Jim Styles - Class 3: The Power to Control Our Tongues

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   I went back and picked up some of the things from chapter 2 that I want to finish up on today at the end of James 2. And then we'll go into chapter 3 and we'll see how we do. All right, we left off looking at this issue of mercy triumphs over judgment. And during lunch, I was talking to a few of you that it really is true that when we get to the judgment seat, I think what most of us are going to do is we're going to be stressing the aspect that we want mercy.

2. 0:23

   That's what we want. And brothers and sisters and young people, if that's what we want at the judgment seat, and that's how we want people to treat us, then we've got to be doing the same thing for other people. There's no sense showing up to the judgment seat of Christ, having not extended mercy to other people, thinking for some reason that Christ, our God, are going to extend mercy to us.

3. 0:42

   But at the same time, that doesn't mean, that's not an excuse to live in sin or to be tolerant of sin. And at the same time, this doesn't mean, I think what a lot of times what happens in family life or ecclesial life is we're afraid that if we extend mercy on an issue, that somehow weakens our own personal position or something like that.

4. 1:03

   And that isn't the way it really works. We know that from raising our children, that we extend mercy to our children all the time. And that doesn't mean that we somehow agree with some of the things that they've done. It doesn't somehow mean that we weaken our own personal standards. We simply find it within us to forgive them for the mistakes that they've made because we love them, we care about them, and we want them to be in God's kingdom.

5. 1:26

   And all we've got to do is learn to extend that same concept to other people. But it doesn't mean that we excuse people's sin. It doesn't mean we're tolerant of it. It simply means that we recognize the fact that we all make many mistakes, as James chapter 3 starts out with. And so, therefore, we learn to be a little more tolerant of the mistakes of other people.

6. 1:45

   I found this when I was up there looking for pictures on the internet at one point, and found that, you know, that's pretty true to life. When you look at this issue of the perspective of forgiveness, we tend to think of forgiveness from the perspective of us and God, recognizing that it's God's prerogative to forgive us.

7. 2:03

   Christ has the power to forgive our sins. And then what we tend to do then is take that issue, that kind of a relationship, and we play that out with each other. And we tend to think that, well, when we forgive each other, or when other people forgive us, it's the same kind of thing.

8. 2:17

   And it really isn't when it comes down to one another. You know, if we have problems amongst each other, if Sue and I have issues between us in our marriage, and I've made a mistake, and I ask for her forgiveness, it's really not the same as going to God and asking for forgiveness.

9. 2:31

   And what happens over time in a family situation, or in marriages, or ecclesial life, is that somebody thinks they have the power over somebody else as to whether they're going to forgive them. And really, what it is with ourselves, and we're dealing with each other in family life and ecclesial life, forgiveness really isn't something that we do for other people.

10. 2:49

    We do it for ourselves, because we are the ones that have the problem. We have got to get over the hurdle. And we've got to get well and move on. And when we refuse to extend forgiveness to other people, then what we do is we live with this bitterness in our soul, and it affects the way we treat people.

11. 3:05

    And it's a problem that we have ourselves, not a problem that the other person necessarily has. When you get into James chapter 2, this last section about the rehab and so on, we looked at the first section there about getting into, and really what James did in James 2, is he looked at personal favoritism, this issue of if you want to measure how you're really doing as a doer of the word, don't just look at all the things that you know that you do well and you already do, and the things that you've picked as your fave five, and you make sure that you do those.

12. 3:35

    Look at some of the other ones that are a little bit tougher to do, like favoritism. How are you doing on showing no favoritism to groups of people? Do we really treat everybody the same? That's an issue that probably all of us can work on. And the last one that he brings up in chapter 2, the other issue of measuring, like how are you doing on being a doer of the word, is he brings up the examples of Rahab and of Abraham at the end of the chapter, and deals with the fact that a belief system without works is useless, which he's already stated, and now he's going to go into some more examples of that.

13. 4:07

    So the doers of the word, the people who really claim to be doers of the word, if we think we are a doer of the word, then we should have a belief system that shows an act of faith, and that's what he's going to go into. So he brings up a very practical example, which is typical of James.

14. 4:21

    You know, he comes forward and he says, look, in verse 15 of chapter 2, if a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, depart in peace, be warm, be filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?

15. 4:38

    I mean, what's the point of saying to somebody who's in need of food, or they need a place to stay, and we go to them and say, oh, good to see you, brother or sister, I hope everything goes well with you, and we wish them well and bless them, and we send them on their way, but we don't do anything to help.

16. 4:53

    We don't do anything to help. But what kind of a faith is that, that just has a bunch of words, and a lot of talk and fluff, but no active spirit there? See, he says, look, can this kind of faith save you? Is that really what God's after, after people that have a lot of talk?

17. 5:11

    And they talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk. Is that really what he wants? No, that's not really a legitimate member of God's family. What we have to do is we have to extend of works of kindness, not works of law, but kindness to people that we love. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

18. 5:31

    That's the kind of faith that will save us. So he compares it to the idea of like the tree, you know, that the same kind of an issue. It's like a tree that has no fruit. And it's like those that Paul refers to in Timothy, that we have a form of godliness, but we deny the power because faith without works is dead.

19. 5:50

    It's an interesting that when you look at this next section here, when you get on down to verse 18, that little section right there, what someone will say, a lot of people have trouble reading verse 18. I don't know what you have come up with in your own reading of it. I looked in a bunch of different Bible versions and a lot of them put the quotation marks in different places.

20. 6:09

    But here's a suggestion as to what was supposed to happen in this little section here in verse 15. So he said, look, we got the fellow who comes along and he's naked and destitute. And one of you says to them, depart in peace. What is that prophet? In verse 17, thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

21. 6:29

    So that's pretty clear. And then in verse 18, but someone will say, well, who's that? Who's the someone? And what's he talking about right there? And the suggestion is that what he's doing is he's going back to verse 16, where one of you will say to them, depart in peace. And that what James does says, well, now in contrast to that in verse 18, but you see, he starts out, but, and he's going back to this same issue, somebody like James, somebody who has an active faith, may well say, you have faith and I have works.

22. 7:03

    And show me your faith without the works and I will show you my faith by the works. And the trick to the passage is to realize that most of our Bible versions that stick in the quotation marks, most of them end the quotes earlier in the verse. And they probably should have gone all the way through to the end.

23. 7:20

    So that's the claim that James is making is the contrast between somebody who says that they have faith and you have faith and I have works. James is going to say, well, look, you show me your faith without the works and I'll show you my faith by my works. And then he goes in to look at Abraham and Rahab as the two examples of Bible characters that did that exact thing.

24. 7:42

    They back up their faith with their works. Not that they were depending on works of law to save them, but James' point is that if we say we have a belief system, if we really believe we're children of God and we believe all those items in our statement of faith and we're baptized into the name of Christ and we really want to die with Christ and then come out of the water and walk with him in a new way of life, that that way of life involves a changed way of life.

25. 8:08

    You don't still do the same things we did before and it's going to change the way that we live and it's not just a list of doctrines to be believed, but it's a way of life to live. And so he's going to say, well, you should be able to show that by the works that you do.

26. 8:23

    Not some kind of works of law, not animal sacrifices that we go through, some kind of ritualistic thing like that. And it's not even taking the bread and wine on Sunday morning, you see. That's not what James is talking about. He's talking about works of faith, things that we have to do where we extend ourselves on behalf of other people, where we take a risk, where we believe that God is going to do something in our life that we don't even believe is possible.

27. 8:46

    It's like beyond human ability to do. And we jump in, we take that deep breath and we believe God's going to do it in our life. Or we live through something where God's brought an event into our life and we just, we can't believe we're going to get through this. And we do, we get through it by faith, believing that God will accomplish something for us that we couldn't do ourselves.

28. 9:06

    See, that's different than doing works of law. Works of law are just a checklist. It says you do this, you do this, you do this. You can almost go through them without thinking. But works of faith, oh, you have to make a decision about this. When he uses Abraham and then Rahab, these were two people that had to make decisions about life-changing events, about what was going to happen in their family, and take the risk of hiding those spies on the roof like that and letting them go.

29. 9:31

    This was extremely risky and involved a trust in God that he would take care of her. That's what he refers to as the acts of faith. These are the kind of works that will save you, not works of law. So when people get into this argument about the debate of whether where James is on one side, Paul's on the other, and whether James is supporting the idea that being a doer of the word is like doing the same kind of law that the apostle Paul was fighting on the other side, he's not really talking about that same kind of thing.

30. 10:00

    The emphasis that James has is on works of faith, not works of law, because like Paul said, by works of the law will no flesh be justified. And that's not what James is supporting. He's looking for things where we reach outside of our comfort zone and we do stuff for God and for our ecclesia and for our family that we really wouldn't want to do.

31. 10:20

    It's not a work of law. It's a work of faith where we have to put something on the line. That's what Abraham did. That's what Rahab did. This is what Bible characters do. And that's what Christ did for us, isn't it? When he really went through the cross in the end and he did what he did and he prayed in the garden and he said, not my will but yours be done.

32. 10:38

    He really, he wondered how he'd ever get through it. How's he ever going to get through the next 24 hours? And he went along with what God suggested, believing that God would somehow get him through when he probably thought it was impossible. But he did. He got through it by the help of his God.

33. 10:54

    That's faith. See, Christ was saved by faith just like we are. There's nothing different about it. He had to go through the same kind of experiences in his life that we do today. He had to put the same thing on the line and believe that his father was going to take care of him the same way James is challenging us, that we've got to be a doer, a doer of the word, doing the works of faith.

34. 11:16

    So there's his point. He says, look, I'll show you my faith by my works. And it's not works of law. It's all these kinds of things where we got involved in people's lives to help them. Not the kind of stuff that you find on a checklist in the works of law department that the Jews would have used that thought those were the kind of things that were going to justify them somehow.

35. 11:33

    So those are all ways that we can help out in a collegial life. Because as James says, and he contrasts right there, that look, if it was just a belief system, if that's really all that mattered, that you had to have the right church, then look at the demoniacs could give testimonies to the statement of faith.

36. 11:51

    You could take somebody who's mentally not right, you could take a demoniac and somehow teach them some of the aspects of our statement of faith, and they could go back to a baptismal interview and they could just rattle off the right answers because you've trained them that way, and yet it doesn't have any impact on their life.

37. 12:07

    It's not going to necessarily change them to develop any of these works of faith. So he says, look, even the demons believe that there's one God. They've got that doctrine right, but that doesn't generate in them any works of faith. And what he's after is trying to impress them that you've got to get beyond that level.

38. 12:24

    That's not good enough to be a legitimate member of the family of God. So he brings up two examples. He brings up Abraham. And then he brings up Rahab. Because as he left verse 20 there, but I want you to know, oh foolish man, that faith without works is dead. It's dead. It's useless, as he had said earlier.

39. 12:43

    So what about Abraham, our father? Wasn't he justified by works in verse 21 when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? And in verse 22, do you not see that faith was working together with his works? And by works of faith, and by works, faith was made perfect. You see the point that Abraham, the father of the Jews in this sense, that God used Abraham and revealed those events in Abraham's life so that everybody that read their Bibles from Abraham's life on down could realize what it meant to live by faith and then to really implement faith by being a doer of the word.

40. 13:21

    And that's why those events are recorded. Abraham looked at the stars and he believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness back in Genesis 15. But then when it came time in Genesis 22 to actually live that out and the test was, do you really believe that? And he had to actually show it forth in works of faith, you see, believing that God was going to literally raise Isaac from the dead, something that Abraham couldn't possibly have done.

41. 13:48

    He believed that God would do it. He walked back with Isaac and he told the young man that we're going to go out and we're going to both come back and he said, look, we'll be back. And he really did believe that Isaac, whatever he did to Isaac, that God was going to somehow put life back in that boy because God had made a promise that through Isaac, your seed would be blessed.

42. 14:08

    And so he believed but that's what works of faith will do. It isn't just a belief system where we have the right church and we have the right set of beliefs. It's a system that will generate works of faith in each one of us and challenge us to go outside the box of our comfort zone of what we're like in family life and ecclesial life where sometimes we have to do things that we really didn't want to do because we know it's the right thing to do to help somebody out.

43. 14:33

    And so the scripture was fulfilled where it says that Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God. And you see that phrase pop up in verse 23 there that Abraham was accounted righteous and he's called the friend of God. Now I looked all over the place for this in John Thomas' writings and I couldn't find it but a lot of people quote it and you'll see it in John Carter's book.

44. 14:58

    It's in John Carter's book on Romans and where he got it from. I don't know. I checked out Libernex and couldn't find it there either. Lebronix. But he does, John Thomas did say at one point that Abraham the sinner was justified by faith and Abraham the saint was justified by works. And it's really not a bad way of looking at Abraham's life.

45. 15:17

    While Abraham was the sinner, he was justified in Genesis 15 by faith when he believed, when he looked up at the stars and he believed God. But once he had been justified as Abraham the sinner and he was now Abraham the saint, which would be like equivalent to us in a sense like being baptized and we're into Christ and we're justified by faith, then we have this whole life of which we need to be justified by works of faith where we show by our works that we really do believe.

46. 15:49

    Otherwise, our faith is useless. Our faith is dead, as James would say. It has to be backed up. It's got to be backed up by the operation of God in our life to where it generates works of faith. Otherwise, we have a useless, dead faith. And it's an interesting way that Brother John Thomas put that and where that came from, I'm not sure.

47. 16:08

    Maybe somebody out here knows and if you do, I'd be glad to hear later on. So Abraham got called the friend of God in verse 23. Now, that phrase, Abraham being the friend of God, you may find that it may be from 2 Chronicles 20 in verse 7 where he talks and says, Are you not our God who drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it to the descendants of Abraham, your friend forever?

48. 16:31

    Or it's probably more likely that he's looking back at Isaiah 41 in verse 8 when talking about Israel, You're my servant Jacob, whom I've chosen, the descendants of Abraham, my friend. But either way, you can see that because of Abraham's relationship with God, believing that God would do in him what was impossible for Abraham to do, and totally trusting that God was going to work it out.

49. 16:56

    If you're single-minded like that, like James is trying to get at, and you really believe that God is involved in your life, and you trust the events that he brings, even though it's going to cause family troubles sometimes as it did with Isaac and with Ishmael and with Hagar, if we believe and we're single-minded on that, then Abraham becomes the friend of God, and we can be the friend of God too.

50. 17:20

    Now, you're going to see that later on tonight when we get to James chapter 4, don't forget this issue of Abraham the friend of God, because as you know, in James chapter 4, he then contrasts somebody who's a friend of God with those who behave like the world, and says, well, if you act like this, you're not a friend of God, you're a friend of the world, and friendship with the world is enmity with God, because it's totally on the other side of the scale.

51. 17:46

    One person believes God, they're single-minded, and they trust what God's doing in their life, and the other person that thinks, I've got to do it, I've got to handle it my way, because I'm not really sure God's in this or not, those are the people that end up with friendship with the world, and they're an enemy of God because of their behavior, as they'll deal with in James chapter 4.

52. 18:03

    So you're going to see this one pop up again in James 4. And you can see the kind of relationship that Abraham had with God and with the angels, because as the three angels were coming down to destroy Sodom in Genesis 18, you can see that they talked to one another, and they said to each other in Genesis 18, shall we hide from Abraham what we're about to do?

53. 18:25

    And they decided, you know, that's probably not a good idea, because Abraham was the friend of God, and the angels went down and talked to Abraham, and that's where that whole debate goes on about what if there's 50, and what if there's 40, and what if there's 30, because the angels realized they couldn't destroy Sodom and let Abraham watch the smoke go up and realize his family's down there, and they couldn't do that without telling them about what they're about to do.

54. 18:49

    And so the two of them went on down to Sodom, and the other one stood there and talked to Abraham to explain what they were going to do. Because as Jesus said in John 15, he says, look, you know, I called you friends because friends let each other know what they're doing. That's what friendship is really all about.

55. 19:06

    And in this case, with God, we can totally trust God in what he's doing when we are the friend of God. And so you find that Abraham was justified by works and not by faith alone. One of the best examples that I found in trying to balance out this issue of faith and works, I got a feeling that one of the reasons that the whole account of Joshua taking the land and all that is recorded, so much is recorded about Israel coming out of Egypt, going into the promised land, and all the events of taking over the land as they did, is to give us an historical illustration of the balance of faith and works.

56. 19:46

    Because if you're ever wondering in your own life, how does this play out? How do you have faith? How do you have works? And yet, how do you not get to the point where you're saved by your works, but you're saved by faith, but you still have to have the works? Then Joshua taking the land is always a good place to go.

57. 20:00

    Because all the way through the book of Joshua, the emphasis keeps coming out, I've given you the land, I've given you the land, but they're going to go up and possess the land which the Lord their God had given them to possess. And in the phrase, if you color it, it's constantly, it's given them, given them, given them.

58. 20:16

    And God specifically told them that back in Deuteronomy, don't ever think you're going to get this land because of any good thing you did. It's not because of you. It's because those Amorites and all those other people in the land are so bad we're going to kick all them out. And because it's promises that he made Abraham.

59. 20:29

    It's not because you're any good. So it was all based on God giving them. It was by grace, you see. Here's grace in operation. But at the same time, brothers and sisters, this is not a passive kind of grace and faith where you just sit back and say, okay, we're going to take the land and God just clear everybody out, send the hornets and the bees and chase everybody out and we're just going to walk in and take over and have all these homes and farms and everything like you promised.

60. 20:56

    Oh no, you got to get your army together and you got to do your part. Whether it's marching around Jericho and the walls falling down or going up to fight in Ai and all the other battles that went on, it's a great example of the play out in action of grace and works operating together.

61. 21:13

    Everything they did there was by faith. There was no way they should have taken that land but they still had to go out and fight the battle. They had to believe that God was going to give them what they could have never done themselves and yet at the same time, they couldn't walk away thinking, well, because we went out and marched around Jericho and we did what he said, oh man, we deserve to beat them and we deserve to have this area.

62. 21:36

    You would have never walked away feeling that because you realize you really didn't do enough to actually win that war. It was God's battle, God's war, but you still had to do your part. So that may be it's one of the better places to go to watch the play out in action of grace and faith operating together and that might be another one you could throw in with Abraham and his life.

63. 21:57

    And then, of course, at the same time, you've got, as Joshua was taking the land, you've got Rahab the harlot justified by works. So here what James does is he takes the champion of the Jews with Abraham and now he uses a Gentile harlot woman and says, look, don't you remember back there in Joshua 2?

64. 22:16

    Don't you remember this woman was justified by works. Of course she believed she had faith and so she made the deal with the Israelites because she fully believed that Yahweh their God had given them the land. But at the same time, when it came time for her to play her part, she couldn't just sit there passively and sit in her little house and wait to be rescued, she had to put her life on the line.

65. 22:39

    She had to do some things and so there's a great example of how Rahab was justified by faith and by works operating together. Faith and works, working together, they play out in your life. It's an act of faith that we have, not a passive one. And so Rahab the harlot was also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out the other way.

66. 23:02

    So there's another example, and James is trying to pick good ones for his Jewish audience, very clear cases of people that operated on faith, but their faith was also working in parallel and simultaneously with their works. You couldn't stop the works because they believed, and so because they believed, they spoke, they did, they did things in their lives, and this is the way we ought to be.

67. 23:25

    And so the three examples that he picks up in James chapter 2, when you go back and look at it, and it's a great example of using your Old Testament Bibles, he picks up David, the great king of Israel, who couldn't be justified by law when he mentioned the adultery and the murder case.

68. 23:40

    Of course, their minds would have gone to David. He mentioned specifically Abraham, the father of the Jews, being justified by faith, and then he picks up Rahab, a Gentile harlot, you know, sort of like on the other far extreme, but look at, this is a universal principle. This isn't just David, this isn't Abraham, this played out even in the life of a Gentile harlot who came to the truth.

69. 24:03

    This is universal. Everybody has to be playing out in their lives, and by the way we live, and the things that we do in our homes, in our families, in our ecclesias, in our jobs, we have to be showing that we have justification by works, because our works, our way of life, must be in parallel with the belief system that we claim to believe.

70. 24:23

    And if not, in the words of James, we've got a dead faith, and it's useless. That's James. But see, James is just, he calls a spade a spade, and if this isn't changing our life, and if this isn't somehow generating in us something beyond what we would normally have been able to do, then our faith is useless, and it's dead.

71. 24:42

    And it doesn't mean it will be dead forever, but at least it lets us know where we're at. And so the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. And that's maybe a very blunt way to put it, as James does, but he wants to get that message across that you have to have an active life in the truth.

72. 25:01

    This is not a passive life where we join God's family and we just sit back and we watch everybody else work and we watch God and we're not involved. We're going to have to get involved too. So now in chapter 3, what James does is now he picks another example. So he tried to, like in chapter 2, he looked at two things where we can measure how are we doing on being a doer of the word?

73. 25:23

    How are we doing on not showing partiality? How are we doing on having a faith that's paralleled with works where we put our faith on the line and we really believe and so we get up and we do things and it sort of like fulfills the belief system that we confess at our baptism.

74. 25:40

    How are we doing on those things? And if we think we're doing pretty good so far, well now he goes on to the tongue. And here's one that everybody can relate to. The power to control our tongues. So, what James does is he starts out first of all with those who use their tongues the most.

75. 25:57

    My brethren, let many, not many of you become teachers knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. And that's the way it is brethren and sisters. You know, sometimes to the sisters who maybe wish they could be up here speaking or to the younger brethren who wish they can't wait for the time when you get to get up and do these classes up here, the facts are that those who get up and present are under stricter judgment.

76. 26:22

    We're accountable for the things that we say. We have to know the truth. We have to be living the truth. And because of the fact that we have an influence over people, we are held to a greater degree of accountability. And the teachers of all people, you know, of all the things that I deliver to you today, I've got to go home and do them tomorrow too.

77. 26:39

    It's not just you. It's all of us that are in this same boat. We've all got to be working on these same issues. And so we, the teachers, the brethren who exhort on Sunday mornings, who lead the Bible classes, who lead the readings in your homes and in the CYCs, when we do that and we explain that to other people, then God will hold us under stricter judgment because we know what we are supposed to do.

78. 27:03

    We know. And it's not like we're just, we're not aware of it. We know what we're supposed to do. And as he says later on in chapter 4 at verse 17, that therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. And so, the teachers, it doesn't mean we bow out of the job, it means we rise to the occasion.

79. 27:21

    And it's another case of like, here's a measurement system of how we doing on doing the truth. And his reason in verse 2 is because, look, we all make many mistakes. Everybody does. The New King James says there, for we all stumble in many things. I like the RSV there because it said, for we all make many mistakes and you just can't miss it.

80. 27:42

    And we do. Everybody makes a lot of mistakes. We all do that, including the teachers, everybody, in a collegial life and family life. And so, every husband and wife looks at each other once in a while and realizes, look, I blew it. I made a mistake. And so, we do. We confess that to each other and we goofed because why wouldn't we?

81. 28:02

    We all make many mistakes. We have to realize that about ourselves and that's why in the end, mercy will triumph over judgment because we realize that about ourselves and we realize that then about others and we cut each other a lot of slack. So, we got to be careful then about not holding other people to a higher standard than we hold ourselves.

82. 28:25

    And we all make many mistakes and so may other people too. And as he points out that if we stumble in any one point of the law back in chapter 2, we are guilty of all. So, here's one of those areas where we maybe would not have listed this on our fave five of what we want everybody to do on our list of what God is going to judge us by.

83. 28:43

    But James brings up the tough ones. How are we doing on controlling our tongues? That little member, that tongue. How are we doing on the cell phones when we call people up? How are we doing when we extend our tongues to the internet and all those little things that we write in emails and we send to people?

84. 28:59

    How are we doing on those little text messages that are so easy to send to somebody else? Those phone calls that we make, those little things that we say to each other when we pass on Sunday mornings in Bible classes, when somebody irritates us and it's so easy to lash back at them and say something, how are you doing on controlling your tongue?

85. 29:17

    You see, this is perfect James. He doesn't let anybody slide and he just says, look, this is how you know whether the truth is making an impact in your life. You see, this isn't me looking at this saying to you, like, how are you doing? This is James saying to all of us, this, how are we doing?

86. 29:35

    How am I doing? That's what he's after. He's having everybody examine themselves and find out how we doing on these issues, how we doing as far as living the truth and becoming a doer of the word because doers of the word are going to control their tongues. That's what they learn to do.

87. 29:53

    Definitely, we all stumble in many things and if we don't stumble in a word, he says in verse 2, you're a perfect man and also able to bridle the whole body and if you can bridle the whole body, you should be able to bridle the tongue as well. So, what do we do?

88. 30:07

    He said, look, here are some practical things that everybody back then would have known about and maybe not so much today, but hopefully all of you down here in Indiana know more than we do in Detroit. We don't see that many horses up in our area, but I noticed a few more on the way down here in the farms than we see up in Detroit, but everybody knows that you can put a bit, a little piece of metal like that, in the mouth of a horse and you can control that big animal.

89. 30:32

    That's all it takes is that little bit and we learn to control those big, powerful horses. We can look at the ships and the rudders that are on a ship. I don't know where that ship came from. I found that one out on the internet, that picture right there, but that was the rudder they happened to have on the back of the ship and you can see that rudder really is not very large and yet that little rudder controls that whole big ship and the direction it's going to go.

90. 30:55

    We just happened to be up at the Chicago Science Center recently and I was looking at that U-505 boat that they had there, that submarine that they captured off the Germans. That ship is huge in terms of the size and the length of that boat and at the back of the boat they let you go down there of course because I was working on James and couldn't pass up the opportunity of getting a picture with Sue, but it also was a nice time to have a little picture of the rudder.

91. 31:20

    Those are the two rudders at the back of that U-boat and you can see that really the size of those rudders they're probably about as high as I am when you look at them. They're really not that tall and yet the two of those little rudders back there they control that whole boat and where it's going to go.

92. 31:34

    And so James' point is that look, we control big things like that with little tiny bits and little tiny rudders but look at the tongue and look at what it will do. It only takes one match that somebody out in California throws out of their car or one cigarette goes out into those forests out there and you know what that does over the summer.

93. 31:57

    Look at the size of those forest fires we've seen on the news over the last few years out in California and Oregon just because somebody started up a little fire and look at what it does. It just spreads out over that whole forest. This is perfect James. He was such a naturalist and took these nice examples that people knew of in nature or things that they were aware of on the boats and the horses and stuff like that.

94. 32:19

    And so it is that the tongue is a fire. It's the spokesman for our hearts and because of that just like one little match can start a big old forest fire and spread to all those different people look at how easily tongues or mouths can start ecclesial fires. All it takes is one phone call where somebody calls up somebody else oh did you hear what so and so said at this meeting or did you hear what so and so did and the next thing you know that spreads to somebody else and it spreads to somebody else and the internet look at it's not even just ecclesias anymore with the internet you can spread it across the entire country and across the ecclesial world as people forward and forward and forward and look at the damage we can do brothers and sisters and young people if we just take that kind of an approach and so James' challenge to us is is the word of God powerful enough in your life to make you a doer of the word to where in single-mindedness you realize wait a minute that's not what we're trying to do here we're trying to be peace members of peace we're trying to spread peace in our community we don't want to be the people that start the fires we don't want to be the ones that spread the fires we want to put the fires out not go around and spread those things you see and this is what doers of the word will do now the natural man loves it because you just make that phone call and then you can just

95. 33:40

    sit back and watch the fires burn and sometimes people enjoy that and I see that happen at school a lot amongst the teenage kids in high school or somebody will just push some buttons on somebody else and they'll get them going in class and that person gets all frustrated and next thing you know two people are going at each other and somebody storms out of a room and the person that started pushing all the buttons is just sitting back there sort of laughing at the fact that wow look at all that and who gets in trouble not the person who started pushing the buttons not the guy who lit the match and threw it out into the forest it's those poor other people that couldn't control it as time went on and it's sad but it's so true that we've got to be careful brothers and sisters of what we do with our tongues it's so easy to start a fire to start an ecclesial fire in a forest that has been growing for years for years where people have been trying to create peace and harmony and situations and all it takes is one match to destroy years and years of growth and it just devastates the forest and it does the same thing in ecclesial life you can see that when Jesus used that phrase in Matthew 12 when he sort of like picked it out of John the Baptist there when he talked about the Pharisees you brood of vipers he called them how can you being evil speak good things for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks

96. 34:56

    and we all know that to be true in practice that the heart is just it's full of evil ideas or our brains really is what it is today you know our brain just comes up with all kinds of bad ideas and it's the power of God and becoming a doer of the word where we literally do it that's where we find out how we're doing it learning to control the old mind of the flesh and the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life so our tongues the problem with our tongues is that they simply are the spokesman of our heart and they reveal what's really there when people speak first and act later or think later or when we do that or when we fire back at somebody and we lash out with our tongue all that's warning us brothers and sisters and young people is that the power of God is not yet controlling that part of our life it doesn't mean it won't ever do that so again when people make mistakes like that we cut them slack and we simply point out that you know maybe that wasn't a good way to handle that we hope next time they'll do a better job but for us ourselves when we find ourselves doing this if we lash out at people and that anger that gets inside us about events that went on causes us to get on the phone and we start the fires the cell phones the internet the text messages and all the rest of it it's just a warning to us that we're not controlling

97. 36:15

    this lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life and so what it is it's our pride sometimes our pride is hurt and so we feel like we gotta go back and we gotta take care of that issue we gotta make sure that everybody knows this thing or that that person shouldn't say that about us but it definitely stirs up lots and lots of trouble so as James goes on to point out that look God has put this tongue there it's an interesting way that he phrases it when he talks about in verse 5 there that the tongue is a little member and it boasts great things and see how great a forest fire it kindles that the tongue is a fire the world of iniquity the tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body that's interesting that he would say that that the tongue is so set among our members so that when you look at somebody I mean generally we look at a face that's what we're drawn to we don't usually walk up to people unless we're one of these little guys and we look at the legs but most of us when we meet somebody we look at their face and so when you look at their face you're drawn to things and when somebody's talking to you you're drawn right to their mouth and he says look it's so set right there by God God put it there and it's got this power to either help or to hurt it can defile the whole body even though it's just one little piece

98. 37:32

    up there in that little cute baby's mouth that tongue can defile the whole body when things come out of it later on and that's God who said it there he's the one who arranged our bodies and said it like that so that's his point is that it's all a matter of how you use it it's the focus of the attention and yet it can defile our whole body so we have to make a choice then about how we're going to use it and he goes on and says look it can be fueled by the fires of Gehenna just like in Gehenna when the garbage was being burned and all that garbage was burned up in the valley of Gehenna down there where they would burn all the garbage of the city of Jerusalem and everybody knew that it's like the big garbage dump that was on fire that the tongue is fueled by garbage and waste stuff and ecclesial life and family life and by the garbage and the waste that's in us that's in our hearts the natural desires that we have of getting our pride up there and our pride's been hurt or getting back at somebody or taking vengeance like we like to do that's the garbage stuff that fuels the tongue sometimes if we haven't learned to control it so the encouragement of James would have is that look here's a measuring rod how you doing on controlling the tongue and what he wants us to do then is leave here this weekend being careful that we don't be the kind of we're not the kind of people that sets these fires

99. 38:46

    going what we want to do is like Jesus said we want to be the peacemakers because they're going to be called the sons of God not the people that stir up the fires so let's not be a part of that game you know I know for the young people you'll see that at school all the time where kids are constantly stirring each other up and they love to watch the little activities that take place afterwards some of us in ecclesial life we seem to think that that's the way to go but single mindedness teaches us that we want to be in that frame of mind where we're on tune with God and we're trying to help people we're trying to help people get over their situations help people through their problems and by fueling the fires like this that's not going to help solve the ecclesial problem we got to get involved and put the fires out blessed are those peacemakers because they're going to be called sons of God now you look at what he points out as far as like training goes James is he's so practical again he says look at all these different things humans can train we can train the horse we can train the ship to go where you want it to go we can train all kinds of creatures you know you watch that when you look at a lion tamer and you look at wow that lion somebody actually has the ability to tame a lion and get that lion to do what they want it to do or you watch somebody that can work with an elephant

100. 40:03

     and they get elephants to work for them and they lift logs over there in India and they use the elephants for doing all kinds of work you see people training birds and you'll see some of these shows where they'll train even like the orca whales and they can train all these different creatures see humans can do all of that but you know when it comes time to taming our tongue you can't do it that's the one thing that we can't tame well maybe some parents wonder about taming their children sometimes too but you know there again by the grace of God you see and the influence of the Bible in their lives that's what's going to train the children too that's what tames them over time but the tongue is tough you see and any of us who think we can tame our tongues on our own you don't understand the power of the tongue to what extent it is the forest fire those tongues aren't going to be trained just by the fact that I decide today I'm not going to say those things anymore if we're not going to spend time on the word every day talking to God in prayer and being involved in ecclesial life it's going to be tough to tame that tongue it doesn't just happen by willpower I don't really think people have the power to tame their tongue by their own willpower it comes when the word of God has an influence on your life because as he says it's an unruly or a restless evil it's full of deadly poison it's like a snake that's just got

101. 41:23

     all kinds of venom ready to get out there and you don't just tame that by willpower you tame that by the influence of the word of God and through prayer that word that he uses for tame the Bible markers here it's the same word that's used of legion back in Mark 4 Mark 5 verse 4 where he leads and they said of him that nobody can tame this man that's how wild legion was that word that's used for unruly about the tongue being unruly is also picked up back in chapter 1 about the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and now here's one of the ways in which that instability is manifest that tongue can't be tamed by your willpower you've got to let the influence of God tame that tongue and the poison that he picks up here that ought to be full of poison it's going to come up again in James 5 tomorrow in the exhortation and looking at the gold and silver where he says that they're all corrupt so you can see that these are words that are recycled in the Greek language here in this letter because he's thinking along similar lines to those issues there so we can't tame that tongue that's the problem and what we've got to do then is we've got to seek help and the help the magic pill for taming that tongue is going to be in the word of God and the word of God has got that power so one of the things we want to do when we go home this weekend is make sure to the young people

102. 42:41

     that are here and for all of us is that we spend enough time every day of the week somewhere in the word of God listening to tapes that are available today talking to God in prayer reading our Bibles and doing some kind of Bible reading plan at home studying for the Bible classes Sunday school something to where God's word is getting into our head and that's going to help us tame that tongue so James' point is simply that if that hasn't happened yet here's a good indicator that you're not really becoming a doer of the word because doers of the word learn to control their tongue through the word and although we may give lip service to being a doer of the word because we believe the right belief system and we have all the issues in the BASF we've got them all figured out and we got all those doctrines down a real doer of the word learns to control the things that they say so that we are helpful and kind and helpful to people and looking to solve problems and create peace in ecclesial life not doing those other things because look at what the tongue can do with the same tongue he says you can bless God in one moment of time and the next thing you know you run into somebody where we've got an argument and we use that tongue and we just say all kinds of things and we curse the very people that are made in the image of God and we just let that flow right out of our tongue because we're not yet doers of the word

103. 44:04

     so let's give the word of God some time in the next couple of weeks to work on our mouths and control those tongues and hopefully for the rest of our life as we turn to the word of God to look for some help because the tongue simply reveals what's in our heart and with that tongue we can either curse men that are made in the image of God or we can help people we can bless God bless our father and say things which help people through their problems and James' point is simply that look it shouldn't be like that if we think sitting here right now today that it's okay to have a tongue that does this and we think well that's alright because God will just live with that because sometimes I use my tongue the right way and sometimes people offend me and I use it the wrong way James doesn't cut us that kind of slack he says that's not the way it should be that's not the natural way it's supposed to work out there in nature because what the tongue does is it reveals what's really in your mind see you can't play games with God you can look in the mirror and go away and forget what was there but God knows what was in the mirror he knows what's there and he doesn't forget in our tongues what they do when we say things to each other where we fuel those fires and we cause all kinds of trouble in family life and ecclesial life what that really tells God is that that's really what's in our heart

104. 45:26

     and that's what we gotta work on that's what the word will do the word will change that over time but it doesn't happen at once so he says look those things aren't supposed it's not supposed to be that way and then he goes to some nice natural things like verse 11 when you go to a spring to get water and you put your cup in the spring to get a drink of water you get like fresh water at one point and then another time you get like salty water from the same opening now maybe here at Lake Placid you get weird kinds of water coming out but he says look out there in the rivers it's usually not like that if a river is putting out fresh water today it puts out fresh water tomorrow it's not like it all of a sudden changes you don't get that from the same opening and then he goes on to some natural things when you look at the fig tree he says when you go to a fig tree you can tell by the leaves it's a fig tree are you going to find on that fig tree that it's going to yield olives is that what happens that's not what happens and when you go and you look at a grapevine is a grapevine going to yield to you figs it's obviously no that's not going to happen so look his point is that you can't claim to be a doer of the word we can't claim to be a child of God and have our tongues saying things that constantly show that that's not the case

105. 46:38

     that's not really what we believe and the tongue is the indicator what do we say how do we talk to each other do we say things that help and encourage or do we tear people down what are we doing with those tongues so it's a good practical thing brothers and sisters and young people that we can go and we can monitor ourselves and we got to watch what we say or what other people tell us about what we say but we want to be known as people who learn to say nice things we're kind we're compassionate and we're full of mercy to other people and that that will reveal what's really in our heart and if we want to be God's children we got to learn to live like him so he leaves this section at the end here you see and it's almost like he's thinking about the issues that Paul does in Galatians 5 about the fruit of the spirit you see he talks about the wisdom in verse 13 who's wise and understanding among you let him show by his good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom see that's what we want to get at we got to start speaking these fruits of the spirit and let that good conduct the wisdom of God here's that wisdom again that was from above let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom not through pride not through trying to build ourselves up but by trying to help other people that's what we're supposed to do we do things that are works

106. 47:58

     of faith that are helping other people and so he challenges us again here with another thing well look in verse 14 but if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts if it's there don't boast and lie against the truth let's lay the cards on the table and call a spade a spade if this is in our heart if we've got bitter envy and we've got self-seeking in our hearts if that's what's really going on there's no sense pretending because your tongue is going to give you away and we're going to know by the things that you say and you're going to know with me by the things that I say but what's really in my heart what am I really thinking about you and what do I really think about our ecclesia well my tongue is going to give it away because I'll end up saying those things and then the tongue will do it so don't boast and lie against the truth these things here that come from bitter envy and self-seeking down in our hearts and in this heart of flesh this isn't the wisdom that's from above this is not the single-mindedness that he was driving at back in chapter 1 where we believe that God is the one who's at work and that God is in control of all these things this is human wisdom driven from human spirits where we're trying to satisfy our pride our envy and all this selfishness the jealousy that we have and our tongue lashes out and that's what we end up doing and it's a dead giveaway then of what's really in our hearts

107. 49:19

     you know you see it just it doesn't lie the tongue the tongue gives us away and that's it's a good way then to measure how we're doing in the truth it is earthly and sensual and demonic demonic wisdom so he ends this section right there that at verse 16 there that where envy and self-seeking exist you're going to have confusion every evil thing will be there and this is what you find in family life when people and when a husband and a wife are so wound up in their cells and themselves and trying to like who's right I gotta make sure that everybody knows that I was right and she was wrong or she was right and he was wrong and we're worried about that and we're trying to win these battles in front of our children and we're thinking along those lines it just ends up in endless confusion and every evil thing falls out of that and marriages fall apart families fall apart and you see that happen and it's no different in a collegial life brothers and sisters when we have people that are worried about how everybody views them in ecclesial life and how they're going to come across and we're in for it for ourselves and the envy is there and the jealousy is there and there's all this evil spirit it's just going to lead to confusion and every evil thing and the flesh will run wild and that's what he's worried about and James was watching this happen he was seeing it happen in the ecclesias of his day and we sometimes think we got ecclesial problems today you know

108. 50:45

     with our little issues that we deal with but you're going to see in chapter 4 in the next one it looks like they literally were coming to blows these people were having wars and fighting amongst themselves because they weren't controlling this anger that was there and their tongues were running wild giving away what was really in their hearts and James says the only way to counter this is that everybody starts working on me I'm the problem I'm a part of this problem we have got to change this is not right it shouldn't be like this and he says if you find yourself doing this don't pretend you're okay you don't get fresh water and salt water from the same source you don't get grapes and figs from the same tree you get one thing and the one thing you see coming out that's what's really there in the heart that's just so typical James of making it very clear that's where things are really at so he leaves us with this challenge that look there's two kinds of wisdom which one are we going to access we're going to go with the wisdom that's up here in our heads that's driven by the flesh that leads to all this confusion and evil things or are we going to seek the wisdom from above from the father of lights who gives good gifts who shines upon the just and the unjust who's kind to all these different people and who wants everybody to be saved that's a different kind of wisdom and that kind of wisdom is peaceable it's gentle with other people it's willing to yield

109. 52:05

     it's okay to compromise and give in on issues and let somebody else look right some issues are not worth fighting and it's willing to yield in marriages and ecclesias and in families it's willing to yield for the sake of the peace that you can have and it's full of mercy to other people because mercy will triumph over judgment and it's full of good fruits the good fruits that have been developed by the fruit of the spirit so hopefully that catches us up a little bit and hopefully you're all ready for some dinner right now but we'll look then at the next class hopefully tonight we'll get a chance to look at how this wisdom of God can peacefully grow those fruits of the spirit and the righteousness in our heart and help us to counter some of those negative human thoughts that we have where sometimes we just want to get at somebody and we want to do something to them and we just got to show everybody that we're right well God's word has the power to overcome those things and help us become a doer of the word we're right