The sermon 'Gossip and the Right Use of the Tongue' by Jason Dohm addresses the importance of governing one's tongue and the consequences of gossip in the church. The reasons for revisiting this topic are that gossip kills churches, there are always new members who need to understand its importance, and that drift is a common issue. Gossip is defined in the Bible as a talebearer or scandal monger who reveals secrets and often uses flattery. Four texts are discussed, highlighting the consequences of gossip and the need for governing the tongue: James 3, Psalm 15, Proverbs 26, and 1 Peter 3. Practical ways to avoid gossip include recognizing the two sides of the coin (the gossiping tongue and the listening ear), understanding the consequences, and seeking peace and pursuing it. By refraining from gossip and evil speaking, one can find happiness and a better relationship with God.

Lord Jesus, we give You thanks for Your Word. How we need it, how glad we are that You have given it to us. Your thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Your ways are higher than Your ways. And how would we know of You if You had not revealed Yourself to us?

But You have. And God, we desire to be faithful stewards with this deposit that You've left to your people, that you desire your people to know the heart of the matter on every topic. So now God, we come bowing beneath the authority of your Word, happy to not be the lawgiver but to be those who receive the law and obey out of gratitude. May it be so of us, Lord, in Jesus' name, Amen. So the title of our session is The Government of the Tongue.

And this is something that we do periodically. I think we might be pushing two years since the last time we did it. But if you're an old timer, you may have easily heard this three or four different times. So it begs the question, why do we keep coming back to this subject? If you're around another couple of years, you'll hear it again.

And we're just going to keep circling back around to it. And the reason that it is, is that the topic at hand kills churches. And we don't want our church to be to be killed by this. If you've got your Bibles, first of all, if you don't have your Bible, get your Bible. And for those of you who do have your Bible, turn to James 3.

We're actually going to be looking at a number of different passages and it would be very helpful to you if you've got your Bible in front of you. And James 3 goes through the heart of the matter for us, which is that the tongue is this little member of the body that has disproportionate impact. And you can do more damage with your tongue than you can do with any other part of your body. And so James comes to us and labors with us to try to get us to be sober and to think about these things and to consider what might happen if we just let things happen in the category of our tongue. James' counsel is don't just let it happen, But actually govern your tongue.

We'll be beginning in James 3 verse 5. Even so, the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles, and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature and is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no man can tame the tongue.

It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so." The truth of the matter is that as much as we love that God has brought us together in a body, as much as we treasure the life that God is building among us, gossip might kill our church one day. It might kill a sovereign redeemer.

It might kill hope. If we don't recognize how disproportionate the impact of the tongue is and we're careless and we don't give attention to it, it might be something that brings that brings our church down. You know if we had a fire, tuxedo junction burned to the ground, you'd be meeting somewhere else next week. The word would be preached, there would be fellowship, there would be prayer, there would be the Lord's Supper. And so a physical fire you can recover from, but a fire that James is talking about isn't recovered nearly as easily, and it's something that you don't get over in a day or a week or a month or a year.

And so James comes with a heavy exhortation. There's a second reason that we give this periodically and we'll continue to give it periodically and that's that We have a lot of new people. And for the life of the church, we just recognize, those of us who are already members, recognize how important it is. And that's actually codified. That's actually put into the church covenant.

And so when you begin to read the church covenant, the things that you heard as people were brought into the congregation today, you start to hear a lot about how people relate to each other, how they talk to each other, and that the tongue must be governed. And so for the new people, We want everyone to know, new and old, that this is an important category. And we're very aware of the risks and the hazards that are before us. And the third reason, the final reason why we give it periodically is that we're never done in this category. If there's any category where we're prone to just drift off one degree at a time, this is it.

Where we'll hear the teaching on it and we'll, our minds will agree to it and our patterns will change. And then yet, over time, we'll just find ourselves getting careless about the words that we choose and about what we allow ourselves to say and what we allow ourselves to hear. And so it's proper every 18 months, every two years to come back to this topic to adjust the drift that is just part of who we are as people. We hear, we obey, and then we begin to drift over time. And it's to address that.

We'll be doing three things today. The first thing we'll be doing is just defining gossip, and it's actually much broader than gossip. There are a number of different terms used by the Scripture. There's gossip, there's backbiting, there's tail-bearing, there's evil speaking, there's reviling, and all of these things wrap into one category. We're going to start with a definition of what gossip is.

Then we're going to go and we're going to look at four different kind of flagship texts that speak directly to this topic. Two will be in the Old Testament, two will be in the New Testament, and we'll just go text by text, and it'll be a very plain exposition. In other words, I'll just read it and say, see that in the text? And you'll say, yeah, that's right there in the text. These are things that if you had the text, you could recreate this sermon in a very short period of time.

So we'll just be very plain spoken about what's in the text. And then finally, I'll be talking about some very practical points about avoiding gossip. What are the nuts and bolts things that we need to be aware of and do so that we're on top of this. Number one, how is gossip defined? Proverbs 20.19 is a great place to start when you talk about defining gossips.

Here's what Proverbs 20.19 says, He who goes about as a tale bearer reveals secrets. Therefore, do not associate with one who flatters with his lips. In our New King James's, if you do a word search on gossip you only find it one time and I think it's in 1st Timothy 3. You don't find it anywhere in the Proverbs. That is because the New King James renders it tail bearer.

But if you look at many of the other translations, including the NASB and on and on, actually several of the translations, I believe, ESV renders it this way, too. Everywhere where you see tail bearer in the New King James, you'll see the word gossip. So they're translated actually synonymously. And so in Proverbs 19, when we talk about a tail bearer, that is the nature of gossip. And it's actually quite literal, isn't it?

It's someone who's bearing a tale. It's someone who has a story to tell. They're a tale bearer and it's a person who's revealing secrets And it's a person who flatters with their lips. Very often this goes together. And the counsel here is do not associate with a person like this.

So we've got a definition and an exhortation. The definition is very literal. A gossip is someone who's bearing a tail and there's someone who's revealing secrets and often there's someone who's using flattery with their tongue to bring you over to the side of the tail that they're bearing. And the second thing is that we've been given an exhortation not to associate with them. The technical definition is a gossip is a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts.

Are the facts true? Sometimes they are true, sometimes they're not true, sometimes they're half true, and the gossip very rarely cares. They don't care, but they have a tail to bear, and so they're bearing their tail, some of which may be true, some of which is not. And it ceases to be the point, and we'll see that as we go through. So a tail bearer, if you look at the Hebrew root word of that, it's actually a scandal monger, which is a good way to think it.

It's a person who likes a good old-fashioned scandal and they're always trying to stir one up. Somebody who's stirring up the pot. They're a scandal monger. The Greek actually has a word that we get our English word for whispering. So this is the nature of gossip.

Rarely is it someone who goes around with a trumpet. It's usually somebody who's doing it in a whisper. And they have a tail to bear, but they're not singing it from the house tops. They're sidling up alongside you, often with flattering words, and they're whispering into your ear. What does the Bible say?

Here's the foretext that we're gonna look at, starting in Psalm 15. So turn to Psalm 15. Psalm 15's incredibly important because it gets to something that's near and dear to our heart, which is being with the Lord, being in the presence of the Lord. And Psalm 15 talks about if you want to abide with the Lord, there are certain conditions that need to exist. And one of the things reflected in the text is the use of our time.

So Psalm 15, starting in verse 1, Says this, Lord, who may abide in your tabernacle? Who may dwell in your holy hill? He who walks uprightly and works righteousness and speaks the truth in his heart. He who does not backbite with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach against his friend. So like James, the psalmist is actually pointing to how important this is that he who would abide in the tabernacle of God needs to be careful in the category of his time.

Someone who abides with the Lord is not a backbiter. It's not someone who takes up a reproach against his friend, but it's somebody who's tender not only of his relationship with God but also is very tender of the relationships with his brothers. Didn't we see that in our text today in Matthew? It's not just my relationship with God. No.

When my brother has something against me, I leave it at the altar and then I go and I do all that I can to make peace with my brother. And this is similar. The one who would abide to God can't just disregard how he treats his brother, how he relates to his brother. And a big part of that is, am I backbiting? Am I taking up a reproach against my brother?

And so I just want to say the main point of Psalm 15 1 through 3 is that to the extent that we desire to dwell with God, to be in His tabernacle, to be in His presence, we would be tender. We would be very sensitive to the things that we allow ourselves to say. We would not find ourselves to be backbiters. We would not find ourselves to be people who take up a reproach against our brother. We would be full of love and mercy towards our brother.

The title of the sermon is The Government of the Time. And so we're going to spend all this time talking about evil speaking and reviling and backbiting and tail bearing and gossip. But the point is on the other side of this coin, which is that God has desired that we could actually speak and that our mouths would be used for blessing. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord my God and my Redeemer. This is how Psalm 19 ends.

And so it's not that we're better off just to just to never say anything. It's that God has given us a tongue and it's meant to be an instrument of blessing, but since the fall, something very profound has happened and it tends to be an instrument that lights a forest on fire. Next turn to Proverbs 26. Proverbs 26. And we'll start in verse 20.

It's so critical that we understand Proverbs 26, starting in verse 20. Where there is no wood, the fire goes out. And where there is no tailbearer, strife ceases. As charcoal is the burning coals and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife. The words of a tale bearer are like tasty trifles and they go down into the inmost parts.

Fervent lips with a wicked heart are like earthenware covered with silver dross. There are a couple things I want to point out from this text. The first is that a tailbearer, a contentious person, is fuel for strife. And that's why the proverb says, if you want the fire to go out, you have to remove the fuel. You remove the wood, and then the fire goes out.

So A tail bearer is someone who actually is stirring and promoting and serving as fuel for strife. And if you want the strife to end, you have to get the tail bearer out of the equation. The tail bearer is actually fuel for strife. The second thing is that the words of a tailbearer are like tasty trifles and they go down into the in inmost parts. And what does that mean?

That means that you cannot unhear the words of a tail bear. There's no unlearning the things that you've learned. There's no unlearning the tales that have been told by the tail bear. And they go down into the inmost parts, and you can't get at them then. And the result of that is that you end up looking with suspicion on the person that is the object of the tail.

And so you've got this new set of lenses that have been handed to you by the tailbearer, and you begin to see this person through these lenses and you find that you can't get the lenses off and you find that you're suspicious and you're beginning to view their behavior and the things that they say and wondering about their motives because you've been handed this predisposition to see them in this light. And the most intimate, the most innocent things become sinister because you've listened to the gossip, you've listened to the tail bear. So things that were the furthest thing from their mind now, you say, aha! It's just like I heard about them, and it may not be so. This is very true.

This is true. Nowhere is this more true than on the Internet. And the anonymous slander that makes it to the Internet. If you Google the name Jason Dome, the first entry is going to be a slander that came out of our church split. It's anonymous.

I have no idea who put it up. So when you go there and when you read all that, and by the way, I'm not advocating that you go there and read all that. That's not the point of me saying this. I know people are going to run home. I hope your wireless network is down for a week.

So here's what you would find there. You'd find some things that are half true and you'd have no ability to discern which is which. No ability whatsoever. And then you would begin to hear things that I say and see things that I do and wonder, is this that? And you've been poisoned against an elder in your church because you've entertained gossip.

People have said that to you and the fact that the Proverbs calls it a tasty trifle should put us on alert that we have an appetite for this. That's what it means. It's tasty trifle. It means we all have an appetite for tasty trifles. And so there's something in us that says I want that.

And there's a magnetism there that causes us to desire the tasty trifle. And we have a natural appetite for it. And if we entertain the natural appetite, I want to suggest that's where we end up. We end up jaded. We end up paranoid.

We ended up suspicious to people who have never wronged us once directly because we've entertained this thing. The last point I want to make from this text is, it comes from the last verse. Fervent lips with a wicked heart are like earthenware covered with silver dross. The tail-bearer isn't what he or she appears to be. They're like earthenware covered with silver dross.

Now the first time or the last time I gave this, Barry Damie came up to me afterwards and said, that's Kentucky chrome. I said, what's Kentucky Chrome? He said, you know, when you were talking about earthenware covered by silver dross, that's Kentucky Chrome. It's a paint that you can buy and it's spray on it from about 10 or 12 or 20 feet out. It looks just like chrome.

And so you can make, you know, the nastiest old thing just look, you know, prettied up. You put this shining coating on the top, and as long as you're far enough away, it looks like Kentucky Chrome. Now, I think in Kentucky, they actually call it West Virginia Chrome, and in West Virginia, they call it something. But the point is, is that it's a shiny surface on something that's not very nice. It's earthenware covered in silver dross and that is what the tailbearer is like.

It's like Kentucky crumb. It's like putting a shiny exterior on. There's smooth words. There's flattering lips, but underneath there is indignity. Turn to 1st Corinthians 5.

1st Corinthians 5. 1st Corinthians 5, we've only got a single verse, but it's so important. 1 Corinthians 5, verse 11. Paul writes to the Corinthians, Paul writes to the Corinthians, But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, Not even to eat with such a one. What a list.

You've got drunkards. You've got the sexually immoral. You've got idolaters, extortioners. And embedded in this list, you have a reviler. A reviler is just like the person from our text today.

You fool, Someone who's raging with their tongue against someone. Empty head. That is a reviler. And we tend to think of sins of the tongue as being second-class sins. The first-class sins are sexual immorality, murder, things of those nature.

You know, we know we really shouldn't be gossiping, but everybody does it, and it's just a human frailty that you can't get away from. But I just want to suggest that God thinks about the use of our tongue differently than we do. And He doesn't consider it a second-class sin at all. And He puts it right in the middle of all the things that we find repugnant. And that in many ways in the modern church, gossip and tale-bearing and reviling and evil speaking have become respectable sins we relegate them to a position that God doesn't have at all we've picked four texts to go through but there are hundreds of texts in the Bible that talk about the tongue.

One of them we could go to is also in Proverbs. Of course the Proverbs has a lot to say on this topic. But it actually talks about the Lord hates seven things and this is right in the middle of them. It's an abomination to the Lord when we behave this way with our tongue and he puts it on the bad sin list when we put it on the respectable sins list and we make little of it But God does not make little of it. He actually makes large of it and he calls it an abomination and says that he hates it.

We're in this verse, 1 Corinthians 5 11, instructed not to keep company with such a one, not even to eat with them. And this is the repeated counsel of Scripture for people who are out of control in the area of their tongue that we note them and we avoid them. Off the top of my head, I can think of three or four scriptures that say the same thing. If someone is out of control with their mouth, then they are to be avoided. You note them and you avoid them.

You don't keep company with them. You don't even eat with them. Now does this mean if you've ever heard anybody gossip that you're done with them? Never again. No, that's not what that means.

But this is a person who has this as a habit. It's a practice for them. That kind of person ought to be noted and avoided. Finally, turn to 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3 has a lot to say about the life together that God desires us to have in the local church.

God wants us to have a sweet, wonderful life together in the local church where fellowship is unbroken, offenses are dealt with quickly and successfully, and where we love each other as brothers, where we're tender-hearted. And so Peter actually sets up a lack of governing your tongue in contrast to that. 1 Peter 3, beginning in 8 and reading through 12. Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another. Love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous.

Not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, blessing. Knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. For He who would love life and see good days, let Him refrain His tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it.

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." So in this text, Peter is setting up reviling, speaking evil against compassion, love, brotherhood, tenderheartedness, courtesy, blessing. And he says, to which you are called. We are called to certain things. We're called to tenderheartedness, to blessing.

We're called to compassion. And yet there's something that stands in opposition to tenderheartedness and compassion in our relationships with one another. Think of all the one anothers in the New Testament. I think there's 54 of them or something like that. It's a large number of one anothers.

And it paints a broad, beautiful picture of what our relationships ought to be like together. We're called to that. God desires that we have to have that together. And yet Peter is saying that there's something that will undermine that, subvert that, destroy that, that will burn our building to the ground. And it's how we govern or not govern our tongues.

And then Peter says, refraining from this kind of talk is a requirement for happiness. So if you needed more incentive, as if we needed more incentive, governing our tongues is a requirement for happiness. For He who would love life and see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it.

If for no other reason than your own happiness, brothers and sisters, Refrain from deceit. Refrain from speaking evil. Finally, reviling puts the face of the Lord against us and it hinders our prayers. And this goes back to Psalm. Do you want to be in the tabernacle of the Lord?

Do you want the Lord hearing your prayers? Govern your tongue. Thirdly, how do we stay away from evil speaking? What are the practical things that we can put in place to make sure that we're actually governing our tongues? The first thing I want to say is that we should recognize that there are two sides of this coin.

There's the gossiping, slandering tongue, and we know that the Bible says that we shouldn't do that. But there's also the listening passive ear. For every gossiping, slandering tongue, there's at least two listening passive ears. And If you set yourself up as a listening, passive ear, you will draw gossips like a magnet. They'll be drawn to you because you're listening and passive, because you have an appetite for the tasty morsels that they have on the plate.

Listen to Proverbs 17.4. An evildoer gives heed to false lips. A liar listens eagerly to a spiteful tongue. People who have a tail to bear, that have spiteful tongues, are looking for someone who will listen eagerly. Are you a person who will listen eagerly to a spiteful tongue?

If so, the Proverbs do not speak well of you, do not speak well of me. And we have to acknowledge that there is an appetite for this thing with us so that when it comes, we need to just see it as it's coming and know that we have an appetite for this thing and a tendency to listen to a spiteful tongue. May it never be that we're found listening eagerly to a spiteful tongue. Practical tips. Practical tips for speaking.

Here's a great one. When in doubt, zip it. When in doubt, zip it. And you know the moment that I'm describing, the moment where you think, should I say this or should I not say this? Always not say this when you get to that moment.

Just when in doubt, stop when when many words are present. Sin is there. Sin is crouching at the door. When in doubt, zip it. As your mother taught you, if you can't say anything nice, don't say it at all.

Another practical tip, be on guard for sanctified versions of gossip. Prayer requests, Great forum for gossip. Brothers, sisters, we need to commit this to prayer. Sharing your pain. Great forum for gossip.

You'll never guess how I've been wounded and by who and when. And I was there and she said this and I said this. Next tip, don't consider it your mission in life to warn the world about everyone else. This is often how it gets started. You need to be warned.

And you know what? Is there no place for that? Yes, there is a place for that. I'm gonna send out to the church an article by Richard Baxter that really helps. It's in question-and-answer format.

So what about this? Is it appropriate to speak now? No. What about this? Is it appropriate to speak now?

No, and here's why. And he goes through maybe 20 questions like that, and he really draws the lines biblically about when you have an obligation and a duty to speak, and when you have an obligation and a duty to zip it. And so I'll send that out. You'll find it really helpful in just thinking through the issues through a biblical grid. But it is not our obligation to always warn everybody and say everything we know all the time.

That leads to trouble. Saying everything you know all the time is not our mandate from Scripture. Don't answer every question. You're not obligated that some people fish for gossip. Have you noticed?

Don't fight the hook if someone is fishing for gossip. You are not required. Alright, practical tips for listening. We need to have a culture both here and at Sovereign Redeemer, a culture that is very unfriendly to gossips. And I don't mean an unfriendly church culture.

I just mean a church culture where we're not passive, eager listeners to gossip, and where gossip is actually challenged. And gossip is gently rebuked so that gossips are very nervous about plying their trade. That's what we want. We want a culture where gossips are nervous about plying their trade. And I want to suggest three approaches if you're on the listening side to heading off the gossip.

Help them. Help them. The gossip is sinning. Help your brother or sister who is sinning by heading them off. And there's three ways you can do this at least.

I'm sure there's a hundred ways. I'm going to talk about three. The first I'm going to call the biblical approach, and I hope all of them are biblical, but this one is particularly explicitly biblical, And it comes from Matthew 18. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.

We need to have a church culture which insists on obedience to Matthew 18. And so for ourselves it keeps us to be a gossip because if we have an offense we're not going and talking to other people about it we're actually going to the offending party and resolving it there directly and discreetly. This is what Matthew 18... Matthew 18 drives conflict resolution to be direct and to keep the matter small as long as possible. And the escalation only happens after there's unrepentant sin.

And for your listener... So that's what you do to keep from gossiping. From the person who wants to gossip to you, that should be the first question. Have you addressed this? Have you spoken with them privately about this?

The answer will 99% of the time be no, and then you send them back directly. Say, the first thing you ought to do is go just speak to them privately one-on-one. You know, this has happened to me within the last couple of weeks within this church, where someone has come and said to me, Brother, you were a jerk to my wife on Memorial Day. Wow, it's quiet in here. And he said, these are the circumstances that I know it.

And you know what? I just had to plead guilty. I was a jerk to the guy's wife. I wasn't intending to be a jerk to the guy's wife on Memorial Day. But I was.

Unintentionally. But you know, instead of talking to you about it, or you about it, or you about it, He came to me. And I was made aware of a sin that I was unaware of, and it was kept private. So you all only know because I'm telling you. And how many times does it happen like that?

Not very often, but I'm so thankful. I'm so grateful for brothers that will have the courage to go and say you did this rather than taking the chickens way out and talking to your neighbor about it you know what I'm pretty sure that brother loves me I'm pretty sure about that Had He just gone and talked to everybody else about it, I would have to wonder. But I know He loves me because He thought enough that He would power through everything in Him that says, let's just not have conflict, Let's just forget about the whole thing and on and on and on. The thousand things you've thought and I've thought. And he pushed right through those things to be obedient to Matthew 18.

And now, you know what? I think we're probably better off. We're not worse off. Tell him his fault between you and him alone. A commitment to this would eliminate gossip.

If we would insist... When somebody wants to gossip to us, if we would insist that they would go and speak to the offending party in private, gossip would be at an end among us. But you know what? We just don't love enough to be uncomfortable and do the courageous thing and go address it directly and privately. Secondly, there's the stop them in their tracks approach.

And that is you saying, you know, I'm feeling a little uncomfortable with this conversation. I think we're, if we haven't already crossed over the line, you know, we're, we're, you know, leaning over it. We should probably just stop right now. You know, that's really uncomfortable to do that, but I do that at least once a year. Once or twice a year I do that.

Just to serve notice that our relationship is not going to be characterized by this kind of communication. It's not right. As James says, my brethren, these things ought not to be so. It's okay to serve notice that you're not willing to participate in that. And I'm not saying that we're ungracious, I'm not saying we're in your face, but I think sometimes it is appropriate to say, you know what, I'm just uncomfortable.

I don't think we should go any further right now. And you've saved them. You've saved them from something that will be a problem for both of you. Finally, the constructive approach. You just head them off right there.

You say, let's pray. You know what? You're right. That sounds like this is a matter to be committed to prayer. Oh God.

Just start right there. I've done that within the last month. Oh God. It's at least constructive. You know, it's not that these things aren't issues, right?

The fact that it's gossip doesn't mean that there might not be something underlying there that needs to be dealt with. It just means you're not the party to deal with it, that's all. And so if there's something there that needs it, what can we do more constructively than to pray for it? So just without all the gory details, don't even let them get to the gory details, just say, let's pray right now. So I want to suggest a measuring stick for how we use our tongues.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy.

Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up. Does not behave rudely. Does not seek its own. Is not provoked. Thinks no evil.

Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Bears all things. Believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things.

Love never fails. Gossip and backbiting and slander and tail-bearing and evil speaking is an extreme violation of love. It's born out of pride and usually it's born out of a refusal to believe the best about our brethren. It's a believing the worst. It's a violation of 1 Corinthians 13.

Love isn't like that. It suffers long. It's kind. It does not envy or parade itself. It's not puffed up.

Does not behave rudely. It does not seek its own. Love never fails, but we fail when we won't govern our tongues, won't govern our ears and the things that we listen to. I just want to close by saying, brothers and sisters, don't you understand what is at stake? Everything about our life together and our relationships together are at stake in the matter of governing the tongue.

And such diligence is required. It's a restless fire. It can't be tamed. And so we're not going to reach a spiritual plane where we don't have to talk about this anymore. And we don't have to rein in our tongue anymore.

And we don't have to be careful about what we hear. That day is not coming. It's not coming. Don't look for that day. Have the courage to go to your brother in secret because you love him.

Have the courage to insist that your conversation partner go to his or her brother or sister in secret. Kent Hughes in his commentary on Acts 21 tells a story about one of the key practical problems with gossip. In an eastern land, a woman repeated a bit of gossip about a neighbor, and within a short time, the whole town knew the whole story. The slandered person was deeply hurt and most unhappy, but then the lady responsible for spreading the rumor learned that it was completely untrue. So she went to a wise old sage to find out what she could do to repair the damage.

After listening to her problems, he said, Go to the marketplace, purchase a fowl, and have it killed. Then on your way home, pluck its feathers one by one and drop them along the path. Though surprised by this unusual advice the woman did as she was told. The next day, she informed the man that she had done as instructed. Now, go and collect all those feathers and bring them back to me, the sage said.

The lady followed the same path, But to her dismay, the wind had blown all the feathers away. After searching all day long, she returned with only two or three in hand. You see, said the wise old man, it is easy to drop them, but impossible to bring them all back. Likewise, it does not take much to spread a false rumor, but you can never completely undo the wrong. We Christians must take this to heart.

And that's where we'll end with just an acknowledgment that it's very easy to do the damage and it's very hard to make the repairs. It's impossible to make it as if it didn't happen. Brothers and sisters, we must govern our tongues. Oh God, we pray, Lord, that you would help us. These are things already known by everybody in the room.

Nothing new to be taught here today. And that's so often the case. And also so often the case we need help to actually do the things that we believe. So we pray that the Holy Spirit would be among us to do a mighty work to spur us on to actual obedience, that these things would escape our heads and get into our hearts and drive our behavior every day. We will need help tomorrow and the next day and next week and next month.

God, we also just acknowledge how prone we are to drift in every category. And so we pray, God, that from time to time you just bring these things to mind. Bring your word to mind, Lord. Prompt us when we need it and help us to love our brethren from the heart in Jesus name. Amen.

Jesus name. Amen. Jesus name. Amen. Jesus name.

Amen.