Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

We are continuing the series that we began during the worship period last week entitled Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate.

The goal, once again, of these lessons is to show that even though we may say that no sin is respectable or honorable, there may be times in which we do not show this to be the case in our actions.

There are times in which we may be inconsistent in how we approach sin or times in which we neglect or justify certain sins, especially when they are happening in our lives.

Then we do our weekly duty; we come to church twice per week, and act like everything is alright and deceive ourselves into thinking everything is ok for me spiritually.

So in this series I have chosen some examples of sins that are commonly overlooked.

Last week we looked at the sin of immodesty.

If you missed that lesson, I would encourage you to go back and watch it.

This week we will open up our Bibles and discuss the subjects of Gossip and Slander.

Let’s begin by asking the question: What is Gossip?

The fact is: gossip is hard to define.

One of the things we want to do is to try to put it in a box so we can know how far we can go and not be gossiping, but this obviously is not a right attitude to have.

As I share this lesson today, you may be thinking of a few things or conversations you have had in the past and may ask yourself, “I wonder if this is gossip?”

You may want to ask me or someone else after this lesson if something is gossip, but I would encourage you that if you have to ask someone, it may be something you shouldn’t say.

It is hard to nail this down, but let’s at least look at some definitions so we can try to get a better understanding of what gossip is:

If you have your Bibles, please turn them to .

Today’s lesson on “Respectable Sins”, sins that we tend to tolerate, is on the sin of partiality.

This is definitely a sin that we tend to not deal with whenever we see it in our lives or in our brethren’s lives, and this may be because this sin really is not understood very well.

It is sad how much this sin is committed by Christians, especially on social media.

It is very sobering at times to see how often we do things that are not pleasing to God because we either don’t understand what a certain sin is or because we have been so influenced or desensitized by our world because we are surrounded by people who commit the sins that we have been talking about in this series.

Hopefully after this lesson we can at the very least have an understanding of what this sin is and why it is such a big deal to the Lord so we can overcome some wrong ideas of what this sin is and make sure that we are not being influenced by the world around us to commit this sin.

Here is a dictionary definition of the word gossip: gossip is “Casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, at times involving details that are not confirmed as being true.

It is idle talk or rumor about the personal or private affairs of others.

DEFINING PARTIALITY

The Greek word used for gossip in the New Testament is defined by Strong’s and Vines as “someone who is a whisperer, or someone that is secretly or openly slandering.”

We see in this definition how gossip and slander work together (slander being just the idea of speaking evil of someone, or saying overly negative things about someone.

The same Greek word in the New Testament is used to say slander or blasphemy)

Let’s begin by defining what ‘partiality’ is.

Let’s look at Luke ch20… and we will focus on verses 19-22 for a moment.

The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people.

20 So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.

21 So they asked him, "Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God.

22 Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?"

In other words, if we are saying something that is going to lower that person’s opinion of the person you are talking about or is going to prejudice them against that person, you are gossiping and slandering.

If the things you are saying are dishonoring someone or harming someone’s reputation, that is gossip.

Gossip is something that we don’t tend to see it in ourselves.

It is very easy to gossip whenever we are not thinking enough about what we say.

We worship with the body of Christ, and then once we get off to ourselves and start talking about one another, and the discussion turns negative.

Or we get into a discussion at the water cooler at work about politics, and the discussion quickly turns to attacking the president’s character or a certain candidate’s character… Or as we are writing a post on Facebook or sharing an article, we don’t think about whether the things we are typing are showing love or whether or not the article that we are sharing says things about people that may not be true.

We looked at this passage in depth when I was here in April… In this text and it’s surrounding context, we see how the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, and chief priests were joining forces to take turns to try to get Jesus to trip up in His words so they could have a reason to arrest Him and to turn Him over to Pilate to be put to death… and here in verse 21, resort to flattery to try to get Jesus to get Himself into trouble.

Even though it seems that they are using flattery, what they say about Jesus is true… They say that He is one who is willing to teach the truth and to show no partiality in doing so.

Most translations use this word, but your version may have a different word or phrase instead of partiality.

The NKJV says, “You do not show personal favoritism.”

Some older translations, such as the KJV or ASV say something along the lines of, “you do not accept the person of any.”

The footnotes in your Bible may give the literal rendering of the Greek word/phrase… It literally means to ‘receive the face/person’ or to ‘respect the face/person’… The idea that they are trying to get at with Jesus as they flatter him is to say, “Jesus, we know that you teach the truth, and that you speak the truth no matter what kind of person you are talking to.”

Jesus did not allow the appearance of the man change the content of what he was going to say, and he did not make any judgments about people based solely on their appearance.

He showed compassion to everyone by telling them the truth of God no matter what their physical circumstances were like.

This shows that partiality is not just having a preference to spend more time with one person over another.

It is the idea of making some kind of judgment about someone or having an opinion about someone solely based on their physical circumstances or their outward appearance.

Do we decide not to keep ANY company with certain types of people?

Do we completely neglect some people because of their physical circumstances or outward appearance?

Do we value them differently or not show compassion, mercy, or love to them?

Are we unwilling to even share the Gospel with some kinds of people?

These are the kind of questions we need to ask regarding whether or not we have committed this sin.

Whenever we do such things, we may be gossiping.

We may be sowing discord, and sinning with our tongues, and in doing so, we make our religion worthless, which is what James says in .

If we cannot control our tongues, we are deceiving ourselves into thinking that we are religious people.

Here are some examples of some of worldly things or the physical things that we may tend to show partiality based on:

Profile of Gossip:

· Wealth and influence: This is what many of the passages in scripture try to encourage those under both the Old and New covenants not to be impartial based on.

Do we neglect those who are poor, helpless, or suffering because we just feel too uncomfortable around them? Do we tend to only do good things to those who have the ability to return the favor?

At times those who are either more wealthy or more influential are not confronted about their sin… One’s financial status or how influential in a congregation someone is should not change the fact that sin needs dealt with.

If they are influential, then we need to make sure sin is dealt with so that they will not influence others negatively by their sin.

My name is gossip.

I have no respect for justice.

I mame without killing.

I break hearts and ruin lives.

I am cunning and malicious.

The more I am quoted, the more I am believed.

I flourish in every level of society.

My victims are helpless.

They cannot protect themselves from me.

To track me down is impossible.

The harder you try the more elusive I become.

I am nobody’s friend.

Once I tarnish a reputation it is never the same.

I topple governments and wreck marriages.

I ruin careers and cause sleepless nights.

I spurn suspicion and generate grief.

I make innocent people cry in their pillows.

My name is gossip.

Office Gossip, home gossip, shop gossip, telephone gossip, email and social networking gossip, church gossip.

I make headlines and headaches.

I am gossip.

· Clothing/fashion: talks about this idea, about treating someone different because of what they are wearing to worship… paying attention to and honoring those who were dressed like they were rich and belittling those who are dressed in “shabby” clothing… We see this among God’s people when brethren say, “If you don’t wear a tie during worship or while you serve the Lord’s supper you are being disrespectful to God…” Or “if you don’t wear your “Sunday’s best” to worship you are not being respectful to God and have a casual attitude towards God.”

That old adage is a lie that says that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

This is just not true.

Gossip hurts.

The sad part is people that we gossip about don’t even know they are being attacked, and they may not know for weeks, months, or maybe even years.

They have no idea and can’t protect themselves.

And at times our motives for gossip are selfish.

We like to make ourselves look better at other peoples’ expense.

· Skin color: This one just frustrates me in many ways… Yes, there are still churches that show prejudice against those who have a different skin color.

You have your black churches and your white churches in some places in this country… This is a sin, brethren.

It is not a godly mindset.

It is showing partiality… No matter our skin color, we are all made in the image of God.

We are of the SAME RACE… the human race.

God made from one Adam and Eve every group of people; every ethnicity on the earth.

We all are valuable to God.

· Nationality/culture: Does the place where someone lives or something strange that they do in their culture lead you to look down on them?