One Anothers #7: “Edify One Another”
The One Anothers: The Church's "Body Builders"
Chuck Sligh
July 17, 2022
TEXT: 1 Thessalonians 5:11 – “Therefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also you do.”
INTRODUCTION
Opening Illus. – One of the most inspiring people I ever knew was my pastor in White House, Tennessee, whom we called Brother Bob. After being around him, you just wanted to serve God more than you did before. He built you up and inspired you to go for God with all your heart. He modeled better than anyone I have ever met what God commands us to do at the end of our text, where he commands us to “edify one another.”
The Greek word translated edify here is oikodoméo (????d?µ??, #3618) which literally means “to build a house, erect a building; to build (up from the foundation); or to restore by building, to rebuild, repair.” From that basic concept, the New Testament utilizes the word to mean “to build up or promote growth in Christian wisdom, affection, grace, virtue, holiness, and blessedness.” So what Paul was instructing the Thessalonians to do in our text, and us as well, was to build up, not tear down, one another; to strengthen, not weaken, one another; to promote Christian growth and virtue and righteousness in one another.
In fact, EVERYTHING we do should be to build up others, to promote their spiritual growth and welfare.
In a way, all the other “one anothers” we’ve studied so far can be included in this final “one another” command to edify one another, for each one builds up and strengthens one another and promotes growth in holy wisdom, affection, grace, virtue, holiness, blessedness.
• To understand that WE’RE MEMBERS one of another, is to promote edification.
• To LOVE one another is to edify one another.
• To BE LIKEMINDED with one another is to edify one another.
• To GREET one another is to edify one another.
• To ACCEPT one another is to edify one another.
• And to SERVE one another is to edify one another.
So, this last “One Another” command of Paul undergirds and reinforces them all. How can we carry out this command to edify one another? What are some practical, hands-on ways that we can edify one another in our church? To answer that question, let’s look at specific passages of Scripture where this term is used:
I. FIRST, WE EDIFY ONE ANOTHER BY NOT QUARRELLING OVER “DISPUTABLE ISSUES.”
This reminds us of Paul’s command to “accept one another” which we examined a couple of weeks ago. Note the following verses, where Paul is talking about the issue of meat offered to idols, which is the PARTICULAR application Paul makes to the GENERALIZED principle of how to respond when good Christians honestly disagree on the so-called “gray areas”—that is, issues not specifically dealt with in the Word of God:
• In Romans 14:19 he says, “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things by which one may edify another.” – As you can see, when talking about how we should accept one another, Paul ties it in with edification.
• In Romans 15:2, Paul is summarizing his teaching and he says, “Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification.”
• And in 1 Corinthians 8:1, Paul says, “Now concerning things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but lobe edifies.”
Paul repeatedly says that who is right in disputable issues is not the real issue. The real issue is: Do we love our brothers or sisters enough to not judge them and to agree to disagree on the non-essentials and to accept them in full fellowship. Paul says that arguing and judging one another over about these issues do not edify. They don’t build up or strengthen people or a church. They tear down and destroy and divide.
II. THE SECOND WAY THE BIBLE TALKS ABOUT EDIFICATION IS BY CHURCHES MAKING SURE THINGS ARE CONDUCTED DECENTLY AND IN ORDER.
In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul repeatedly talks about this to the Corinthian believers who had let their services become chaotic through the unrestricted use of the sign gifts: In verse 26 he says, “How is it then, brethren? when you come together, every one of you has a psalm, has a doctrine, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.” Paul continues the same theme verse 33: “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” Then in verse 40 he says, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” So, in the same context, Paul ties doing things decently and in order with edifying.
Here Paul is talking about the confusion and chaos that resulted with the misuse of the sign gifts, but there are other applications for us as well.
Some people believe that organization quenches the Holy Spirit. I agree that you can organize the Holy Spirit right out of your services, but in these verses, we see that organization and order and preparation are important.
Illus. – I’ve been in some country churches where people are called out of the congregation on the spot to sing specials. Singers get up and say, “Well, bless God, we ain’t practiced none, but ya’ll pray for us anyhows, okay?” Then they sing with no preparation—AND THEY SOUND LIKE IT TOO! The Bible says “Let all things be done for edification.”
Illus. – I think worship leaders should be sensitive to when the Lord wants to change things up in worship, but I appreciate the hard work that our worship teams put into putting together coherent song sets, and how they practice diligently and how they come to church prepared to do things decently and in order so that we are all edified and built up in the faith.
Illus. – I appreciate the preparation our KIDS church teachers do for their classes. They could just get up and spout off whatever comes into their heads, and say they were just letting God speak through them. This may sound spiritual, but how much MORE spiritual it is to wrestle with the lesson during the week and to study it all out and to try to organize the material in a fashion where his students can get the most out of the lesson and be blessed and edified. How much better to do things decently and in order for edification.
Illus. – I remember a preacher who used to just get up and “let her rip” on whatever came to his mind any time he got up to preach. He spiritualized his method, saying that he never prepared his sermons, but just followed the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It sounded spiritual, but to blame the lousy preaching I heard every time I heard him preach on the Holy Spirit was an insult to God’s people!
Let me ask you a question: Don’t you think the Lord could just as well give a preacher or a teacher what to say during the week? Don’t you think that with preparation and study, he might be able to present a more cogent, more forceful presentation of God’s Word in times of prayer and meditation and study than off the cuff? Isn’t God’s Word too important to handle carelessly and casually and lazily?
Did you know that an average sermon, if it’s the first time I’ve preached it, takes me a minimum of 12-16 hours to pray over, and then prepare, and then pray over it some more, and then wrestle with it and massage it until I can say only what the Lord wants me to say and not add a bunch of fluff and junk? And a sermon I’ve preached before still takes 4-6 hours to update it, adapt it to a different group with different needs in a different time, or do a study sheet or a PowerPoint if I’ve not prepared one before for that sermon, and the prayer involved in the whole process. I think that’s doing things decently and in order to edify and build up God’s people.
Every K.I.D.S. CHURCH teacher and every MIDDLE SCHOOL CLASS teacher and every HOMEGROUP leader should study and prepare and pray and seek God’s face so that he or she can teach or carry out his or her ministry so that everything is done decently and in order to build up the saints.
IIIl. THE THIRD WAY THE BIBLE TALKS ABOUT EDIFYING ONE ANOTHER IS BY MAKING SURE THAT OUR EVERY ACTION IS EDIFYING IN ITS EFFECT SO THAT IT WILL BUILD UP OTHERS – 2 Corinthians 12:19 – “Again, do you think that we excuse ourselves to you? We speak before God in Christ: but we do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying.”
Paul said that he did everything for the Corinthians with one idea in mind—to edify them, to build them up, to strengthen and help them.
Sometimes carnal Christians want to do the opposite, though— If they’re jealous against someone, they’ll try to tear that person down. If they’re envious, they’ll try to diminish them—put them in their place. If they’re a gossip, they’ll delight in telling that tender morsel of wicked untruth, or partial truth, or truth that ought not be told that hurts and harms another. If they’re proud and vainglorious, then in order to lift themselves up, they must of necessity tear down other brothers or sisters in Christ.
Shame on you if you do those things! God help you to live life with the goal to edify and build up other believers. God help you to go to work with the single-minded desire to edify and build up your co-workers. At home, God help you to not tear away at your wife’s or your husband’s self-image, but to edify your spouse; to build your spouse up. Same thing with your children.
How I wish that every one of us evaluated every single action we ever did as to whether it edified our brethren.
IV. LASTLY, THE BIBLE TALKS ABOUT EDIFICATION WITH REGARD TO OUR SPEECH – Ephesians 4:29 – “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but only such as is good for edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers.” – We need to unpack this verse to really get the most out of it:
First, what does Paul mean by “corrupt communication”? The Greek word translated “corrupt” means “worthless, bad, or rotten.” That covers any kind of bad speech, from cursing and profanity, to gossip and slander, to off-color and dirty jokes, to complaining and murmuring.
Second, Paul says to let NO corrupt communication come out of your mouth. We make excuses for our corrupt communication. We make allowances for ourselves so that if we’re really, really ticked off, we feel justified to use corrupt communication. Or we use bad language to fit in with the crowd. But Paul does not equivocate here in the least: He says, “Let NO corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth”—No exceptions; no excuses; no allowances; none; nada; ZERO tolerance!
After telling us what kind of communication should NOT proceed out of our mouths, Paul tells us what kind of speech we SHOULD speak – “…that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers.”
There are two parts to this: Speech that EDIFIES and speech that MINISTERS GRACE. We’ve already defined the word edifying; what is speech that “minister’s grace”? Grace in the life of the believer can be described as “the will, desire, and power to do God’s will.” So “ministering grace to the hearers” refers to speech that INSPIRES them to have a greater will, desire and power to do God’s will.
Remember when I told you at the beginning of this sermon about Brother Bob? Bob’s speech was not only uplifting and edifying; he inspired you to get closer to God. Being around him was like a breath of fresh air. As I’ve said many times before, “Some people are a blessing WHEREVER they go, while others are a blessing WHENEVER they go.” Brother Bob was in that first group: He INSPIRED you to godliness.
A LOT of speech falls short of these two guidelines.:
1. Gutter talk (like the S-word and the F-word) do not build up or inspire people to godliness – They debase and coarsen.
2. Dirty jokes do not build up or inspire to follow God. They invoke dirty thoughts in our hearer’s mind, the opposite of ministering grace to the hearers.
In Ephesians 5:4 Paul condemns BOTH gutter talk and dirty jokes. In the previous verse he said to not let things like sexual immorality, impurity or covetousness even ONCE be named among you. Then he adds in verse 4, “Neither filthiness [that would cover the kind of words we’ve been talking about…and he goes on to say], nor foolish talking, nor crude joking, which are not appropriate: but rather giving of thanks.” Paul says that corrupt communication should never ONCE be named among people who claim the name of Christ.
3. Sarcasm also does not build up or minister grace. It tears down and demeans, even when supposedly good-natured and not intended to harm. Early in our marriage, Susan helped me see how harmful sarcasm can be.
Illus. – How many of you married an opposite personality type from what you are? Do you know why God does that?—To balance us sorry rascals out and wear off some of our rough edges, right? Growing up, I was the master of the perfectly timed “cut-down.” I was just having fun and most of my friends did the same thing. But then God put the master of the perfectly timed cut-down (me) together with one of the most sensitive people I’ve ever known—Susan! Does anybody here see how that could cause some problems? What Susan taught me—through my loose tongue—is that you don’t always know that the other person is interpreting your remarks in the same vein that you mean them, no matter how innocently they’re meant.
Our speech should build up, not tear down; inspire, not demean.
4. Gossip and slander are two examples of the worst kind of corrupt communication that does not build up or inspire grace in others. Gossip is sharing negative information—true or untrue—about a person with someone who is not a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Gossip and slander are NEVER uplifting; they’re NEVER edifying; and they NEVER minister grace.
5. Murmuring and complaining also do not edify or minister grace. God’s people ought to be the most praiseful people on earth! Who wants to listen to a complainer? They’re not uplifting or inspiring. They’re a blessing WHENEVER they go! Don’t be a complainer; be a praiser! Praisers are a blessing WHEREVER they go!
May God help us to edify and lift up and build up and inspire through our speech. We should make it one of our life goals to tame the tongue.
Though James says we’ll never completely tame the tongue on this earth, he does say this in James 1:26 – “If any man among you seems to be religious, and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.”
May we not simply appear to be religious, deceiving our own heart, having a religion that is vain and empty. May our profession be evidenced by bridling our tongue and using it for good.
CONCLUSION
Edification: Wow! What a big responsibility! What are you going to do about this message from God’s Word today?
Start by avoiding conflict over issues that are not definitively laid out in the Word of God, or judging those who disagree with you, and accept them fully as God has accepted them.
Second, if you’re involved in any kind of ministry in the church, approach it with seriousness and study and carefulness to detail. Making sure things are done decently and in order edifies those whom you minister to.
Third, live your life so that everything you do is uplifting and edifying to others.
And last, that effort should be directed to your tongue more than in any area of your life.
It is your tongue that has the MOST power to tear down and demean and damage and coarsen OR to lift up, build up and inspire.
Do you need to clean up your language? Do you need to put a lid on it when you are tempted to gossip? Do you need to deal with some underlying issues of gratefulness and contentment if you find yourself negative and complaining? May we edify one another at Grace Baptist Church.
