Fire Danger: High - James 3:2-10 Series

The Tongue is Powerful

2 We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.

Literally, able to bridle his whole body. If you can bridle your tongue, you can bridle your whole body. The word bridle refers to the headgear that they put on a horse so it can be controlled. So to bridle something means to bring it under control.

Bridle not Muzzle

Please notice that it is a bridle, not a muzzle. The solution to sinful speech is not to muzzle your mouth, but to bridle it.

Psalm 39:1 I said, “I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wicked are in my presence.” 2 But when I was silent and still, not even saying anything good, my anguish increased.

When God sanctifies us, brings us to maturity and conforms us more to the image of His Son, he does not accomplish that by removing our voicebox. He doesn’t take away our speech, He sanctifies it. The most spiritually mature people aren’t necessarily the quietest people. Some talk more than others. The marker is not the number of words. It is the degree of control over those words.

So if having control over my tongue is the mark of spiritual maturity, how do I get that kind of spiritual maturity? How does one go about putting a bridle on his tongue? The answer to that isn’t going to come until verse 13. We will get to that, but before we get there, James has a long section of teaching just about the nature of the tongue. He wants to talk to us in some detail about the power of the tongue, the evil of the tongue, and the instability of the tongue. It is influential, incendiary, and inconsistent. It seems that before giving us the solution to the problem, James is very concerned to make sure we understand the magnitude of the problem. Most of us have very little appreciation of how urgent this issue really is. Speech is such an ordinary thing – we do it all day every day. And so we naturally downplay the significance of missteps in our speech. But in order to be able to apply the solution, James really takes his time in making us come to grips with the magnitude and urgency of the problem.

So I’ll just tell you rright up front – this is not going to be the most encouraging sermon you ever heard in your life. This is a passage designed to convict us and to bring us to repentance. We all love to hear happy, encouraging sermons. But the most important thing is not to hear what we feel like hearing; the most important thing is to hear what God has to say. So let’s take a look at what He has to say in this passage.

3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal.

We can turn this huge animal just using a tiny little piece of metal.

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.

They had ships – sail boats, that could carry 1000 people – huge ships, and driven by powerful winds. And yet the direction was controlled by a guy sitting in back who turned a rudder that, compared to the size of the ship, was tiny.