The Power Of Words - All Up In Your Business (Week 4)

Words have power. Because of this, we need to be careful with what we say.
Watch as Pastor Andrew Strand takes us through the book of James and what it teaches about the power of the tongue in James chapter 3.
This message is Week 4 of our sermon series, “All Up In Your Business."

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

James chapter 3. Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also, though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder, wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. Does the spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Can a salt pond yield fresh water? Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere, and a harvest of the righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Amen. Thank you, Jenna. Well, today we uh are continuing on in a series that we launched uh about a month ago, and we actually paused this series last week. Pastor Donnell Jones was in town, and uh man, he had an incredible word for us. And if you didn't get a chance to hear uh his message last week, I would encourage you. Uh, we actually emailed you that message uh on Monday, this last Monday. And um, we would love for you while you're in the car, maybe you're traveling for spring break this week, or uh maybe you're on the way to the office. I would encourage you to go back and listen to that message. It will encourage you. For those of you maybe who um are just joining us for the first time today, or maybe you just need a refresher on the letter of James. That's the series that we're in right now. Uh, we called it all up in your business, because uh, as we have seen, man, James is not afraid uh to get all up in our business with uh his writing style. And uh for those of you who maybe have not been with us so far, let me just give you a quick recap. In James chapter one, uh, we find that James is writing to a group of first century Christians who are under oppression, they are living under persecution, and they are a people who are living under uh economic injustice. And so, because of that, James, who is a leader in the first century church, he was um quite possibly, many scholars think that he was actually related in some form or fashion to Jesus Christ. Maybe he was his half-brother, maybe he was his cousin. Uh, but we do know that James was a leader in the Jerusalem church. We know that he was a man that was full of wisdom and a man that was uh full of meekness. And so he is writing to this group of first century Christians who might be tempted, listen up, who might be tempted to act out in violence because of the way that they are being treated. Or at a minimum, they might uh be tempted to speak out in a way that would not honor God. And so he will, as you will see today specifically, but all throughout the letter, James is addressing how we use our mouth, how we use our mouth, and what we do when we are dealing with trials. That's what he addressed in chapter one. He says that all of us deal with various trials. There are different circumstances that come our way, and when they do, he says to view it through the eyes of what God is doing. That God actually uses trials in our lives to make us grow, to bring us into wholeness. And then at the end of chapter one, he uh he addresses this idea that we can't just be people who hear the word of God, but we also are called to be people who do the word of God. That's James chapter one. As he pivoted into James chapter two, what we call James chapter two, he is addressing an issue that was going on in the church and at times can still be uh involved in our lives today. It's this issue of favoritism, right? This issue of partiality. And he says, as followers of Jesus, it is incongruent or it is incompatible to be somebody who would show favoritism to the rich with uh somebody who says they are a follower of Jesus. And then at the end of James chapter two, this is one of the uh more uh controversial, we'll call it, sections of scripture in the canon. Uh James here says that we should prove our faith, that we should be the kind of people who act in a certain way because we are followers of Jesus, right? And make no mistake about it, we are not justified by our behavior. We understand this, right? Before God, let me just tell you, you are God's favorite. Right? Now, you may be looking around the room saying, How can I be God's favorite, right? Amongst all of these other people. I'm just here to tell you, if you are a son or a daughter of the Most High God, you are his favorite. You do not have to earn his favor, his favor, you are already his favorite. And so with this in mind, we pivot over to James chapter three, a a a section of scripture where he is addressing how we use our mouth. And I have to imagine that as James was writing this section of his letter, he had in his mind two things. He had, first of all, the Sermon on the Mount, which you can read in Matthew chapter 5, in the book of Luke, but he also had in mind probably very much uh some of the Proverbs, right? And in particular, as we approach James chapter 3 today, I want us to have Proverbs chapter 18, verse 21 in mind. In fact, we're gonna put it up on the screens, and I want you to say it with me. Can we do that? All right, here we go. We're gonna say it. Here it is. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Let's say one more time. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Today I want to share with you uh one weighty truth. I want to share with you one powerful insight that I actually got in Mr. Gaddy's dining room this week. Y'all can't wait for that one, right? And then finally, I want to close out our time uh with one big takeaway, one big practical application that we can all take away. The weighty truth that we see right from the get-go here, and it really all throughout James, the the letter of James is that words wield great power. Let me say that one more time. Words wield great power. This is why James, starting out this section of his letter, puts it this way in verse one. He says, Do not become teachers in large numbers, my brothers, since you know that we who are teachers will incur a stricter judgment. Now, I've been in vocational ministry as a pastor for almost 20 years now. And over the years, I have had uh at different times I've had some people who have come up to me and their great zeal and their love for God, they're like, All right, put me in, coach. I'm ready to preach. And I'm always like, that's awesome, right? Like, I love that you want to preach the word of God. I love that that you love the word of God, you want to teach it to other people. That is a noble ambition, right? Uh but in these moments, I I usually want to first send them to James chapter 3, verse 1, and I want them to feel the weight that comes with being a teacher. It doesn't mean that it's better than anything else, but it does mean that the words that we use when we are teaching or when we are in a place of influence wield incredible power. The words that we use, when we have been given a place of influence, listen to me, dads, listen to me, moms or grandparents, or those of you who are leaders of a division, maybe you have been entrusted. I think that's an important word. It's not yours. You have been entrusted with a position. And here James says, when we teach God's word to our kids, we should be aware that those words have power. It's true, right? But we also need to understand that words can lead people astray. This is why James here, who's writing to a group of people who are under oppression, who are dealing with persecution, he wants the ones who are the teachers to be aware that they can lead people astray. Words wield great power. I think about Jesus uh as he is teaching a parable in Luke chapter 12. He says this in verse 48. He says, For everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded. And from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Some of us maybe have gotten uh you know the words of Uncle Ben from Spider-Man. We've gotten these words confused, right? With great, what does he say? With with great power comes great responsibility. Sometimes people will like cite that and go, that was Jesus, right? I'm like, no, that was Uncle Ben, right? That was Spider-Man. But here Jesus is telling us the same thing that when we have been entrusted with much uh teachers of the word of God, they will be asked and demanded much too. And this is a weighty truth that words wield great power. And and you and I, we know this is true. I don't even really have to explain this to you. We can think about over the course of history, we can think about leaders and dictators, we can think about people who uh have had incredible influence and they have swayed people with their words, and we can think about how that is true in history, but we can also think about how it is true in our own lives. Because my guess is whether you're 65 or whether you're 25 or whether you're in your 80s, there is a time in your life when you can remember somebody speaking some words over you and you still remember them today. Some of us that are in here today, uh, we can remember, though we are, you know, 40 years later, we can remember that time that our dad spoke the words over us, and he said, You are worthless and you will never amount to anything. And we started to believe that. Some of us uh remember a time when our grandmother told us that we were gonna turn out just like our mother, and we remember her saying, You're pathetic, and you're destined to turn out just like your mom. You see, words wield great power. I remember uh when I was probably seven, maybe eight years old, I was on the playground of Alexander Elementary in Duncanville, Texas, and Jason Buckley looked me square in the eye and he said, Your mom looks like dirt. I'm 46, I still remember that, and my mom remembers it too. However, words don't always have to have that kind of influence, do they? No, some of you can think of a time in your life, maybe where you got hired on by a company and you had a boss who began to speak words of life and words of encouragement over you. You remember that time that that boss looked you in the eye and said, Hey, you got more in you. They they said, Hey, you're better than you think you are. And all of a sudden you walked out of work that day and you're like, Yeah, I am. You see, our words wield great power. And James knew this. This is why he is writing here specifically to these teachers. He's writing to people who have incredible influence. And he said, Be careful, words can lead people astray. A few weeks ago, I was uh I was sitting on uh this little pink couch. Some of you guys who were here a few weeks ago, you heard me talk about the little pink couch, the manly couch that we have in our house, right? It's the place that I go in the morning when I'm drinking my coffee, and uh all of a sudden I look out uh the back window, you can see a picture of it here. This is out my back window, and I I noticed, like kind of way off in the distance, if you look, you can see there's a telephone pole there. And on top of that telephone pole, I saw what appeared to be some kind of big bird. I think it was a hawk, right? And as I as I kind of watched there, it looked kind of a little bit weird, but I noticed there was something in that hawk's talons. And as I watched there for a second, I noticed it kind of started moving its talons around, and all of a sudden there were other feathers that started flying out of his talons. That that hawk had caught another bird and he was about to have some lunch pretty pretty soon, right? And I began to think about as I watched that hawk, I was already preparing for this message, I watched him just pull those feathers out, and I began to think about how our words can have that exact same kind of impact on people. If we let them, our words can absolutely shred people. Our words wield great power, and James knew this. And as we move on to verse two, I think it's good news, it's a good reminder. He says, none of us are perfect, right? We all stumble in many ways, and nobody is able to reign in their body completely. And then he uses three analogies to talk specifically about the tongue. He uses these three analogies. I think the first one is pretty relatable to the West Texan, right, which we all are. Uh he says, uh it's like a bit and a horse. It's like a bit and a horse, right? Uh you put a bit into a horse's mouth and you can control the whole animal. The second illustration that he uses, uh, we don't have so much of them out here in West Texas. He talks about a giant ship that is steered by a little tiny rudder. But I don't have to explain it to you. You know how this works, right? You turn the rudder and you can steer the whole big ship. And here is the point of these illustrations. The tongue is a small part of a much bigger body, but that bad boy can do some serious damage, right? This is what he's saying. And then he goes on to describe another illustration. He talks about a spark and a forest fire. Here's what he says, verse 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boast. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil amongst the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and itself set on fire by hell. I'm like, whoa, calm down, James. It's like getting all up in our business, right? But many of you uh maybe have been up into a forest, right? We have to like drive a little way to get into a forest where we live here. Uh every year, our kids' camp, we go up to Riadosa, New Mexico, just outside of Riadosa. And uh, some of you may remember over the last several years there's been a series of forest fires that have started for any number of reasons. I'm always amazed when we're up in the eastern side of New Mexico there. We get up into the area where those forest fires have been, and you see it's amazing to me how there'll be one area that is just completely devastated by fire. Then you go like 15, 20 yards this way and it's not even touched, right? Then you go another 50 yards and there's just complete devastation again. You guys know, and I know that when a forest fire starts, it spreads, right? It doesn't stay where it is. And I can't help but think as James is writing this particular section of his letter, I can't help but wonder if he has gossip in mind. I can't help but wonder if uh as he's writing about this particular uh group of people, as we speak with our words, you and I know that sometimes if there is an accusation against somebody, you know that if there is some untruth, maybe it is even true, but you begin to share that with somebody, what happens? It begins to spread all around. Listen to me, words wield incredible power. Words wield incredible power, and I have to wonder if James is thinking about what Jesus said here in Luke 6, 45. He says, Because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Let me say that again. Out of the abundance of the heart, what's going on in here is what ultimately causes what comes out here. Anybody ever uh had one of those moments where you said something and you're like, no, come back, right? Yeah, uh a few years ago, uh it's it was probably six or seven years ago, my wife Allie, uh she was interested in starting a business. And um we had this interesting situation because I believe in Allie, right? She is amazing. Uh my problem was I didn't know if I believed in the business that she wanted to start, right? Anybody ever had this one of these moments in your marriage, right? And um, and so uh over the next few months I tr I tried my best. I was like, all right, I'm gonna try to cheer you on, but I mean she knew, like she could tell I was trying to fake it until I make it. And eventually, one night, we had an opportunity, we'll just call it that. Because she just called me out on it. She's like, You don't believe in me. I was like, No, I believe in you, I just don't believe in the business. She's like, it's the same thing, right? Because out of the abundance of what was in my heart, eventually it came out of my mouth. Now, here's uh how good God is. A few years later, Ali started another business, and let me just tell you, I I'm like her biggest fan. I'm like cheering her on. I'm like, I don't care what anybody else says, it's amazing. This is what God does, even sometimes when the wretchedness of our heart speaks things out, God will give you a chance to redeem it. In fact, I think that might be a word. I haven't said this to any of the other services, but I think that might be a word for some of you here in third service today. There was a moment in the past where you spoke a word out of something that was in your heart, and today God wants to use give you a chance to redeem that. That's that's for some of you today. You see, here in verse seven, James goes on to say that animals can be subdued. This is the idea that we see in the book of Genesis that we are. Called to be a people who can rule and subdue, but then he goes on in verse eight and he says, The tongue it cannot be subdued by any human without the help of the Holy Spirit. You ain't never going to be able to control your tongue. And then he gives us an example why. Here we go, verse 9. He says, With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. Now, some of us came in here today, probably many of us came into church, and we're like, Oh yeah, I'm about to get my praise on, right? We come in, we're Olivia's leading us, and Ashley's leading us, and we're like, we just get our hands going, right? We're just worshiping. We're like, I feel good, I feel better when I'm in the presence of God, when I'm in the presence of his people, right? And we work, we're worshiping the Lord, we're extolling him. Man, we just feel our spirit starting to lift up a little bit, right? Yeah, that's what happens when we come into the presence of God. And yet, see, James here calls us out. He says, at times with our tongue, with our mouth, we bless our Lord and Father, and then we curse people with that same mouth. He wants us to know that this is incongruent as people of faith, that this should not be happening, that we shouldn't be the kind of people who show up to church and are lifting our hands and are praising our Heavenly Father, and then we go out the back door, we make a left to our car, we get into our car, we're driving to cork and pig to go have the pig pizza or to go have the steak salad, and all of a sudden a big white dooley cuts us off, and we got more four-letter words than a J. Cole track. Some of y'all don't know who J. Cole is. Don't look him up, right? No. He says, This is a problem. From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing, my brothers. These things ought not be so. Pastor Mike, when he was here a few weeks ago, uh, he was preaching and he he actually mentioned this idea of what this word blessing means in the original language. In the original language, it's actually the same word that you and I use for the word eulogy. Like when you go to a funeral and uh or a celebration of life service and people begin to speak about that person's life and they begin to eulogize them, they begin to speak about how great they are, right? I've even been to a few funerals where somebody's like kind of not really speaking about how great that person was, and it's like, this has got awkward. But here, James says that we as followers of Jesus, we should be the kind of people that speak life over others. We should be careful with how we use our mouth. He said, Why should blessing and cursing be incongruent? And this is where the profound revelation came for me this past Wednesday, sitting in Mr. Gaddy's dining room. I'm sitting there uh with my nine-year-old Anna Clara, and uh we had gone on a daddy-daughter date, and I asked her where she wanted to go. That's always a dangerous proposition, right? And she said, I want to go to Mr. Gaddy's. I was like, let's go, let's go, let's do this, right? So here we are, we're sitting in the Mr. Gaddy's dining room, and uh and and Anna Claire and I are talking about her life, uh, which is one of my favorite things, right? And she starts telling me about one of her teachers who just got married. And she starts telling me about how the teacher has uh told all of the students that they can call her by her old name for the rest of the school year, or they can call her her new name, but next school year they have to call her by her new name, right? So I was like tracking with her, you know, and all of a sudden, Anna Claire she drops this little truth bomb on me. She says this she says, When you call someone something for a long time, they start looking like that. And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, hold on. Say that again. She's like, she goes, Well, when you call someone something for a long time, they start looking like that. I was like, hold on, hold on, I gotta email myself. Literally, pulled out my phone, emailed myself because I thought this is a profound and powerful insight. When it comes to speaking with our mouth, words over somebody, become when it comes to speaking blessing over someone, and with that same mouth, we speak curses over somebody who is made in the image of God. This is exactly what James is saying here. We actually start to believe the words that come out of our mouth. They start to look like that. When we speak words over people, calling them something, we start to believe that about them. When we speak curses over people, when we uh when we say people are worthless, when we say they will never amount to anything, when we say that they will never be able to change, or that they're doomed to a life of addiction, when we say that their contributions are insignificant and they always will be that way, I am reminded of the scripture that we started our time with today that death and life are in the power of the tongue. What a profound insight from a nine-year-old. What a profound insight that when you call someone something for a long time, that they start to actually look that way. And if we speak curses over people, I believe that it is offensive to God. James says that it is actually sin. However, James goes on to say there is a different way of doing this. He says, uh, if we want to be wise or understand, we have to live differently. And this is where our big takeaway comes from today. We're almost done, I promise. This is the application moment is that we can speak the words of life over people and over ourselves. Let me say that again. For those of you who have any influence in a family, who have any influence in a company, for any of you who are students and you have influence in your school, you have the choice of what kind of words you are going to speak over people, but also what kind of words you are going to speak over yourselves. Listen to me, heads of households, parents of children, students. James tells us that blessing and cursing out of the same mouth is incongruent. It is incompatible. And then he goes on to use two final illustrations. He says it's like a spring that has both fresh water and salt water coming out of it. It is not, that doesn't happen. He goes on to say that it's like a fig tree that produces olives or a grapevine that produces figs. James is telling us that doesn't happen. We need to be the kind of people who speak life over others. Now, let me just pause real quick because I haven't said this in any of the other services, but I had this thought earlier. That doesn't mean that we don't have honest conversations with people. Right? That doesn't mean that at times we don't when the Holy Spirit uh enables us to do it in a way that would still be still be honoring to God, that we don't have an honest conversation with an employee who can't seem to ever show up on time. Right? I'm not saying every every word that comes out of our mouth is cupcakes and rainbows, but I am saying we do have the ability to speak life over people. Somebody say amen today. And we also have the ability to speak the words of life, the words of God, over ourselves. Be careful about what kind of words you speak over yourself, over your marriage, over your children, over your company. See when the enemy, when the devil came to try to tempt Jesus, how did he oppose him? He said, It is written. There's power in the word of God. Today I want to um I want to close our time by sharing just a brief story, and I think this will be a great way for some of us to apply this word today. We were sitting in uh a staff meeting this past Tuesday uh when we were talking about something, and one of our pastors began uh to talk about how uh several years ago he was discussing how he would often five, six, seven times a year, he would get sick. And it was like not the kind of sick that he would end up in the hospital, but it was like irritating and like at times kind of like almost even debilitating. And then he began to talk about how he had a moment, uh, it was really almost this revelation, where he said, I'm gonna start declaring some of the truths that we find in the word of God over my own body. And as he started to do that, guess what happened? He started to be sick a whole lot less often. I was like, What'd you do differently? He goes, Nothing, besides starting to declare the words of word of God over my own body. I was like, this is profound, this is powerful, right? And maybe uh maybe you've been in other situations, maybe you've been in other churches where somebody may go, oh, you need to stop making you know taking your medication while you're declaring the words of God over your body. No, don't do that. No, keep taking your medication, right? But also let's believe the word of God is so powerful. In fact, I want to end our time today. I'm gonna ask you to just stand with me. And I want to read his declaration over his body to you. And some of you who have been dealing with chronic sickness, maybe there's a particular area in your body uh where you need healing. You may need to pull out your phone and you may need to take a picture of the this declaration. And you'll notice at the bottom there are uh scriptures that are cited in there. There is power in reciting the word of God, proclaiming the word of God over others and over yourselves. Here's what it says Christ has redeemed me from the curse of the law. Therefore, I forbid any sickness or any disease to come upon this body. It goes on to say, every disease and germ and every virus that touches this body dies instantly in the name of Jesus. Every organ and every tissue of this body functions in the perfection to which God created it to function. I forbid any malfunction in my body in the name of Jesus. There's power in the name of Jesus, my friends. There's power in your words. So let's pray. Finish our time today. God, today we acknowledge that words carry with them so much power. God, right now we we just repent for any words that we have spoken over others, any curses that have come out of our mouth in the last week or month or year. God, we want to be a spring of living water where the Holy Spirit flows. God, we want to be a people who speak life over others, who speak life over our families and over our friendships, over our business. God, we want to be the kind of people who speak blessing. And so, Father, today we ask that you would help us to do that. God, we honor you. We ask this in the name of Jesus. And all God's people said, Amen.