During World War II, the United States Office of War developed a campaign to make people aware of the possibility of inadvertently providing the enemy with information that could endanger the lives of U.S. Servicemen. Although they developed a number of slogans that they used on posters to communicate that idea, the one that we continue to use today is “Loose Lips Might Sink Ships”, which we have shortened to “Loose Lips Sink Ships”. But our words actually have the potential to do much more damage than just endanger our troops. And that is the subject of the portion of James’ letter that we’ll examine this morning.
So go ahead and turn in your Bibles to James chapter 3 and follow along as I read beginning in verse 1:
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, of 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.
(James 3:1-12 ESV)
This is not the first time in his letter that James has dealt with the tongue. In chapter 1, he taught that we should be slow to speak and he pointed out that the one who does not bridle his tongue deceives his heart and his religion is worthless. In chapter 2, he exhorted his readers to speak and to act as those who are going to be judged under the law of liberty. Here in chapter 3, he is going to expand further on those thoughts.
Our tongue is one of the smallest organs in our body. The average human tongue measures about 4 inches long and weighs 60 to 70 grams. And yet, as James points out, the tongue has great power. James gives us six pictures to illustrate the power of our words. These six pictures can be grouped into three pairs that demonstrate the power of our words.
Our words have the power to:
1. Direct (vv. 1-4)
James begins this section with the same structure that we have seen throughout his letter. Although it is difficult to see in many of our English translations, James begins with a strong command that warns that not many of his readers should become teachers.
In the first century, teachers, and especially rabbis were highly esteemed, but the problem among James’ audience is that people were aspiring to become teachers for the wrong reasons. Rather than seeking to be teachers of the Word of God in order to help others live a life that is consistent with Scripture, these people desired to have the title of teacher for their own self-interest. They were eager to have positions of status and influence. It seems quite possible that James was remembering the words of warning that Jesus had spoken to those who used their position as teachers to fulfill their own selfish desires:
They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.
(Matthew 23:5-7 ESV)
James is following up here with the command that we saw back in chapter 1 when he instructed his audience to be “slow to speak”. As we saw when we examined that command, James used that phrase in connection with handling the Word of God and the point he was making is that anyone who would desire to teach God’s Word should do that only after careful consideration, because God is going to hold to a very high standard those who claim to be proclaiming His Word.
Believe me, there is not a week that goes by that I don’t soberly consider the opening words of this chapter because I know that God is going to hold me accountable for the way I handle His Word.
But in verse 2, James expands the scope of his audience to include all of us, not just those who teach His Word. He reminds us that all of us stumble in many ways, and one of the ways that we stumble most frequently is with our tongues. And all of us, not just teachers, are going to be judged for our words.
Throughout his letter, we have seen James give us some criteria with which we might evaluate our maturity as a follower of Jesus and here he provides us with one more test. As we’ve seen throughout James’ letter the word “perfect” that he uses in verse 2 is a word that means “complete” or “mature”. And one of the marks of a mature disciple of Jesus is that he or she doesn’t consistently stumble with their words.
With that background in mind, James now gives us two illustrations that describe the ability of our words to direct. Both the bit in the mouth of a horse and the rudder on a large ship are used to harness and direct the power of something much larger.
A small bit in the mouth of a half ton horse allows a 120 pound jockey to control the direction of a powerful racehorse. And a comparatively small rudder can control the direction of a large ship.
Although our words may seem small, they have tremendous power to direct the lives of others. With our words, we can direct people into truth or into falsehood. We can direct them into righteousness or into wickedness. We can direct them into life or into death. We can direct them into edification or into destruction. That leads us into the second two pictures which reveal that our words have the power to…
2. Destroy (vv. 5-8)
The next two pictures – fire and wild animals – picture the ability of our words to destroy.
Many of you may remember that on June 17, 2003 a small human-caused fire began along a trail in Marhall Gulch on Mt. Lemmon. That fire, which ended up burning for almost a month, eventually consumed nearly 85,000 acres of forest and destroyed 340 homes and a number of businesses in the town of Summerhaven.
That is certainly an appropriate picture of the damage that our words can cause. One carelessly spoken word has the potential to do far-reaching and long-lasting damage in the lives of others. James pictures just how damaging our words can be when he describes them as “staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life.” Every area of our lives is subject to the damage that can be caused by our words.
The second picture James uses to illustrate the power of words to destroy is wild animals, particularly those which are full of deadly poison. Here in the desert we are surrounded by poisonous snakes, reptiles, insects and spiders, so we take the appropriate precautions to avoid being bitten or stung by those creatures. But unfortunately, it’s not nearly as easy to avoid the sting of poisonous words.
Many of us grew up being taught the words of this children’s nursery rhyme:
Sticks and stones will break my bones
But words will never harm me.
While the intent behind those words – teaching us to avoid retaliation when someone speaks a harmful word against us – is laudable, most of us quickly discovered the fallacy of that saying. Words can indeed harm us. In many cases they inflict as much or even more harm than any physical abuse that we might suffer.
Unfortunately, it’s difficult and sometimes even impossible to undo the damage that we can inflict with our words. We saw that this morning with the kids. Our words are like that toothpaste – once they’re out of the tube, they are impossible to put back.
Once a lie is told, we can’t transform it into truth. Once a reputation has been destroyed, it often can’t be mended. Once a relationship has been destroyed, it’s hard to put it back together. Because of destructive words families have been broken apart, churches and ministries have been ruined and whole nations have gone to war – all as a result of destructive words.
But fortunately, our words can also have a positive effect on the lives of others. James concludes this section with two final pictures that show that our words also have the power to…
3. Delight (vv. 9-12)
The final two illustrations – a spring and a tree – both picture the positive impact our words can have in the lives of others. In the 21st century, where every house has running water and we can get whatever food we want at the grocery store, it’s hard for us to understand the significance of these two items in the culture of the first century.
We all know that water is necessary to sustain life and there is certainly nothing more satisfying and refreshing as a cold drink of water when we’re hot and thirsty. But in James’ day, that kind of cold, refreshing water didn’t come from a faucet or a drinking fountain or a bottle that we pull out of our refrigerator – it came from a fresh water spring. That is why most of the towns and villages of that day sprang up where there was a sufficient supply of that kind of life-giving water.
Trees were similarly important in that culture. In addition to providing fruit to eat, trees served to keep the soil from eroding and they supplied shade to bring relief from the scorching sun.
Our words have the potential to produce that same kind of refreshment, relief, and delight in the lives of the people God brings into our lives. And since I’m pretty sure that most of us want to use our tongues to speak those kinds of words, let’s use our remaining time to see what James teaches us in this passage about…
How to speak words that delight:
1. Understand that my words are a serious matter
Studies have revealed that the average person speaks for about one-fifth of his or her life. The average person has thirty conversations a day, speaking enough words to fill up sixty-six 800 page books every year. And some of you are even more prolific than that! So that means we have a lot of opportunities to stumble in that area of our lives, which is why James devotes so much attention to the topic.
Sometimes I think that we have a tendency to underestimate the importance of our words. Some of us who would never even think of engaging in murder, or robbing a bank or molesting children, or engaging in sexual immorality tend to view the sins of the tongue as no big deal. So we tolerate, and even engage in lies, deceit, slander, sarcastic putdowns and gossip.
But, just like the other areas of life that James has addressed previously, he points out that our words do matter because they reveal whether in fact we are genuine disciples of Jesus. A genuine Christ follower cannot consistently produce words that curse and harm others any more than a fresh water spring will produce salt water or a fig tree will bear olives. Our words are a serious matter because they reveal what is in our heart. We’re going to come back to that idea in just a moment.
2. Let God tame my tongue
James makes a very interesting observation at the beginning of verse 8 when he writes that “no human being can tame the tongue.” Notice, that he does not say that the tongue can’t be tamed. He just says that no human being is capable is doing that. So the obvious implication is that only God is able to tame my tongue.
But God won’t just automatically do that unless I ask Him to do that and then allow Him to work in my life. So exactly how do I do that? We get a pretty good insight into that in Ephesians chapters 4 and 5, where Paul also addresses the topic of the tongue and the words we speak. Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 4 and let’s take a quick journey through that part of Paul’s letter to see what we can learn.
Let’s start in verse 15. You’ll notice there that Paul encourages his audience to “speak the truth in love.”
Then skip down to verse 25. There Paul commands believers to “put away falsehood” and to “speak the truth.”
Then in verse 29, there is the command to “let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths” but rather to speak that which is good for building up.
A few verses later, in verse 31 he commands believers to put away a whole list of things including clamor, and slander.
Then turn to chapter 5 and let’s skip down to verse 4. There Paul warns against filthiness, foolish talk and crude joking and encourages thanksgiving.
A couple of verses later in verse 6 he warns about being deceived with empty words.
Then skip down to verse 12 where Paul admonishes us not to speak about secret sin.
Finally, in verse 19 Paul writes that as believers we are to address each other with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
All of these verses deal with the tongue and our words. And right near the end of this section, Paul reveals how we can let God tame our words like that. The key to doing that is found in verse 18 where Paul commands us to “be filled with the Spirit.” Obviously that is a topic that we can’t cover in any detail this morning, but we can review the basics.
First, we know that at the moment anyone becomes a genuine Christ follower, the Holy Spirit takes up permanent residence in that person’s life. We get all of the Holy Spirit at that point – we will never get more or less of Him in our lives based on what we do. But we can impede His work in our lives. Near the end of Ephesians 4, Paul warns against grieving the Holy Spirit with a lifestyle of unrepentant sin. And in 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul warns against quenching the Spirit by failing to be obedient to His guidance in our lives.
If I want to let God tame my tongue, then I have to willingly submit to His Holy Spirit on a daily basis. And one of the best ways to do that is to consistently pray and ask God to help me submit my life to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in all areas of my life, but especially when it comes to my tongue.
3. Get a heart checkup
If any of us have chest pain or other symptoms of a heart attack, we immediately go to the doctor and get a heart checkup because those symptoms indicate that we might have a problem with our heart.
James says that we need to do the very same thing when we speak words that curse and harm those who have been made in the likeness of God because those are symptoms that indicate we might have a heart problem. So we need to get a spiritual heart checkup.
James had observed some of those symptoms among those to whom he was writing. In verses 9 and 10, James points out a gross inconsistency that he had observed in the body. People were coming to church and using their tongues to praise God and no sooner than they were done doing that, they used that same tongue to curse their brothers and sisters. And then he uses the illustration of the spring and the fig tree to emphasize why that should never happen.
James is making the same point that Jesus had made earlier when He addressed the religious leaders who had condemned Jesus’ followers because they did not follow the traditional hand washing prior to eating. Jesus concluded His teaching with these words:
But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”
(Matthew 15:18-20 ESV)
Both James and Jesus were making the same point – if the words coming out of your mouth are evil, it is because there is something wrong with your heart. If our heart is right with God, then it will produce words that are consistent with our faith. But if there is a problem in our heart, then it will be manifest in the words that we speak. And when that happens, we need to make an honest evaluation of our hearts.
4. Make it a practice to speak words of life
Many of you are familiar with the Hawk Nelson song “Words”. That song begins with these lyrics:
They've made me feel like a prisoner
They've made me feel set free
They've made me feel like a criminal
Made me feel like a king
They've lifted my heart
To places I'd never been
And they've dragged me down
Back to where I began
Words can build you up
Words can break you down
Start a fire in your heart or
Put it out
Isn’t that a really insightful look into what our words can do? Every day we have a choice. We can either speak words of life which build up others or we can speak words which drag people down.
Here’s the true story of someone who chose to speak words of life and it shows the impact that one person can make by doing that.
[Show video of Johnny the Bagger]
If Johnny can practice speaking the words of life, then certainly all of us are capable of doing the same thing. We certainly experienced that a bit last week during the Lord’s Supper, didn’t we? And I’ve received a lot of feedback from people this week about what a blessing it was to speak and receive words of life from others in the body. But we don’t have to wait to do that again until some other special occasion or service.
This may very well be the most practical application from any of my messages in a long time. And it’s something that all of us can do. So will you join me today in making a commitment to speak words of life in your marriage, in your family, with your friends, in your job, in this body and in our community?
Earlier I shared the lyrics from the song “Words” by Hawk Nelson. I can think of no more appropriate way to end this message than with the words of the chorus to that song. I hope that this will be your prayer this morning:
Let my words be life
Let my words be truth
I don't wanna say a word
Unless it points the world back to you
