Building Others Up … Not Tearing Them Down

by Morgan Shevey

            If your family is anything like mine, the time when everyone comes home from school can be a tense situation as everyone gets used to living with one another again. The long vacations are often not harmonious as we all, myself included, criticize every little thing that does not happen to our liking. We send disgusted looks when someone wears a rather original outfit or sneak in a scathing comment when another family member does not sweep the floor well enough. Every single thing is seen as being wrong and is immediately subjected to judgment.

            The same issues often arise in the church, as we come into contact with individuals of different backgrounds and gifts. Again, we find ourselves judging others who do not dress up enough for services or have taken a completely different approach at conducting worship. What makes it worse is that most of this criticism takes place behind our fellow believers’ backs. Tearing down our brothers and sisters in Christ becomes our focus, rather than praising God. Our mission of spreading the gospel to all people cannot be accomplished if we are too busy nitpicking the actions of fellow members of our congregation. Instead, we are called to build each other up with encouragement, which will bring us much closer to a unified goal.

Negative criticism does not benefit anyone

            Judgmental criticism can easily become a sinful habit. Many people criticize and judge others because they think it will make them feel better about themselves. In reality, they remain just as empty inside. Being judgmental toward others cannot fill whatever void is inside them. A critical individual is only doing more and more damage every time they openly judge a fellow believer. People will be pushed away if we continually tear apart their opinions or ideas. We are told “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29). We can reach more of our fellow believers by encouraging them in their work for Christ. They will be more responsive to our opinions and our teaching of the Word if we speak words of encouragement.

We do not know what others are going through in their lives

            We want to be careful about criticizing others, because we do not know what is happening in their private lives. Every Christian struggles with something. Even if they do not show it, it does not mean that there is not more going on in the background. Criticism can bring down their spirits and make it more difficult for them to trust the promises that God has given. Our judgment can block them from reaching out for help when they need it. “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbor for his goo to build him up” (Romans 15:1-2). Our role as Christians is not to elevate ourselves by tearing others down, but humbling ourselves to be servants to those who need it. Encouraging words show our love for others as well as our willingness to help them in every situation.

Everyone has gifts and talents that are worthy of praise

The God-pleasing lives that we do see deserve our honor and respect. God has bestowed the blessing of numerous talents and abilities on his people. These gifts exist to serve the church is a variety of ways and each person has a place in the mission of spreading the gospel. Instead of discouraging others from using their gifts because it’s “not the way we do things,” we seek to praise others for their humble service to the church. “Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church” (1 Corinthians 14:12). Recognizing the amazing talents of others compels us to use our own gifts to the best of our ability.  By encouraging everyone to use their abilities to the fullest, we, in turn, are encouraged to do the same.

We are only perfect through Christ

            While we strive to live according to God’s commands, we are unable to constantly resist temptation. No one is perfect, we all know this full well. Every single individual born into this world has inherited sin and is unable to keep from sinning on a daily basis. Our criticism of others is a perfect example of this. But why tear down others when we fall under the same temptations that they do and will be subjected to the same judgment by God on the Last Day? Only through faith in Christ can we be perfect in God’s eyes. Therefore, criticizing the actions of others is hypocritical, since our sins are just as numerous as those of any other Christian. Instead, we are invited to “encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Hebrews 3:13).  Until the day that Christ takes take us home to heaven, we want to take every opportunity to build up our fellow Christians.

            Every day we are presented with opportunities to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ. By working together and building one another up, the mission of the church can be carried out to all parts of the world. When we are tempted to criticize or judge others, we remember that Christ never judged us, but loved us enough to sacrifice himself for the sake of our sins. Our eternal judgment has been taken away forever because of our Lord. Through his gracious love, we have become his children, forever free from judgment. In his name, we seek to build one another up always, that we may continue to live in blessing under God’s almighty hand.

When we want to retreat

It was my turn to speak for chapel services at our college at the beginning of this week.  Our current series is examining "Great Chapters of the Bible."   I'll share here my Monday message here, focused on 1 Kings chapter 19.   If you prefer, you can access an archived video broadcast of the chapel service here.

- David Sellnow

“What are you doing here?” 
Many times many of God’s people will wonder, “What am I doing here?” … and oftentimes will be thinking to themselves, “I don’t want to be here.”

A grandmother sits in her room in a nursing home.  She’s elderly.  She’s lonely.  She’s tired.  She feels like life is over but at the same time it won’t end.  She doesn’t want to watch the news on TV anymore; she feels the world has gone down the drain and it’s all too depressing.  She wants to be done with life.
A young woman sits and contemplates her life—just sits for hours on end, her mind a blur of depressed and anxious thoughts.  She’s been bullied many times by people more forceful than she could ever be.  She’s felt shoved aside by others whose interests seem to count as more interesting than hers.  She has to fake happiness and normalness when she goes out in public. She’s lost herself in the process of life, not sure who she is or why she is.  She contemplates suicide.  She wants to be done with it all.
A middle-aged man sits and swirls a drink in his hand.  He mulls over the mediocre misery of his existence.  Nothing he does ever seems to bring success.  He goes to work, he pays the bills … but never seems to get ahead.  Anytime things begin going better, some crisis or setback sends everything back to zero again, or worse.  He never feels accomplished.  He never feels at peace.  He’d rather retreat somewhere and be done with it all.
A pastor sits in his office, discouraged.  He thinks, “My ministry is fruitless.  I knock on 100 doors and no one wants to listen.  I send out 1,000 flyers in the mail and no one responds.”  Nobody new comes to church, and the existing membership of the church keeps dwindling.  The pastor dreams about getting called to serve somewhere else – somewhere more exciting, somewhere where more people follow his lead.  But it’s been years and no such call is forthcoming.  He considers turning in his resignation, just being done with it all.
An author sits at his desk, pondering the demise of Christianity in America.  He writes:  “The light of Christianity is flickering out all over the West.  There are people alive today who may live to see the death of Christianity within our civilization.  … Barring a dramatic reversal of current trends, the faith will all but disappear entirely from Europe and North America.  This may not be the end of the world, but it is the end of a world, and only the willfully blind will deny it.”  (From chapter 1 of The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher, 2017.)   What does the author recommend to his readers?  Something he calls The Benedict Option:  Pull away from the world and strengthen one another in our own pious communities. The Week magazine provided this summary of the author’s recommendations in The Benedict Option, a book published earlier this year: 

• Christians need to turn inward, steeling themselves against the pernicious moral influences swirling around them by adopting a "rule for living" that turns their faith into the orienting focal point of their lives.  … [The] book offers practical suggestions for how to live out this vision of deep piety amidst the ruins of Christian civilization: Attempt to live in proximity to like-minded Christians; pull children out of aggressively secular public schools; recover liturgical worship; tighten church discipline; devote family time to studying scripture; place strict limits on digital technology in the home; and so on. Only when a comprehensive form of Christian living has been recovered and instantiated in concrete communities will believers be equipped to begin the daunting task of attempting to win back the wider culture from the forces of secular nihilism.    [Quoted from “Why Many Christians Feel Likea Persecuted Minority, by Damon Linker, The Week (March 13, 2017). 

The author does want the church “to go out into the world and be a light to the world as we’re called to be” (Rod Dreher, interviewed in World magazine, 6-03-2015).  But first he urges us to retreat and regroup within ourselves, to withdraw from connections with society, to get away from it all.

These sorts of feelings among Christians are not new.  From the forlorn nursing home resident to the distressed young adult who both want to give up, from the disillusioned minister to the man in mid-life crisis who both feel they’re accomplishing nothing, people of faith often give in to lack of faith, to an overall aura of doom and gloom.  There’s a reason a book like The Benedict Option became a bestseller.  When godly people don’t see the sort of glorious success of godliness in the world that we’d like to see—that we think we should see—we give in to that feeling that we’d rather go crawl off into a cave in a mountainside somewhere and just be done with it all.

As I said, the feeling isn’t new.

There was a prophet, who prophesied powerfully in the name of the LORD.  The land in which he lived had wandered far from the LORD.  The rulers of the kingdom, Ahab and Jezebel, pursued other priorities and other gods, and the people followed en masse in such Baal-worshiping directions.  So the prophet, Elijah, challenged the people:  “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him”  (1 Kings 18:21).   The prophet invited his spiritual opponents to a monumental duel, a contest of sacrifices set up on Mount Carmel.

You know what happened.  The prophets of Baal screamed and prayed all day, even slashing themselves with swords and spears to impress their god with their devoted fervor.  But they could accomplish nothing.  Their god was a nothing.  Then, in the evening, Elijah prepared his sacrifice, and had his opponents soak the animal carcass and wood and stones with water, to the point that water also filled a whole trench around the altar.  Elijah prayed just once, saying, “Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again” (1 Kings 18:37).

Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench (1 Kings 18:38).  The people were momentarily impressed.  The prophets of Baal were put to death.  But it didn’t take long for momentum to swing back in the direction of the king and queen, and against God’s prophet.  Hearts weren’t turned to the LORD for long.  That’s where we pick up the story today, in the Bible chapter we take up as we start this week, 1 Kings chapter 19 (NIV):

Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets [of Baal] with the sword.  So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there,  while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”  Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.”  He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.”  So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.  There he went into a cave and spent the night.

And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.  When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet.  Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu.  Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”

So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him.  Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,” he said, “and then I will come with you.”
“Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?”

So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.

In short, the Lord’s message to a despairing Elijah was, “Do not despair.  The word of the LORD is still at work, and you still have work to do.”  Regardless of where we find ourselves in life – in youth, in mid-life, in old age … in a culture where Christianity is thriving or in a culture which makes Christians uncomfortable … in a ministry where we see miraculous successes happening or at times when it takes great faith to see God’s hidden purposes because God seems so far away – in every place and in every age of history, God is with his people.  And he affirms to us what he affirmed to Elijah:  The word of the LORD is still at work, and we still have work to do.  Even in the darkest days, there remain reasons to rejoice, reasons to hope, reasons to go forward in his name.