James 3:1-12
Tom Shrader teaches on James 3:1-12, beginning with a warning to teachers about their greater accountability for what they say. Using illustrations of bits, rudders, and fire, he demonstrates how the small tongue has enormous power to direct life and destroy relationships. The message emphasizes that controlling the tongue is impossible through human effort alone but reflects the heart's transformation by the Holy Spirit.
“Your tongue has the power to pump life into the people around you or suck life right out of them.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)
Recorded: 2011
Duration: 38 min
Themes: tongue, speech, words, self-control, heart, transformation, teaching, accountability, teacher, pastor, mentor, parent, struggling with speech, new believer, church leader, seeking self-control
Scripture: James 3:1-12, James 1:22, 2 Timothy 2:15, Acts 20, James 2:5, Proverbs 18:21, Isaiah 6:5, Galatians 5:22-23
Theological Themes: sanctification, holy spirit, spiritual maturity, heart transformation, biblical authority, christian living, spiritual growth, discipleship
Full Transcript
The Theme of James: Doers, Not Merely Hearers
If you have Bibles, open them to the book of James, and let me remind you—and I think I've done this every week, so by now we should be getting the hang of it. Chapter 1 verse 22 is the theme verse of the book of James: "Prove yourself doers of the word, not merely hearers."
What James is addressing is a tendency that we have, I think especially if you're in a good church. It's really easy to become a hearer of the word. To come to that point where—and it was a big deal for me—when I heard or understood that I'm saved by grace through faith, that it's not religion, it's not works, it's grace that saves me. That is a radical shift that's counter-intuitive.
My intuition would tell me religion makes sense: I'm in trouble, I've sinned, I'll fix it, I'll make it right. That's religion. Biblical Christianity comes along and says, "No, it's not about religion, it's about salvation by grace, it's about believing." And there's a danger in that I can get that so ingrained that I leave off the doing part.
Faith That Transforms Behavior
What James says—and I want to cast it in the context of Paul telling us to examine ourselves, look at our faith, is it real?—so we'll talk in these terms often. I'm a Christian because of what I believe, not how I behave. It's a set of beliefs, but those beliefs are accompanied by a behavioral change.
You will change. You'll be different. It'll be radical. It's that three-step process where my heart is transformed, my mind is informed, and I'm going to lead a radical life.
If I'm working, I'm going to be a different manager, owner, operator, because of my faith. If I'm an employee, I'm going to be a different employee. There's a sense—not an exaggeration—but we should be the best citizens. We should be different neighbors. If we're married, my relationship with my spouse has to be affected by what I believe. I'll act differently. I'll respond differently. If I'm dating, I'll date differently. Everything is different because my faith is a belief that moves to action.
Pure Religion in Action
James gives us an illustration at the end of chapter 1 that pure and undefiled religion is to be attentive to the weakest among you: the orphans, the widows. In our context, He might say the immigrants, the refugee, the poor, the working poor. I add, because I'm getting more and more into this, the elderly.
10,000 people every day in this country celebrate their 65th birthday. So if you just took the work week—Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday—if you take the people in the country who had their 65th birthday that week, it would fill Sun Devil Stadium, which might be the only time it'll be filled this year anyway, but it will fill Sun Devil Stadium. And those are huge demographic numbers. And I ought to have a place for those that are hurting.
And I say this all the time: if you're going, "Well, gee, I don't know any of those people," it's really easy. Show up to church 15 minutes early this Sunday and look around. That's all you have to do. And you'll see people sitting there by themselves reading the bulletin. And I've read thousands of bulletins. I know there's nothing in there. If you come in and somebody's sitting over in the corner in the dark spot with a bulletin by themselves, I would almost guarantee you there are people who are hurting. And you can go over and you can reach out to them.
Overcoming Favoritism
What James says: this heart change has to manifest itself in a life change. In chapter 2, He goes right for what was a problem in that church, and a problem in our church, and a problem in our life. And that is, they were showing favoritism toward the special people.
You've had that. I've had it. "Look who's here. Look who's at church. Look who's at my Bible study. Look who came to the dinner." And James is saying, that's interesting. That's, as Spock would say, typically human. But divine is to look and to go, "No, if I think like God," He says it in chapter 2, verse 5, "I choose the poor of this world, the weak of this world." Internal change, and I'm going to see it externally.
The Longest Passage on the Tongue
And today, chapter 3, verse 1, begins the longest—it runs through verse 12—the longest contiguous passage in the scriptures concerning the tongue. And He starts with the one doing the most talking.
He said, "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body."
He starts by warning the teachers. And when He says, "Don't let many of you become teachers," He's not saying, it's an unworthy profession, don't get involved. What He's saying is, "I want to warn you. You're the one doing the most talking. You're going to be held accountable. You're going to be accountable for flaws. You're going to be accountable for what you teach."
The Responsibility of Teaching
So let me—because at this point you may be thinking of me, or Jamie, or someone like that—if you're leading a small group, you're a teacher. And He's saying, "Be careful. Watch out. You're responsible for how you say what you say, but you're responsible for what you say."
Second Timothy 2:15, speaking of teachers: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed." And here's the key phrase, Second Timothy 2:15: "accurately handling the Word of God." You're going to be responsible for teaching, as Paul says in Acts 20, the whole counsel of God.
There's a great scene in the life of the Apostle Paul. It's in Acts chapter 20, and He's saying goodbye to, I'd argue, His favorite church, the church at Ephesus. And it's a very emotional moment. It ends with Paul and the elders hugging, kissing, weeping. Paul has these last words. It's His farewell address, essentially. He said, "I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Be on guard for yourself and all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers in the shepherd of the church of God, which He"
purchased with His own blood. I know after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among our own selves men will arise speaking perverse things." I need to be careful when I teach.
Let's break it into two categories: those who add to, and those who take away from the Word of God. The adders are easy to spot. They'll go, "I know you have this book, but I have another book. I have another teacher. I have someone who's enlightened beyond the scripture, and is a modern day prophet." That's an adder.
A little more difficult to spot are the taker-awayers, and they do it simply by editing the Word of God. They don't teach the whole counsel of God, and it's very hard to do, because you're talking about God, the infinite being. I begin to talk about something that's true about Him, but it's not the complete truth.
The Danger of Incomplete Teaching
Let me illustrate it this way. Is God a God of love? Yeah, sure He is. But He's also a God of wrath and a God of judgment. He's a God of justice. He's not just a God of love and forgiveness that says, "boys will be boys, girls will be girls." No, He says there's consequences.
I have on my paper a big red box and highlighted, and the words in it: "small group leader." If you're in that spot, you're shepherding those people. It's a huge responsibility. And He's saying, watch out. Watch out, not just the content of what you say, but watch out for a slip of the tongue.
The Weight of Our Words
I researched, which means Google—I googled how many words do we speak in a day, and the number has always varied. The traditional number is that women speak approximately 20,000 words a day, men approximately 10,000. Now there's new data that suggests that's a fallacy. It's a myth that's been perpetuated for 30 or 40 years. There's new data that says roughly we speak the same number of words a day.
I don't know if that's true or not, but let's leave it like it is. If you're speaking 15,000 words a day, that means in 70 years, if you sin one time in those 15,000 words—which seems likely—that's 25,550 sins in a lifetime. With just my tongue, just a word here, a word there.
James's Illustrations: Bits and Rudders
Being a great teacher that he is, James illustrates the point. Let me read through verse 6: "Now if we put the bits into the horse's mouth so that they will obey us, we direct the entire body as well. Look at the ships also. Though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, they still are directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, yet it boasts of great things. See how great a fire is set aflame by such a small fire. And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquities. The tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body and sets on fire the course of our lives and is set on fire by hell."
He said, "I want to talk about this tongue." The tongue is very little, very little in proportion to the whole body, like on a horse. How do I control the horse? Years ago, I had a near-death experience while riding a horse up in Montana. I was on a dude ranch with other dudes, and when we arrived at this pretty fancy place, they said we were going horseback riding. I said, "I've never been on a horse. In fact, that's the first time I've ever seen a horse that didn't have a number on it."
The Secretariat Lesson
When I think of controlling a horse by a bit, I think of the illustration of Secretariat. This is that time of year when I get nervous, when the Kentucky Derby comes. I'm a Secretariat guy, and I get very protective of Secretariat's reputation like it matters.
In the year that Secretariat won the Triple Crown, he was projected to be the favorite in the Kentucky Derby. But a couple of weeks before the Kentucky Derby is a race called the Wood Memorial. It's a prep, and he's the favorite. And he runs sixth. If you saw the movie Secretariat, there's this scene afterwards with the owner, and the trainer, and the jockey, and they're going, "What happened? How can this happen?" She's staking millions of dollars on this.
The veterinarian comes in, starts to check over Secretariat, and finds an abrasion in his mouth, under his tongue. If you saw the film of the Wood Memorial, Secretariat's running, he's very hunched over, his head is down. He typically ran up and big. But he's running down to try to take the pressure off that bit on his tongue.
I can take Secretariat, this massive animal—you've forgotten how big he was. When you get a chance, Google Secretariat today, and look at some of those pictures, and look at him running, and look how massive he is. Yet I can move him wherever I want, if I control his tongue. You have this body, this life—if I control this tongue, it's a picture symbolic of controlling the entire members of your body.
The Ship's Rudder
Then he uses a rudder and a ship. There was a show the other night about an aircraft carrier, a new aircraft carrier. It's huge—5,000 people are stationed on this aircraft carrier. That's a small town. They're taking you through this confined space, and they take you up into the pilot's crow's nest. There's the captain of the ship, and he is sitting, and in front of him is the steering
The Power of Control
James uses the picture of a ship's wheel, like the steering wheel of your car. A captain can take that finger and just move that steering wheel and that rudder, and move the entire ship. What James is saying to us, over and over again, is that control of the tongue is symbolic of you having control of the entire body. It can be used constructively or destructively.
The Picture of Fire
He uses the picture of a fire. This is the time of year—I've officially become an old man. Not because of chronology, but because of habit. Jamie is in Michigan, so I sent him an email this morning when I got up, and he emailed back and said it's really early there. I said, but I get up at 4:30, I get one cup of coffee with no creamer, I turn on the TV to compare channel 3 and channel 10 weather. I like the lady that does the weather on channel 3, and I think Corey McCluskey is kind of funny, and I watch and see who's right—they say 102, they say 103. Then I go over with my coffee, and I check, this is how I know I'm old, my hummingbird feeder. I wait, and I wonder, and I look, and I think of my dad. The only thing missing is the newspaper.
I don't take the newspaper. But he would take the morning newspaper, and then he would circle the stuff he thought my mom should read. Stories about back home, who died, who did what. As you look at the morning weather and news this time of year, almost every day there's a fire. Somebody starts a campfire. They do it maybe to get warm or to cook—fire for a good thing. Uncontrolled, it sets ablaze the forest. That's what James is saying with the tongue.
Life and Death in the Tongue
Proverbs 18:21 says life and death are in the tongue. Ben Franklin popularized it: "From a slip of the foot you may recover, but from a slip of the tongue you may never recover." We're flippant with it. Someone has said great minds discuss great ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. I added sports there.
I had lunch with somebody the other day, and when we were done I was in the car driving away and I said to myself—another way I know I'm getting old—I said to myself, "That was an amazing lunch. We talked about ideas, we talked about something more." I'm up for it, I mean I'm already in, I'm ready and versed to talk about Iowa football. I can do it right now. We can talk about those Diamond Backs, or Tiger—let's do Tiger for a while. But what's the point? What about ideas that change minds?
Here's the deal: your tongue has the power to pump life into the people around you or suck life right out of them.
The Power to Pump Life
I was at my physical therapy the other day, and Shelly is coaching us—there's probably five of us. We're doing a series: we're planking (you know what planking is?), I can plank for a minute. I'm close to the world record—the world record is eight hours and one minute, so I'm eight hours away. We're planking and we're doing cat and camel and we're doing bird dog—left arm out, right leg out. This leg that goes out, I need a little balance here. The tendency is to think if I go high that's better, but no, it's long and extended.
I'm doing it, and Shelly said, "Everybody stop and look at Tom. He's doing it perfectly—not good, not great, perfectly." The minute she said it, I felt two things happen: my foot extended even more, and I thought, "Everybody look at me, it's perfect." She just pumped life into me. She owned me for the rest of that time, and even now when I see her, I think, "Okay, I want to stand by her because she's gonna help me be better, do better, feel better." That's what a coach does.
The Power to Suck Life
I'll give you an illustration, and I've been reluctant over the years to use it because it's about my dad, and it's fashionable for guys my age to beat up their dads, I think. My dad was like your dad—He didn't talk, He didn't say "I love you." That's just not His deal. He said "I love you" by letting us live there and eat—that's how He said "I love you."
So one day I decided I'm gonna do something for my dad. He was, I would say, eccentric about how He kept the yard. He wanted the yard cut a certain way, He wanted the sidewalks trimmed a certain way. So I decided, without Him telling me, I would do this for Him. I cut everything, and my mom had—it was laundry day—so she had hanging out in the backyard the sheets. You can picture that: the clothesline, and the sheets hung in a U.
I'm cutting the grass with a hand mower—He's not gonna buy an electric mower, gonna do it the right way. I know that if I cut under the sheets, I'll get grass in the sheets, so I skip that area, thinking I'll come back to it. I finish, and my dad—He's a machine—He's gonna be home at 5:30. So I'm sitting by the garage at 5:29, and at 5:30 He pulls in. He gets out of the garage, He looks at the yard, and He said, "What's that?"
What had happened was, in completing the task, I got carried away with time and forgot to go back and cut the patch under the sheet. Now the sheets are gone, so there's no way of knowing, so it looks sloppy. He said, "What's that?" I said, "Well, Mom..." and He said, "Listen, I don't care." Then He said words that literally changed my life: "If you can't do it right, don't do it at all."
I thought, "That's fine with me. I don't mind not doing it." I mean this not as an excuse, but as an explanation: it set a trajectory for the rest of my life. I still fight it—I don't want to do it. I'm not blaming Him; I'm illustrating the power. There was a moment there where—this is not the Cuban Missile Crisis, but there was a moment where if His response would have been, "Hey, this is really incredible..." He could have really blown me away if He would have said, "You did a better job than I could"—which there's no way that's going to happen, nor would it be a lie—but that's the power you have.
And James' point is that what comes out of your mouth—that positive, that negative, that constructive, that destructive—is symptomatic or emblematic of what's in your heart.
It's like humor. I never thought Don Rickles was funny. He just doesn't seem funny to me. It seems to me like anybody could do that. And I found that the easiest way, I could start to pick on—like I could pick on Travis. I could talk about his wife letting him wear her shirt today. I mean, I could do those kinds of things, but I don't do that. I don't do that stuff. That's cheap. It's easy. Anybody can do that, but that's not, and it's, I guess, funny, but no matter, even in using that illustration in a little way, I guarantee you inside, he felt a twinge. That's not right. I'm a butt of a joke.
The Power to Build Up or Tear Down
And so James is saying to us, as we deal with each other, we deal with our kids, deal with our spouse, we deal with our employees—if you, I can guarantee you this, if you tell your kid you're fat, dumb, and stupid, you're going to end up with a fat, dumb, stupid kid. You tell them enough. You're lazy, you're dumb, you're stupid, you're either going to get a quitter, or you're going to get an unhealthy overachiever. You're going to get one of the two. And that's all that power in the tongue.
That's not to, please don't think that somehow I'm explaining away bad behavior. I'm not. I'm just saying you have the power to motivate and build up. To this day, Shelly has that power in me. Jim Wentworth was the business guy in my life, most influential business person in my life. Not because he taught me a whole bunch, but he gave me a chance and told me I could do it. And when I had some level of success, he reinforced that. You have that within the body of Christ, and you have the instrument in the scripture to pour into people.
Isaiah's Vision: Seeing Ourselves Clearly
In Isaiah chapter 6, it's that classic passage where Isaiah sees God, and the seraphim are present, and there's smoke and fire, and the foundations and the threshold are trembling. When Isaiah sees God, he sees himself for who he really is. And he says in Isaiah chapter 6 verse 5, "Woe to me for I'm undone." Woe to me for I'm undone. I thought I had it together, it's fallen apart. Woe to me for I'm undone. How do I know that? "I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips."
He's not saying that they're swearing all day long. He's saying that what comes out of our mouth shows us what's really in our heart. And you've got the power to build up or tear down.
J. Vernon McGee, old Texas Baptist preacher, little town, ends up in Pasadena. He always had a pithy way of saying things, and he was talking about the church, and he said, "I think the church is more harmed by the termites within than the woodpeckers without, by the snapping and sniping inside than outside."
True Change Comes from the Heart
One author writes this: "Control the tongue? It'll never be achieved unless there's first of all a heart change and mind control. Salvation applies to the whole person. Cleansing the soul includes cleansing the mind. When any Christian comes to the point of yielding to the Lord in full sincerity, cost what it may, control of His thought life, the problem of managing His tongue will be solved."
I had a terrible mouth, just in terms of vulgarity, but a snapping, sarcastic, cynical mouth. And one day all of a sudden I blurted out one of my old favorite swear words, and I thought, "Wow, I haven't said that in a while." I didn't say I'm going to quit. It just happens. The Holy Spirit produces fruit in your life. What's the fruit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.
How do you grow fruit? It just happens. I always thought that would be a great bumper sticker: "Fruit happens." It's just going to take place. It just does. It doesn't mean you don't have to bring discipline into it, but it's a picture of where you are.
The Impossibility of Human Control
And how hard is this to control? Verse 7: "For every species of beasts and birds, reptiles, creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue, for it's a restless evil and full of deadly poison."
He said, you want to know how it is to contain and tame the tongue? They can control and tame all sorts of animals. Dogs and cats and horses. I watched a show not long ago where the Navy was using dolphins to go and to find and detect explosives underwater, and they could even detect what kind of explosive it was. In the same show, they did a segment on crickets and spiders, and they were doing some movie, some horror picture, and they needed the spiders and the crickets to do a certain thing. And they trained the crickets and the spiders. They can train a snake.
But here's what James says: no one can tame the tongue. Well, if I read that, I could have a reaction that goes, if no one can tame it, why try? No human can, but the Holy Spirit can. Naturally, your tongue is divisive, destructive. Why? Because your heart's destructive. But you have a new heart—not a physical organ, but a new center of who you are, a new being. And the tongue is the manifestation of that.
The Contradiction of Blessing and Cursing
"With it, we bless the Lord and the Father, and we can curse man who've been made in the image of God." This is how schizophrenic it is. "From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not be this way."
Out of that mouth, I can be singing praises. I taught Sunday at Scottsdale Bible Church, and we're in there, and we're singing, and we're singing songs. Wouldn't have been the ones I picked, but we're singing songs, and we're praising, and we're doing all the stuff. And I talked for 40 minutes about, I don't remember what it was, about a mess, and a beautiful mess, and how it was inspiring, and moving, and I'm praising God with the tongue. I got in a car, and I thought, "These people got all these resources, and they can't—"
figure out how to get me out of this parking lot. I'm sitting in line in this parking lot. In fact, I can't even back out of my space. You gotta be kidding me. This guy's got enough money to spend a hundred grand on a car, and he can't figure out common courtesy. I mean, I'm thinking to myself, seriously. Preacher boy. James chapter 1 verse 3. Watch out teacher.
That's it. And at that moment, it wasn't, oh I ought not talk that way. At that moment, it gave me a peek at what was in my heart. I was tired, and mad, and irritable, but here's what I've learned. Rather than say, that driver makes me so mad. That driver didn't make me mad. I was already mad.
It's golf. When they say golf is a great character builder. To some extent, but it's really a character revealer. That's what's in there. How can you not? I can understand that I can't hit it like Bubba Watson. I got that, but we're talking about chipping and putting. I come home, and then I bring home what happened all day long. And what comes out of my mouth, that snap, that snippet, what comes out of my mouth is a picture of what's in my heart.
Study Assignment for Next Week
So that's what James does. I don't give homework assignments, but let me suggest to you, you're not going to be judged or graded, but let me suggest to you, get a blank piece of paper, look at James chapter 3, verse 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. So verses 13 through 18, with a blank sheet of paper, and just make observations. Just see what you see. Think of contrasts, compare observations.
And next week, we'll take a look at this passage. And I think you're going to find that a little bit of thinking, and you're going to go, wow, I got a lot out of that on my own. And hopefully that's a source of encouragement to you, that you can crack this Bible code, that there's a lot you can learn by just reading and applying. So it's about wisdom, and we'll take a look at that next week.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for this truth. We pray that today our mouth, as it opens, will bring forth life, construction, that we will build up, not tear down. And God, I pray that You'll mold my heart, that You'll change my mind, and my behavior, and the fact that I'm Your kid will be visible, first and foremost, to me, so I can know that You're a great God. Father, thank You for that. We pray it in Jesus' name, Amen.