Words Matter

Well, this morning I'm going to stand over here, but hopefully you'll be able to see me a little better. Like many of you, I was going about my business yesterday afternoon when I received the news of the shooting at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania. And immediately my mind went to watershed events in people's lives—those moments where you remember exactly where you were when it happened. I thought about the attempted assassination of President Reagan. I thought about the Kennedy assassination, which was before my time, but lots of people talk about that as an impactful event on their lives.

And as I was having a conversation with my children about how to process this, my mind shifted to this morning, and I thought: how are we as a church going to engage with this? The way that we engage with the world and with events like this as believers is we pray. And so that's what I would like to do this morning before we enter into our time of study of God's word, before we're comforted and encouraged by that. I would like to pray and go before God and ask him to intervene on behalf of us, our nation, and those impacted by this event.

So if you would, please pray with me.

Prayer

Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer, you are our steadfast hope, and so we come before you this morning when events like yesterday's seem to shake the fabric of our lives. Lord, we know this isn't the only thing, and for many maybe not even the biggest thing in their lives, but it is a big thing for our nation. So we come before you with heavy hearts.

We're grieving for the victims of the shooting that occurred yesterday during the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Lord, we want to lift up the families and friends of those who lost their lives or were critically injured, particularly the one participant who seems to have been killed because the shooter mostly missed our former president, President Trump. Their pain and sorrow are beyond words, and we ask that you comfort them, surround them with your love, and give them the strength to endure this difficult time.

Even as the conversation shifts about the attempt on President Trump's life, we pray that you would draw near to those who have been impacted by this in ways that will far exceed what we could understand. Lord, we pray for the family and friends of the shooter. We don't know, but surely many of them are confused and dismayed by his actions and the subsequent consequences, including the loss of his own life.

Finally, Lord, we pray for our former President, President Trump, and his family. We pray that you would bring healing to his wounds. Draw near to his heart as he and his loved ones grapple with the reality that someone tried to kill him. And for any others who were injured and for the spectators who may be experiencing trauma, would you comfort them with the comfort only you can provide?

Lord, we also want to pray for our country as it grapples with acts of violence like this. We ask for unity and understanding among our people. Help us to come together as a community to support each other, to listen, and to seek ways to prevent such tragedies from happening again. Give us the wisdom to speak into these divided times, upholding our different convictions while also upholding the value of our opposing image bearers.

Lord, would you prevent our rhetoric from inciting violence, regardless of how strongly we feel about issues that are important? Lord, we lift up our elected officials—current leaders who, despite the division in our country, carry the mantle of leadership. We think of President Biden and our governor. We think of the senate and the house. We think of those local leaders in Pennsylvania and here that have to manage a very divided country. Lord, it's a challenging time. Give them guidance and wisdom on how to lead. Give them the words to say and the support they need to be effective.

We also pray for our country in the upcoming election. Lord, we knew this election would be a time of division. Maybe many of us couldn't have predicted this, but give us all grace for one another as we discuss important issues in the wake of this horrible event. Give us the ability to speak words that heal and build up while not abandoning our convictions and speaking what is true and right.

And Father, as we turn to consider your word—specifically as we look at the book of James chapter three, which seems very applicable—we seek your encouragement and hope for our weary souls. May your word provide us with the direction we need to engage our country in this time. Help us to speak and operate out of the abundance that we have in Christ rather than from a place of fear.

Well, thank you for praying with me. As I mentioned in the prayer, we turn our attention now to God's Word, a place where we find guidance and support and comfort. We have been in two series because we have two pastors. We have been looking at the book of Hebrews when Jeff is preaching and the book of James when I'm preaching. Of course, I am James, and so we're calling this series "James on James." We will be in James this week and next week—back to back. This is the front end of a two-part James on James sermon. We're looking at James chapter three in these two parts, and we're going to begin with the first part, looking at James 3:1-12.

This is God's Word. Let's read it together.

Not many should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we will receive a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is mature, able also to control the whole body. Now, if we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we direct their whole bodies. And consider ships, though very large and driven by fierce winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So too, though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts great things. Consider how a small fire sets ablaze a large forest, and the tongue is a fire. The tongue, a world of unrighteousness, is placed among our members. It stains the whole body, sets the course of life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. Every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and fish is tamed and has been tamed by humankind. But no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue, we bless our Lord and Father, and with it, we curse people who are made in God's likeness. Blessing and curses come out of the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way. Does a spring pour out sweet and bitter water from the same opening? Can a fig tree produce olives, my brothers and sisters, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a saltwater spring yield fresh water. — James 3:1-12

Context from James 1

As we look at this passage, I want to begin by giving a little bit of a callback to what we have been talking about. It has been a while since we've been in James, and you might recall that a couple of months ago, we were in James chapter one. At the end of James one, James kind of lays out what he considers to be the marks of true religion. This is James 1:26-27:

If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself. Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world. — James 1:26-27

When I preached that passage, I said, "Hey, we're going to get to more of that later." Well, today is later. This is where we are.

So he's saying that religion is a combination of really two things, but also three things, right? The two things are to look after orphans and widows, to care for those in need, to show the love of Christ to others, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. So keeping yourself pure within and revealing that purity without. And one of the ways that you do that is through your words. James says that to introduce all of that: if you think you're really practicing true religion and you haven't tamed your tongue, you're deceiving yourself.

In the same way, in chapter two, he addressed the issue of whether or not we actually believe in the Lord Jesus if we're not actually doing good works. So James is very concerned with: are you really believing this stuff? Are you really engaged with the Gospel?

The Real Message of James

A lot of times James gets taken as though what he's doing is kind of telling us that we ought to behave ourselves or watch our mouths. He is, in a sense, saying that, but what he's really saying is that our faith in Jesus Christ, if it's real, if it's true, if it's actually taken root in our hearts, then it will exhibit itself in these ways. So he's actually concerned with the people of God evaluating whether or not they've actually put their faith in Jesus Christ. He's giving them ways in which they can see that that work of Christ in their heart is actually taking root and manifesting itself. And in this passage, right here, that's exactly what's happening.

He's really doing a deep dive on our mouths, on what we say. Now, I'll confess to you, over the years as I've read this passage, particularly James 1, I'm really like, the mouth thing—is that really a big deal? I get the purity within, the purity without. Isn't the mouth thing kind of a subset of that? Why does he make such a big deal of that? Why is that the focal point of how he introduces what true religion is?

In order to help us get that, what I want to do this morning is look at the biblical framework of speaking overall through the Bible, because I think that will help us understand why this is such a big deal for James. I think we don't think like the Bible thinks a lot of times about our words or about words in general. So I want to spend some time with that.

That's my first point in the outline this morning. Secondly, I want to look at what James says about taming the tongue and what he's really saying versus how sometimes he's interpreted. And then finally, I want to look back at the broader picture of the Bible and specifically what I think James is saying in chapter 3, and apply some passages from elsewhere to help us really grasp how the gospel is what's at stake here.

So: point one, biblical framework of speaking. Two, taming the tongue. Three, Christ the Redeemer of our speech. That's our outline for this morning.

Now, there's going to be a lot of back and forth between different passages of Scripture. You're welcome to just listen to me. Those of you who actually did sword drills growing up, this is your Sunday. Pull out your Bible, get ready to show off. You can flip back and forth. Those of you who didn't, it's okay. There are cell phones and the internet. You can type it in and look it up if you'd like, or again, you can just listen to me.

The Power of Words in Scripture

What I want to do first is talk about how the Bible talks about speaking. It's a big deal in the Bible. A really big deal. If you go to the very beginning of the Bible, we see that God creates. How does he create? He creates with words.

Let there be light. — Genesis 1:3

Almost magically, right? God is calling things into existence. In fact, our new church planting resident, former youth pastor director, reminded me this week. He said the words "abracadabra"—there's an argument that those come from either Hebrew or Aramaic words that mean "as I speak, I create," right? There's a magical sense in which the Bible understands words rooted in God and how he created. God through his words can act powerfully and do amazing and incredible things. And to a lesser degree, mankind, who is created in his image, is given some of that power.

In Genesis 1, we see not only God saying "let there be light," but he commissions mankind to name the animals, right? There's a naming, a speaking that mankind is invited into in the creation narrative at the beginning of the Bible.

Similarly, to how God works, we see right at the beginning in Genesis 2 and 3 that there is another force at work in the world that uses words powerfully. The serpent comes into the garden—Satan himself—and he twists God's word, which is powerful, in order to very powerfully corrupt and condemn all of creation. So you see there are words that are spoken powerfully from God that are pure and good and creative and result in really great things, and then there's this force, Satan, that comes and twists those words. And when they're twisted and corrupted, they do really horrible things—like produce the fall, and men and women are kicked out of the garden and condemned to die.

Do you see the power of words right from the very beginning of the Bible? You see their importance. Authors throughout time that contributed to the work of the Bible commented on this. Most notably, Proverbs 18:21, the author says this:

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. — Proverbs 18:21

Essentially saying our words matter. They're powerful. Death and life are kind of contained in them. There are lots of different passages that talk about this, but I don't have time to go into all of them, and you don't have the time to flip to all of them. But I'd encourage you to look at this. Look at how the Bible talks about words, especially in the Old Testament. It's incredibly respectful and incredibly clear about how our words matter. They're powerful and they're rooted in the fact that God's words are powerful.

In fact, theologians talk about how the image of God preserved in mankind—one of the big parts about how we know we're created in God's image is that we speak like him. Not as powerfully, but powerfully, right?

Similar to how we are his image in other ways, our corruption—similar to Satan—is also present in our speech. When we speak in our corrupted natures, those corruptions are also present, and we see that. James is very much harping on that. We'll get to that in just a second, but then I want to kind of fast forward to the New Testament, right? The New Testament similarly has a very high view of language and of the word. Do you know what I have in mind? There's one gospel that really hits you right in the face with it right at the beginning. I'm speaking, of course, of John chapter one.

In the beginning was the word and the word became flesh. — John 1:1

So we see that in our faith, in the Christian faith, right at the center of it, Christ himself is called the living word. And so therefore, you can see the importance and value that Scripture places on speech and particularly God's speech.

God saw the redemption of the world to be so important. They wanted to undo what Satan had done—this corruption—that he didn't just speak it like he did in creation. He came in the form of the living word himself in order to redeem mankind. And we see this very dramatic exchange between Jesus and Satan in Matthew chapter four, where Satan is trying to tempt Jesus, trying to prevent this redemptive work that he's come to do.

The Battle of Words

If I were writing the Bible purely from my imagination—which I'm not doing—but if I were to imagine an exchange between Jesus and Satan, two of the most powerful entities in the world, I would think there would be fireworks. I'd think there'd be swords. I'd think there'd be lightsabers or some kind of special effects. But what do we see in the battle between Jesus and Satan? It's a war of words. Satan comes trying to twist God's word and Jesus corrects him. He straightens him out. He says, "Nope, that's not what that says. That's not what that means. Consider the context of all overall Scripture."

Over and over again, they're going back and forth about God's word. That is the power. It's almost like a wizard's duel. I know there are some sci-fi and fantasy geeks in this congregation. That's how I think about that exchange between Jesus and Satan. It's a wizard's duel, utilizing the powerful word of God as they battle one another.

And of course, we see in Matthew chapter four who's more powerful? It's not Satan who's twisting God's word. It is Jesus who is God's word. He is completely powerful to put Satan in his place, and Satan walks away from that exchange defeated. And of course, ultimately, the living word of God would go and die on the cross, rise from the dead, revealing the power of the word to the world and ultimately giving Satan the death blow.

All Believers as Prophets

Throughout the rest of the New Testament, we see the fulfillment of the implications of that resting on God's people. In the Old Testament, some people were selected to be prophets. They were supposed to speak for God. These are the guys in the Old Testament that are performing the miracles, right? Like parting the Red Sea—Moses—or rising people from the dead—Elijah, right? Those acts of incredible, miraculous miracles are accompanied by prophecy. They're meant to establish and legitimize the word of God. It's because the word is powerful.

And in the New Testament, we see that all believers are made prophets. Acts chapter two, the Spirit is poured out. Joel two is quoted:

One day the spirit being poured out on all flesh and men, women, everybody, prophesying, basically being able to produce the word of the Lord to the ends of the earth and to the glory of God. — Joel 2 (quoted in Acts 2)

And Acts two says, "Hey, today, when the Spirit was poured out on the apostles following Jesus's ascension in the upper room, that Joel two was fulfilled."

So brothers and sisters, we are called collectively to be prophets, to proclaim the word of God.

Now, James highlights that there are a couple different ways that we think about teaching, right? He says, "Not many of you should be teachers." That's how James begins. But he understands—because as you look at the rest of James and because of what he's saying in James three specifically—that brothers and sisters, it shouldn't be the case that we are inconsistent, that our tongues are untamed. All of us are to some degree or another called to be teachers because we are all inheritors of that prophetic ministry that Jesus commissioned us to do in the Great Commission:

Go therefore, make disciples, teaching them all that I have commanded you. — Matthew 28:19-20

That's the biblical framework. That's where James is coming from. That's why the tongue is so important and why he spends so much time talking about this and why he puts it right alongside of purity and displaying that purity by acts of mercy and justice in the world.

So let's now turn and look specifically at what James says in James 3. He has six, maybe seven analogies—depends on what you consider an analogy—but at least six different analogies to drive home three really important points about the tongue. Let's look at them.

First of all, in James 3:3-6, we get three quick-fire analogies. We get the picture of a bit in the mouth of a horse, the picture of a rudder on a ship, and the picture of a spark in a forest setting a fire. And the thing that all of those have in common is that the one thing being illustrated—the thing that's in control, that is acting—has control over the bigger thing.

And so he's saying essentially through these illustrations that your words may seem small, but they're a big deal. They're like the bit in the mouth of a horse, or the rudder on a ship, or the spark that lights the forest ablaze. We know this is true if we just look around. But oftentimes we're just like the original audience—we're dismissive of our words. Do they really matter? We tend to act like, "I just said that. It wasn't a big deal, right?" But everything we say matters. It's abracadabra. It's powerful. It's magical. Our words are really, really important.

The Power Children Recognize in Words

Children get this, right? Watch a child learn how to talk. They immediately go toward the power words—the words that define boundaries or the words that claim things like "no." Because they know we use that way, right? My parent has power. They can say no, and thus it is so. They believe that until about seven. No, really—two, maybe one. But they start to think, "Hey, I can do this. No, right?" My kids when they learn that word—I still haven't learned that word; I say yes to everything—but when the kids learn that from their mother, they do that to me. They say, "Dad, no, right? Power or mine." They say that to their siblings: "You think that's yours, but it's mine. That claim."

And it's not just childlike expression of this. It's more evident as it goes along. Many of us know the power of words. Recently, State was in the Final Four, right? And I was looking at Purdue and their giant, and I was like, we're not gonna beat this guy. And then I was like, oh, I need to believe. You know, I'm really supposed to believe in Jesus, but I also believe in NC State. It's an idol. I'm repenting publicly. I'm sorry, but it's a thing for me, right? So I'm like, how do I want to be in the game? I don't want to be like, "Oh, we're just going to lose to Purdue." So I found all these sports movies and spliced together all these great coaches' speeches and I shared it with three friends. It has like 3,000 views on YouTube right now because the whole state fanbase shared it with one another and everybody started watching it. They're like, "Yeah, we can beat Purdue." It's a false face—we lost—but the words had power. We all believed because Jimmy V told us to believe, right? Because Gene Hackman told us to believe.

Words have power, and we know this as we become adults, right? Many of us spend hours and hours and hours in counseling trying to undo the lies we've believed, the mantras we've told ourselves, that we've convinced ourselves of. You think of the movie Good Will Hunting, right? Robin Williams to Matt Damon's character had to say, "It's not your fault" five times before he really believed it. Because the mantra, the thing that had been pressed into his heart, the thing he believed, the thing he had heard growing up, the words that had been spoken to him and the actions that reflected those words—convinced him that it was his fault that he was abused. And it took a counselor building a relationship and through that relationship, speaking the powerful words "it's not your fault" five times, but really more than five times, to convince him that that was true.

Words have an impact on us. They're like the bit in the mouth of a horse, the rudder of a ship. They're also like sparks that set a fire.

The Consequences of Our Words

One of the conversations we have regularly with the kids is: you are one social media post away from ruining your life. We have incredible microphones in this world today where we can say lots of things, and the impact of those things often have really powerful and sometimes unintended consequences. Remember this, especially this year. I'm speaking to my kids, but I'm also speaking to me—because we can do things, we can say things that set a fire across the whole world. And, as James said, condemn us to hell. Watch your mouths. Be careful.

A great illustration of this is the movie Mean Girls, right? Remember the Plastics? What did they have? They had a burn notebook. It's appropriate.

Where they wrote down all these different insults and things that were negative about other people. And what does it wind up doing? It winds up burning them. All of them by the end of the movie. That's what James is saying. He's warning us: careful with your words because even though they may seem small like the bit in the mouth of a horse, they're driving a horse or a ship where they can light a fire. Our words are powerful because we are created in the image of God. Our words, like his words, are powerful, but unlike his, our words are not always uncorrupted.

Understanding the Structure

And that's his second point. The structure of James 3:1-12 is actually a chiasm, so I'm gonna skip down to the bottom because I think that's his secondary point and in the middle is his primary point. That's how Hebrew chiastic structure works. It's not important other than to know that the end is kind of the second thing and the middle is the most important.

So the second thing that he's really driving home here at the end—James 3:9-12—he's talking about our inconsistency, how our tongue reflects both our divine nature, image bearing, and also our corrupted nature, our sin. He talks about fresh and salt water coming from the same spring. He talks about fruit trees bearing grapes and grapevines bearing fruit. He's saying essentially: hey, we were made to do one thing but we kind of do both things. And his conclusion is, it shouldn't be this way. We shouldn't be this inconsistent. We should be consistent in what we're doing and what we're saying.

I am a living, walking, breathing kind of evidence of the point he's making. And if you don't believe me, talk to my wife, my children, or my close friends. I can be up here with silver tongue saying all the right things and then on the ride home my kids have experienced—even as recently as yesterday—me saying all kinds of things in the car that you guys would be like, maybe we should look for another associate pastor, right? We're inconsistent. Sometimes we speak life, sometimes we speak death—to borrow the language of Proverbs. Our tongues reflect both of our natures. We're inconsistent and James says, it shouldn't be this way. This is not the way it was supposed to be.

The Core Challenge

And then his main point, which comes in the center—that's James 3, verse 1 and verses 7-8—he's saying essentially that taming the tongue is really hard. In fact, he goes so far as to say no one can do it. And he uses the illustration of taming animals. He's like, we can tame animals. That's easy. You want to teach a horse how to do something? You want to put a goldfish in a tank? No problem. But trying to control your speech, good luck.

You know, I participated in a study called Sonship back in the nineties where one of the first exercises they ask you to do is they say, spend a week without complaining, without defending, without gossiping, without slandering, without cursing—just one week. Just try it. It's really hard. You want to kind of understand why Catholic monks were like, I'm going to take a vow of silence. It's about the only way. But even when you do that, it's still inside of you. Your heart speaks and you hear it. You hear your inner voice. Try that. Try not doing any of that. It's impossible. No one can do it.

So we'll just stop there. That could be the conclusion of the sermon: no one can tame the tongue. We're all just kind of a mess. Let's pray. Amen. Amen. That's where this passage stops, but I want you to see, James doesn't stop there. There's a second part to this. We're gonna get to it in the second part of James 3, and as we continue through the book of James, the direction he's going is a path of radical dependence upon Christ. But I don't want to leave you here hanging with that kind of a cliffhanger.

Christ Transforms Our Tongues

And so my last point: I want to look at how Christ transforms our tongues. Now I'm going to borrow from other passages of scripture, but trust me, this is where James is going with the rest of the book.

Alright? So for those of you good at sword drills, Matthew 12:34-35. We have this exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees where the Pharisees have called Jesus Beelzebub. They're the teachers of the day. Not many of you should teach, brothers, right? Because the Pharisees are a great example of what happens when just anybody teaches. They call Jesus the devil and Jesus says this:

Brood of vipers, how can you speak good things when you're evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. A good person produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil person produces evil things from his storeroom of evil. — Matthew 12:34-35

You see how similar that sounds to James? It's almost like James was listening to his brother some over the years, right? What we say is an overflow of our hearts. The Pharisees were showing exactly what was in their heart.

Counselors have an easy job in terms of discerning your heart. All they do is sit you down in a chair and say, "Hey, what do you wanna talk about?" And you start talking and guess what? Your heart is on display. And that's where they begin. Let's look at some of the things that you're saying and what that reveals about your heart and how we can engage that with scripture to start to change those things. Similar to Robin Williams' character, right? How do we speak truth into some of these lies or these perversions of God's word that you're doing?

The Pharisees were so perverted in terms of their heart that they were willing to call the savior of the world Satan. They had it that bad. And that's why James is saying, "Hey, be cautious those of you who wanna be teachers. Make sure that you're not being a Pharisee. Make sure that you're not doing this just out of the overflow of your own sinful heart. Make sure that you're not just kind of taking your sinful state and spewing that on everybody else like a flamethrower burning the world down around you." All you have to do is go on Facebook and you can see there are plenty of Christians on the internet that are doing a lot of teaching that is burning the world down. And James is saying, "Hey, careful."

The Transformation of James

But let's get to the Jesus part. Remember, James understood what it was like to be like a Pharisee. We talked about his story about how he told his brother that he was crazy and later mocked him for saying that he was the savior of the world. He, similar to the Pharisees, spoke from the overflow of his heart even as a brother of our Lord, kind of saying that he was just a joke, that he wasn't what he claimed to be.

And then something happened to James. He saw the resurrected Christ. And I believe that what happened is described in 2 Corinthians 4:6.

For God who said let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. — 2 Corinthians 4:6

James saw the face of the resurrected Jesus Christ and it changed his heart. It transformed him. The word invaded his heart and changed his words so that he went from proclaiming Christ as a joke to proclaiming Christ as Lord.

How did that happen? I've wondered often, like I wish we had a little bit of a glimpse into that conversation. Like, did Jesus kind of show up and go, "Hey, remember you said I was a joke? Remember you kind of mocked me for all of this? Well, guess what? Here I am resurrected. Told you so"? I don't think that's how it went.

The reason I don't think that is because we see his interaction with another guy who had trouble with his words—Peter, who denied Christ three times. In John 21, we see the exchange.

He asked him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved. He asked him the third time, do you love me? And he said, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. And then he said, feed my sheep. — John 21

Which means give them to me. Brothers and sisters, that's the exchange we've gone through. That's what it looks like to allow the dynamics of the gospel to change your heart and ultimately change your tongue.

Living Out the Gospel

Let me tell you what it looks like as somebody who does this often in a big public way. I have a little mantra. I'll show up here sometimes wearing a jacket or wearing the microphone and somebody will come up to me and go, "Oh is it James on James? Are you preaching today?" And you know what I always say? Those of you who've said this to me, you know. I say, "Well, it's a dirty job but somebody has to do it." I say that every time. I've probably said it like 200 times. Some of you are probably sick of it. Some of you don't even bother talking to me before I preach because you know that's what I'm gonna say.

Well, it's a joke, right? Of course, preaching is not a dirty job. It's a beautiful job, but it is something that I feel woefully inadequate for every time. Every time I get up here, I'm nervous. I'm scribbling on my notes going, "Do I have everything right? Did I put it together? Am I a good enough preacher?" All of those things are running through my mind. I think about, "Oh, what did I say in the car yesterday? Does that invalidate everything I'm about to say today?"

The voice of the evil one is in my ears saying, "You're unworthy. You're not good enough for this. You can't do this." And then Danny doesn't know this but he has a ministry to me in that he picks the song right before the sermon and it always reminds me that my job is to get up here and say the things that are in God's word and not the things that are in my heart.

Except that as Jesus reminds me of his love for me, my heart changes. My heart becomes softened by the reality of a savior who loved me, who died for me in spite of my woeful tongue. And he's called me to this beautiful work of getting to share it with you.

So I am speaking out of my heart, but not the heart that was corrupted—the heart that was redeemed. Just like Peter, I'm reminded that I love Jesus. I'm reminded of why, and because of his love for me, I feel empowered to get up here and hopefully give you something that nourishes you throughout the week, hopefully pointing you to Christ, not myself.

James on James is not about James Sutton nor James the brother of Jesus. It is about Jesus, because the word of God always points to him. I'm reminded of this: preaching in the Bible is talked about as a gift, not a skill. That means that anytime I get up here and say anything good, you ought to go praise the Lord, because he spoke through a donkey once. And brothers and sisters, that ought to have an impact on you as you think about your role as fellow prophets.

We believe in the prophethood of all believers. You also are called to teach. Be slow to do it. Not many of you should jump in and say, "Okay, I'm gonna teach." Certainly, you shouldn't do that out of your own effort or your own sinful hearts. You ought to spend time in the word, allowing that to soften you and transform you more into the image of Christ, and your words ought to reflect his word. That's something I want you to consider as we go forward from here.

There are many of you who could take this passage—especially verse one—and say, "Well, James said to leave this to the professionals, so I'm just not gonna do it. It's really James and Jeff's job in our church, not mine." To be sure, James and Jeff have a very sincere calling that they need to be very careful with, because the judgment that James talks about here is something that we need to keep in mind. There's more on us, but brothers and sisters, you're called to speak too—to speak from the overflow of your redeemed hearts.

Spend time in his word. Spend time preaching it to one another. Spend time encouraging one another. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, if you're a boomer or Gen Z or what are we up to now? Alpha—we go back to the beginning. It doesn't matter.

There are lots of us sitting here going, "I can't speak." There are some of you that probably need to stop speaking, and some of you that need to start. All of us need to be transformed, and that's how we need to speak. That is what James is saying. He's saying you need to not speak out of your own strength but in dependence. As you grow in your dependence upon Christ, as you turn your gaze away from yourself, your need, your fear, your doubt, all the corruption and lies that the evil one has told you, and you start to believe the gospel, your tongue should transform. Instead of words of cursing should come words of blessing that are shared with the world around you.

Christ the King Presbyterian Church, I want to say this to you. Think about this: if you think that we're going out these doors and making an impact with our words, that we're effectively sharing the gospel with the world around us, you might be seeing something I don't see. It's happening some, but it should be happening so much more, because we have a savior who is so great, who has done so much for us, who has saved us, who has redeemed us, and who has called us to speak from the overflow of his work in our lives.

Brothers and sisters, would you pray with me that he would do that through us? He can. You have the freedom to rely on him and go forth and preach the gospel. Would you do it with me? Let's pray.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are not just a God who sat up in heaven unconcerned with your creation, but you loved us enough to come as the living word and transform us and change us. Lord, would you change our hearts? Would you work through our tongues as the congregation of this church?

Lord, would you shift our speech away from the selfish, self-centered kinds of speech that we tend to create and speak to others? Instead, give us the words of Christ to share with others. Would you make us true evangelists who preach the gospel of hope and love into a world that desperately, desperately needs it—a country that desperately, desperately needs it?

Would you give us the ability to speak not our own words but yours? And would you speak through us in powerful ways? We pray this in your name. Amen.