7.26.20 The Problem with Gossip and Slander

Gossip is pervasive in American culture today. It destroys relationships, churches, and families. This sermon presents some help in learning how to recognize gossip and take steps to avoid it.

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Our first reading this morning as found in 1st Kings chapter 21 verses 1 to 14. No, no Basta just realized I had a Vineyard and just real beside the towels and a half since Mariah and after this they have such in the boss that I may have it for a vegetable garden because it's near my house and I will give you a better Vineyard store or if it seems good to you. I will give you a spell you in money. But the boss said they have the Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers and they have 1/2 in to his house because of what navatha just realized I had said to him for he has said I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers and he laid down on his bed and turned away is eating her food, but just came to him and said to him why is your spirits that you eating her food and they said her because I spoke to navatha just realized you said to him. Give me your Vineyard for money or else if it please you I will give you another Vineyard for and he answered. I will not give you my Vineyard and Jezebel his wife said to him. Do you now govern Israel arise and eat bread and let your heart be cheerful. I will give you the vineyard of Mombasa just realized. So she wrote letters and they have name and seal them with a seal and she sent the letter to the elders and the leaders who lived with navasana City and she wrote in the letter Proclaim affair with the head of the people. Set to worthless men opposite him and let them bring a charge against him saying you have first God and the King then take him out and stone him to death and the men of the city the elders in the leaders who lived in the city did is Jezebel has sent word to them as it was written in the letters that she had sent to them. They proclaim the fast and set in the balls with the head of the people and the two worthless men came in and sat opposite him and the worthless men brought the charge against in the presence of the people saying about so they took him outside the city and stone him to death. Worcester and stone him to death Stones, then they said sent to Jezebel saying about has been stone is dead. Are second reading this morning is from Psalms chapter 12 verses 1 to 8. Save O Lord For The Godly one is gone for the faithful have burnt vanished from among the children of men. Everyone others lies to his neighbor was flattering less than a double Hearts. They speak may the Lord cut off all flattering tongue the tongue that makes great boast. Those who stay with our time. We will prevail our lips are with us who is master Oprah. Because of poor or plundered because of needy groan. I will now arrived as the Lord I will place him in the safety for which he Longs the words of the Lord are pure words like silver refined in a furnace on the ground purify 7 * you oh Lord will keep them. You will guard us from this generation Forever on every side the wicked profile as vileness is exalted among the children's now, Our third reading this morning is from 3rd. John chapter chapter 5 verses

5 through 12 beloved. It is a faithful thing. You do in all your efforts for these brothers strangers as they are who testified to your love before the church, you will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God where they have gone out for the sake of the name accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these that we may be fellow workers for the truth. I have written something to the church, but dial Trey cities who likes to put himself first does not acknowledge our Authority So if I come I'll bring up what he is doing stalking Wicked nonsense against us and not content with that he refuses to welcome the brothers and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church. Beloved do not imitate evil, but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God. Whoever does evil has not seen God Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone. I'm from the truth is so we also had our testimony and you know that our testimonies is true hero.

for the gospel

tonsils taken out of Matthew 5

blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and other all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven or so. They persecuted the prophets who were before you and this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Morning, everybody. Morning to those also for joining us. You are Facebook online worship. I have a kind of a topic today that's going to the kind of just something that's happening all over the world. We're being inundated with it. And that's this is a time where rumors and hoods and false Witnesses. Just Happening all around us. In fact, we could probably say that gossip is the Americans halftime second the baseball. And so because it's all around us we can become so familiar with it because some of it so egregious that we can think that if we if we do anything even slightly like that there's nothing wrong with and and because it is so prevalent and because we have grown up with it and we've seen it we've been victims to it. It may not be something that we really are aware of when we actually do it. And so today I felt a strong urge to look at this particular send Casa. It affects the church in many many ways more. So it affects people and when things happen and hurtful to people then you know, I think the Lord wants us to look at if we are culpable. So I want to begin with saying that scripture is pretty clear about gossip. If we go to James 3:5. If anyone is religious. But does not Bridle his tongue. He deceives his heart. In this person's religion is worthless. James I'm sorry. That was James 1 James 3:5 says so also the tongue is a small number of the body and those three things behold how small of fire since ablaza Forest I could testify to that. I having lived near the Bighorn fire when it when we had that dry thunderstorm come through. There was just a small Blaze on the porch Ridge. It wasn't anything that wasn't contained. But because of the drones that are gone into the area to Firefighters couldn't get in and just within 24 hours. Just spread and it did take out a whole mountain and so the illusion of the ton actually doing something really little and causing a fire that would take out a whole Mountain that made a lot of sense to me when I watch that fire. And then goes on to say in the next verse. The tongue is a fire. It's a fire. And so we've seen fires. We know the kind of damage that fires do we know even after the fire is out. We live with the after-effects. We are still getting smoke and we're not getting smoke we get the smell of burnt trees as the rain washes down all the debris from the fire into the wash. Is that just as it's overwhelming sometimes as you walk you can just smell a burnt lawn. Gossip like a fire can start small and slingers.

Paul said and I think this is really important. Sad about gossip. That it is one of many many Sims and he lays out the sin that he says I'm Romans 1:20. We can be filled with unrighteousness Frozen and Romans 12. in the similar Let me just read you one of them. Unrighteousness wickedness and by the way, he's putting these on a flat tire and he doesn't say is worse than than greediness. These are these are flat. This is something that he said, these are all sin treat them the same murder stripe the seat level in Gossip Slanders haters of God insulin arrogant boasters rivers of evil disability and people to their parents senseless faithless unfeeling unmerciful knowing the requirements of God, but failing to do them and 2nd Corinthians, he goes on to another sinless Strife jealousy outbursts of anger selfish ambition slander, gossip Pride disorder impurity sexual immorality licentiousness. And there is gossip and slander in The Sims.

It's a serious sin. I need to take it seriously so that we are not people that are are hurting the world that are actually part of the healing of. I want to talk a little bit about how do we even Define so that we don't become too late to legalistic and what and what we're doing. So there's actually three great words. I'm just going to talk about one of them and I'm not really going to get into showing with the word. Is there anything but the Greek word sci-fi story sci-fi Christmas Barrett ale to be at Adler. Those are things we off week we get that because how often about how often have we as parents look at our children and say stop tattling on each other, you know, and they aren't they don't little ones that they are the Tails and yet we can see that happening in the news today. We can stay at if we can even hear it if we listen to the cable it it's everywhere. The Hebrew word that means to report a rumor Whisperer and how often do we see people in public in a group office in this to someone else put their hands over their mouth and my voice is hitting the microphone The Voice from going out too far when in fact, we have a proverb Proverbs up. Proverbs 26:22 the words of a Whisperer are like delicious morsels. They go down into the inner part of the body. Hebrews understood gossip isn't icy. Gossip is something that somehow satisfies us. And that's what makes it so easy to participate in it. another one says For the lack of wood. The fire goes out and where there is no Whisperer quarreling ceases and have news media.

Back in in the hundreds of years before Christ when these were written Proverbs was written David Solomon's time. Didn't have news the news media where the people. And so the people what they said about you was highly important because reputation is your reputation and how people talked about you. And so when people would whisper about you or one first things about you destroy your whole life.

You say something you put it out there on Facebook, or maybe it's on Twitter and people have lost their jobs.

Tale-bearers will go in and talk to me the people that are in charge and then we have problems.

when gossip and this is why gas was planner often written together when Ghana sit. as a malevolent intent Then it becomes slander. when someone is just not tail during all did you know but actually inserting information, but when someone is repeating something even if it's true What is intending to destroy someone? Play across the line from just gossip to slander and that is dangerous effect. If if you've been reading the news, you know that one of the Covington children at those. Ice Coolers that were at the the March for Life that were assaulted by some people but instead of the people that assaulted them in the news these young people were put in the news and slandered and they now I have many lawsuits going against the news media. One point is is when you end up destroying someone's life an innocent person's life because of malicious intent because they wanted to hurt somebody else and we know it's if you filed a new kind of know the background of that I'm not going to get into it today. You can look that up. If you choose to that that that is a dangerous precedent. And we do have laws in this country can't do that. You can be sued for that. It's a it's a terrible thing to practice. But you don't get to slander without starting with naso. how to become a progressive disease People over the control of what gossip and slander can do.

So if we wanted to talk about some guy like, you know what I'm saying will some group professional group Define gospel. Gossip is anything that you say about someone who's not present? And other people to find gossip is anything you say that someone is not present that's harmful or derogatory. So what we have there is like two ends of the spectrum. Now if anything you say about someone who's not there is Gossip we would have stage on gossip and when Linda was reading because he talked about Tri-Cities and he said he doesn't say the truth and you can't trust them. When I sat there or they're not going to have a Biblical tax at that kind of behavior. So I would say that to say something listic. On the other hand for someone to have really No Boundaries just a well does not drive through in your mind. If it is a harmless you thought it was harmless then we got something that sell open to interpretation. I like to put it into the middle. So so when you got when you're bearing a tale about someone if it has a sense of being it if you're in town or your words are derogatory, you probably across the line from just sharing something about someone to talk to the women the wise. I think we can be convicted of gossiping about her husband. I think when we get together, we can say negative things to each other and laugh because you think it's funny and maybe you do that as well. I know men gossip about other things. But I want to caution the wires that we should think about how we talked about her husband's. and if my husband would that be

and so and so that's how we judge. So ladies. Let's look at our words. Let's see that we're building our husbands up that use really sound judgement how we speak?

Not everything that you say about someone.

That's what John was doing in and the first John I'm sorry the third John epistle is that he was warning? Paul warns about people all fruit. There's three specific times. I have them right here. Let me just get them out.

I'll give you a couple of them. It says you talk about Peter specifically talks about Peter in Galatians when Peter came to Antioch. He said I post them because he was condemned for people came from James. He used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they came he would you separate himself because he was afraid of those who are the circumcision. So here is Paul telling a tale about Peter to a city that wasn't part of the same when he was in Antioch.

Paul was warning in another one talks about two people that he had been in contact with and he said that there are big people these two people that you might be if you might be listening to or might be coming to join your group have suffered shipwreck concerning their face. Jesus Austin mention the Pharisees and the Sadducees he warns people about him. Don't listen to them. You can't think that Jesus or Paul or Peter or John are engaging in Gossip. Part of what we tell each other cuz we have to war. So what you're looking at in terms of speaking about someone else it could be negative.

I shouldn't say anything negative about someone that's one mandate that the other magnet mandate is if I don't say something about this person somebody could be harm. Do you understand what I mean by conflicting mandates? So if you had a young child and someone who was on the list of sexual offenders moved into the neighborhood and you found out should you not tell the mother down the street that that's happened and then we have a conflicting mandate a neighbor. I don't want to speak poorly of a neighbor on the other hand should a mother be warned that there could be possible to see how that works. We can do it something as simple as someone that's in grade school and you have a child who's going to school and a neighbor child. And why do you not say anything about that? Because the child is playing with your kiss you would want that parents know I would want to know that would want my children to be part of the decisions. We have to make when it comes to talking about others. We can't just see. We can't see but we can be aware that if we're saying something with no purpose that tends to be derogatory. We should stop. Now there are very important times when you need to say thing that are on your heart is like when you're talking to a pastor's this is myself when you're talking in your marriage when you're talking to someone when you're trying to sort out someone's actions when you're looking for help. You may need to reveal negative things about people.

But you're not doing another contacts a building yourself up or just passing on juicy hit this you're doing a context of trying to help yourself. Get a handle or trying to find a way forward or how to process something. Those things are not important.

Not everything is gossip. That's why I'm hoping you're hearing.

Example of someone comes to you and says I got the secret. I just want to tell you now. You're the only one that knows. I don't want you repeating it. And then they go when they tow your neighbor and then I go tell your other neighbor.

No. So you notifications the person that one confidentiality that you're no longer under that unless you have a much are Pastor in Somerset.

unless of course, and we all know about that harm that can come to some you have to so I'm trying to say something gossip. We can't be legalistic and run around and judge people because we think they're gossiping and then and then scold them in front of everybody because that's just wrong if you want it if you want school, You can just mention something. Hey, maybe you are Dan and gotten a little gossip there and that's done privately one on one. If it's just this conversation can actually be sending me some people feel they can they they are above it and they can judge other people as being less than that. I don't want a pickle listening to me. I'm so guilty. That's all that's not all you do. But I think the world and I think all of us we both participate in God I pray with not just cuz that takes it to a whole other level. I just want to stop I don't want that to be who I am or who I think people would want to know about Recommendation to because somehow it's it feels sometimes sometimes we just sustained a person we haven't really come to to look at our feelings. So I went to pass us something we just thought was you know. Just a comment that really was it was more derogatory.

And like I said, sometimes we have evil intent and when we have evil intent we have to stop.

So have some of that what I just said if you're saying something and it's derogatory about someone else is not helping somebody.

Grasping and we want to stop. However, if you're saying something because somebody needs to be warned. Somebody needs to be helped and then then you're not gossiping you're doing. And the holy spirit inside of you help you discern, which of these two things are going on. We're going to make errors both ways. But I think it's as long as we begin to watch our lives will be better off.

If because you're angry. And you want revenge you say something. Then I think you need to look at your heart. if somebody has made you so you're you're you're talking about them amongst a lot of people that don't really need to know that. And I think we have to look at. What's going on? We have to deal with a deeper problem and we have to ask God to really help us.

Gossip is like seed. They're very tiny. If there is fertile ground of the person you're speaking it to that. She will get planted that seed will grow because once you say something derogatory about someone the most interesting thing is most people won't end immediately counteracted because I really didn't know anything. It's always you're giving him information. It's Robert Horry, and I'm like really really they do that and then all of a sudden that she becomes a plant.

I actually finally believe it. You can influence people. Perception of people by planning small seeds of Gossip are you doing? And again, I would suspect we both. Remember what Jesus said about the see the falls in hard ground? It won't take root of the Gospel. Let's look at it a little bit in a little bit different way. If the seat of Gossip falls on hard ground assault that has been hardened against sin.

but if a seed of Gossip falls on fertile ground That will take root. That's another reason we have to be careful about.

If our minds are like soil and they are. Guitar receives the word of God receives words that are not of got it so that's why Paul was really adamant in Romans 8. It's about the transformation of your mind. We want to hear what God wants us to hear. We want to reject and become hardened against those things that draws into the abyss of sin. What if you've been a victim of Gossip or slander? I know some of you here and some of you here have been victims.

We have to forgive that is the only Freedom we have. We have to forgive. and if we Who have been gossipers maybe even slandered and we need to seek for him. and if possible Right the wrong. If we can go to the Lord and ask for forgiveness, but if we know that we destroyed someone we may need to do something more proactive and acknowledge that we've made a mistake. And that's okay because price price on that list of sin 2 and yeah, it might hurt your pride to acknowledge you made a mistake. So that's how it is a good thing in the world of kingdom.

We also need to put up cards. Very best guard against this kind of sin is the Holy Spirit. To invite the Holy Spirit every morning. Two against till you please fill me Lord so that I may live a righteous life in front of you.

Being with people who are safe and you know aren't caring about others. And if you have a friend or someone, you know and love that you're close enough to the quietly chastise. And if you feel they're they're going the wrong way. And for us to be open to be chastised if we are going the wrong way without any any sense of anger about it.

The church is a place. That's so fragile in the eyes of the Lord that it can be destroyed by gossip. Many of you here know that been there seen it.

It's all in the church. It becomes especially important that we guard how we speak about each other.

Why Jesus wasn't a gossip. Even though he would he would say negative things about groups of people. Cuz Jesus wasn't afraid to confront someone and say you're doing this. We on the other hand here are not like that. We we have a fear of what would happen if we can front of someone. But in the power of the Holy Spirit we can do this beautifully.

Warning against churches were someone has taken on that role and felt it was necessary to go around and tell everybody what they did wrong.

No, I don't want that.

But if we humbly know that something's going on we can confront someone and we can ask them if we could pray for them. You can't control how someone reacts to you. But you can in the power of the Holy Spirit help someone moved to a better a better place.

So I want to end with prayer because I know if you are going to have a lot of different feelings about this. I can't even feel it in here. Not necessarily. We all have received the same way. But I know with the power of the Holy Spirit, we will be able to understand what God wants from us. What he wants is to have us keep our our minds focused on the good of each other. What's positive about another person and that should be on our lips as well as so many wonderful things about God? Let's pray.

We have all need to repent about being crossword.

Repeat those parts of us Lord that we really don't want to acknowledge the prize arrogance. superiority towards over others

No word want us to learn to be humble.

Has anybody that could judge it with you and yet you Ross and Simon?

So, why would I just pray that you would give us all a humble heart? Art that seeks to please you and a heart that sees the best.

We don't shy away from warning. We we focus on good. I pray that for all of us Lord Jesus.