Warning to Teachers
I love the title of this section: Faith Helps Me Keep My Mouth Shut. If you’ve been sitting through this series and hearing all of this, and you haven’t gotten nailed yet or felt bad, get ready! You can’t escape this one, because we all struggle with it.
I was talking with a friend this week who is helping provide feedback to his pastor, and he said that one of his frustrations is that we talk about Romans 3:23, and we talk about how we’ve all sinned and we forget there’s a comma after verse 23 – what’s it say after that?
I was talking with a friend this week who is helping provide feedback to his pastor, and he said that one of his frustrations is that we talk about Romans 3:23, and we talk about how we’ve all sinned and we forget there’s a comma after verse 23 – what’s it say after that?
Romans 3:23-24 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Here’s where I’m going – I’m getting ready to really beat up on everybody, but at the same time there’s hope. I don’t want to make you feel like complete losers (even though we are all complete losers!) but it’s through God’s power and grace that we can continue on and become more like Christ. I don’t want everybody to be discovered all the time, feeling like I’m yelling at you all the time. There’s also a lot of encouragement, and I want to make sure I don’t leave that out. So while I am getting ready to kick you in the butt, I also want to help you find out where to go from here, because God has not given us a spirit of fear. God has given us a spirit of love and power and self-control.
Faith helps me keep my mouth shut. We don’t do well at this at all, amen? We are not good at this! As I grow in faith, I’m going to learn that I need to shut up! There are times you don’t even want to put the “th” on the end, you want to say, “I need to shut my mouf” because I am so out of control with it. Faith also helps me speak the truth in love – that’s the encouragement we’re going to get to as well.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but…what? Words can never hurt me. That’s a complete lie, and we’re going to see that really quickly.
Faith helps me keep my mouth shut. We don’t do well at this at all, amen? We are not good at this! As I grow in faith, I’m going to learn that I need to shut up! There are times you don’t even want to put the “th” on the end, you want to say, “I need to shut my mouf” because I am so out of control with it. Faith also helps me speak the truth in love – that’s the encouragement we’re going to get to as well.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but…what? Words can never hurt me. That’s a complete lie, and we’re going to see that really quickly.
James 3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers,
for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
A year ago, we started training a group wanting to be leaders in the church: elders, deacons. That training went from November until about April – five or six months of leadership training! I couldn't begin to tell you the numbers of times within that training that I referenced this verse. Read it again. Why does it say this? Here’s why we who teach will be judged with greater strictness: because there is power in our words.
Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruits.”
and those who love it will eat its fruits.”
Your words speak death into people’s lives or they will speak life into people’s lives. How do we know that death and life are in the power of the tongue?
The Power of Life is in the Tongue. How did we get what we have today, all of creation? It was spoken into being! The power of life is in words. If you look at Genesis 2:16-19, God spoke everything into being and then said, “You can eat anything in the garden except for that tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” He was still speaking life into Adam and Eve’s lives, asking them to be stewards over all creation, over everything they could see, except for that one thing.
The Power of Death is in the Tongue. Then in chapter 3, who showed up? Satan. He immediately started speaking words of death. It was through Satan’s words that Adam and Eve fell. He started questioning God’s word and said, “Did God really say this?” And it was all downhill from there. There is death and there is life in your words. That sticks and stones thing? Not true. You can encourage someone on to amazing works, or you can absolutely tear their souls out with your words. The choice is ours.
The book of James is so easy to preach because it’s so applicable. He provides his own examples, but there’s so much we can miss. Words are everywhere, it so general it’s easy to miss. What life is in God’s word?
The Power of Life is in the Tongue. How did we get what we have today, all of creation? It was spoken into being! The power of life is in words. If you look at Genesis 2:16-19, God spoke everything into being and then said, “You can eat anything in the garden except for that tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” He was still speaking life into Adam and Eve’s lives, asking them to be stewards over all creation, over everything they could see, except for that one thing.
The Power of Death is in the Tongue. Then in chapter 3, who showed up? Satan. He immediately started speaking words of death. It was through Satan’s words that Adam and Eve fell. He started questioning God’s word and said, “Did God really say this?” And it was all downhill from there. There is death and there is life in your words. That sticks and stones thing? Not true. You can encourage someone on to amazing works, or you can absolutely tear their souls out with your words. The choice is ours.
The book of James is so easy to preach because it’s so applicable. He provides his own examples, but there’s so much we can miss. Words are everywhere, it so general it’s easy to miss. What life is in God’s word?
James 3:2 For we all stumble in many ways.
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Stop right there. If that does not encourage you, you’re not awake right now. The leader of the church at Jerusalem – the center of Christianity at the time – the leader of the center of Christianity said “We all stumble. We all fall.” Jesus’ half-brother says that he screws up and makes mistakes! We all stumble. What do you get form this? It’s not just you.
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"Life is strewn with orange peel.' - Lord Fisher |
Part of those words of death that may even be spoken into your brain right now is that you’re alone, that no one else struggles with this, no one else struggles the way you do, you’re alone in this. Again, that’s a lie. Because James just said “We all stumble.” And we don’t just stumble a little bit, we all stumble in many ways!
James 3:2 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.
And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man,
able also to bridle his whole body.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Jesus (who was perfect) and everybody else. He’s referencing Jesus: if anyone does not stumble, he’s perfect – and that’s Jesus, nobody else. The rest of us stumble in many ways.