and what can you make them do?
– [Claire] Well, you can make them jump or you can make them like what I do with Tommy is we do a lot of flat work. So it’s really technical. I know where his body is at all times. I can tell you where his foot is and what it’s doing and when it’s doing it. So it’s, I can control his shoulders from which way I bend, which way I pull my reign. So if I bend his head to the right, I pick up his right shoulder or I can move his haunches, which are like his back legs and-
– So you control everything?
– Yeah.
– [Preacher] What if you don’t have the bit in the mouth? What can you get him to do?
– [Claire] Probably not a lot.
– [Preacher] Not a lot?
– [Claire] I mean, if your horse is really really broke, you could get him going. I mean, I could get my horse going, I don’t think I can get him to stop, but, I mean, you know?
– [Preacher] Okay. Well thank you, Claire.
– Thank you.
– [Preacher] We love you, thank you for serving and helping us out.
– Thank you.
– [Preacher] All right. Claire’s cute, she looks like my daughter, so I really like her. Okay, we’ll leave it right there. Here’s this analogy, right, bit goes in a wild horse’s mouth, no control, out of control, all of a sudden, under control and useful. This is James’ analogy. He’s got a second one about a ship and a rudder. Any of you boaters? Any of you boaters? Here’s what James has to say. “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.” Again, his analogy is the tongue is very small but in the scheme of things, its impact is very big. I’ll give you another analogy. I’ll show you guys an old warship, it’s called the Bismarck. Pretty impressive, eh? Let me read this to you. “The Nazis commissioned the Bismark battleship in 1940.” Imagine this technology in 1940. “Stretching 825 feet, it was the largest battleship in the world. It boasted eight guns that held shells 15 inches across as well as some five dozen other armaments. The Bismarck’s on-board targeting computer was so precise that it blew away the HMS Hood, which had been the pride of the Royal Navy with a single shot.” Think of like a boxing match, except for 15 rounds, two guys walk in, one guy punches the other guy, that guy passes out and it’s over in one shot. Nobody else wants to get in the ring with that guy. “As grand as the Bismarck was, it had one small but fatal weakness. A vulnerable rudder was located right beneath its thermal exhaust port. In the darkness of night on May 24th, 1941, the Royal Navy attacked the ship with little success until one torpedo hit this rudder. The boat was severely disabled, attacked fiercely, and defeated.” You can feel like your life is like this, big, strong, forceful, successful, impenetrable, but your tongue is the vulnerable point, and it can become the one thing that undermines everything. His third analogy is forest fires. How many of you have ever accidentally set something on fire? I was a kid, I remember I was outside, little kid, alongside of the garage playing with matches or something or a lighter or something, and I started the dry grass on fire one summer and I’m trying to stamp it out, starts going, and now is climbing up the garage. Right? I was terrified, I didn’t know that it would move that fast. Ran and got my mom, who’d been in a kitchen fire and so she was scared of fire and she’s like, she grabbed the hose, she was like, “Okay Mark, you turn the water on,” but it wasn’t connected. So it kept burning and it was amazing how fast and furious it burned until we got that hose attached to put that fire out. Here’s what pastor James has to say. “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire.” “Well, it’s just a little thing, it was one little comment, it was one little, it wasn’t a,” well, a little spark can be a big problem. 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 what? Hell. Some of you would say, “I’m not going to hell” but you could unleash hell on someone else. I was trying to figure out what is the biggest forest fire in the history of the U.S. There’s a debate on this, but perhaps this is it. The Great Peshtigo Fire burned 1.2 million acres. That’s about roughly 1900 square miles. That’s about twice the size of Rhode Island, roughly. It killed around 1500 people, and this was 140 years ago when population was far less dense, and it was in Northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. From October 8th to 14th, 1871, this fire burned and exploded. Some reports would indicate that people sought refuge in the rivers, and it was so hot that people boiled alive in the rivers. Some reports. Do you think the person that started the fire intended that? No. Historically, they don’t know how the fire started. They conjecture, maybe a logger didn’t tend to and extinguish their campfire. But here’s the big idea, once a fire gets going, it’s hard to know where it started because it moves so quickly and so fiercely. And our tongue is a spark, it can unleash hell, that’s what he says. And he uses language here that is echoed by Jesus. Jesus speaks of hell more than anyone in the whole Bible and he uses the language, I found at least on 11 occasions, of Gehenna. Gehenna was a place where godless people would get together to do godless things. Maybe elicit sexual sin and worship false gods and all kinds of horrible, despicable, deplorable, disgusting evil, and then they would sacrifice their own children. So child sacrifice in this place. Well, it became detestable to God’s people for obvious reasons. So they determined that they would turn it into their dump. So all the garbage would be taken out of the city out to Gehenna, this cursed place, and it would be set on fire, and you could see in a distance, the garbage burning day and night, and it became an illustration of what hell is like. That’s where all the sin goes and it’s set on fire and it burns forever. Isaiah uses this language at the end of Isaiah. Jesus echoes this repeatedly and here James is picking up the theme of his big brother, Jesus. This is deeply convicting to me because we all stumble in many ways, but it’s possible to go down to hell, get fire, and then set your Christian brother or sister on fire and boil them alive with your words. And you may say, “Well, that’s not what I intended,” but that’s what the spark does. How many of you have been set on fire by somebody’s words? Who have you set on fire? I find that I and we tend to be more aware of the ways that we have been set on fire than the ways that we have set others on fire, and James here is wanting us to not only be sympathetic toward ourselves, but sympathetic toward those around us. Friends, this greatly affects your marriage. This greatly affects your parenting. This greatly affects your community. This greatly affects our church family, and this can be the wrong information or the right information to the wrong person. And he concludes by saying that we need to look for blessing and cursing. In James 3:9-12, we read this, “With it, the tongue, this little thing that has big implications.” And how many of you, you’re with me, the Holy Spirit has got you and you’re feeling convicted, right? It’s a good thing, God doesn’t want to condemn you, he wants to convict you. He wants you to see it so that we can change, and I need to change too. So I want to invite you to receive this with me, okay? My hope is, today, is not to come to you as a critic but as a coach, as a teacher, who’s guilty with you, but we’re hearing from God to help us all. “With it, we bless our Lord and father.” “God, we love you, we praise you. Put in more Christian music, I want to sing again. I want to sing in the car, I want to pray. Praise the Lord, I want to talk about the Lord. I want to go to Bible study and community group and I want to answer questions and talk about the Lord, yay Lord!” That’s good, right? “And we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” You say, “Well, they’re not a good person” but they’re made in the image and likeness of God. So they deserve dignity. What he’s saying is you can’t say, “Yay, Lord. I hate them. They’re this, they’re that, they’re the other. I’m frustrated by them, they did this, they failed me. Yay Lord!” Positive, negative, positive, negative, life, death, life, death, life, death. Proverbs says that life and death are contained in the tongue. From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brothers, hey, you’re a Christian. Okay, are you a Christian? If you’re not a Christian, you need to become a Christian. You can’t just get your tongue under control. Jesus needs to sit in the saddle, right? ‘Cause it said earlier, nobody can contain their tongue. Nobody can restrain their tongue. You’re not supposed to be the Lord of your own life. You need somebody else on the saddle, his name is Jesus. But if you are a Christian, these things ought not to be so. “Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salty pond yield fresh water.” How many of you have a well on your property? You’re like, “I love my well ’cause I can pull water and Coca-Cola out of it.” You’re like, “No, it’s one or the other.” He’s saying, you can’t get fresh water and salt water, you can’t get two things out of one source. “You see how this awesome tree, it grows apples and oranges.” Not one tree. It’s one or the other. I couldn’t go down to the Puget Sound and get a bucket of water and say, well the whole Puget Sound is salt water but every once in a while I go down and I scoop a bucket of fresh water, no. And so this is what we like to do is say, “Well look at the good things I said” and it’s like, okay, okay, yeah, we get that. But there’s some other things too. And what he’s saying is you got to get to the source. You see? Whether it’s the source of the fruit or the source of the water, the whole point is to get to the source. And in the Bible, the source is the heart, the heart appears about 900 times. It’s not just the physical organ, it’s the spiritual center, it’s who we are. That’s where Proverbs says “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks,” right? That’s right, the heart is the wellspring of life. That’s why Jesus says that our words come out of our heart. And so some of you like, “I made a list of words I will not say,” I’m not saying that’s bad, but unless the heart changes, the tone, the time, they don’t change. So I want to ask you some questions for you for your relationships, especially with your spouse, your kids, your community, your community group, what I want to do is I want us to get to the heart of our speech. Number one, whom do I idolize? I want you to ask yourself that question. The great American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, you’ve heard me say it before if you’ve been around, he said that if we idolize, we what? Demonized. If you idolize someone, “I want to be like you. You’re the best. Help me, save me, fix me, bless me, never leave me nor forsake me.” You hand ’em Jesus’ resume, they’re going to fail you. And then you’re going to demonize them. You’re going to speak evil of them, you’re going to oppose them, you’re going to slander them, you’re going to gossip about them, you’re going to destroy them, you’re going to set them on fire. Don’t idolize anyone. If you idolize them, you’ll demonize them. If you set them up, it’s only so that eventually you could set them on fire. And don’t allow yourself to be idolized. It only works until it doesn’t work and then it doesn’t work at all. Number two, what do I covet? “I wish I was married, I wish I had kids, I wish I had their job, I wish I had their parents, I wish I had their car, I wish I had their house, I wish I had their position, I wish I had their gifts, I wish I wish I wish, I wish I had. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to say bad things about them because I’m jealous of them.” In the next chapter, you’re going to hear if you read ahead, the next section of scripture, I should say, in James 3, he talks about bitter envy and selfish ambition. Envy. Selfish. “They didn’t deserve that. You know, they shouldn’t have that. You know how they got that.” You can’t rejoice with those who rejoice, you can’t celebrate God’s grace. You’re angry at it, you’re covetous of it, and that affects your heart and that comes out in your speech. “So I’m going to take it from them or I’m going to make it not enjoyable for them.” Number three, what lies do I perpetuate? “I’ve heard something that I’m sharing, I don’t know if it’s true or not.” Or, “I heard something, I know it’s not true, but I’m going to let it go because it benefits me.” Number four, what gossip do I enjoy? “Oh, so and so, such and such, this and that? Oh, do tell.” And sometimes Christians, let’s just be honest and say we say, “Oh, you know, I got a prayer request.” No, what you have is a gossip request masked as a prayer request. “Oh, pray for so and so.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The answer needs to be, “You need to go talk to them. You don’t need to talk about them.” See, this is Matthew 18, “If somebody sins against you, go talk to them, don’t talk about them.” That’s gossip. That’s gossip. Who am I bitter against? When someone sins against you, you’re really at a fork in the road. You got two options, bitterness or forgiveness. Forgiveness is, “You know what, I’ve got a rock, I could throw it, I’m going to drop it, I’m not going to throw it. I’m going to treat you the way Jesus treated me. I’m just like the adulterous woman, I’m guilty. Jesus could throw a rock at me, didn’t throw a rock at me, forgave me. So I’m not going to throw a rock at you, I’m going to forgive you. I’m going to forgive you, move on. Not going to bring it up, not going to talk about it. We’re going to have a funeral for that, it’s over.” Or bitterness. “Oh no, I will not forgive, I will not let it go. I’m going to be an emotional archeologist. I’m going to continue digging back and feeling it again and maybe adding to it and encouraging others to have perspective on it and to give me their input, have you experienced this? Have you seen this? Yes, let’s set it on fire!” Satan’s in a moment of rejoicing, “Yes! Set it on fire.” And Jesus is in a moment of weeping. No bitterness. Bitterness is the enemy of forgiveness. So Paul says in Ephesians, you know, “Watch against all bitterness and forgive one another as God and Christ forgave you.” Who has hurt me? Here’s what I find, hurt people tend to hurt people. Say, “Man, they really hurt me.” Maybe true. But if you take that into your heart, then you’re a hurt person who’s going to hurt people, and that’s not helpful. Here’s what I’ve learned. When I’m tired, when I’m angry, when I’m frustrated, when I’m hurt, when I feel betrayed, I tend to be a counter-puncher by nature, okay? Swing, swing, okay? And when I’m hurt, I tend to respond in a way that I wouldn’t if I waited. Any of you experienced that? So here’s my encouragement, when you’re hurt, wait. When you’re hurt, wait. Say, “You know what? I can’t talk about this right now.” “You know what? I don’t think now’s a good time. I love you, I want to work this out, I’m not ready. I want to get ready because I want to do this right and I need to go work out my hurt with Jesus. So then I can work out my issue with you. Jesus will take care of my hurt and then I’ll be ready. But I got to get with Jesus first.” Number seven, question for us all, how do I like to play God? And playing God is this. “They all stumble in many ways. They all stumble in many ways, but I don’t. I sit on a seat alongside of Jesus who never stumbled in any way.” And we judge people, and we question motives, and we evaluate their life, and we demand that they come forward and give an account, and we render verdicts of guilt or innocence and sometimes we punish them and make them pay. And Jesus would say, “Number one, that’s not how I do it. And number two, you don’t get to sit next to me.” We all stumble in many ways. None of us gets to sit in the saddle for anyone else. “Oh, I’m going to be in control of you. I’m going to judge you, I’m going to be the, I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to, and if you don’t, well, I’m going to pull a little harder.” No, no, no, no. Off the saddle friend. Right? Jesus needs to sit in the saddle, the Holy Spirit needs to pull the reins, and we all need, we all need forgiveness, we all need a new heart, we all need the power of the Holy Spirit so that the new life in us starts to come through us. No one has had more evil spoken against them in the history of the world than Jesus Christ. And Jesus is the only person who’s ever lived that never stumbled in any way. Everything he always said was the right thing at the right time, in the right way, perfectly. How amazing is that? Jesus never had to walk up to anybody and say, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. My attitude was sour. My tone was angry.” How many times have you had to do that? I’ve had to do this a lot, Jesus never had to do that. He was perfect, and to this day, the most horrific evil, untrue things are said about him. And here’s what I love, here’s the good news, ’cause right now, we’re probably all feeling pretty convicted, amen? Jesus gets the last word. He who does not stumble in any way goes to the cross to suffer and die for we who have stumbled in many ways. And while shameful, horrible things are being said about Jesus, Jesus gets the last word. And what’s the last word? As he’s atoning for the sins of the world, the Lord Jesus says this, “Father forgive them.” Oh, none of us would have said that friend. We would have defended ourselves, we would have picked a fight. We would’ve made sure that we unleashed hell and instead Jesus unleashed heaven on those who were unleashing hell. So here’s the good news, we’re all guilty. Everybody today, put your rock down. And if you belong to Jesus, you’re forgiven. He knows that we all stumble in many ways. He forgives us. He alone should sit in the saddle. And starting with me, we all need a bit in our mouth, amen?
– [Preacher] Otherwise we run wild and out of control like an animal. We drift into danger and devastation and death like a ship that is out of control. And we set people, people we love, on fire with the flames of hell. So this is an opportunity for us all to respond. We’re going to collect our tithes and offerings so that the message of Jesus can continue to go forth in the teaching of the Bible. Want to encourage you to take this opportunity to talk to Jesus in prayer. Anything he’s convicted you of, anybody you need to speak to, anything you need to learn from this, it could be out loud or it can be silent talking to Jesus, right? He’s alive and well, seated on a throne. He’s available to help and to love and to serve. We’re going to partake of communion. As we partake of communion, we remember Jesus’ broken body and shed blood, how God has loved us and forgiven us and saved us, and as we take the elements representing his broken body and shed blood into us, we’re asking him, “Jesus also change my heart so that out of my heart, my words are different.” And if there’s anybody you’re here with, you’re like, “I just need to apologize before we take care of communion. I just need to admit and own some stuff,” I would encourage you, don’t resist or grieve or quench the Holy Spirit. Submit to him and do that. We’re going to sing, you know why? Because this mouth was made to praise God. That’s why it was made. So when he says, “Hey, don’t praise God and curse people.” Cause you weren’t made for cursing, you were made for praising. And so what I want to do is I want to invite you, after we go through this bit of an emotional process together, I want you to get to the point where you’re thinking about Jesus, not just yourself, and you’re praising Jesus, not just talking to yourself and that you’re celebrating Jesus through singing to Jesus and we do it together ’cause we’re asking Jesus to help us treat one another in a way that the love and the grace and the mercy of Jesus has made manifest in the language and the relationships of the people that are brothers and sisters in Christ. So Lord Jesus, thank you for the scriptures, and that I get to go through books of the Bible because I love that. And I thank you, Lord Jesus, as we go through books of the Bible, we hit things that maybe we wouldn’t have hit because they hit us so hard. Lord, I pray for those of us who are teachers that we would grow in godliness, particularly with our heart and our speech. God, I pray for those who are hearers, that they would be gracious with one another and gracious with us all. And Lord, thank you for the honest word of the Bible that we all stumble in many ways. There’s not one of us who can say, “I have my mouth under control. It used to be an issue, but no longer is.” It’s a wild animal. It’s a forest fire. It’s a ship without a rudder. Holy Spirit, please take the reins. Lord Jesus, please sit in the saddle. And God as we come to sing, help us to to do what we were made for and invest our words and not waste our words to be good stewards of our words so that Jesus would be glorified and we would be changed to become more like him. We ask for this grace in his good name. Amen.
