OCT 14 2018 | The Tongue S1E2 | Gossip & Slander

Sea Change Church · The Tongue · "Gossip & Slander" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · October 14, 2018
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Chris Kelly, and I volunteer occasionally with Surf Church, and I do some work also with the youth. I'm a backup cook. My wife cooks usually once a month for the kids in middle school and high school, and when she's not there, I cook, and so far no one's gotten sick, so everything's good. Anyways, we're going to read out of a couple of chapters today. Our first chapter is going to be from Ephesians, chapter 4, 29.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Another one is from James 1, 26. Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. James 4, 11. Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it.

When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. Proverbs 17, 9. Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. And our last one is from Proverbs also. The words of a gossip are like choice morsels. They go down to the inmost parts. The word of the Lord. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. II. mana. dan. game. mana. You know exactly what that is. Play it again, would you? Can you hit that again? It was so cool back in the day. Remember that? Uh-oh. Watch out. That would just hit you in the face, wouldn't it? So Current Affair. So Current Affair was a TV show, a confronted journalism TV show, one of the first of its kind.

Hang on, let me just hit my timer here, my stopwatch. Boom. And if you remember back in the 80s, you know, that there was a change in journalism that I think has really affected where we are today. Now as a bootleg historian, I'm always trying to find moments in culture, in historicity, where there has been a change that greatly affects what is happening. And so you look at perhaps the Roman Empire becoming Christian.

Somewhere around the 3rd or 4th century. And that had a massive change. And I believe that maybe while not as large of a change, that something happened in the 1980s that is greatly affecting the hearts of people today. And it became, it came through, I think, which was the first show, the primer to what is now TMZ. Now if you are under 40, you know what TMZ is. And if you're over 40, you might as well. But Current Affair was TMZ before TMZ.

It was all about Cher, Princess Diana, gossip. The entire thing was celebrity entertainment gossip. And you would tune into it and watch about all the things that were have been said to have happened. And what we have found over the last, I would say, 30 years is that true journalism cannot compete with our lust for gossip and sensationalism. And so what you found is that credible newspapers or journalistic magazines or papers were beginning to be challenged in the ratings by very exploitive journalism.

And so Current Affair, which was, I don't know if you know who was part of that to begin with. It was Maury Povich. I think he's still on TV, as a matter of fact. And so he would run, he was on that show. And what you saw happen, and even happening now, is I believe that really good journalism has been affected to have to mimic the lowest common denominator. I believe that in the, especially in the 1970s, especially in the 1980s, that tabloid gossip, if you go into your store and you look to your left.

Now I would always tell my children, I don't want you to look to the left. Just don't look to the left when you go to Vons or wherever you go. Because you are going to see all the dirt on Lady Gaga, Madonna, Blake Shelton, Dunton. Is he married yet? Is he married yet? Yeah, he's married, right? To Gwen Stefani, I think. I don't know. I'm not keeping up. He is. Okay, yeah. Okay. So I have no idea. See, you guys aren't involved in this, so you don't know.

But if you look to your left, you are going to see that. And what we have found, what we have found is a culture that has become intoxicated with gossip. I was speaking to Pastor Harry today and he said it's so interesting that the word gossip is so close to gospel. You know, speaking the truth. And so what I want to do today is talk about gossip. And especially gossip within the church. Before I go to that, though, one of the ways, the best ways that I think to combat gossip is to identify the source.

It is so easy these days to look and say, well, the media is so horrible because they are gossiping about everything. Now you can just say an unidentified source said something and it is news. Or Twitter, like it's a real human being, thinks this. Or Twitter is upset with that. You know, like Twitter has been brought into becoming a human context. And so we see that happening in our society. But what we have to understand is this.

It wouldn't exist if we didn't consume it. It isn't them. It's us. This is the whole thing I saw happen. And I'm sorry if this hurts. But in the mortgage crisis or the meltdown, it was like big banks. The big banks have done this to, you know. But never, no, I never heard a politician say, you know, a lot of us just, you know, sign things we couldn't afford. You know, perhaps it's the consumer. Because if there was no consumer, there would be no big bank fault because we wouldn't put up with it.

And if it wasn't for the consumer of gossip, there would be no tabloid journalism because we consume it. And the reason you see what's happening in politics today and on the world stage today is because we are gluttonous for consumption of gossip, slander, and untruth. And the Bible actually says that you will get to the day where we're trues, where no one will know the difference of what truth is. It says in the end times, people will forget love and they won't know what love is.

But they also won't know what truth is. And what is right will be called wrong and what is wrong will become right. And I want to take it right back to us. Because I have never been part of a gossip-free church, ever. And I've been in the church since 1979. And I have never been part of a gossip-free church. I would believe that gossip is probably, if the churches have five things that are the most important issues to focus upon to become a holy church, I would say gossip would have to be in that top five.

Gossip is used for a reason, as we'll see here in just a moment if you look to your notes. But we're looking at the ideas of words and what words are. And my desire is to become a gossip-free church. I would love if we could become a gossip-free church. And according to these verses, begin to have a church that builds each other up. Let me tell you how to stop gossip in the church. It's not by stopping gossiping. It is by not consuming gossip when you hear it.

To create that awkward moment when someone begins speaking about someone else. And you either edify the person in their presence and say, You know, I've actually found that person to be amazing. They've been so cool to me. And da-da-da. Train wreck. Or to say, hey, you know, can you excuse me? If there's multiple people, can you excuse me? I'm going to go get a drink of water. Or whatever. Not that you have to be confronted and pull out the Bible and hit them in the head with it.

But it can become pretty clear who not to speak gossip in front of. Do you perhaps know those people that you do not speak negatively about others in front of them? Is there that small select group that you would never do that to? I mentioned Jim last week. I'm sorry to give you so much play, Pastor Jim. But it is true that if you are going to gossip, one person not to do it with is Jim. He is not good at gossip. I've tried many times.

He just won't join in. He's not good. I want to say, can we please stop consuming gossip? Now, we are on day eight of our 21-day cleanse of your tongue. And hopefully, I don't know, is it painful? Because it has been really painful. It is like when you detox and you immediately go from your caffeine and your sugar diet to like broth and celery. You know what I'm saying? And you start noticing what you say. I have been so aware this week of what I say.

I have been so aware of what other people say. And I have been able to hold my tongue way more than I have in the past because I just wasn't aware. We want to continue to cleanse the tongue. And we're going to look at some verses right here to do that. But I want to challenge you. And I was actually thinking of putting on the bottom of the bulletin for about six months, attempting to become a gossip-free church just to remind us.

I don't know if that's like too much of a finger stuck in your eye every week. But what would it take if we just make that visible? Just make it super visible. You know, we're just committed to that. We're committed to edification. Because words are the creators of a society. We see that there's other things. But God, as we saw last week, uses words to create. Nine times in the Genesis account. God didn't have to say, but God said.

Over and over again. And I was overwhelmed. If I'm overwhelmed. As I began to prepare for this message, I was flooded. It was like a flash flood of truth. The amount of verses on gossip and the tongue in the Bible. It is absolutely overwhelming. Sometimes I'll have topics I want to speak about. And I'll Google it. And I'll find five or six verses. And I can kind of parlay those into a nice little message. I didn't know where to start.

It was unbelievable. If you go and just do a word search in the Bible on gossip or the tongue or words. You know, even as you look into Galatians or Hebrews where it says, you know, angels spoke the truth of what they heard. There's hearing and then there's speaking. And God is all about building and building character and truth. I was overwhelmed. I actually, I was befuddled. I sat and I did not know where to start.

I was trying to find one passage. But in the end, I wanted to give a palette of the entire council of scripture. Because this is a big deal. The Bible actually has some real challenge in regard to the tongue. It says slanderers will not enter the kingdom of heaven. And it lumps it in with a lot of other really bad stuff. FYI. Let me ask this. Are you a slanderer? Do you slander people when you can? In order to build or socially construct, look at your notes.

Here's the key premise. Words are a key building block of a society. A society of any kind must choose social construction upon words. And it should say of truth and fidelity or deception and lies. Let me say that again. Because as we saw from God, God uses words to create. And words are as powerful as actions. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Our names will never hurt me. Untrue according to the scripture.

Words have the power of life and death. And my mom, I told last week, was told by her dad, you will never amount to anything. I was told when I was 20, I was a brand new believer following Christ. Actually, I had recommitted to following Christ when I was 19 at college. And one of my leaders who I really respected came up to me and said, you are not a leader. You should give it up. You will never be a leader. Now, that still hurts.

And to the day, I have this tendency to look at what they're leading and what I'm leading and to put it in balance and then to find like this sense of pride. Because why? Those words still hurt and I'm still trying to prove him wrong. Which I don't need to do. Not every day. I'm not wallowing and like whatever, you know. But I'm just saying, there are that moment, you know, that two in the morning moment where that word comes back.

And maybe someone has spoken something to you. Words. Are your words full of propaganda and slander? Or are your words an invitation into grace? If you want to change the culture of your house, change your words. Change the words you use. Get rid of swearing. Get rid of cursing. Swear words are curse words. Begin with encouragement. Begins with words of love. Are we committing to become a gossip-free church? A note says.

And a church that speaks directly to people rather than about people. Now, I'm not saying that you just go up to everybody and say, well, I'm not going to gossip about you. I'm just going to come up and tell you the brutal truth straight to you. I was with my discipler 25 years ago. One of the guys, many men that have discipled me. And he sat me down. He goes, man, I've said this before here. He goes, man, you know what I love about you?

You are brutally honest. I love it. Like, I know where I stand with you. And that's pretty much true. Like, if I walk by you and I don't say hi, don't start having, you know, stay up at night thinking, I wonder if Adam doesn't like me. If I don't like you, I'll tell you I don't like you. Okay? And then we'll work it out. Okay? So, I mean, one of the things people have always said, you kind of know where I stand and probably too much.

And he goes, man, I love it that you are brutally honest. And he goes, you know, there's two things about brutal honesty. The first, it is so honest. I love the honesty of it. It is honest. You know what's the second thing? It's brutal. And he goes, you need to stop being brutally honest. How about being honest and in love? And that's something I've been working at, that idea of gentleness. We all have things on the top of our prayer list.

You know, that gentleness. But how to be, you know, you don't want to be so genteel that you can never tell anybody anything they need to hear. How do we find that balance? We're talking about becoming a gossip-free church and it is by no longer receiving gossip or no longer receiving what someone says directly to you that is untrue. You will never amount to anything. Proverbs 17.4 says, wrongdoers eagerly listen to gossip and liars pay close attention to slander.

Wow. If you listen to, if you're a person that regularly listens to gossip and that, by the way, that doesn't extricate watching entertainment news from your palate of what destroys your heart. Well, I mean, that's, that, that's, you know, Lady Gaga. I don't know her. I can listen to that. That's Blake Shelton. I don't know that dude. So it doesn't matter. No, gossip is gossip. No matter what it is. We don't pick up the magazine to the left and start reading it and think we can consume the culture's gossip and not have it affect our heart as we'll see in a moment.

What are you consuming? It's, it parlays wrongdoers with people who eagerly listen to gossip. So if you listen to gossip, even if it's in the news, even if it's from one of the really well-known news sources that says a unspecified source says this, that's gossip. We call it reporting, but it's gossip. And are you going to consume it? And the Bible says that if you do, you are wrongdoing. We don't want to be in that, in that position.

There's a lot of challenge, but there's also some invitation in the scripture. And we want to balance challenge and invitation. So the challenge is don't be a wrongdoer, but the invitation is you can, you have an incredible ability with your tongue to bring life and health and healing and wholeness, depending on if you want to create that. It just creates, it feels like a lot slower and it's a lot more difficult. It's a lot easier to lay on the couch and eat junk food than it is to go to the gym, but one's going to have better benefits.

And it says also in that verse, liars play close attention to slander. What is gossip? I looked it up, got a bunch of different answers. It says, I came up with this is a definition. It's a casual or unconstrained conversation. I like that word unconstrained. Self-control is one of the fruits of the spirit. It is not saying more words than you need to say. It is unconstrained. It is letting your tongue be loosed. This was big during the Salem witch trials.

This has been huge in church, in religious societies often to slander people in order to have control, to create a social control by tearing down or building up people. And you see secular humanism going by the puritanical playbook today. You see the exact things happening. People being shamed, slander, all types of things. Casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people. Typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.

Gossip is a, circle this. Gossip is a coercive social weapon. Gossip is a tool. Gossip is a tool. Gossip is a tool. Gossip is a tool. But it is used all the time. Matter of fact, it is the language of the devil. It says that lying, Jesus says, is his native tongue. It is speaking about details that you're not too sure about. It is a form of often lying. Or even if you know the details to be true, is it beneficial for those that are listening?

It's a social weapon meant to create power and influence for the one sharing information. Some people, the only power they have in the world is the power of their tongue to have control of a situation according to their take on it. They gain power. They gain social influence. Do you know what this person knows, what this person doesn't know? You see it in high school society today. High school is huge. But it doesn't go away as we become adults.

We just get better at it. Let me just say that. We just get better at it. I would say that it helps individuals learn social information. Go to the first point on gossip. It helps individuals learn social information and others about other individuals within a society. Often without having to meet the other individual. This is one of the things that social media has done. We can say things about people without having to say things to people.

I found in my high school days that when fights occurred, oftentimes people would begin to backtrack on what they said when they were confronted with another person face to face. When you take the humanity out of the equation, it's harder to become civil or stay civil. Gossip builds social networks of individuals by bonding and affiliating and or disenfranchising people from one another. Whenever you gossip about somebody, you disenfranchise them from your family, from society, and from the church, which is the body of Christ.

When you gossip about someone in this church, what you are doing is you are taking like a hatchet and hacking off perhaps, you know, like let's just say it's a thumb. You just hack it off because you are disenfranchising them. Or do we edify and do we build up? These are hard challenges. But once again, in a moment, we're going to get into your incredible supernatural ability to build people up. Do you want to become that person?

The person who doesn't gossip? It breaks existing bonds by ostracizing others within an organization. That's the point. To corral a person into a far and far off corner. To corral them away from the pack so that you can become a part of the pack. It enhances one's social status, power, prestige within a society. It informs individuals as to what is considered socially acceptable behavior within the society. Did you hear what they did?

Well, obviously that's taboo. Or reporting on what they have done. Let's get into the scriptures now. And there's four quick things we're going to look at. Gossip and slander affirm lack rather than abundance. One of the things I'm trying to do as a church and with our staff is to live in a mentality of abundance. To believe that God is a God of eternity. That there is more hope than you need. That there is more faith than you need.

There is more provision than you need. That God is a God of grace. And grace is abundance. We want grace to overflow. That when you walk into here, you feel the grace of a society that is built upon the words and the truth of God. And that those words are built upon God's truth. Is there congruency between your tongue and God's truth? Is there congruency between your tongue and God's truth? Ephesians 4.29 talks about this lack.

It says, Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths. But only what is helpful for the building up of others according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen. Wow. Wow. Unwholesome. What does it mean to be unwholesome? It means to be unwhole. It means to have lack. In God there is no lack. So that when you slander, you are leaving out truths about who a person is. Who they were created to be.

What God's plan and intention is for them. And if you could see them in the best light as God sees them, you would not dare speak a word against them. Because God sees them as he sees you in his ability to perfect you. In his ability to be the best you that you can be. When God looks at you, he sees your sin. He sees those things. But at the same time next to it, through the blood of Christ. He sees you as a perfected individual.

And that is the raw material that God works with. Think about that. When you speak about other people, what raw material do you work with? Do you work with all their sin? And maybe you're right. Maybe the things that you're saying are actually true about them. But do you start with the toxicity of sin and brokenness and then build your story upon that? Or do you see people as God sees them as redeemed, as glorified, as holy, as children of God and start your tongue from that place, from that starting point?

What is the raw material that you are building upon? It comes from our hearts. It is unwholesome, it says, to lack fullness. Does your tongue lack fullness? Does your criticism lack fullness? We want to be a church of abundance. We want to live in grace and grace is fullness. Let's go to James 1.26. James 1.26 says, Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves.

And their religion is worthless. It is, let's break the word up. It is worthless. Either it's worthless or it's completely worthless. It has no worth. There is a lack. If you do not keep a tight rein on your tongue, all the other spiritual machinations that you do, your four hours of quiet time in the morning, you're going with Joe Brandy with Unity for Orphans to Mexico to help the poor, it says it is worthless. It is lack.

Do you want to devalue everything? And once again, we have to put this in the context of Christ's blood. That under the blood that God is going to forgive you of that, that you are still in Christ, but at the same time, we need to take the challenge with the invitation. We'll get to that in a moment. So first of all, it has lack. Are your words lacking or do they build? Number two, gossip and slander put you in direct conflict with God's law.

Say that again. Because I don't think it's a place you want to be. Gossip and slander put you in direct conflict with God's law. So imagine the law of Moses, the five books of the Bible. The totality of God's law and truth is here. And when you slander and when you are in gossip, you stand in conflict with the law. And as we'll see in a moment, you actually stand above the law. And it says that you actually hurdle to the top of the law and become a judge of God's law.

Don't think that's where you want to be. Scripture is very clear. When you speak grace, you heap grace upon yourself. By the measure that you judge, the scripture says, you will be judged. So it says, brothers, in James 4.11, James is big on the tongue. Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister judges them and speaks against the law and judges it. Wow. Do you realize every time you share a little story on your phone, 10 o'clock phone conversation that you have with somebody, are in the hallways or at work about somebody and you slander them for a good purpose or whatever.

And we can really, we can take like a, like, you know, like we do cosplay with slander. You know what I mean? We like dress it up to look like something it isn't like on Halloween. Like, you know, and then we take this slander. We make it look like we're trying to help out. But really, it's just slander. It says when we do that, that we judge the law. And it's impossible to live according to God's law and to judge it at the same time.

It's impossible to slander somebody, it says in the notes, or gossip without judging God's entire law and sitting upon it. Now, here's where we start building. And I love this. Gossip and slander are contrary to grace. And I think in this criticism fast or this cleansing of the tongue that we're doing over 21 days, I think one of the keys is learning to have grace-filled speech. I had someone about a year and a half ago, and this is new to me, but I appreciate it.

Somebody said to me, you know, because I kept defending this one person, and they said to me, you know what? Sometimes you have too much grace. And I thought, yeah, that's awesome. So, not that I'm letting everybody off the hook, but it was the first time in my life I'd been told I had too much grace. And I saw that as a really good thing. Whether it's true or not, I don't know, but they did say it to me. And not that you're letting everybody off the hook, because it's easy to build a church if you just hug everybody and let them go out the door and do whatever they want.

Just as easy as it's easy to build it as a paternal father and tell them why they're doing wrong, and they have to step up. Those are two really easy ways to build a church. It's really hard to build one down the center as a centrist. But what we see here is that there is grace. Do you have grace for your spouse? Do you have grace for people that are broken and hurting? Do you have grace for people that are actually wrong?

You know, what I keep hearing in society today is this. Well, they're wrong, so I guess I can be wrong too. I don't know if you're hearing that. But I hear, well, they're doing this, so I should be able to do this. What about grace? What about lifting it up? Lifting people up? Beginning to use your tongue to build into people's lives. How much does a good word do for you? I know, it's just with my surfing. I'll do a turn and I'll have a guy come to me and say, I had somebody like a month ago say, man, like that was a great turn.

And I was like, oh, I felt really good about it. No, it's stupid, right? It's just a turn. And somebody else came up to me and said, you surf better than I thought you would. I was weighing those two comments. I was hoping they were both true. Did you think I was a kook? Okay. Proverbs 17, 9. Look at this. Whoever would foster love covers up an offense. I'm not saying you let people off the hook if something needs to be dealt with.

But there's offenses we can cover up. But whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. You are a separator. You are a divider. Once again, lack. If you are dividing rather than adding, rather than being beneficial, you are dividing. You are living in lack. And that lack will play out into your life. You will have a lack in your life if you live according to the rules of lack. Number four, we're coming in for a landing.

Gossip and slander poison and destroy you from the inside out. Wow. Grace and truth and love build you up and they give health to the bones. This is a good word. We'll give health to the bones. That actually, if you are living in the words of truth and love, the scripture actually says you'll be healthier. You will live healthier. You know, we sell a lot of products that you can eat. Bone broth and all these things to be healthier.

I have not seen anybody yet on TV do an infomercial about just living according to truthful words and encouragement that can make you live longer. Gossip and slander are poison that destroy you from the inside out. Proverbs 18.8 The words of a gossip are like choice morsels. They go down to the inmost parts. Ooh. Ooh. Is that what you want to eat? Is that what you want on the inmost parts? When you receive gossip, whether it's from the tabloids or whether it's from someone out in the courtyard or someone on the phone or on Facebook, if you receive it, it will go down to your inmost parts.

Some of us are just too nice not to receive it. We don't gossip, but we don't have the courage because we don't want to offend them to stand up and say, hey, I just, you know what? I can't be part of this conversation or however you want to do it. But it will go down to your inmost parts and it will destroy you from within. And then the final verse, Proverbs 21.23, He who guards his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from trouble.

Wow. I don't want to create messes with my tongue that I don't have the margin to clean up. And the older I get, I have less and less margin. There are so many times where I think I don't want to get involved in that because I don't have the margin to clean up the mess. I had way too much margin when I was in my 20s and my 30s. Matter of fact, that margin, that conflict often drove me because there's an adrenaline with conflict that doesn't come with peace.

It says right here, the final verse right there, that if you guard your tongue, your mouth and your tongue, you will guard your soul from trouble. Do you have a troubled soul? Do you want to build a defense around your heart, that soul that wakes you up in the middle of the night with worry and anxiety and fear? One of the key building blocks are perhaps the mortar that puts the blocks together and there's lots of others like Thanksgiving, praise and these other things, but one of them is guarding your own mouth.

Guarding your mouth. The devil can never shut up. And if you want to be like him, do the same. Or if you want to be like Christ, speak words. Make a commitment that I will speak truth into this society. I will speak love into this society. I will speak hope into this society. And we can start by there because words build and socially construct a society. And let's do it from God's love. Amen? Amen.