“The Weight of the Word” (James 3:1-12)

If your words were placed on trial, what would they reveal about your faith? In this week’s sermon, Alex Trotter unpacks James 3:1–12, confronting the sobering truth that our words reveal the condition of our hearts. The tongue, though small, wields extraordinary power—to bless or to destroy, to build up or to tear down. For those in Christ, speech becomes a mark of transformation: increasingly God-honoring, gracious, and edifying, not because of self-discipline alone but because Christ is reshaping the heart. Even when we fail, every careless and sinful word has been covered by the blood of Jesus. For those outside of Christ, however, the tongue exposes the futility of self-reform; apart from the cross, our words testify against us before a holy God. True hope for taming the tongue lies only in the transforming grace of Jesus Christ.

Ultimately, this passage presses us to examine the fruit of our faith through the words we speak. Our speech is never neutral—it either confirms the reality of Christ at work in us or exposes our desperate need for Him. The cross of Christ is sufficient to forgive our failures and powerful enough to transform our tongues into instruments of praise. What difference would it make if every word you spoke was filtered through the cross of Christ?