Date: 15.10.17
Text: James 3:1-14
Title: From little things big things grow
Place:Rhema
File: James 3a
Preacher: Stephen Taylor
One of my favourite songs is Paul Kelly’s “From Little Things Big things grow”. Do you know it? It used be on high rotation for the Industry Super Ads? And it’s a true story about an Aboriginal man called Vincent Ling-yaree. Vincent was from the Gur-in-gee people working on a white man's beef property in Nth Qld. But one day they walked off the job. It wasn't because they wanted more money, it was because they were sick of their lifestyle and they wanted to live on their own land. It was a little action in a far corner of Australia. But from this little thing, this little action big things grew.
Vincent was invited down to Canberra to discuss the situation, he spoke to some beaucrats and politicians. And the little thing continued to grow. In fact it grew so much that 8 years later, Gough Whitlam, Australia's Prime Minister, came to the Gur-in-gee people and presented them with their land and in a symbolic gesture he poured a handful of sand into Vincent's hands. From little things big things did grow.
Which I believe is the theme for the first section of James chap 3, from little things big things grow. In fact it would be more correct to say from a little thing, big things grow. Because this part of James is all about the tongue. The tongue is a little thing, it so small, yet it can make big things grow. If it is used destructively that big thing can hurt, stiffle, discourage. But when it is used productively it can heal, encourage, build. As one young mother put it to her kids: “Are your words flames or flowers?” Because from those little words big things will grow.
It is almost like James is saying, the key to true religion is the tongue. The master switch to godliness is our mouths. If you win the battle of the tongue, you have won a decisive victory in your Christian life. Just think of that illustration for a second. Think of a switchboard for a Church or a large building. Each switch controls the lights in its own section of the building and the person who controls the switch, controls the lights. But on the switch board is also a master switch. And if you turn on or off the master switch you control every light. The tongue is a master switch to our growth in godliness. From that little thing big things can grow. Why?
- The tongue controls (verses 3-5)
Just as a bit in the horses' mouth helps us to ride such a strong beast. Just as a ship is controlled and steered by a small rudder, so our tongue controls our body. So if we want our lives to serve God, we must start with our tongues, it is the key place, the master switch. For if we can win this battle, then you have won the war so to speak. For James says, "If anyone is never at fault with what he says, he is a perfect person able to keep his whole body in check.”
Now that rings true for me. It is so hard for me to control my tongue. When I was a new Christian I had an incredibly difficult time trying to stop swearing. It just came out before I had a chance to stop it, and once it was out there was no hiding it. But it is not just swearing, it is easy just to abuse someone, to put them down, to defame their character. Or maybe your temptation is to gossip about others. You hear something and you pass it on and you don’t even stop to think about what you are saying and what harm it could do.
Or maybe you discourage, you always look at things in a pessimistic way. Maybe you have a problem with pride where you tell others you are better than everyone else, or you do the opposite, you tell everyone how hopeless you are. Pride comes in both forms. But all these things come from your tongue. And your tongue controls your body. It is as important to your body as a rudder is to a ship.
The German Battleship, the Bismarck was said to be unsinkable. But one day it strayed too close to the British coast and was sighted and a contingent of aircraft and boats were dispatched to the scene. But it was too quick and it was heading toward the French Coast and safety when it suddenly swung around and started going in a wild zig zag course. It was overtaken and sunk, but why the U-turn? Its rudder was damaged, and as it controlled the ship it controlled its success or failure.
So our tongue is the rudder for our body so if we want to live like Jesus, the place where we start is with our lips. So how does your tongue control your body? What things do you find yourself saying?If we are serious about going God's way, we need to start with our tongues. But not only is the tongue a little thing that controls the body, it also sets the body alight.
- The tongue enflames (verses 5-6)
Where my parents live in Sydney is very close to the Lane Cove National Park. Being close to the bush is great, we often walk and relax there, but when there is a fire, it is very, very dangerous place. Our house and our neighbour’s homes are often in danger from bushfires.
And the thing about these bushfires is that it only takes a spark, it only takes a cigarette butt thrown away to cause incredible chaos.
The tongue is a fire that can set our whole bodies alight and which can set other people's lives in danger. The tongue can fuel the fires of evil in this world. How often are people led astray by self seeking leaders? How often have people trusted their ministers only to be led down the wrong path, trusted their family members only to be physically or emotionally scarred for life, trusted their so called friends only to be stabbed in the back.
The tongue can inflame hurt or it can fire us on to love and good deeds. It can increase our commitment to God when we are challenged with good words, encouraging words. It can burn an important issue onto our consciences or as this passage says that the tongue can be used by Satan to bring hell to earth and to take us ultimately to hell after earth.
If you think about it, one of the first sins in the Bible, done by Adam in the Garden of Eden was to blame Eve for the sin that he was ultimately responsible for. “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree – and I ate it.” God it’s not my fault it’s your fault. You gave me Eve in the first place. It was her initial action that caused it all. I’m not to blame. And Eve blames the snake, he made me do it, she tells God.
That use of the tongue leads Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. It changes the course of the whole world. The tongue not only enflames sin, it can enflame and corrupt our whole
world as well. So the tongue controls, the tongue enflames, and thirdly James says
- The tongue is untamed
In fact James goes on to discuss the fact that the tongue cannot be tamed. That no-one has ever tamed the tongue. We may be able to domesticate animals and bird and reptiles, but we cannot domesticate our tongues. At times it seems to go wherever it wishes.
That’s true isn’t it? If you have been to a circus, you have likely seen some impressive animal acts. A trainer entersa large cage filled with lions and tigers, putting them though routines that include jumping through hoops of fire. Bears ride motorcycles; chimpanzees engage in boxing matches; and elephants stand on their heads. Yet for all mankind’s power to tame wild animals, no one apart from God can control their tongue. The tongue is tameless.
Maybe that is why many of us struggle with the hasty word, the boastful exaggeration, the untruthful statement, the sly suggestion, the harmful gossip, the innuendo, the foul speech. Because none of us can tame the tongue. Because we are trying to do this in our own strength. We are not reaching out to the heavenly resources that are being offered to us. For the tongue controls, the tongue enflames, the tongue is untamed and verses 8-12 says
- The tongue is poisonous
James says it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. He says we use it to praise God but then the evil within us poisons that beautiful speech by cursing men and women who are made in God’s likeness. So out of the same mouth comes praise and cursing. Now that doesn’t happen in real life. A spring is either made up wholly of fresh water or salt water. A tree wholly of figs or olives. It is never mixed. A bit of this and a bit of that.
But the tongue if it is filled with evil will poison your worship. It will destroy your reputation. It will infiltrate everything you do and have done. Think for a moment the NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell. A few years ago he leads the Liberal Party back from the wilderness. A huge lower house majority but what will he be remembered for? Saying to ICAC that he never received a bottle of Grange from a lobbyist. The poison from those words will taint his entire political legacy.The tongue is poisonous, it can’t be tamed, it enflames and controls our life because
- The tongue shows the state of our heart
The state of our tongue shows the state of our heart.For the tongue is a barometer showing the spiritual state of your heart. For just as the doctor asks us to poke out our tongue because the tongue helps him work out physically what is going on inside of us. So the tongue also spiritually shows what is going on inside of us. As the social commentator Bruce Barton once said "For good or ill, your conversation is your advertisement. Every time you open your mouth you let men look into your mind."
For what we bring out of our mouths is just what we have put into our hearts. And in the end if we are God's and our hearts are fully his, then we will not be inconsistent, using our mouths to bless and to curse, using our lips to encourage and to discourage. Streams don’t do that, olive trees don’t do that. For both streams and trees know their sources and they produce only one type of fruit or one type of water, and that is basically what has been put into them. They are in the end not inconsistent.
So if we want to modify what comes out of our mouths, we have to modify what we put into our hearts. And the first thing we have to think about is do we have a new heart? Have we got rid of that self seeking heart, that heart that does what it wants and has it been replaced by the new heart that God gives. For the first way to solve the problem of the tongue is to get a new heart. To have a heart transplant.
No that doesn't mean waiting for one of Victor Chang's successors to operate on you, but to get God to forgive your sins, to give over to God your old heart, your old way of doing things and get God to start afresh in your life. Nothing is of more help to us than to cleanse the source of our problem. To have any effect on our tongue we need to become Christians and ask for some divine heart surgery.
So why is it then that Christians still hurt us with their words? Why is it that Christians can be so thoughtless and so full of gossip and so malicious? Because we need to do something else as well. We need to watch carefully what we put into our hearts. For what we put in will affect what comes out of our tongue. The more we listen to other people's gossip the more we will gossip. The more we expose ourselves to the world's viewpoint, the more we will leave ourselves undefended and just rabbit back the world’s standards and morals.
Yet the more time we soak ourselves in the word of God, the more we crave that time with the Lord, the more we seek to be encouraged by fellow Christians, the more we invite Jesus to take over our hearts, and the running of our lives then the more we will be well armed, the more we will have thought through issues, the more we will find our own speech and doctrine and thoughts becoming more like God's.
So what does this mean for us today? If the tongue really is like this, what is James asking us to do about it? Two things and both of them are at the beginning of our passage in verses 1 & 2.
Verse 1, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” The first application is that you need to be careful who your teachers are. Because teachers use their tongues more than the rest of us. They tell people about God’s word. They teach us about life. And so if they can’t control their tongues. If their words are poisonous then what is going on in their hearts will affect the Church that they are teaching in.
Those who are teachers, those who are leaders, those who talk regularly in public positions can cause tremendous problems for the Church. They can teach false doctrine. They can talk only about their hobby horses. They can spread division and disaster amongst the family of believers and that is what James is going to talk about next. So they will be judged more strictly because their words carry more weight.
So one application is that you need to be careful thrusting yourself and your opinions forward. We need to be careful in choosing our teachers. Character and doctrine is important. Personality may sway a crowd, charisma may bring a following but watch what they are saying and how they are saying it. That is hard when you only hear about people over the radio isn’t it? So if you don’t know your teacher be doubly careful. Maybe you should ensure that your main teaching comes from your local Church so that you can both hear and see how your teacher lives.
And the second application is if we want to grow in godliness, we should start with our tongues. Verse 2 says, “we all stumble in a variety of ways”. We are all still sinners. But the perfect person will control their tongue. Which is a funny way of saying, we might all sin in a variety of ways but we all do sin in one particular way, with our speech.
So we all need to start with our tongues. And if we are concerned about our tongues can I suggest you read through the book of Proverbs. 31 chapters. A Chapter a day, means it will take you just a month. And you will hear good advice like this..
Slide 20
“A man who lacks judgment derides his neighbour, but a man of understanding holds his tongue.” “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
“A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.”
“Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.”
“Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble.”
So try to count to 10 before you speak. Put your emails on draft and think about them before sending them. As you drive away from a conversation ponder what sort of words and attitude you displayed. Ask God in prayer for help with your words. End the day with prayer and ask for forgiveness for all the unhelpful words that you have said. And ask God to provide you with the ability to control the tongue. Each day you need to trust in the saving power of Jesus to cleanse your tongue. Each day the Spirit of God can you give you the fruits of the spirit to guide and direct your tongue.For the tongue is a master switch, that can shed light or bring darkness to all the people around you.
The philosopher Xanthus was having a meal for several distinguished guests and instructed his servant to prepare a meal, four or five courses, of nothing but the best food. The time for the meal arrived and the first course was tongue. The second course was tongue cooked a different way. The third, fourth and fifth courses were tongue all prepared in a different way.
Xanthus was furious and went to the servant. “Didn’t I tell you to get the best thing in the market? The servant replied, “I did get the best thing in the market. Isn’t the tongue the organ of sociability, the organ of eloquence, the organ of kindness, the organ of worship?”