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Grace-based biblical teaching and sermons with Pastor Jason White. Messages that focus on Life in Christ and practical application as New Covenant believers.
“Faith in Action” Message Series
Wk 5 – James 3:1-12
Words…are important. The words we say to ourselves and the words we say to others can be so powerful sometimes. They can either impact our lives and the lives of others in a positive way or in a negative way…and so we have to be careful about what we say and who we say it to…
For example, there was a man who was living in Chicago in the winter and he decided that he just couldn’t take it any more…he was done with all of the cold and wind and shoveling snow…and so he decided that he would go to Florida to escape it all…and so he jumped on a plane and just left and flew down to Florida. The problem was…that his wife was away on a business trip and of course he didn’t want her when she was finished to go back to Chicago…he wanted her to join him down there in Florida.
So he decided that he was going to write her an email and tell her to not go back to Chicago but to fly down and meet him in Florida…THE ONLY PROBLEM though was that he accidently typed in her email address incorrectly and it went to the wrong person. And so instead of going to his wife, the email went to this little elderly woman in Iowa. She…was a pastor’s wife…and her husband had just died the day before. And so this elderly woman who had been a widow for one day now, clicked on this email that should have gone to this other guy’s wife and when she read it she screamed and then fainted right there on the spot!
Well her loved one’s heard the scream and came running in to check on her and see what all the commotion was about, and when they read the email they understood why she fainted…
The first line this widow read had said… “My dearest darling I just want you to know that I arrived safely”… the 2nd line said, “I’m looking forward to you joining me tomorrow.” …
but then it was signed, “Your Loving Husband… P.S. It sure is hot down here!”
So, as you can see, words are important. They can have an incredibly powerful impact on your life and the life of others.
Well, the apostle James is going to talk about that very subject in this section of scripture that we are looking at today…James 3:1-12.
And remember that James has just finished this section on faith and action… faith and deeds. He talked about how faith and action work together. That when we are living by faith, that it gets exercised in action…and when we take a step of action in the direction that Jesus is leading us then that is when we see God’s life and power begin to flow through us…
That life and power of course is sitting in you from the moment you place your faith in Jesus for salvation, but if we don’t take steps of action in the direction He is leading us then our faith is dead, James said…it’s dormant, it’s unprofitable, it’s just sitting there…
BUT when you take action then that eternal life and power that resides in you begins to flow through you now and produce fruit… make impact in your life and the life of others…
And this is going to get applied now in the area of speech, and James is going to show us how powerful the tongue and our speech is and the importance of faith and action working together…
And the first thing James says to his audience and us is that our tongue… that our words have the…
POWER TO DIRECT… We see this in v. 1-4…Look at what James says there…
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. 3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts…
James is showing us that our words, that our tongues have the power to direct our lives…and he gives us a couple of images of how small things can move big things in various directions. One was that of a rudder on a ship and the other was a bit in the mouth of a horse.
My wife, Natalie had a horse when she was growing up. His name was Blazer. And she loved riding that horse around and playing as a kid…As a matter of fact, does anyone remember the show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman?
It was a show that came out in the early 90’s about a woman who was a physician in the Old West in the late 1800’s…and basically, she would ride her horse to see patients and rescue them from the situations they were in…and Natalie would ride around pretending to be her and that she was rescuing all of these people from their situations and circumstances.
So, I want you to picture this…Picture Natalie as a little girl…I mean 4 foot whatever and 60-70 pounds…
And yet she, even being that little could control the direction of this horse that was 5-6 feet tall, and 8 feet in length, and that weighed over 1,000 pounds!
She…as a little girl had the power to direct this horse and make him do whatever she wanted him to do…
And James says that our tongue…that our speech has that same power with us.
That this little 3-inch-long muscle in our mouths can keep our whole body in check and direct where we are going and what we are doing.
Do you remember when Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert?
Each time Satan approached Jesus and tempted him to take action to move in a certain direction away from God…do you remember how Jesus dealt with Satan in those moments?
With His tongue! With words…with Scripture, words of truth. Here’s what we see in Matthew 4…
3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” 7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Jesus used words of truth to direct His life away from temptation.
This was faith working with action as James talked about in ch. 2…Jesus’ actions were to speak words of truth and as He did so that determined the direction of His life in those moments.
Our words have the power to direct our lives in the same way a bit controls a horse or a little rudder controls a huge ship…words may seem like a small thing, but James says they are way more powerful than you tend to think!
I mean, think about this…
When have you ever stepped into sin as you are declaring Scripture?
When have you ever stepped into sin as you were singing hymns or worship songs and truly declaring the truth of those lyrics?
When have you ever stepped into sin when you spoke the truth about your identity in Christ…saying things like…
“I am a child of God, I am no longer a slave to sin in Christ, and I have everything that I need in my union with Him!” …When have you ever stepped into sin when declaring truths like this?
See, what happens in these moments when you declare these truths is that your tongue is DIRECTING YOUR LIFE away from temptation.
The action we take with our words works together with our faith…
They declare our dependence on Christ and that is when His power flows through us to overcome and influence the direction of our lives… so James says that words have power to direct our whole body…
But he also says next that they have the POWER TO DESTROY…Look at verses 5-8…
5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
Most of you know that I spent several years coaching a high school tennis team before God called me into vocational ministry…Well, there was this one time that I had a student whose dad would show up at our matches and just point out every negative thing that his son was doing.
I mean even when he did something right, his words were still negative, “Why can’t you do that all the time?” It was never good enough to please his father.
And so when we would watch him play in practice it was one thing… he was free and having fun and was a great tennis player, but when his dad showed up and began to speak negatively and point out all of his faults, he became a completely different player…
His dad’s words had the power to destroy his son, and they did…not just on the tennis court…in his life. He never felt like he was good enough…like he measured up.
The tongue, James says… “is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” It has the power to destroy.
I mean, how many of us have been crushed by the words of a parent or a spouse or a friend or even just an acquaintance? Probably all of us…How many of us have been crushed by the words of a pastor or someone in church when they were used to guilt/shame/manipulate us in some way? How many of us have crushed our own kids or our own spouse or a friend with our own words?
Words have the power to destroy.
And think about it even from the perspective of what we talked about a second ago, how words have the power to direct our lives…
We talked about how Jesus quoted Scripture and how when we declare truth about who God is and our identity being found in Him, how it can positively direct our lives,
But the same is true in a negative sense…
If you are declaring with your words things like… “I don’t have any power to overcome this temptation,” or “This is just part of who I am,” or “I am not loved,” “I am not accepted,” or “This person has more worth than me.”
Then what follows is that your life gets directed down a path of destruction! And it destroys you (give in to the temptation)…but not just you, the people around you…because that’s when you often begin to lash out at another person because of what you were saying to yourself about not measuring up and so you take it out on them or you take them down a notch or two to help try and prove your own worth…
And so we point out everything wrong about other people either to their face or to others to try and build ourselves up because we’ve been speaking lies to ourselves about who we are instead of the truth of who we are in Christ.
And our words destroy them and us…they destroy our reputation and the trust that we have with others….Our tongue is a small thing but it has the power to destroy… Okay, so James says that our words have the power to direct our lives…the power to destroy (ourselves & others), but there is one more thing that James has to say about our words and that is that words have THE POWER TO BRING LIFE (V9)
9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
Okay so you know this, but in many places throughout the world, the presence of a freshwater fountain or clean drinking water is a huge blessing to the people in a village…
Water is life-giving… and James says that in the same way, our words can give life too.
Proverbs 10:11 even says…
11 The words of the godly are a life-giving fountain
Our words can bring out the life that Jesus gives us in our union with Him. They release His life through us to move us down His paths and to produce fruit and to bless us and others.
Jesus even told the woman at the well in John 4 that the water he gives will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Look at what he specifically says, beginning in verse 10…
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” …13 …“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Jesus, of course, is the life he is describing. He is the living water…
And when we put our faith and trust in Jesus to forgive our sins He puts that living water (Himself) in us…which becomes our Source for life and it even flows through us in order to bring life to others…
And so James says, 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.
It shouldn’t be this way in your life if you know Jesus because Jesus remade you and gave you a new heart and identity…He put His living water in you so that it would flow through you and produce praise and blessing and bring life to you and others…
So when you hear the words coming out of your mouth that destroy your own life and the life of others, know that they are not part of who you are any longer!
Those words don’t belong and they move you down a path that is inconsistent with who you are in Christ…and they will reap destruction in your life and the life of others…
BUT the words that line up with God and His Truth and Your New Identity in Christ will bring Life to you and to others…
It is so life-giving to declare who God is…to sing praises of Him and to declare His faithfulness and His sovereignty…
It is so life-giving to declare who we are in Christ… I have this little bookmark and I know several of you do too…we have given them out here before that pulls identity statements from Scripture and it is so life-giving to read those and say those words…
And this isn’t a positive self-esteem trick, this is the truth about the NEW LIFE WE HAVE IN CHRIST…WHO WE REALLY ARE IN HIM. And it is so life-giving.
And when we speak this about ourselves then it frees us up to not have to compare ourselves to other people and draw our meaning and purpose and identity from them…which frees us up to speak words of life into them!
Why? Because we are no longer needing to say something bad about them in order to bring them down and make us feel better about ourselves…
We are free to bless them and encourage them and build them up by speaking words of life to them! AND THOSE WORDS CAN BE SO POWERFUL.
So listen…this book of James is about faith in action, and James shows us here that one of the ways faith takes action is through our words…
They have the power to direct us, the power to destroy (our lives & the lives of others), but they also have the power to bring life (to allow us to experience the life we have in Christ & to allow others to experience His life through what we say to them).
So, let’s not use them for destruction but rather to point us and others to the life that can be found and experienced in Christ.