James 3 Part 2 - A Perfect Man

The Main Text

​James 3:1-5 (KJV)
3 My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
2 For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
3 Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body.
4 Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.
5 Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

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Summary & Intro

    The use of the tongue, our speech, is regulated and informed by commandment all throughout scripture. The scripture is replete, it is filled up, with the standard of how a man of God, who is called after the name of God, ought to speak as an oracle of God. You will find it everywhere. In the way we speak to one another, in the way we speak and teach doctrine, in the way we go out in the streets and witness, the way I talk to my wife behind closed doors, the way my wife speaks to me in the home, the way my children to speak to me, and the way I speak to my children. It is all in the text. The Word of God is not silent concerning the issues of the tongue. The Holy Scripture is loud, it reverberates, it repeats itself and it says many of the same things again and again and again, and it leaves you and I without any excuse to act as a fool or ignorant on, the matters of, and how sever the matters of, the tongue really are. It is not a little thing. How many homes have been burned down by an uncontrolled tongue?
    Either we have our mind set right about the seriousness of these issues, or we are out of step with The Bible, and thus, with the maker of our tongue. 

• All of us in many things, fail and fall into error, The tongue is especially prone, and often leads the charge.
• The tongue is a sign of the presence of or lack of grace, as well as the degree and the maturity in grace.
• To control the tongue is to control all other things.

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Other Key Verses

​Philippians 3:12-17 (KJV)
12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
16 Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.

​1 Peter 2:21-23 (KJV)
21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:
22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:
23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

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Pastor Austin Huggins

Pastor of CECF
VP of FirstLove Ministries