Scripture: James 3:1-12

Rev. John W. Fowler

In the third chapter of the Book of James, our Lord’s brother, who has given us this great letter of practical Christianity, finally gets around to our speech, in that he believes that you should talk like a Christian. And he is not talking about Christian lingo, he’s talking about that our conversation should be pleasing to God and consistently should be the type that people can tell by the way that we speak and conversations that we have, that Christ’s love is in our hearts. And so he has given us a warning. It sounds like someone that has some experience with people not having Christ-controlled tongues and that’s why the title of this is “Taming the Tongue”, because James is warning us to: “Watch out; your mouth can get you into trouble.”

Did you say something this past week that you wish you hadn’t said? You don’t have to raise your hands, but all of us do that and we can think of times when we really wish that we had not said that, but God forgives us and hopefully those around us will forgive us, but you still have to deal with the consequences. In James, chapter 3, he says it this way:

Growing up, one of the things I am glad my father did was, he instilled in me deep respect for police officers. He told me, “Son, if you get. . .,” I don’t think he said if; he said, “When, you get the blue light and they stop you, make sure you say, ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘yes, ma’am’ and be very respectful.” And most of the time I have tried to do that.

I came across these things not to say to a police officers if you get stopped:

You’ll get a ticket or maybe go to jail, but you know, some people can just not help themselves. I came across this acronym: HARM. It’s an acrostic for “hit and run mouth,” described as a person who, for whatever reason, feels compelled to tell you just what he thinks of you and your actions, regardless of how well he knows you. His desire is to be heard without hearing; to be known without knowing. He doesn’t care to get his facts straight. What he wants is attention.

Well, this is a message about taming the tongue, how to have speech that really is pleasing to the Lord. I like Rick Warren’s title of his study of James, “How to Manage your Mouth.” Whatever you want to call it, it is very important for our witness as Christians, as disciples of Christ, that our conversations, on a consistent basis, reveal that Christ lives in us.

How do we do that? Well, first of all, we have to take this warning from James seriously. Some warnings we just tend to think: Ah, that’s for somebody else; it’s not for me. I remember, oh goodness, about the seventh grade, a long time ago, that I took up the habit of smoking. I just thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn’t realize it was bad for you. I’d still be smoking today (if I’d be alive) if I didn’t know it was bad for you. I thoroughly enjoyed it; liked the smell of it and everything, until this man came to assembly that we had in my Junior High. He was very no-nonsense; it wasn’t a lot of dog-and-pony, or anything. He just simply had this model (I don’t know where he got it) of a healthy lung.

“Now this is what your lung will look like if you don’t smoke. It will look nice; it’s the kind you want.”

And then he pulled out this lung that just looked like it came from a West Virginia coal mine. It just had all this dust all over it.

“Now, this is what your lung is going to look like if you keep smoking.”

Well, I’m real visual so that worked for me. I haven’t smoked since. I took the signs. I took the warnings, but not everybody is like that. Sometimes we think, especially in the Bible, well, that’s for someone else. That’s for my husband or my wife or my children but I can just ignore this. But James is wanting us to say that the tongue really can do a lot of damage. He puts it in the context of teachers when he says that not many of you should be teachers. He is not saying that the Church does not need teachers. Thank God for them. He is saying that, especially when you teach, realize that your words really can do a lot of good, especially if you are sticking to the truths of the scriptures, but they also can do a lot of damage; you can be a false teacher.

But he gives us three examples that are really for everyone, teacher or not. And he says it this way: First of all, it’s like a bit in the mouth of a horse; it can turn the whole animal. Liz and I went to Charleston this past summer. One of the things I enjoyed was the horse rides that we went on, especially the ones around Charleston that are real popular. The horses that we had were Hit and Run. Those was their names. I don’t know how they got those names. The guide that we had, I guess like most of them, he just had the history of Charleston memorized backward and forwards and every once in a while he would tug on the reins because Hit and Run were getting annoyed with each other or traffic or something. But it was obvious that they were very tame and very under control. But imagine if you were taking that ride with a wild stallion pulling you. No telling where you would go. You wouldn’t enjoy that very much, would you? Our speech is that way. It is like a bit in the mouth of a horse.

Then he talks about it is like a ship. You know, a great big ship is really controlled by a very small rudder. If you have read any World War II history, the sinking of the Bismarck was considered unsinkable until a torpedo hit the rudder. It didn’t hit the ship; it hit the rudder and instead of going to safety, it just turned around and went toward the British Navy, and of course the British Navy welcomed it with a lot of fire and it went down. Likewise, the rudder, the tongue directs our lives and our conversations.

And then he begins to speak about how it is like a spark from a fire. I was listening on the news of someone that I think they are trying to charge with a Federal crime of setting fire because he had been warned. He was cutting his grass in a very, very dry time and wasn’t supposed to, but he did anyway, and it burned down a lot of land — acres. It is a very serious thing to set a fire. Back in 1871, almost half of Chicago burned in the great Chicago fire. Two hundred and fifty people died. I believe over 125,000 were left homeless. The legend is that it started when a cow knocked over a little lantern. A little spark can do a great deal of damage. Consequently though, the good news is that at small spark for the good can do a lot of good. Pass it on.

Do you ever struggle with your speech? Good news: In the Bible certainly had times when they had struggles. Moses certainly had trouble with his temper and would say things that he would learn to regret. Miriam, his sister, was very critical of Moses and the Lord blessed her with leprosy when she was very critical. Some people, their temper gets a hold of them. Some people become very critical.

Or think of Isaiah who said that, “Woe,” when he was called, “I am a man of unclean lips in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” And the Seraphim came and touched his mouth and cleansed him.

In the New Testament we think of Peter who made great promises to the Lord. He said, “Lord, I don’t care what everyone else says. I will never leave you or forsake you. I’ll even die for you.”

And the Lord told him, “Peter, I pray for you that you may not enter into temptation. Satan is demanded to have you that he may sift you like wheat, but I pray for you.”

And sure enough, Peter entered into temptation and denied his Lord.

I think of Ananias and Sapphira who were following the example of Barnabas in the Book of Acts when they sold some land and gave proceeds to the Church. But in their case, unlike Barnabas, they lied about the whole amount. I have looked at a lot of stewardship campaigns; they tend to shy away from this passage in the Bible, and it doesn’t mean that God is going to kill you if you don’t pay your pledge. The heart of this was that Ananias and Sapphira both died that day because they were deliberately deceitful to God and to the Church.

What do you struggle with? Chuck Swindoll in his book on James talks about ten ways that we can struggle with. Think about this: Do you ever struggle with complaining? How about bragging? I know they say if it’s the truth it’s not bragging, but still, are you prone to that? Lying? Gossiping? Criticizing? Talking crudely, flippantly, condescendingly? Talking too much? Or talking abrasively? These are some of the ways that our speech can become unlike a believer in Jesus Christ.

James goes on to say that it can become like a poison, just poisoning our souls, and says it this way:

They do tame all kinds of animals, don’t they? You know, it seems like lately there have been stories about tigers getting away from the circus. In fact, they just walked through some people. You know, if I saw a tiger, I don’t know how much consolation I would take in the fact that he was tame. He’s still a tiger and he’s just one meal away from not being tame. So I’d rather the tigers, and especially those other animals, just stay with Barnum and Bailey. But he says that even though you can tame the animals, it’s almost impossible to tame the tongue without God’s help.

What happens when our tongue is not tamed? We are kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I was reading about General George Patton, who apparently wasn’t a very religious man. I mean, he would pray, especially going into battle; he would read his Bible, but on the other hand, he could be a very profane man as well. We don’t want this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kind of witness that sometimes are very good but then other times are like the devil himself. James says:

We should consistently, as we abide in the Vine, as it says in John 15, let the fruit of God’s spirit come forth in our lives.

Well, OK, that’s enough of the warning. How do we put it into practice? Well, we need to ask God to help us. We just need to ask Him to help us. One of the ways we begin is that we examine our speech. One of the components of a recent residency from the Doctorate of Ministry that I took back this summer was one that not all of us really enjoyed all that much. We a communications expert come in to help the preachers with their preaching. That should tell you something right there: Someone sitting in the pew that is a communications expert, wants to come and help preachers for free. That’s lets you know they are out there and they are seeing things that they would like to improve upon. I mean, it was great. She was doing it for free and she took us very seriously. We all preached a sermon and then she would take time — believe it or not — she found plenty to comment about me. She did say some of the things you are doing right but then she would go in and she would give me all these little things to practice on. She taught the weather channel people how to speak, so if I start sounding like a meteorologist, you will know that I am taking her seriously. For most of us though it’s kind of painful. We don’t want people commenting on our speaking and our content and we tend to so that with our speech, whether you are in a pulpit or not. But when we do it, what a difference it makes.

Three ways that we do that, I see from the New Testament, that will really help our speech become more Christ-like. First of all, we need a clean heart. We need for God to cleanse our heart. Really, a speech problem for Christians is more a heart problem. Jesus said it this way in Matthew, chapter 15 when he says:

“What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.' " And then he says in verse 17:

What Jesus is saying is, our speech reveals what is on our hearts. That’s why we pray the 51st Psalm: Create in me a clean heart, O God. Put a new and right spirit within me. We ask God to cleanse our hearts.

And secondly, we practice the spiritual discipline of silence. Richard Foster, in his book on the spiritual disciplines, certainly lists solitude as one of the spiritual disciplines that will really help us grow closer to Christ. It certainly will make a difference in our speech. Jesus, before He began His public ministry, spent forty days in the wilderness, being silent and waiting upon the Lord. For most of us, forty minutes might be difficult to be quiet before the Lord. But if we are silent before Him, and quiet, and turn off the noise, we begin to hear better and we begin to give our mouths a rest. He can get a better hold of our speech.

In Mark, chapter one, it says that He went out early in the morning, as was His practice, to pray and be with His Father. Are there times that you can be silent with the Lord to let him speak to you and let Him also take control of your speech?

And third, do we allow the scriptures to cleanse our minds, to fill our minds with His wisdom and His speech? Especially the Psalms and the Proverbs. The Psalmist said,

We read that the Lord is our Shepherd and we shall not want. And we read of the Savior’s love in the 23rd Psalm. The 19th Psalm:

We are especially filled with praise in the 34th Psalm. It says:

If you have a problem with complaining, it is probably that you have a praise problem. You need to learn to praise the Lord and begin to express gratitude to Him. Especially we need to read the Psalms and pray the Psalms, and especially the Proverbs, as well. And we begin to speak in a wise fashion. Many of those:

Proverb 1: 7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; it is only fools who despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverb 2:6 The Lord stores up sound wisdom for the upright; it is a shield for those who walk in integrity.

Proverb 15:1 A soft answer turns away wrath…

Read the Proverbs; don’t be in a hurry, but take time to read them, and you will begin to receive God’s help. What happens when we do that? We begin to have speech that truly builds up the Body of Christ. We are encouragers to other people. Think of Barnabas in the Bible who was an encouragement to Paul. Do you have that reputation? Would you like to have that reputation?

God wants to help us. He wants us to have speech that builds up. James has warned us about the kind of speech in the body of Christ that tears down; that is like a wild stallion; is like the Titanic, getting ready to head to destruction; it is like a forest fire that is just out of control.

Who are those people who have encouraged you over the years, whose speech, the words that they said made a difference in your life? I can think of many. I will just close by sharing three: First of all, I remember at a time I was very, very worried about graduating from college and a counselor in the business school looked at me and said, “You will graduate. You will.”

Now, that didn’t mean that she was going to do something underhanded, but she was expressing confidence that anybody who had hung in there that long could do it. “Now give it your best, but you can do it.”

I’ll always remember those words. Has someone at one time in your life, looked at you and told you, “You can do this.”? And what a difference it made.

I think of numerous times, one in particular: My mother was a great encourager, not only when I was young and growing up, but as a young adult. One time I was extremely disappointed about something and it must have been 12:30 or 1:00 A. M. (That’s the way it is with young adults; they won’t talk to you at normal times of day; it’s going to be the off-hours.) She got up, lost some sleep.

I’ll always remember her saying, “You know, that’s just one person’s opinion.” And it gave me hope.

Or I think of a church problem I was dealing with years ago, and he sat down with such wisdom, such confidence, you know, “How are we going to deal with this?” And I’ll always treasure his friendship. He called me up a couple of weeks ago with good news. He wanted me to know, he thought I had a small part in it (I don’t know how much a part I had in it) that his youngest daughter was now entering seminary and had her first church out in Missouri. And I was thinking, “Well, gosh, she must almost be thirty now.”

“Well, no, she’s thirty-six.” You know, that’s when you think, well, golly that’s a long time ago. But she felt that God, when she was in our youth group at age 17, was calling her to preach and she wasn’t sure about that time, but she e-mailed and said, “You know, I have put this off way too long and I am going to follow God’s call now to preach.”

That’s what happens when we truly let God use us and get control of our tongues. We build up and not tear down. Let us pray.