BIG little things
33m | Sep 20, 202620/09/2026 - Beck Lambert
Text: James 3
- Small things set a direction
Your tongue has the power to
- strengthen or separate relationships;
- build or damage reputations;
- foster or destroy trust;
- create peace or fuel conflict;
- express love and encouragement or envy and hatred;
and end up setting the very direction of our lives, like the rudder of a ship.
The tongue represents your inner world as it becomes expressed in words and action.
Luke 6:45 “What you say flows from what is in your heart”.
What we say can take the form of:
The internal narratives you rehearse about yourself…and others
The way we talk about someone when we are angry with them
The things we post about online
All these “big little things” that make up our world, thought by thought, word by word, post by post over time set the overall direction of your life.
- A divided heart produces a divided life
Verses 9-12: “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and saltwater flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”
In nature, things only ever produce according to their design, but we humans have the ability to live and speak in contradictory ways.
James compares “earthly wisdom” and “heavenly wisdom”,
earthly wisdom; facilitates a divided life because this kind of wisdom evaluates everything via worldly standards.
Highest Goal: personal comfort.
Earthly wisdom can be clever, strategic, and socially impressive.
Looks like: getting ahead, protecting your status or position, of winning the argument at any cost.
- Wisdom from above
James 3:17 ESV “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.”
- Pure – Greek: Hagnos | ἁγνός
Open to have God search our motivations, one which welcomes Him to examine us.
Echoes Psalm 139:23 “Search me, God, and know my heart”
Reflection Questions:
As I think about [insert problem/relationship/plans/decision] Am I seeking what is right, or merely what benefits me?
Is there an area of my life where I am asking God to bless something I am actually using for my own status, control or comfort?
Do I have hidden agendas at play in my relationships?
- Peaceable – Greek: eirenikos | εἰρηνικός
Right relationship between person and person and right relationship between person and God.
Wisdom that moves closer to people at the same time as moving closer to God.
The difference between knowing what’s right and knowing what to do with that “rightness” in the context of relationship.
Reflection Questions
What atmosphere do I tend to create during a difficult conversation?
Do I use truth as a bridge or as a weapon?
Do I use my words to reconcile or win when there’s a disagreement?
- Gentle or Considerate – Greek: epieikēs | ἐπιεικής
“Sweet reasonableness.”
When it is actually wrong to insist on the strict letter of the law when mercy, context and human need require something better.
When standing on your rights would be less righteous than giving them up. Especially relevant to leadership, conflict, and authority.
Reflection Questions:
Where am I insisting on the letter of the law while neglecting the spirit of love?
What would “sweet reasonableness” look like in my next difficult conversation?
Am I technically right but relationally wrong?
- Open to reason – Greek: eupeithēs | εὐπειθής
Someone who is willing to listen, learn, and reconsider if wisdom requires it. This wisdom requires great humility in someone’s life.
A direct challenge to self-protective certainty.
Reflection Questions:
When was the last time I changed my mind because someone helped me see more clearly?
Do I listen in order to understand, or only to prepare my response?
Where might my certainty be masking insecurity or pride?
- Full of mercy and good fruits – Greek: eleos | ἔλεος
A compassionate response to someone in trouble…even when that person has brought trouble on themselves!
It refuses to reduce a person to the point of their failure.
A mercy that is not detached but seeks to give help.
“Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” James 2:15-16 ESV.
Reflection Questions:
Whose suffering am I tempted to dismiss with “They brought it on themselves”?
Can I distinguish between enabling someone and showing them compassion?
Where am I expressing concern without taking meaningful action?
- Impartial – Greek: adiakritos | ἀδιάκριτος
A person who is not governed by favouritism, self-interest or changing loyalties.
Not divided between one standard for people we like and another for people we distrust or dislike.
Reflection Questions:
Do I value people who cannot advance my interests?
Do I treat people consistently in life – particularly when they offer no social or strategic benefit to me?
Are there things I excuse in myself that I condemn in others?
- Sincere – Greek: anypokritos | ἀνυπόκριτος
To live in a way to not hide by wearing different masks in life or play different characters depending on who you are with.
This kind of wisdom does not produce one person in public and another in private.
Reflection Questions:
Am I the same person in public, private, online and under pressure?
Is there a gap between what I say and what my life consistently reveals?
What would become more integrated if I brought it into the light?
- The Harvest of Righteousness.
James 3:18, “And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
Each of these aspects of heavenly wisdom is a seed to be sown in our lives.
In time, these seeds sown over and over in your life will produce a harvest of righteousness.
Final questions: “what kind of wisdom is shaping me, and what kind of harvest is my life producing?”
