Valleyview is coming to the end of a study in the Book of Isaiah.
Sunday I will speak from Isaiah 61; a rich passage calling covenant people to
experience a joy only found in the promises of God.
One of the marks of the early church was their joy in God while
living in a dark world. Early Christians stood out because God gave them the otherworldly
gift of joy found in God’s overflowing acceptance through the cross. Jesus’ mission is to bring good news to the
poor and to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim liberty to the captives
and to comfort those who mourn anointing them with gladness, so that the Lord
can be glorified. The Church has the privilege of being partners with Christ in
this mission.
A Culture of Death
Ever since Adam fell in the garden, sin has been spreading a
culture of death throughout the world. Death is this world’s default mode. We
can never understand ourselves or our surroundings apart from the background of
sin’s destruction. This world is not normal. It is for this very reason that the
Church is called to be a culture of life in the midst of a world marked by
death and decay.
Recently our small group did a study in the book “Respectable
Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate†by Jerry Bridges. The chapter titled ‘Sins of the Tongue’ resonated deeply
within my heart. Jerry Bridges identifies several sins of the tongue including,
but not limited to gossip, slander and critical speech.
Of this very short and incomplete list, critical speech is
probably the most damaging within the Church today. “Critical speech is
negative comments about someone that may be actually true but doesn’t need to
be said†(Bridges, Jerry. Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate.
Navpress.) Many, if not most, of us have a tendency to be critical when talking
to one another or about one another. This “corrupting talk†includes harsh
words, sarcasm, insults, and ridicule. As Bridges reminds us, “the common
denominator of all these forms of negative speech is that they tend to put
down, humiliate, or hurt the other person.â€
I have a colleague who once used a quaint phrase that made
me laugh, “I’m not complaining, just reporting.†How often have I tried to dismiss
critical speech by making light of it. Critical, corrupting speech is a
characteristic of this world that is suffocating under the darkness of sin and
evil. Sarcasm, insults, ridicule, gossip, slander, and critical speech are all
forms of speaking death into or about a person. Are you in the habit of
speaking death?
A Culture of Life
The apostle Paul says, “Let
no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for
building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hearâ€
(Ephesians 4:29).
God loves the patterns of human wholeness (shalom, peace). He is angered at the way
the world is today, distorting what he meant for us to be. This is who God is:
He loves what is right and he hates what is wrong with all the intensity of his
divine being. Therefore, God made a radical proposal: We need a Savior! That
Savior, Jesus, came to re-create a culture of life. Isaiah 61 declares that the
mission of Jesus Christ and his Church is the joyful rebuilding of a culture of
life.
Earlier in his letter to the Church at Ephesus, Paul said, “But that is not the way you learned Christ!
– 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him,
as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs
to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23
and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the
new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holinessâ€
(Ephesians 4:22-24). The Church is radically different from the world. We are
to be a people who speak life into one another! Encouragement, affirmation,
hope, peace, kindness and so on are things that should mark people who have
been rescued by the grace of God. Are you in the habit of speaking life?
Be the Church!
Perhaps I am so bothered by the subject of speaking death
rather than life because it is such a struggle in my own life. I must work very
hard to take captive corrupting, critical thoughts that constantly bombard my
mind. But there is something more, I have noticed that “corrupting speechâ€
seems to be more prevalent in our church fellowship recently. It may be well disguised,
but there are many who were the object of gossip, slander and critical speech
recently. It has wounded them deeply, thereby, wounding our church fellowship
as well.
I am reminded of the conversations C.S. Lewis penned from a
fictional demon to his protégé in “The Screwtape Letters.†Screwtape often
encourages Wormwood to promote a critical attitude among those in the Church as
a way of diminishing their power, zeal and joy in the Christian life. Keep
stirring the pot and all will lose focus on the bigger picture – our mission of
joyfully rebuilding a culture of life in this world.
Have we allowed the enemy, that schemer, to infiltrate our
fellowship and effectively diminish our mission to dispel the darkness by
reflecting the light of the glory of Jesus Christ? Do you speak death or life? Perhaps
as you reflect on these words, someone will come to mind – a spouse, a child, a
sibling, a fellow Christian – that you have spoken words of death to or about
recently. Commit to put off corrupting speech and to put on wholesome speech.
Approach that person, confess your sin, seek reconciliation, and speak words of
life and encouragement.
Be the Church on mission with Jesus Christ by bringing good
news to the poor; binding up the brokenhearted; proclaiming liberty to the
captives; and, comforting those who mourn anointing them with gladness, so that
the Lord can be glorified. The Church has the privilege of being life in the
midst of a culture of death. BE LIFE!
I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall
exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has
covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a
priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her
jewels. 11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a
garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations
(Isaiah 61:10-11).