Sermon 1st February 2009

Today, our Youth Worker, Phil Brooks, preaches based on the reading from James 3 - taken here from the Good News Bible.

My Brothers and Sisters, not many of you should become teachers. As you know, we teachers will be judged with greater strictness than others. All of us often make mistakes. But if a person never makes a mistake in what he says, he is perfect and is also able to control his whole being. We put a bit into the mouth of a horse to make it obey us, and we are able to make it go where we want. Or think of a ship, big as it is and driven by such strong winds, it can be steered by a very small rudder, and it goes wherever the pilot wants it to go. So it is with the tongue: small as it is, it can boast about great things. Just think how large a forest can be set on fire by a tiny flame!

Lets just spend a few moments collecting ourselves…

God, we want to thank you for this time together this morning. We want to acknowledge that wherever we are, and whatever it is that is on our hearts, that you want to deal with us.

Maybe we’re feeling tired, or burdened, or anxious about so many problems that seem SO big… maybe this morning we are finding the idea of a loving God hard enough to deal with, let alone a cross, or an empty tomb.

Maybe, we are feeling full of energy, connected to you, excited, and full of hope and life.

Wherever we are Father… we thank you that you want to meet us and be among us as we gather this morning. We pray that you will help us to see things we need to leave behind today, and help us to see the things we need to take on board. And may I speak in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.. Amen

So I’d like to start by thanking Cameron and the preaching team for giving me such a great first verse to start my first full grown-ups only sermon with. ‘Not many of you should become teachers.’ Quite a sobering thought…

So from these opening verses, it becomes apparent that there is a whole conversation that we could have about who exactly should be standing up and delivering messages like this, or leading Children’s Church groups and assuming the teaching roles within a church community… how that effects their own relationship with God, or what counts as correct doctrine… these aren’t things I’m going to be focussing in on this morning.

But what I’d like to focus on this morning is just how fundamental to us, how energetic and how full of potential all of our words are. The writer of this passage, as he asks us to be careful in the way we use our tongues, is expressing something that is true of all human beings- that our words are at the deepest core of who were are. The words we say affect us. Words are crucial.

I’d like you to think very first part of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1, inverse 3…

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

So speaking is the very first thing that we see God doing in the Bible. To create light (because even God needs light to work in) God says ‘let there be light’.


The whole act of creation begins with a word. And so the very first thing that the writer wants us to understand is that this is a God who speaks. God is personal, relational, a communicator. He has created nothing yet… and still speaks. Gods Words are the energy the universe is made from.

And so the Bible teaches us that this God created us in His own image. He created people, and spoke to them, and they could speak to him. So when God created these mammals on two legs to share the universe with, he wanted to be able talk to us. So he made us talkers. Some of us more than others…

Talking is something people do, instinctively, all the time. A few of years ago I read a book, by an American psychologist called Stephen Pinker, called ‘The Language Instinct’. In this book, he argues that words are as inherent to people as webs are to spiders. It’s what we do. If you need any more evidence that we are made to talk, just spend some time with very young children. Children are frighteningly good at learning how to talk. I am regularly amazed at how quickly children pick up not just new words, and sounds, but some of our incredibly complicated grammatical structures and rules. We are not born with our brains as ‘blank slates’, accidentally acquiring the ability to speak by simply copying the people around us.

We are hard-wired for language, It’s in the software of our brains. Language is what turns a group of people into a problem solving machine. Think of the story of the tower of Babel. Mankind gets together and decides to build a tower big enough to reach God. And how does God scupper the plan? A flood? Nope. Fire? Nope. God sabotages this plot by mixing up the languages people speak. Inspired.

So language is what enables us to relate to each other. You may have, at some point this morning, had a thought about who you want, or need, to talk to after the service. If you’ve had a thought like that today, congratulations. You are human.

So it is no wonder then, that the writer of this letter is concerned that we understand the importance of the words we say. Words have a tremendous power, to heal and to hurt, to build up, to break down…

How many of us, have ever told a child, or heard themselves as children, that ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.’ Now, I’m not saying that this technique doesn’t have certain usefulness in a crisis.

But do we really expect anybody to believe this?

I’m sure that pretty much all of us here this morning have had words spoken to them that have damaged them. Perhaps they were spoken to us in a deliberate way, or a glib comment, or something shouted in anger. When somebody says something damaging to us, it feels like something has been taken from us. Something spoken in a few seconds can take years to heal.

So maybe, as you were reading this passage, you thought of something unnecessary or hurtful that you said recently, maybe even this week.

I’m no scientist, but I am pretty certain that the shortest length of time conceivable is that moment, the fraction of a second, in between saying something unwise, and realising that it was a bad idea. How quickly we can escalate our conversations from misunderstandings to disagreements to full-blown arguments. We can make things personal and unpleasant so quickly. Particularly with people we know very well, particularly family members.

We know exactly how to say something, with the slightest nuances and subtleties that will hurt the person we’re speaking to. Just the slight changes in tone of voice, or oblique reference to something that happened a long time ago can be enough to really escalate things..

In the Proverbs 17, we can read that ‘a man of knowledge uses words with restraint’. So an exercise you might find useful would be to go through the last week, and try and identify a time you’ve not exercised restraint in the words you said. Perhaps it was a snapped word, or a deliberate and precisely aimed comment. Perhaps it was a particularly juicy piece of gossip that you just couldn’t help but share.

Whatever it might have been, maybe that’s something you’d like to share with God today, something you’d like to deal with. If you’d like some help with something you have said, or particular situation where you find it hard to say beautiful things, then I’m sure that the prayer team would be happy to help you with that after the service.

I’d like us to flick back into the Bible now, this time Mark Chapter 1, v.s. 21-28,.. I’ll give you a couple of seconds to find that. We’re just going to spend a few moments there. This is Jesus at work in the early days of his ministry.

21They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. 23Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil[e] spirit cried out, 24"What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!"
25"Be quiet!" said Jesus sternly. "Come out of him!" 26The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
27The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, "What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him."

This very early miracle of Jesus takes place just as he is beginning to announce the immediacy of the Kingdom of God. And in this snapshot of that story, is that Jesus is moving around, and doing great things… by talking. As far as this story goes, he didn’t even need hands. He teaches in the synagogue, and amazes everyone by sharing and describing the love of God. And then he heals a man by driving out a demon. So the same voice that spoke the universe into existence is being used to heal people and to share God’s love.

So a part of the deal of being a follower of Jesus is that we are becoming more like Jesus, and we become more and more the sort of people who bring healing and love with our words.

In verse 5 of James, we read that a ‘large forest can be set on fire by a tiny flame’, which is a very good reason to be careful about not saying harmful things. If we’re not careful, things get bitter very quickly. But what a fantastic encouragement to say helpful words!

I suggested earlier that all of us, or at least most of us, had over the course of our lives heard words that had hurt them, and caused damage. On the flipside of that, I wonder how many of us have been told encouraging and beautiful things that we’ve found really helpful?

There are helpful, encouraging, affirming things that people have said to me, perhaps years ago that I still cling to today.

And so in this letter of James, there is an awareness that the words we speak have profound, and eternal implications. And perhaps this can move us into a kind of freedom that goes beyond avoiding saying harmful things, and begins to start some fires of a different kind. Good words have a multiplying effect. If people speak good words to us, we speak good words to other people… and before you know it, words of love start to spread a little more freely among a community.


I’ll tell you a story. I have a friend who is the kind of person that people naturally open up to. So in conversation with people, he can find himself, quite quickly, listening to people’s burdens. And so as I was talking to this friend, he was describing some of the conversations he’d been having with someone who had been having massive doubts about their self-worth, and was feeling very depressed, and very lonely.

So my friend was feeling very inadequate and overwhelmed by this, not really sure the best things to say. And so as we were going over these conversations, he was just saying how he’d done his best to be caring, try to listen as best he can, and to just be a friend where this person needed one.

And then he said to me… ‘so when do you think I should tell him about Jesus?’

And I thought to myself about that question later on, I thought… ‘You’ve been telling him a lot about Jesus already.’

Because if we are followers of Christ, then we are always telling people what Jesus is like. When I was a much younger and wiser person, I used to spend hours talking with people and trying to maneuver the conversation around to a point where I could tell them about their need for Jesus. I’m not saying for a second that conversations like that don’t have any value. But I’m also so aware, looking back, that I was telling them more about Jesus than I thought.

Maybe the question isn’t when do I tell people about Jesus, but what am I already telling people about Jesus? What do I tell people about Jesus by the way I talk to them?

If we come into relationships with agendas, then they will quickly pick up on this. And the message that they will actually get, despite our best efforts to tell them otherwise, is that Jesus loves them with an agenda.

If we decide that we don’t want to talk to a certain sort of person, then we are telling them a lot about Jesus. We are telling them that Jesus doesn’t walk to talk to them.

If we find ourselves criticizing others people behind their backs… we are telling the world that Jesus is looking to criticize them.

So many of Jesus’ interactions end having as conversations about the deepest truths in the universe… but almost always after he has listened to the people he was talking to, and spoken words of truth, and intelligence, and beauty into their lives.

And so to finish, I would encourage you, that if we call ourselves follower of Jesus, then every interaction we have is an opportunity to bring an energy of love, and to show people what a rescued life looks like.

Because if we really do believe that there is an empty tomb, and that this resurrected Christ is among us, then we will know that love is the strongest force in the universe. So whatever damage has been done by harmful words- words of love can, in time, heal and rebuild anything or anyone.

So let’s pray together as we begin to ready ourselves for communion

Father, we thank you that you don’t force us, or push us into your Kingdom, but instead offer a gentle invitation into a different sort of life, into an awareness of your presence with us.

We pray that you would work around us and within us to help our words to be careful, measured, and full of love, and courage, and grace and truth.

We ask that this week, our words would be starting all the right sorts of fires. We thank you that however dark some of the voices out there, or in us, might be… that your love wins. Amen..