Stop Trashing Each Other

Wonderful singing this morning.

It's great to hear the people of God with all of our strange voices, mine being among the strangest when I sing, just opening our hearts to God and bringing praise to Him.

It's wonderful to hear the people of God singing.

Before I begin the message, there's one more thing I wanted to share.

As many of you know, hopefully all of you know, our high school students, 13 of our high school students and four adults, left early yesterday morning in two vans, and they are on their way to Louisville for a what's called Challenge 2016, joining about 4,500 high school students from around the country.

And uh they left in two vans, they arrived safely last night in DeForest, Wisconsin, and immediately took a picture of themselves in front of a 20-foot cow.

So I'm not sure what the significance of that was, but uh they have another long drive today to uh get safely down to Louisville and get installed in their hotel and get dinner and everything.

Um pray for them, there is a detailed uh set of um day-by-day, session by session information about what they're doing this week.

And there's about 25 copies of this out on the desk that you can get.

There's also uh a website, and I think it's in the bulletin.

I didn't really check where you can get the same information, but I would just encourage you to uh to pray for them that God would do a wonderful work in their hearts and uh keep their uh the adults that are with them sane and happy, and uh may it be a great time uh together.

Let me ask you to turn this morning to uh James chapter 4.

James 4 · chapter mention

We're moving along in our study of the book of James, and this morning we come to a subject which apparently we don't take very seriously.

But I want to assure you that God does.

It has to do with how we talk about one another.

The paraphrase, the message, captures the first verse of James 4, verse 11, in a wonderful, powerful, simple, accurate way.

James 4:11

Don't badmouth each other, my friends.

Don't badmouth each other.

This is something that God is very concerned about, and he's speaking to Christians.

This idea of trashing or badmouthing one another, which is the theme of these two simple verses, um, is something that we need to hear.

It deals with things like slander.

In fact, the New International Version translates this as slander, but as we'll see, it's actually far more far-reaching than simply slander.

It includes, well, slander is telling lies about another person and destroying their reputation.

It includes that, but it just speaks in general about speaking ill of one another or speaking poorly.

Most of the translations say, don't speak against one another.

Three times in this one verse, the first verse, it says, don't speak against each other, don't, and it's variously translated, speaking ill, speaking evil of, speaking evil, speaking evilly of other people, bad mouthing, ripping on, trash talking, speaking disparagingly, discrediting, tearing down.

You kind of get the point.

This is something God cares deeply about, and he's concerned about this.

And he's concerned about us when we're engaged in this.

He's apparently more concerned about it than we are.

And that's the whole point.

To help us get the same kind of attitude about this clear and present danger among us.

We live in a day in which teardowns is a very viable business model.

We live in a day in which the sports industry has probably actually more emphasis in practice on trash talk than it does on the beer commercials that finance the uh professional sports.

Taunting and trash talk.

It may be something that is very common in our day, in our society, but it must not be common among us.

And that's the that's the delicate topic.

I didn't choose this topic this morning, by the way.

One of the wonderful things about just working through the scriptures, you know, I don't know if you ever stop and wonder, you know, how does the preacher come up with his, you know, what, and is he talking with Betty Sue or Fred?

Or you or me?

Well, I studiously avoid choosing topics that I think you need to hear.

Because when I go, you need to hear, there's four fingers wagging back at me.

All we do here is we take a section of scripture and we go week by week through it, and whatever it is that God wants us to talk about on a given week is the next passage before us.

So that's why we're talking about that this week in particular.

Um you're probably familiar with the business model in uh in real estate and building of teardowns.

Uh if a piece of property uh is of a certain age or its value has deteriorated to the point that it's probably worth more torn down for the value of the land itself, so something else can be built on it, then boom, in come the uh comes a teardown.

Uh and what's often uh replacing a teardown is what is lovingly called a McMansion.

A McMansion.

Uh the small town that I grew up in outside of Chicago, uh, when I drive through that town and drive through the streets that I used to ride my bike on as an eight-year-old, going down on Park Street and getting to Sunset Pool where I spent all summer long, riding on my bike down to the pool.

When I drive down that street now, I hardly recognize it.

Those 1920s and 1930s little pre-war bungalows, which even if they were standing, I probably still couldn't afford them.

They've almost all been replaced by large, opulent, impressive homes on postage stamp size lots, and that's what's gotten the nickname McMansions.

Now, that may be a very valid and important thing to do.

I'm not against tearing houses down.

It is not appropriate behavior when we're doing that to each other.

That's really what this is talking about.

A great business model, but not great when what's torn down are people and their reputations.

That's what this passage is all about.

Trashing other people has become a national pastime.

Have you noticed?

It's apparently acceptable in sports, it's apparently acceptable on talk shows, and it's to me most disturbingly evident in the political arena.

Whatever happened to a senator standing up and debating another senator and saying, my respected colleague on the other side of the aisle?

Is that the way we talk?

We don't talk that way in politics, and if we're not careful, we don't talk that way in our lives as well.

When it comes to media, sound bites, and tweets, trash talk is very acceptable.

Um although it's officially banned in the NBA and NFL, I don't know enough about the NHL, I just know they enjoy a good fight, but um, it's officially banned and yet everybody does it and everybody winks at it, and they rarely get ejected for it.

Um NFL player commented, it's fun and it helps me play better.

Even if it's X-rated and can't be printed in sports illustrated, it's fun and it makes me play better.

Well, it may be fun, but ought to have no place in our experience as Christians.

Boastful, insulting verbal attacks used to intimidate and weaken the person that we disagree with.

There ought to be no place for that in our circles.

While poor sportsmanship and disparaging speech makes for an entertaining show, it has no place among the people of God.

God says we have an issue with this.

Read with me if you would.

James chapter four, verses eleven and twelve.

Two simple little verses.

I'm reading from the ESV.

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.

The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law.

But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.

There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and destroy.

But who are you to judge your neighbor?

I like to just, as we typically do, just try to bring this passage to light, these two simple verses.

We bring it to light, we expose it.

That's what expository preaching or teaching does.

It exposes it to light, and then to seek to practically apply it to our lives.

Alright?

We expose God's word to the light, to the light of our hearts, and we apply it as the Spirit speaks to us to our lives.

I hope when it comes to the Sunday morning message, that's what you're hungry for.

Because that's what God wants for us.

That's why He's given us His Word.

Now, this is of course not the first time that James in this book has talked about this little mucus-covered wedge of muscle that is imprisoned behind our teeth, the tongue.

He has talked about this several times.

We've seen it.

James 1.19 was very clear.

Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.

I hope you remember the quick, slow, slow principle that we've talked about multiple times.

Quick to listen, slow to speak, and if possible, keeping anger far, far away.

Is that what's characteristic of our lives?

Is that what's characteristic of my life?

Not the way I want it to be.

If we're not careful, instead of being slow or quick, slow, slow, we're slow, quick, quick.

We get it all backwards.

We hardly hear before we speak.

And what we speak is not always what ought to be spoken.

So he's talked about this danger before.

Chapter 3, verses 1 through 12.

We've seen this.

We saw it in great detail.

The incredible power of the tongue, a little rudder moving a whole ship, a little flame that sets a conflagration of forest on fire.

This thing that basically, without the power of God, no man can tame.

He has talked about this time and time and time again.

Why do you suppose that is?

Why do you suppose that in just a few chapters this has come to the fore time and time and time again?

It's pretty simple.

We need it at time and time and time and time and time again.

I do.

Don't you?

As we look at this passage this morning, I would encourage you not to think about the person sitting over there or standing in front or someone over there.

I would encourage you to say, let God speak to those people what he wants to say from this passage, and I would encourage you to say, Lord, what are you saying to me about how I use my tongue?

So let's be asking ourselves, what does this mean for me and my problem with tearing people down?

Not what does this mean for him or her and their problem, but what does this mean for me and my problem?

It was written for all of us, collectively and individually.

Sorry.

I trust you've noticed you have a problem with this.

I trust you've noticed I have a problem with it.

I know you've noticed that.

Have you noticed that you do?

See, God wants to help us all individually.

Not just others, you.

There are people among us, some of us are well skilled in putting other people down verbally.

Very quick with a fast retort that if we're not careful, we think we're just kidding, but it is demeaning and disparaging of another person.

Some of us are too quick with our tongues, and we fall into that trap all of the time.

I met somebody out in the foyer this morning, and I caught myself, barely, caught myself, making some cutesy comments that would not have been appropriate.

Did you ever catch yourself doing that?

I hope you do.

So let's listen carefully and seek to apply.

So the first thing that he says in connection with our tongue and handle with care is stop it, Christian.

Stop it.

It's really simple.

Don't speak evil against one another, brothers.

He's talking about believers.

He's talking about us.

Stop it, Christian.

What he's saying is this is a present and pernicious and persistent problem among Christians.

It's been a present, pernicious, and persistent problem among Christians for two thousand years.

It's a present persistent and pernicious problem among Christians in our world today.

It's a present pernicious and persistent problem among Christians in the churches.

It's a us.

You, me.

So let's allow God to redirect us and help us.

The first thing he says in this connection is that we can expect it from others.

The one again who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law.

If you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge.

There is only one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy.

But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Now, we experience that with one another, but we see as we read the New Testament that although we should not expect to experience that from within, we ought to expect to experience that from the world.

1 Peter 3.16, Lowell, I can't remember whether you got that far in 1 Peter this year.

1 Peter 3.16, listen to what it says.

Having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior may be put to shame.

When you are slandered, and it's in the context of the world, when outsiders look at us and make false accusations, not if, but when, that's to be expected.

We also saw in 1 Peter 2, 12, he said very clearly, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak evil against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

This is normal.

When the church is following Christ, when believers are radically committed to Christ and their lives are different from those around us, the world notices it and does not like it.

When Christians are popular, we're in trouble.

When we look just like the world around us and people see us and think that's wonderful, we have a problem.

Throughout the history of the church, when the church was accepted and elevated in society, it was at the nader of their spiritual life, the low points.

When the church was attacked from outsiders for their way of living that doesn't make any sense to the world and isn't attractive to the world, and when the Christians were attacked, their spiritual lives went up.

That's just the way it works.

And we kind of assume we expect to have society affirming us.

Well, I'm not against society affirming us if they affirm us because they share our values and our understanding of God and respect that.

But all too often, when everything is going well with the outside world, there's something going wrong on the inside.

The norm, the norm, is that we would be attacked from the outside because we're different.

Unless, of course, we're living in a way that is no different from the rest of society.

We have a great opportunity, my friends, in a society that is falling apart morally and is going to hell.

We have a great opportunity.

The light shines brightest against a dark background.

A diamond set forth against a dark background shines like nothing else.

We have an opportunity.

Let's not mope, let's not feel sorry for ourselves, let's feel like this isn't right.

And isn't normal?

Oh, I grieve having losing what I grew up with in the 50s and 60s of safety in our neighborhood.

You could ride down the street.

And the generally people affirming Judeo-Christian values.

Julie, where are you at?

Your prayer was spot on.

We have a nation that affirmed Judeo-Christian values.

We had that.

We don't have it anymore.

I grieve that.

But are we able to see an opportunity in that?

Or do we just get afraid?

There's a great opportunity for this generation.

So we can expect it from the world.

But he says very clearly, it's not to be expected.

In fact, it's not to be tolerated in here.

In here.

Slander, disparaging, destroying, negative talk about one another.

It's not to be experienced around here.

Ephesians 5.15 says, if you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out, and you or you will be destroyed.

Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Us.

If we keep going on biting and devouring one another, watch out, we'll be destroyed by each other.

There's two clear indications in verse 11 that James is talking about Christians trashing other Christians.

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.

The one who speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law.

First and most obvious, he uses the term brothers.

Brothers.

If he were the least bit concerned about what's politically correct in the 21st century, he would have said brothers and sisters.

And that's actually what it's a reference to.

It's a reference to the children of God.

He says, stop bad-mouthing each other, brothers and sisters.

He's talking clearly to us.

The situation here, he's talking about family, the family of God.

Second of all, an indication that this is a clear and present problem, and this will take us into some technicalities of the Greek language, and it's not my intention this morning to teach you Greek, nor to impress you with my Ariodite scholarship and deep knowledge of the Greek language.

But there's an important point here, folks.

When we find imperatives, commands in the scripture, especially negative commands, don't do this.

The Greek language has two types of negative imperatives.

Often the difference is if it's a present imperative, it's stop doing this.

If it's an aorist imperative, it's stop doing this.

Impossible to bring out in most of our translations unless you over-translate it.

Well, this is a stop doing.

The grammatical form in which don't do this is given gives a strong indication he's saying it's something that is happening that we are to cease and desist from.

Here, you and me.

And there are people in our midst who have experienced that, are experiencing that.

Great opposition and attack personally, in the workplace, or professionally, or wherever.

And that is incredibly traumatic.

I would suggest that when it's a brother who does this, it's very, very traumatic as well.

I probably have told you a little bit about a story of what happened on September 29, 2002, when I had a massive cerebral hemorrhage and should have died that day, and that was a life-impacting uh experience.

That is nothing, my friends, to a story that I don't want to tell you about, where trusted brothers came up and stuck a knife in and twisted and grinned, trashed my name in newspapers, attacked people I had incredible respect for.

That almost caused me to leave the ministry.

That was 20 years before that other thing.

That happens all of the time.

And I'm not, what happened to me is really no different than what happens maybe in a different form and to a different degree all the time.

But you know, the degree of pain is never the issue.

If I smash my thumb, it really hurts.

So somebody else has some life tragedy of a physical disease, I care about it, but what I really care about is my thumb hurts.

I mean, that's just the way we are.

So it's not the degree of trauma, but the reality of pain.

And when people trash us, when believers destroy our reputation, spread evil gossip and malicious rumors about us, it is incredibly painful.

And that's what James is talking about here.

And he simply says, stop it.

Yikes.

Um we need to be very careful what he is talking about and what he is not talking about here.

Because it's not as though there is never a time to, in an appropriate way, deal and acknowledge problems that other people have.

It's not an either-or, but let's do what we can to clearly understand what is being said here.

And there's a word that is used three times in this verse, katalaleo.

And my purpose is not to teach you Greek, but I want you to understand this word three times in one verse.

We believe that the words of scripture are important.

Some people who aren't used to how evangelicals deal with the scriptures or how Bible exposition is done wonder what's the big deal about the words?

Well, it is a big deal because we believe God has expressed and revealed Himself in the words of Scripture, down to the very words, the terms, the meaning, the grammar in the original languages.

That's what's called verbal plenary inspiration of scripture.

Verbal down to the word and plenary full.

That's why we make a big deal about words.

How would we understand who God is and when he reveals himself in the scriptures if it weren't for the words that are there?

We can understand some things about God in creation, his divine majesty and his deity, but some critical things are only revealed in the words of Scripture.

That's why we take the time to pay attention to words.

It's a simple word that is made up of two parts, to speak, lale'o and kata, which means against or down.

And it means to run someone down with words.

To run someone down with words, to speak, to speak ill of another person, to demean or disparage or to slander.

It's what we must not do.

Now, this general term has a broader application.

In the first place, this has to do with undermining legitimate authority.

We find this all over scriptures.

In our culture where we have an anti-authority bias, we're not likely to see it or appreciate it.

You do realize, of course, that we live in a culture, a Western 20th century culture that assumes that those in authority are abusive.

That's what we get from the world around us, and we bring that in to our Christian life.

Whereas in the scriptures, it is very clear God has instituted authority in various spheres, and we are to be under that authority, not undermine legitimate authority.

We see this perhaps most obviously in the stories about Moses as he was leading the people of God.

And Moses was, on the one hand, a leader who initially tried to lead in the flesh.

Remember, he took someone's life and then had to go hiding because he was acting in the flesh.

It wasn't in the power of God.

God called him to be a leader, and when God finally called him to be a leader, he wasn't sure he wanted it.

He says, I'm slow of speech.

And God said, Would you just quit whining and do and be what I'm asking you to do and be?

So he did.

And he led God's people in wonderful stories of how he, by the power of God, led God's people, and God's people rebelled, and God's people griped, and God's people complained, and God's people opposed Moses, and they said, You brought us out here to just starve us in the wilderness.

We liked it back in Egypt.

I mean, the most ridiculous things they said.

And at one point, Moses was at the wit's end, and God came to him and he said, Moses, chill, will you?

They're not rebelling against you, they're rebelling against me.

When we rebel against God instituted authority, we may think we're rebelling against that person.

God says you're rebelling against me.

Is it possible that when we rebel against authority, it's maybe as much of an issue, a problem that we have with God as it is a problem we have with that person?

It can be both.

No question about it.

But do we ever ask ourselves, why do I feel this way?

Am I having trouble accepting what God is doing and how he's working?

Do I just not like what God's up to?

Can I possibly see God in the midst of all of this?

We need to ask ourselves, because sometimes our rebellion against authority is as much or more a rebellion against God as it is against that person.

It may not be.

That's not always the case.

But boy, we ought to always ask ourselves: is that part of what's going on?

Another aspect of tearing and trashing and demeaning and disparaging other people is simply the matter of slander.

We talked about slander a little bit earlier.

It's the matter of making false statements about someone, usually when they're not present, in a way that undermines their reputation, impugns their character, and maligns their motives.

That's what slander is.

Have you ever been slandered?

We're pretty good at it.

We're really pretty good at it.

One writer said, It is the sin of those who meet in corners and gather in little groups and pass on confidential tidbits of information which destroy the good name of those who are not there to defend themselves.

Have you ever seen that happen?

Have you ever taken part in that?

I have.

You have.

Let's name it for what it is: slander.

It's worth mentioning that the very first case of slander in human history is found in Genesis chapter 3, before the fall.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Make note of that passage, Genesis 3, 1 to 5, read it.

It's very insightful.

How Satan, the devil, of whom we read in Revelation that one of his names is slanderer, accuser, slanderer.

He first appeared to Adam and Eve, slandering God, questioning God's character, questioning God's motives.

He said, Did God really say you shouldn't eat of any tree in the garden?

Is that really what God was saying?

Beginning to sow seeds of questioning in the hearts of Adam and Eve about the purposes of God, the truthfulness of God?

And he really knows that if you ate of that tree, you would partake of the knowledge of good and evil and you would be like him.

That's why he doesn't want you to touch it.

Outright impugning the character and the motive of God, the first case of slander.

And if we're not careful, we find ourselves impugning the motives of other people, maligning their character, reading the thoughts and intentions of their hearts, and passing on our judgment about other people's wrongs.

And he says we shouldn't have any part of that.

Another aspect of this is disparaging, discrediting, and minimizing other people.

It can be very, it can be very subtle, it can be very blatant, running other people down, speaking poorly of them.

It can be as blatant as, what a jerk! What a jerk.

Do you see what he did?

You don't think we say that?

Then you don't listen to yourselves.

Maybe you use more sanctified trash talk than that.

But if we're not careful, we do that all of the time.

It can also be very subtle.

One writer described it as this: those who are advanced in, quote, the subtle art form of minimizing other people's virtues and accomplishments.

When you're around people who do that, then maybe your abilities or whoever it was they were talking about, your mental abilities, your athletic accomplishments, your musical skills, you go away from listening to that person, and somehow those aren't quite as good as you thought they were before you started talking to that person because they've been minimized.

He gives a story of somebody who takes a friend into their living room and shows them their new Steinway piano, and the person says, Oh, that's a nice little piano.

We do that kind of thing all of the time.

A skillful use of words, a pregnant silence, like oh, um.

Yeah, that was good.

That says volumes.

If we experience that enough, we want to just run away.

That was good, Paul.

Thank you, Amanda.

Can't we speak well?

And I'm just picking on them because they were up here.

Paul, don't run away from me.

I'm not against you.

But you see what we do, we do all the time.

We minimize subtly or directly the accomplishments and contributions of other people.

That's trash talk, that's slander, that's demeaning, that's disparaging, that ought to have no place among us.

Why do we do that?

Why do we do that?

Sometimes I think that without realizing it, we want to build ourselves up by demeaning other people.

The account of the tax collector and the Pharisee in Luke 18, where the Pharisee says, I thank God I'm not like that tax collector over there.

What's he saying?

I may not be good, Jesus, but I'm not as bad as that one is.

And what did the tax collector say?

He said, God be merciful to me, a sinner.

Now, which attitude is godly?

Some people just seem to have a gift for being negative and critical and pointing out everyone's faults.

Barbs, jabs, cute little comments.

Fault finding may be a gift that you have, but you can be sure it's not a spiritual gift.

Having said that, we need to realize that there is a time and a place where critical things need to be said.

When Jesus said, judge not that ye be not judged, he wasn't talking about making evaluations in an appropriate way, which are either positive or negative about another person.

He's talking about judgmentalism.

Galatians 6, there's a time, a time to go to other people and in a spirit of gentleness talk with them about issues in their lives.

That's not in conflict with what we're saying here.

There is a time and a place for that.

Matthew said that we need to distinguish between good fruit and bad fruit in people's lives.

That's making a judgment.

That's not being judgmental.

It's not judgmentalism.

Judgmentalism is the predisposition to be negative and critical and set yourself up here and the other person way down there.

But that doesn't mean that we make no judgments.

The scripture is full of that.

There's a time and a place for the elders in a local church to exercise church discipline, which makes provisional, we don't read into other people's hearts, but you have to make some kind of an evaluation of what's going on in somebody's life.

I don't know whether this church does that all the time or never.

It hasn't happened in the year I've been here, so it doesn't happen all the time.

If it never happens, then we have a problem, my friends.

John chapter 7, verse 24 says, Jesus says, do not judge by appearances, but judge with righteousness.

John 7:24

Pretty significant.

Pretty significant.

And Titus chapter 3 says, remind people to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with them, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful and is self-condemned.

Titus 3 · chapter mention

There's a command in certain circumstances to do and say things like that.

But it's not in a sense of holier than thou, unaware of one's own issues, standing above and looking down.

I'm just glad I'm not like that tax collector over there.

So we just need to keep this in balance.

But what Jesus is or James is talking about is very clear.

Two simple things and will be done.

What's the big deal?

And he says basically it's a breach of the royal law of love.

That's what it says in the second half.

Of verse 11.

And the royal law of love, he's already talked about in chapter 2, verse 8, which is James in effect quoting his elder brother Jesus, who himself in Matthew 7 was quoting Moses when he gave what is in effect the golden rule.

Treat others the way you yourselves want to be treated.

So if you have a gift of being critical, be careful lest you find that, I mean, that's not the way you want to be treated.

It's not the way we want to be treated.

So what he's saying is this is a breach of the royal law.

He also says very clearly, there is only one lawgiver.

He is able to judge, to save and destroy.

Verse 12, end of the verse.

But you, you, who do you think you are?

You see, when we take that judgmental attitude, we begin to take the place of God.

We put ourselves, we're not allowing God to be at work, and we're taking upon ourselves something that is not ours to have.

We are instructed, Romans 14, 4, who are you to pass judgment on someone else's servant?

To his own master he stands or falls.

One writer said to judge another is to take ourselves, take to ourselves a right that only belongs to God.

Romans 12, verse 3 says, Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think with sober judgment.

Romans 12:3

In other words, don't pretend to be someone you're not.

Who gave you?

Who gave you the calling to be judgmental and to have a habit of speaking evil?

All right.

We're almost done.

Some thoughts.

Fault finding and criticism are not spiritual gifts.

Fault finding and criticism are not spiritual gifts.

If we're not careful, we may find that it's more of an expression of our own strong personality than it is the movement of God's Spirit.

Some of us are really quick.

Quick to criticize, quick to cough.

We're really quick to call out the error of another person.

And you maybe should, in the right situation, in the right time, in the right place with the right spirit.

That's part of what ought to be happening.

But when we're tempted to do that, let me just say, be careful.

Think twice, thrice, four times, six times, that it's not just an expression of your strong personality, but it's really being motivated by the Spirit of God.

Just think about that.

A second thought.

Go beyond just keeping your lips shut, sealing your lips.

The point is we learn to use our lips to actively speak well of and bless people.

I would direct your attention to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

That didn't help, did it?

Ephesians chapter 4, verse 29, where it's talking about we put off one thing and we put on something else.

Ephesians 4:29

So if you're a thief, stop stealing.

But there's more to it than that.

He goes on and he says, stop stealing, but do exactly the opposite.

Learn to work with your hands.

Instead of stealing with your hands, learn to work with your hands so that you'll have something to give to the person in need.

It's not enough just to stop one thing, we're to start the other.

And to get rid of a habit of this is to take on the opposite habit completely.

And he says there in Ephesians 4.29, let no corruptive, abusive, destructive talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up.

Stopping biting your tongue is a step, but that's not enough.

We need to learn to use our tongue to bless and build up other people.

I don't know if you're ready for a spiritual challenge.

You're probably just ready to go home and set off some fireworks.

Let me challenge you with something.

How about setting before yourself the goal in the next 12 months to become a person that other people see as someone who speaks well of other people?

There are people in our midst from whom you practically never hear a critical word about another person.

I can think of several.

I won't embarrass them.

But wouldn't it be wonderful if you were to take on the personal challenge to simply become the kind of person who habitually speaks well and blesses other people instead of speaking critically and tearing them down?

I would suggest that if you spent the next year doing that, it might be more, well, it would be more difficult than preparing for a marathon.

I know that.

Even though for me, preparing for a marathon would be really hard.

But becoming the kind of person that is known as someone who habitually speaks well of people, that would be harder than running a marathon.

And you know, I think it might be more valuable this year than you taking on the challenge of reading through the Bible in the year.

That's a good thing to do.

But it may be that becoming someone who is known as one who honestly, with integrity, speaks well of people might be more godly than reading through the Bible again.

Now I know I'm going to get rocks from people, but you understand what I'm saying?

How about adopting the seven-for-one policy?

And no, that's not a marketing scheme.

How about another challenge?

How about committing yourself before God for every negative critical word about another person that comes out of your mouth that you say seven positive good things about that person before you say the one negative.

Now, I don't mean just as a manipulative device, like you have to give somebody a bad grade, so you say, well, this paragraph was all right.

This one really stinks.

But you know, you start out with something good.

I'm not saying just a technique.

I'm saying for every negative word about another person that you may need to speak if you can't find seven good words to say, honestly, not just making it up, but honestly, then maybe you should bite your tongue until you can find seven good things to say.

No chapter and verse for that, just uh just a thought.

Questions to ask yourself.

Have I given myself the benefit of the doubt, but I refuse it to others?

Have I made excuses for my shortcomings, but am intolerant of the shortcomings of others?

Have I judged others severely while desperately wanting grace for myself?

We better pray.

Heavenly Father, these two simple verses are penetrating and powerful.

They reach down to the dividing of soul and spirit.

At your word, it penetrates and it separates.

Father, I pray that you would have us individually and as a church do business with you in this regard.

You take this very seriously.

And Father, I would be the first to acknowledge in this area, this is not my strength.

Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Would you stand for the benediction, please?

Now, my friends, go into the world in peace.

Have courage, hold on to that which is good, and honor all men.

Honor all men.

Strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering, comfort the grieving, restore the wandering, and share the gospel.

And may the grace and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.

God bless.

Amen.

You're dismissed.