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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Old Testament reading. You may be seated. James really did place it right there in our hearts, didn’t he? The power of the tongue. It is a powerful tool. It is what God chose to give to you and me to praise him. For as the psalmist says, and we say in our matin service, O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. And yet out of the same mouth that shows forth the praise to our God is the same mouth with which we crush other people. We crush also our most beloved of people, our family members, our spouses, our friends, our children, and our parents.
Because of the power of the tongue, we all have within us this desire to teach. Wow, I’m the youngest of four children. I have been taught by the best, trust me. All three were telling me exactly what I needed to do, what I needed to do, and how I needed to do it over and over again. Amen. But don’t worry, I learned that if they like to teach, then that’s what I should do too. I should find other people who will listen to me, and even if they don’t listen to me, I’ll force them to listen to me. And isn’t that how it is with you? Oh, you may not have a role as a teacher, but you’re a teacher.
But let someone go through a difficult time, and isn’t it interesting that all of a sudden your advice becomes a marketable commodity that raises so high you must give it? And in fact, you feel like you’re not doing your job if you don’t give it. And yet you would be hard-pressed to find anywhere in Scripture that says everyone should become a teacher. You would be hard-pressed to find where it says everyone should offer their opinion at every turn. You will find it hard in the scripture to find any passage that says your wisdom is exactly what everybody else needs. Yes, the power of the tongue. The power of the tongue.
You are a baptized child of God. You are his disciple. Your calling, your calling, mind you, as his disciple is not to be a teacher. Your calling as his disciple is to be a listener and a learner. A disciple is one who follows the teaching of somebody else. You are the disciple of your Lord Jesus. Your wisdom submits to his wisdom. Your insight submits to his insight. Your ability to communicate must submit to his. Which is why he said, Jesus, before he was incarnate, through Isaiah, the Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I may know how to sustain with the word him who is weary.
One of the things that people who love to tell other people about, they don’t typically want to tell other people that they’re weary. Oh, they want to tell them how to handle weariness. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You tell someone you’re weary, they’re going to be willing to tell you how to get unweary with all kinds of great wisdom, many of it very good. But they don’t tell you that they’re weary, do they, very often? And yet it was Jesus who said, Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. So if we don’t acknowledge our weariness, what does Jesus have to offer us?
It was Mary who at the feet of Jesus showed a disciple’s posture. Right? Sit down and listen and learn. Martha thought, I need to get things done. How does the world function without Martha’s? How does your soul survive without Mary? It doesn’t. We have to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn. And do you know when we’re the best pupils of all? When God has our complete and total attention because he has mercy-sifted us in the crucible of life as his baptized child. That’s when our attention is the most wrapped and focused.
To be a good teacher really implies that you’re even a better pupil than you are a teacher. A pupil is always listening and a pupil is always learning. Well, at least most of the time. You see, there’s two kinds of people whenever someone is teaching. Ask any teacher. There are two kinds of kids out in the classroom. The kids that the teachers love are the quiet ones who don’t say anything and listen. They have no idea if the student is going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I’m going to smile and let you know that I’m listening to you. The kids that typically get the most of the teacher’s aggression are the kids who they don’t want to shut up because they want to be heard. But simply because they’re the ones talking doesn’t mean that they’re also not the ones listening. And simply because the one who’s quiet doesn’t mean that they’re so attentive and soaking it in either. It is our heart that matters.
So what does God do to make sure he has our attention? But sift us, temper us, try us, and test us. And then, wow, do we listen. You know, in our life, in our ability to deal with our tongue, it is a difficult thing indeed. And one thing that we’re all good at, and we are great at this, is starting stuff. We’re great at starting anything. We start it with the most optimism, the most confidence, the most blind ambition. And the other thing that we have in common, all of us, we have a hard time finishing it. Isn’t that not true? We have a hard time finishing it.
Think of all the things that you have started and have not finished. Think of all the things that you have started. Think of all the times that you attempted to tame your tongue and you didn’t. In fact, James makes it very clear, doesn’t he, where you do not tame the tongue. He makes it sound as if it’s untameable. And is that true or not? It is true because it is the symbol of your sin. You don’t tame your sin. Sin is a wild animal. The only thing you can do to it, you cannot reform it, you cannot discipline it, and you cannot educate it, you can only kill it.
We mentioned this in Bible class this morning. The tongue is the same. And isn’t it interesting that the words that have come out of our mouth, which our spouses have heard and our children have heard, and better yet, if you can’t think of those, think of the words that have been said to you by parents and by loved ones. They stay with you no matter how hard you try to forget them. The words that you have said and the words that you have heard stay with you. The power of the tongue. Leaving us very confident that we have nothing but forgiveness to rely upon.
Jesus’ tongue was perfect. That’s why it says in that text, The Lord God has given me the tongue as of those who are taught. I’m faithful with my tongue. For all the times that yours and mine should have shut up and it didn’t. For all the time where we said the right words, but our heart was far from them. For all the times when our tongue didn’t say the thing, yet we thought it. Our Lord’s tongue always gave grace and nothing but grace. In the midst of all of our times, when we think of our tongues, we know they don’t give grace at every turn. And yet he opens our lips and gives us the ability to show forth his praise. Not because we have this welding up within us, but because he places upon our lips the words to speak, the exact words he has spoken to us.
Do we speak back to him? He was never rebellious. Rebellion, as I said earlier, comes in two forms. The quiet rebellion, I’m going to listen to everything you say and smile and nod, but in my mind I am saying, I will do what I darn well please. That’s rebellion. That is as rebellious as someone who says, when you’re explaining something to them, I got it, I got it, don’t worry about it, I understand. It is just as rebellious. It’s just a quieter rebellion.
Jesus never, ever rebelled. He listened and hearkened unto the voice of his Father. He obeyed him, submitting his will to the Father’s will. He did not rebel to God’s control over his life, the Father, and the will that the Father had for him to accomplish. In the midst of his not finishing, no, he always finished. You see, when you and I are up against a struggle, the disgrace and the spitting it speaks about, the humiliation that it speaks about in the text, you and I say, game over, I’m out of here. I don’t need to put up with this anymore. And we haven’t finished many things.
Oh, we love self-righteousness about finishing, don’t we? I can say, I’ve never committed divorce with my wife. I’m still married. And yet, I can tell you, she’ll tell you, how many times that I have not treated her lovingly and not honored her as I ought. Isn’t that just as grievous of a sin? Self-righteousness, finishing things, only Jesus has finished it. And only Jesus does not have self-righteous. Only you and I do.
So he yields his cheek and humbles himself and is shorn of his beard. He offers the other cheek so that he can be humiliated again because that is the will of the Father for him. For all the times when you and I won’t allow it and balk at it. He offers his back that it may be stripped and beaten. We will never be humiliated. Offer ours, for we say the price is too much. I will only pay what I’m willing to pay to humble myself. Jesus’ work was as tough as nails. In fact, they were tougher than nails. Though they held him and pierced him, they did not break him. And from them poured out your forgiveness and balm that covers up your tongue and all the damage that it has done in your life and other people’s lives.
Amen.
Why would James say, not everybody should be a teacher for they’ll be doubly judged because we’re all about wanting to offer advice, thinking that from our foxhole or our perspective, we can solve their problem. It’s good intent. Your calling as a disciple is not to speak but to listen. Your calling as Jesus’ disciple is to be a learner, not a teacher.
And is it interesting, when he finally does have your and my attention, when he finally does have your and my attention, we’re not the one speaking, is he? We’re the one listening, obediently, trustingly. You see, God never called us to a successful finish. God has only called us to a faithful finish. There’s the only successful finish, which is why he said at the last moment, it is finished. Finished.
God has only called you to a faithful finish, but here’s what a faithful finish looks like. A faithful finish isn’t finishing first. So for all of us type A, you’ve got to get it out of your system. Faithful finish doesn’t mean that you finish it without disappointment or even regret. If you cannot tame the tongue, you will finish your course in this world still struggling with your sin because you’re still a sinner to the moment of your death. And you will never cease to struggle with your sin until you die. Therefore, you will continue to live with regret and disappointment.
Because Satan is going to scratch that scab until the day you die. But you will finish faithfully. Because Paul said very clearly, He who began a good work in you, He who began a good work in you, shall bring it to completion. He shall bring it to completion on the day of the Christ Jesus. It will be finished completely because he said it is finished. But it doesn’t look like it inside of our mind and it doesn’t look like it always with the consequences of many things that were said to us or said by us. It doesn’t look like it.
That’s why you and I walk by faith. That’s why you and I speak loudly and clearly what the man in the gospel reading said. With God, all things are possible. If you and I really believe that, and we do, then we also believe we still have doubt within us. For the man believed that gospel proclamation of Jesus. He did not cry out, I believe, Lord. He said, I believe. Help my unbelief.
A faithful finish in this life as a learner and a listener is finishing it with struggle. You never get done. It never is ceasing until death has come. But promises still reign. The word that God speaks to those who are weary. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Lord, I believe. I most assuredly believe. As I know you do believe. Humbly we stand before him with our mouths shut. Help my unbelief.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
