“Who is the Perfect Man?” Mount Olive Lutheran Church Season of Pentecost Sunday Sermon September 15, 2024 – James 3:1-12

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday September 15th 2024: Season of Pentecost / James 3:1-12 “Who is the Perfect Man?”

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 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. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.

How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends what is the perfect man? Is it an athlete, pushing their body to the utmost to achieve incredible feats of the physical form? Or is it a genius, pushing their minds to contemplate and explain what would seem impossible to describe or understand? Or is it some great giant of the faith, prayerfully embracing the humility of a soul devoutly focused on the mysteries of the Lord? What is the perfect man? Are you a perfect man; are you a perfect woman; are you a perfect child? Do you know one who is?      

Last week as we considered the Syrophoenician woman’s request of Jesus on behalf of her daughter we reviewed the Eighth Commandment as we thought about our God given gift of a good reputation and our responsibility towards each other to protect this gift with our thoughts words and deeds.

In our Epistle reading today Saint James is looking at God’s demand for perfection—truly in everything—not just with the tongue: We’ve been thinking a lot about this recently, remember what Jesus likewise teaches when He says, “from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.”[1] We know that behind the things we do and the words of our mouth stand the contents of our heart so we ever need to be honest with ourselves and with God about our motivations and desires. Is sin creating in us a salt pond of a heart or is our heart a perfect spring of fresh water? When we trust that perfection needs to be perfect in thought, word and deed: Prefect thinking, perfect speaking, and perfect actions; who then is perfect? 

When Saint James says “if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.” Who then is that perfect man? And when Saint James says, “If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well,” we can think of that bit and bridle as:

The Eighth Commandment ‘You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.’ What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbour, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.[2]

With this as your bit and bridle you can begin, by the grace of God, the hard and difficult work to tame the tongue.    

And when Saint James says, “look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs,” we can think of that rudder as, not just the Eighth Commandant but, the whole of the Ten Commandants provided by the LORD.

Dear ones, what about a wild horse with no bridle and bit? What about a feral horse that was once tame but now runs wild? What about a large ship, with a broken or defective rudder sailing out on the hard waters of the open sea, how will the pilot navigate its path upon those waters? So too with the man, so too with the woman, so too with the child: If they have no rudder they will shipwreck their faith. The heart without the Word of God, without the Ten Commandments is a heart in constant danger of sinking it’s conscience into the deep, in danger of begin twisted into a bad conscience. A bad conscience that permissively allows for a wild course in life, an untamed course of sin; A bad conscience that sails away from the noble and good challenges placed before it; a bad conscience that that runs away from the beauty of the hard fought struggle against temptation. Saint Paul warns the Christian that, “by rejecting [a good conscience], some have made shipwreck of their faith,”[3] however when we hold fast to the gift of faith and a good conscience, by the grace of God, we are not left without a rudder, we are not left without bit and bridle in the face of sin and destruction.

So we think on what Saint James teaches ‘that a man could bridle his whole body, control his whole body, if only he could just control his tongue. That doing so would produce a perfect person.’ Again, have you been the perfect man; have you been the perfect woman; have you been the perfect child? Do you know one who has been? If this perfect person is not you; is it someone else? 
 
Dear ones when we hold fast to the Ten Commandants remember that we are not simply holding fast to our meager efforts to keep them, if that is what you are holding onto your hands will fail you and you will let go of the Ten Commandants in shame, but rather we as Christians we are daily called to hold onto our Lord Jesus who in fact did keep Ten Commandants without sin, who kept them in perfection, who was not unbridled in life, who had a perfect conscience unburdened by any sin of His own, who could stand in judgment before His Father blameless. In Christ Jesus we hold on to the perfect man, and more importantly Christ Jesus hangs on to us.        

At the time of His arrest, at the time of His betrayal, at the time of His trial, at His flogging, at His crucifixion, Jesus could have said many things which might have changed the course of the events of that day. He was likely tempted to say unnecessary things, tempted even to say false things. Under the greatest pressure Jesus remained exactly what James describes: A man who did “not stumble in what He says,” [Jesus was in fact the] … “perfect man,” [and because of this Jesus was] “able also to bridle His whole body,” never letting go of His Father, never letting go of you.  
 
Isaiah in our Old Testament reading describes Jesus in this way: With words spoken in the first person: Words that show Jesus on His way to the cross: Words that show a man able also to bridle not just His tongue but His whole body. Listen to them as words from Jesus’ lips, spoken by Jesus’ own tongue, from His heart to you:

“I turned not backward.
I gave My back to those who strike,
and My cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not My face
from disgrace and spitting.

But the Lord God helps Me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set My face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
He who vindicates Me is near.”[4]

From the cross of His Good Friday crucifixion Jesus had some last words as He hung dying for the sins of the World. Jesus prayed to God the Father for those who were crucifying Him, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”[5] And at the very last, at the moment of death, we hear what Jesus said and how He said it: Calling out with a loud voice, [Jesus] said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!” And having said this He breathed His last.[6] With this example you see The Man who bridled both His tongue and His body in perfection without sin.  

For a World that believes that Jesus was just a man, an extraordinary man, even a good man, for such a person these are Jesus’ very last words. For us who share in the hope of the resurrection of the dead, who share in the joy of Easter, who share in God given faith, who share in the knowledge of the truth we believe and confess that these were not Jesus’ last words ever, they are simply His last words before His death upon the cross.

On the day of His resurrection, when He went to be with His disciples in the locked upper room He greets them with the words, “Peace be with you.”[7] These words were not spoken by a ghost but were said with a tongue of flesh–in the same way we who die with Christ, die in Christ, die in faith, will utter more words with our very own tongue. And when we do so, in our resurrected bodies, we will no longer be tempted into saying the wrong thing. Our tongue will be made perfect with the rest of our body and it will no longer be “a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” All of those tongues will be effortlessly bridled by the eternal and Holy Law of God, a law we will no longer need but one we will live in perfection. On That Day your tongue, yes your whole body will be an instrument of pure goodness, full of praise for Jesus, and kindness to your neighbour. Because Jesus will transform our tongue, along with our whole lowly body, “to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.”[8] Until that day we struggle to bridle our tongue, for in doing so we bridle our body also. The better we manage our tongue as we speak, or our fingers as we type, or thumbs as we text, the less trouble we will find ourselves in today. You know this to be true.

Yet what can we do when we find ourselves in trouble because of our unbridled tongue, what can we do when we have let our fingers run wild “hitting send” on that email and letting loose evil full of poison that we can’t get back? What do we do when we are all thumbs and we have less than perfectly texted to the harm of our neighbour’s reputation or the harm of our good conscience? To whom can we turn when we realize we are not perfect, when we are grieved by the hurt we’ve caused by our thoughts, by our words, by our actions? We are called to turn to the Perfect Man, who is also Perfect God – Christ Jesus. In Him we have forgiveness for speaking falsely because when tempted to speak falsely Jesus resisted the temptation; where we fail, He succeeded.

With sadness we know only too well that this thing which Saint James writes about the tongue is true: “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.” Because of this, when you have something difficult to say, or when you find yourself in a difficult situation, hold your tongue, bridle it just long enough to pray to the Holy Spirit for the right thing to say, and if nothing comes, if there seems to be no right thing to say, listen and don’t speak, wait for the Lord and hold off until you know what is best to say; trusting always in Jesus your Lord. And when you measure up less than perfect in this life turn always for forgiveness to the one who is perfect, the one Who “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,”[9] whose tongue was bridled perfectly and whose body followed suit without fault.

And lastly is a kind of closing thought for you. Some people stay away from Church until ... they’re more perfect. Because they think that Church is for perfect people and they need to be more perfect to be here. Some people tell themselves this, and some people have used this as a way to stay away from Church. Other people look at Church and realize that people aren’t actually good. And in Church they see hypocrites; people who they think are acting as though they are perfect. So let’s think about both of those things very quickly.

We know the truth. We all come here because we need forgiveness. And we need Jesus who does the forgiving. Jesus comes for sinners.[10] So who’s the only perfect person at Church today? Jesus. Jesus is always the one who comes to Church perfect, and then in his perfection provides for you the forgiveness that you so desperately need. For all the things you do, for all the things you think, for all the things you say that break the Law of God, those Ten Commandments. So it is a great joy to know who the perfect one is. We strive to be like Him in our thoughts, words, and deeds, but we know where to go to receive the forgiveness we need for when we fail. Amen. 

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Mark 7:21–22
[2] Eighth Commandment & Explanation, Luther’s Small Catechism, Concordia Publishing House 2017, Pg 14.
[3] 1 Timothy 1:19
[4] Isaiah 50: 6-8a
[5] Luke 23:34
[6] Luke 23:46
[7] John 20:19
[8] Philippians 3:21
[9] Philippians 2:8
[10] 1 Timothy 1:15

Photo Credit: Main photo man on horse from pexels.