Use Caution When You Speak

I am more deadly than the screaming shell from the howitzer, I win without killing. I tear down homes, break hearts, wreck lives. I travel on the wings of the wind. No innocence is strong enough to intimidate me, no purity pure enough to daunt me. I have no regard for truth, no respect for justice, no mercy for the defenseless. My victims are as numerous as the sands of the sea, and often as innocent. I never forget, and seldom forgive. My name is gossip.

Our words are important aren’t they? In a unique way, what we say is who we are. We can’t shove back words in our mouths, once we’ve said them, they’re said forever, and we can’t unsay them. What we say is who we are. This James’s next test in his letter to the dispersed Christians, the Christians who were struggling, who were attracted to worldliness, who were tempted by riches. How do you speak? James mentions the tongue in every chapter, it’s an important issue for him. And in the rest of the Bible. Matt 12:34 Jesus tells us that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Psalm 45:1 tells us that our hearts overflow with a pleasing theme when we’re close to God.

So how do you speak?

James 3:1-8 tell us to speak with caution. Caution means being alert and aware around danger. First of all we should be cautious with our words, because, as verse one tells us, those who preach or teach will be judged with greater strictness.  The more you speak the more you are accountable for. This makes sense. Those who teach the Bible have a huge spiritual influence, for good or for evil. Those who teach lead people, and thye lead people either well or poorly. Either closer to God or further away from Him. What a power words have over others that they can decide where they spend eternity! No wonder there is a greater strictness in judgment. A hundred atheists can’t match the damage of one poor Bible teacher. So use caution when you speak.

The second reason we find in verses 2-7, is that the tongue has a huge influence over us, and over others. James says if we’re able to tame the tongue, we’re able to keep our whole body under control. The tongue is small but has a great power over us. Our words shape us, our words express who we are. The tongue is like a rudder on a ship. Now in James’s time they didn’t have the great ocean liners that we have, but Acts tells us that Paul travelled to Rome on a ship with 276 people on it, so they weren’t all small sail boats. And what controls these huge ships? Tiny rudders. And what controls you? Not your hands or your eyes or your feet, your tongue. So be careful what you say, and don’t boast. Next James tells us that the tongue is like a single spark that burns down a forest. One person starts a rumor or tells a lie, and before you know it everyone’s talking about. Everyone’s mouth is burning with the lie you’ve told. James tells us these lies are set on fire by Hell. Use caution when you speak because the tongue can easily be used as the devil’s tool. Like a rudder on a boat, a spark in a forest and a wild animal on the rampage, the tongue has a huge influence, so use caution.

And use caution because the tongue is full of deadly poison. 

James really doesn’t mess around with his words does he? He’s not coddling his listeners or protecting their feelings. Every kind of animal has been tamed, but who can tame the evil of the tongue? Not Peter who told Jesus to stop talking about the cross, not Paul, who insulted a High Priest when he was on trial. And not you. If you were carrying a vial of deadly poison around with you you’d be careful. You wouldn’t drop it, or spill it or hurt anyone with it. Well, guess what, James says you do. So use caution when you speak.

Growth and Growth.

Eleven men on a Galilean hillside, listening to their leader. Go and tell all the world, i have all authority, and i'll be with you. All the doubts and worries of the last few days seem like a dream...He's alive, and He's coming with us. It's all going to be ok.

Why did Jesus choose just twelve? You know He could have efficiently disciples a thousand times that number. Why twelve when one was a betrayer? Why not disciple all of Israel, and send them out? Now you're a light to the nations.

The church always works when it's the shepherd boy agains the giant. The church is Ruth, starving and looking for mercy, the church is Esther, casting herself on the mercy of the king, the church is Jeremiah preaching from the sewer, the church is the unpopular kids at Corinth High School. And in that way, the church thrives. Jesus loses about twenty thousand followers in a day in John 6, and then turns to His guys and asks if they're leaving too. He doesn't count gain and loss like we do, His ushers aren't in the balcony counting because the Kingdom of God is not a matter of flesh and blood.

The Kingdom advances as Bibles are opened in caves in northern Iraq. Demons flee as the Gospel is proclaimed from makeshift pulpits in primary schools in southern England. The sick are healed as 'thus saith the Lord,' rings out from a multi million dollar campus in Texas.

Trendy music isn't growing the Church. Neither a light show, or the best kids work in town, or the greatest summer camps, or the newest programs, or the biggest offerings. Those things might grow a church, but not the Church.

The Church grows as one man finds other faithful men to find other faithful men. It always has. Not the rich and the famous, but the poor, the weak, the needy. Men like you and me.

Preach The Cross

Preach the cross then, as God's all sufficient answer to men's perpetual question, 'how can i win salvation?' 'How can i achieve self conquest?' There are people in our congregations today who are asking that question, just as Saul of Tarsus asked it in the lecture theatre of Gamaliel, just as Luther asked it in the monastery of Erfurt, just as John Wesley asked it in the holy club at Oxford. laboriously these men hewed out (to use Jeremiah's figure) their own broken cisterns, toiling to store up their creditable achievements, their charities, austerities and penances. But for Saul, Luther and Wesley the day came when the answer to their question, 'how can i win salvation?' was answered from the throne of God. The answer was 'you can't! Take it at the cross for nothing, or not at all.' 

James S. Stewart, Heralds of God. P 85

Fighting Sin with Truth and Beauty

James was writing to help Christians fight a deadly infection. These Jewish Christians, far from home in the dispersion were slipping far from Christ. They were favouring the rich, they were growing lazy in their love, they were trying to mix Jesus with the world.

We know that our faith, or our love, for the Lord is growing cold when the fight against sin becomes weak. We no longer fight sin with the intensity that is willing to cut off our right hand, we make our peace with it instead. James wants his readers, and us, to fight sin with truth and beauty.

Fight sin with truth. Remember that sin leads to death. This is message in verse 14. First we're lured away by our own desire. Something or someone looks good, are desire is inflamed. Desire leads to sin. We go and get want we want. We gossip. We lust. We covet. And these things, when they're grown, bring forth death. Gossip kills. Lust kills. Coveting kills. Why? Because sin kills. James pleads with his hearers to remember this truth and to know that sin is not something to play with, not something to laugh about, not something to imitate, but something to flee from. We sin because we believe the lie that sin is harmless, so remember the truth that sin will lead to death.

And we sin because we think it will make us happy, something that James fights in the next paragraph. He wants us to know that every good gift, and every perfect gift comes from above. God is committed to our happiness, there is no shadow of turning with Him. He made us for Him, He made us for this happy holiness, and will never turn away from this plan. So what makes you happy? Not sin. Not sin! But God. The Bible never says 'just say no,' it says 'say yes to what is better.' Say yes to Jesus. He is the holder of all the good in the universe, He has pleasures forever at His right hand. Not just fleeting, sickly happiness, but joy, beautiful joy, forever. We sin because we think it will make us happy, so remember that every good thing comes from God, and from His hand alone.

Fight sin today with truth and beauty.

To Worship

To worship is to quicken the conscience with the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination with the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.

James S. Stewart, Heralds of God, P73

Jesus is the Barley Harvest

How can you not love the book of Ruth? This is the small package good things come in. It has everything. Romance, intrigue, drama, history, a possibly loopy mother-in-law.

But perhaps one of the reasons we love Ruth so much is that the characters are so human. Boaz is passed the first flush or youth, and so doesn't approach Ruth when he perhaps would have as a younger man. Ruth is an outsider, who grows from timid farm help to a proposing lover. Perhaps no one's humanity is so raw as Naomi's in the first six verses.

There's no food in Bethlehem, no crops coming though. The city is filled with sin. It's not a place to bring up two young boys. She trusts Elimelech, she loves him. Our God is King, he's always telling her, so maybe the move to Moab won't be that bad. She pushes the worries about where they'll worship, and who the boys will marry to the back of her minds and they pack up and leave the Promised Land.

But it didn't work out. There's food in Moab sure, but not much else. The people are wicked here, in a different way to her friends in Bethlehem. Sure, their religion was pretty empty, but it had a heart. She doesn't know what to make of chemosh, or his rituals or his followers.

And then, Elimelech is sick, and there's no one to help. He dies in her arms as she wipes his brow. There's no going home now, better to make a life of it here, and let the boys marry those Moabite girls they've been talking to. It seemed like things were going to turn out ok, but now she'll never forget that day. The noise, the blood, the screams of the Moabite widows, bent over the broken bodies of their lifeless husbands.

We need Naomi in the Bible because she knows life as we know it. Sometimes life is brutal for no good reason. But more than that, we need Naomi, because of what she hears in verse 6. The rebellion at home is over, the Lord has visited His people and given them food. The rains have come, and crop is growing. There will be a barley harvest, she can glean, she can eat. She's bitter, but she has hope, more than she knows.

And we, like her, have more hope than we know. Jesus is the barley harvest. Jesus is the sweet good news from a far country. Jesus is our hope. Jesus who was plunged into a brutality more focused and less deserved than we'll ever know, and came out the other side. Jesus is the hope humming along in the background while the noise of the world tries to drown Him out. Because Jesus lives, so will we, because Jesus lives, we can face tomorrow. Jesus is the anvil, His enemies the hammer, smashing themselves to ruin.

Jesus is the promise of good, and the promise of better to come.
Jesus is the good. Jesus is the better to come.
Jesus is the barley harvest who draws us home. Come to Him.

Prayer for a New (School) Year

Today is the first day of school at TCS, this gem, from the Valley of Vision, seemed appropriate.

O Lord

Length of days does not profit me

Except the days are passed in thy presence,

In thy service, to thy glory.

Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides,

sustains, sanctifies, aids every hour

that I may not be a moment apart from thee,

but may rely on thy Spirit

to supply every thought,

speak in every word,

direct every step,

prosper every work,

build up every mote of faith,

and give me a desire

to show forth thy praise;

testify thy love

Advance thy kingdom.

I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year,

with thee, O Father, as my harbour,

thee, O Son, as my helm,

thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.

Guide me to heaven with my loins girt,

my lamp burning,

my ear open to thy call,

my heart full of love,

my soul free.

Give me thy grace to sanctify me,

thy comforts to cheer,

thy wisdom to teach,

thy right hand to guide,

thy counsel to instruct,

thy law to judge,

thy presence to stabilize.

May thy fear be my awe

Thy triumphs my joy

Amen