Gossip a Unity Killer
If you are a member here at Emmaus, then you are hopefully aware that one of the commitments we make to each other in our church covenant is that “We will prayerfully maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, avoiding gossip, slander, and quarreling, while maintaining a readiness for reconciliation.” We’re approaching our two year mark as a church family, and by this point, we will have likely acquired enough data and information on many of the members here, that this aspect of our church covenant will start to really be put to the test. It’s easy to maintain unity, avoid gossip, and slandering, and quarreling when everything’s new. The church is new, the pastors are new, many of the members around you are, like you, new and you’re only starting to get to know them.
But as we start to learn more about each other, we gather more and more history with each other, our quirks and our faults and weaknesses and shortcomings, our sins and our failures, the temptation to go around whispering begins to increase. And it’s here church, that we want to exhort you to reaffirm your covenant with one another to fight for this unity that we have through the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Proverbs 18:8 tells us, “The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.”
Like a cheat meal ruins a good diet, or a mulligan ruins a good golf game, indulging yourself in the tempting and delicious morsels of juicy gossip or slanderous accusations and judgments will ruin an otherwise healthy body of Christ. Sharing information that is not yours to share, with people who don’t need to know, or complaining about your fellow saints to one another rather than addressing your concerns face to face with a heart of forgiveness and seeking understanding is the devil's not-so-secret recipe for poisoning the body.
It is a poison that many of us have indulged in, if we’re all honest this morning. And it will continue to be a poison that we are all tempted with. We must flee temptation in this area of our church life. And if we have sinned individually as gossips or slanderers or whisperers, we must repent and continually put to death this sin in us by the Spirit—the same Spirit who enables and brings about our unity.
We must help one another to be on guard against sin in this area—protect one another by asking “Hey is what I am about to say to this person gossip? Or am I genuinely seeking help or prayer or counsel in this relationship?” Or if you start hearing whispering being dished up to you as delicious morsels to take in—have the courage to respectfully end the conversation or redirect or rebuke the whisperer.
The Lord has poured his Spirit out onto his people so that we might be his Holy Temple, the dwelling place of God among us. Let there not be any hint of this kind of division among us, church.