The Power of the Tongue

 

Text: James 3:1-12

Focus: the tongue

Function: to frame our tongues in a positive light

3:¹Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will face stricter judgment. ²For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is mature, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. ³If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. ⁴Or look at ships: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. ⁵So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.

How great a forest is set ablaze by a such a small fire! ⁶And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of life, and is itself set on fire by hell. ⁷For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, ⁸but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰From the same mouth comes a blessing and a curse. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. ¹¹Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? ¹²Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

Good morning again!

Let me remind you again, by way of introduction that this book is heavy in its tone. James points out sin in a rather blunt fashion as he writes to help the Church reflect the love of Christ to this struggling and broken world that is in need of Jesus’ love and healing.

We understand exactly what he is saying here and the advice, or perspective that he gives really is a sage warning about either the destructive or creative power of the tongue.

And the text, I believe, is intended to motivate our desire to discipline our tongues and be careful about what we say.

I have three great regrets in my life that have to do with the wrong thing that I said with my tongue.

With one, I have been forgiven and the relationship is restored, but the other two are with another loved one who refuses to speak to me.

Destructive words do the kind of damage that a fire does. It burns and it hurts and it destroys.

I hope to be forgiven by that person. And I punish myself instead of forgive myself for those words.

I need to learn to forgive myself as well.

We live in a day and age where negative rhetoric, and the ability to parse it out is seen as a positive character trait. And James says that Christians are not to stoop to that level.

We can have political passions, but we can’t use the kind of destructive rhetoric that politicians resort to.

As Christians, we are not to be like that.

We have power with our tongues and I want us to see what it is.

We have the power of salvation.

In Romans 10:10, we read the words “with the heart, one believes and with the mouth, one admits it and they begin that process whereby they are healed through the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

And also, there is the promise from Jesus who said, when you confess me before men, I confess you before the Father .

I love that promise! To know that God knows us and cares for us is indeed comforting.

Next, we have the power of faith.

Jesus said that if we have the faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains.

He told us to speak to it the word of faith and rest in God.

I remember as a young believer, in the 80’s when the Berlin wall was still in place.

I was praying through this passage and asking the Lord what he meant and I sensed the Spirit nudge me and ask me what mountain did I see in my life?

As I pondered it, I responded with the Berlin Wall. It was a symbol of oppression and injustice to me and I was offended by the godless nature of Eastern Communism.

So I prayed against the wall and after I prayed, political events started happening and within 6 months of that prayer, the wall came down.

I doubt if I was the only one praying that prayer, but I remember that when I prayed that prayer, the wall was indeed a permanent fixture in geo-political landscape. And then, it came down and the Spirit reminded me of that prayer.

We speak to mountains and they move.

There is an Hebrew word for that creative power of God. The proverbial “Word of God” that created the universe. It is Rhema. It is the creative power of God. It might be the same power of God that was used by Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus when he spoke to the dead and he came back to life.

There is power and significance to what we confess with our mouths in positive or negative ways and it seems to me that supernatural forces are connected to it.

Every time I give a dollar to the poor on the street, I look them in the eye and try to humanize them. And the response is always a “God bless you.” When I read in scripture how God is close to the cries of the poor, I think, “okay, the poor are given power by God, I’ll take a blessing from God!”

We live by faith and our petitions to God are part of our living by faith.

Like you, when I pray, I pray protection for my loved ones, but then I realize that God loves everyone and so I pray protection for God’s loved ones everywhere. And that leads me to pray for justice to happen in this world because that seems to be the heart of God.

So, our mouths can speak salvation and healing. Our mouths can work faith both against the mountains of injustice and our personal concerns and desires.

Also, James mentions the possibility of the times that our mouths are a blessing toward others.

The Apostle Paul was concerned about this Christian discipline as well. The CJB Bible quotes him in Ephesians 4:29 this way: Let no harmful language come from your mouth, only good words that are helpful in meeting the need, words that will benefit those who hear them.

We are to use our mouths to build each other up. I believe that takes us taking the time to see the image of Christ in the person we are talking to and to realize by faith the potential that God has for them through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I know James is negative about the potential for sin with our mouths, but I find strength in emphasizing just what we can do with our tongues.

And we have seen that we have creative power with our tongues, we have the power to bless and encourage and finally, we have the power to forgive sins.

John 20:22-23:²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

That is real power in the tongue.

Yesterday at our Kairos training the subject of how we treat the question of Homosexuality came up.

It is a delicate problem for us. We are diverse. And we have people like me who are in full support of forgiving what others call the sin of homosexuality in order to include them in the Kingdom of God.

And there are others who believe that isn’t natural and goes against the created order and therefore, against God’s perfect design.

And we didn’t have an argument about it.

But I spoke up about this very passage of scripture and reminded them of the power that we have to love and receive others who act and believe different from us.

I also mentioned that it is the Holy Spirit who does the work of transforming people into the image of Christ and it isn’t up to us to judge other servants of God.

And the cool thing was is that it was just like here, we have difference of opinions about it, but we love each other and we get along for the common purpose.

The conversation would have went negative until the Holy Spirit prompted me to explain to them the power of the tongue to heal and restore and forgive the failures of others.

So, our tongues bring about our salvation, they partner with God in creating new possibilities, they build others up and they forgive others.

Let us use our tongues to the glory of God!

A Living Faith

 

Text: James 2:14-17

Focus: Works

Function: To frame this passage in a positive light about God’s help for us.

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Surely that faith cannot save, can it? ¹⁵If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food ¹⁶and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? ¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Good morning!

I’m gonna talk a little bit about theology here to open the sermon.

In the 1500’s, the man who invented the doctrine “Sola Scriptura,” or Scripture alone, Martin Luther, believed, because of these verses, that the whole book of James should not be in the New Testament.

He said, applying these verses means that a person must do the works necessary to prove they are a Christian, and if they have to do works, then their salvation is not by faith.

But I don’t see that in the book of James. Last week we heard the two terms: The Royal Law and the Law of Liberty. They address the works that we are to do, or the new law that we are under as believers, and that new law is to care about others like as we care for our own: to love another.

However, I want to go back to Martin Luther’s concerns about trying to save ourselves by works instead of having faith in Christ.

The problem, also, with that thinking is that it is dualistic. It is either/or. It doesn’t have room for both/and. Martin Luther saw it black and white as a matter of doctrine and his doctrine won out over what the passage is trying to say, in my opinion.

I believe that there are actually two different ways to be saved in the New Testament. Paul taught salvation by faith and Jesus taught salvation earned by our good works.

And again, if we can earn it, according to Luther and basic theology, then it isn’t a gift from God, it isn’t grace and that seems to make the cross of Christ irrelevant.

But in Matthew 25, Jesus makes it clear that by taking care of the stranger, and that includes those on our border today, visiting the sick and prisoners, which you all do very well, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked we earn eternal rewards and it also says that if we deny people those basic goods and services while we have the means to help, then we will lose our eternal reward.

Jesus makes it clear that our faith means action and if there isn’t action, then there isn’t faith.

And James reiterates that point.

It might be a which came first argument, the chicken or the egg? I believe that acts of charity, forgiveness, and acceptance of others are acts of faith. We are people of faith. We are new creatures in Christ. We are born from above with a new identity and a Spirit that is moved to care for others. We are transformed by the Spirit of God. And when that happens the natural result is acts of faith.

I think there became problem with what salvation means in the present, Post-Augustian age.

Augustus was a theologian who taught us mainly that Christ died and rose again to spare us from the wrath of God, including hell.

By that time, it was a State Church. The Empire had influence over the Church. And the Empire’s influence included dividing people between the saved and the unsaved instead of those who do justice and those who are selfish.

It was in the empire’s interest to divide people into what they called the righteous and the unrighteous so that they could justify conquering them for financial gain in the name of Christ. It got bad. Pope Nicholas V signed the papal bull, decree, permitting the enslaving of the so-called “unrighteous” folks.

Martin Luther used the term “saved” for who was in and who was out.

The problem with that is that according to 1 John 2:2 Jesus died to save our sins and the sins of the world entire.

Everyone is saved.

So where is the disconnect?

I believe it has to do with the understanding of what it means to be saved.

I grew up believing that saved meant I was delivered from the eternal wrath of God when I die, which is hell, and will spend eternity in a mansion of glory when I die.

We were also told it was our responsibility to tell other people about it so that they could escape hell as well. We were told that was basically the only purpose we had left here on planet earth.

But that is not what the scripture about salvation. Jesus came to restore us to God.

The incorrect emphasis I was raised with was that it all had to do with after I die and we were committed to living sacrificially to tell others about it so that they didn’t suffer the fate of an angry God.

I believe in living sacrificially, but not to deliver people from the fate of an angry God, but to do my part to bring about the Kingdom of God and it’s related peace to this world.

Jesus came to heal us.

John 3:16, Jesus came to give us an abundant life here on earth.

Jesus came to restore us not only to God, but to restore us in our personal relationships with others here on earth.

Jesus came not only to do these works in our personal lives. But Jesus came to transform society itself into a people who are loving and who care for each other.

And it worked until it changed and became an agent of the State. Before that, Christianity spread rapidly because the believers were focused on each other and on transforming the culture.

Christians know that they do have a greater reward in heaven and they do indeed live for that reward.

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t and cannot experience the abundance that God has for us here and now.

Salvation is restoration, not merely deliverance from hell.

It isn’t the message about who is in and who is out, 1 John 2:2 tells us that eventually, everyone is in. We are brothers and sisters with the world entire, regardless of their religion or race.

So, what about this faith without works being a dead faith and whether or not we can earn salvation by our works?

Since salvation is restoration to God and to others then the works of salvation are the works of restoration.

That is one of the reasons why I say forgiveness is a spiritual discipline. It restores us. We can forgive but we have no control over how the other will react.

But my experience tells me that forgiveness restores me to God, and then, who knows what God will do?

Forgiveness is one of the works of the Holy Spirit that leads to restoration and that restoration is an healing.

God is still working wonders of love today, as our Higher Power shows us.

Martin Luther didn’t want the epistle in the New Testament but he just didn’t seem to understand the power of the Holy Spirit behind the good works we are called to do.

So yes, don’t worry about it. We are going to have these works of love and charity and forgiveness because the Power of the Holy Spirit is inside of us leading us to do the good that God has saved us to do.

So, a living faith, is a loving faith.

Living Our Faith

 

Text: James 1:17-27

Focus: Faith

Function: To help people see the power of the Royal law of liberty

¹⁷Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. ¹⁸In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave birth to us by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

¹⁹You must understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, ²⁰for human anger does not produce God’s righteousness. ²¹Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.

²²But be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. ²³For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; ²⁴for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. ²⁵But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.

²⁶If any think they are religious and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. ²⁷Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Good morning!

In years past, I would have broken this passage down into several components and preached each component separately for a mini series on what I call practical guidelines for living our faith.

Now, if you break the passage down, and look at the works required of us in the passage, based on the context of the way to have a pure and undefiled religion, you will see that the passage is showing us ways to love one another.

In one sense, it is sort of what the Old Testament does. The whole law is summed up in the one statement, part of the greatest commandment, to love God by loving each other. That is how we live our Christian faith.

I almost want that to be our motto, it is certainly mine, To Love God by Loving Others.

The first paragraph of our passage tells us of the power that we have to do good. He speaks highly symbolically stating that our acts of love, or charity, or generosity are from God. Our good deeds come from God through us. That is why prayer, study, forgiveness and contemplation -spiritual disciplines- are so important to us. They help to keep us centered on the Spirit in our lives along with the way we may feel the Spirit moving when we are doing acts of Charity, or love. And he emphasizes that it is God who has transformed us, not our own will, but it is the Spirit of God moving inside of us that causes us to do the good that Jesus saved us to do.

And then in the next few paragraphs, he emphasizes areas of Christian discipline and virtue that are important to our spiritual health.

First he talks about anger. He gives us a whole sermon here with a formula: first being quick to hear and then, slow to speak and then slow to become angry. Control your anger.

Anger is not evil. It is an emotion that God gave us that we can use to change situations that are not healthy.

But he tells us that the mere wrath, or anger, or passionate feelings that we have are not the life giving source which solves the problem.

At Kairos, we teach the men not to react in anger, but to respond in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Sure, it is healthy to get angry, but it is our faith in God and our prayers that make a difference, not our revenge or judgment.

In the next paragraph he talks about walking in God’s grace by doing the will of God instead of just hearing it and assenting to its goodness.

Be doers of the Word. And again, Jesus said, A new commandment I give you, Love one another. And again, Jesus said, If you love me, you will obey me.

If you love God, you will actively love others in your life.

And his final paragraph is starts out with an important discipline for us: watch your tongue.

Now, this paragraph is in the context of what being religious is. The root word for religion here is Piety. It has to do with our personal purity.

And he says, if you want to be pure, then first, watch your tongue. James goes into it in depth later on in the book about the potential for good or evil, blessings or curses, delivered by the tongue.

Don’t gossip is an obvious part. Kathy and I remember a true saint at the women’s sewing circle. While one lady, sort of the Church matriarch, was a constant gossip, the other lady would always respond with something nice to say about the person being degraded.

I don’t want to be judgmental, but of those two ladies, the one who words were gracious was obviously living a grace filled life. She was full of joy and had a peace about her that was comforting.

I love the command from Colossians 4:8, Let your speech be gracious.

It seems to me that the people who always have to “tell it like it is” without considering the consequences of how others feel really don’t understand this concept.

We have been given the power to bless others and when we do, God listens.

We have the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us giving us the ability to see beyond the bondage or misfortunes that someone has to see the potential that God has for them.

Being gracious is a result of experiencing grace and passing it along. It is another hallmark of our faith.

And then he segues in the middle of the paragraph to emphasize the point about pure religion by describing what it is.

He states it in a principle form: Pure religion and undefiled before God is to keep oneself unstained by the world and to care for widows and orphans in their distress.

Pure religion is active in its actions toward doing justice on behalf of the powerless.

Religious people are going to speak out, in a positive way for the marginalized, they are going to give their time and energy and money to those who are in need of help and they are going to treat them as well as they treat their own.

It isn’t easy, and it may not be popular. For example, the people at our border, according to Matthew 25, are our neighbors and God will either bless us or curse us based on how well we treat them. And yet, in this political climate, for me to say that gets me accused of being unpatriotic. It has nothing to do with patriotism, I am patriotic, I love the freedom we have here, but before my national identity lies the fact that I and we are first and foremost members of God’s kingdom and the body of Christ here on earth.

Jesus words comforted the displaced and the strangers and the aliens, and it got him killed.

It isn’t easy to be a faithful witness to Jesus’ love for others in such a highly competitive society but it is what Jesus meant when he told us to take up our crosses and follow him.

Wow. That seems to be asking a lot. And God will lead us. I am not at the point of bringing a homeless person to my house because I am not able to deal with the social/mental issues that got them there in the first place. We, frankly, feel like we are just surviving anymore.

But God is still calling us to sacrificial love for others and we do it by faith.

And then he talks about purity. My brothers call this holiness. My childhood tradition was a holiness tradition.

But we need to understand that in many ways Jesus broke down the purity code of the OT by hanging out with the impure, the lepers, the poor, the prostitutes, the collaborators and anyone who was cast out of society by the powers that used the religious system to maintain power and control.

I believe that to keep ourselves unstained by the world, to keep ourselves pure we need to change our thinking about greed, revenge, unforgiveness, and prejudice. Those are worldly values. We are living now in the Kingdom of God and we are living in love and unity and communion with God, each other and with nature.

I want to end with some symbolic language he uses in that segue. He calls the law we are under, the perfect law, or the law of liberty.

I eschew the idea of acting religious. Instead, I want to act out of love for others. Jesus broke a lot of the conventions of the Jewish religion in order to bring justice to the oppressed and to change the narrative of humanity. He did it so that we can learn to love each other and then, live out our faith.

We are under one law, the Law of Liberty and it is this: Love One Another.