Promises… Promises…
Matthew 5:33-37 33 "Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ’Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ 34 But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 Simply let your ’Yes’ be ’Yes,’ and your ’No,’ ’No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Intro: In this chapter we’ve been talking about matters of the heart. As Jesus taught, He would state the common accepted religious guideline of the day, but then He would get to the heart of the matter and give the true picture. A few weeks ago we looked at what He had to say about murder, showing that unrestrained, unresolved anger was really the heart of the issue. Jesus spoke about adultery or marital unfaithfulness and divorce and showed the heart of the matter to be selfishness and failing to value every other human created in God’s image.
-In today’s passage Jesus again takes a commonly accepted belief about promises and shows that the way His people think about the truth and honesty of their words needs to change. See, in biblical times people swore by a variety of things other than God to show that their word was true. That way, if they were to break their promise based on one of these other things, then at least they would not be dishonoring God’s name. Eventually, rabbis were called on to decide which oaths were binding, and some sort of complicated system developed. If a person swore toward Jerusalem, he was bound to his word, but not if he swore by Jerusalem. A person was bound to his word if he swore by gold on the altar, but not if he swore by the altar itself. Kind of crazy, huh? Sounds like kids making promises with their fingers crossed.
-Jesus got to the heart of the matter and called for integrity and truthfulness. Everything that a person can swear by in heaven and earth belongs to God, and God calls for simple honesty. That leads us to the heart of what I want to share today.
Prop: Our verbal commitments (and how we keep them) say something about our Father in heaven.
Interrogative: How do our promises and how we keep them reflect on people’s view of God?
TS: Let’s look at a few thoughts Jesus gave us about keeping our word
I. Empty Promises Diminish Faith
-It’s not likely that many of you have ever sworn by heaven, or by the earth. And I’d be really surprised if anyone here has ever sworn by Jerusalem or by your own head. So is that it? Do we get to take a pass and declare that Jesus’ words here are irrelevant to us today? Not so fast.
-Why? Because it’s a heart thing! It’s not about whether we have ever made those particular oaths. Those were just examples Jesus was giving that fit his time. What about the same kinds of things in our day?
-What is an oath? Basically an oath is a way of reinforcing your words – giving them more weight than what they might have on their own. We might say something and follow it with “I swear.” Why do we say things like “I swear to God,” or “I promise with all my heart.” It is a confession of our dishonesty. The only reason we say things like that is because we know that our simple word is not likely to be trusted. So we try to induce people to believe us by dragging God into it. We want people to think “Wow, he’s really serious this time! Maybe I should listen to him!”
-We do this so often we don’t even see what the problem is. But here’s the problem. The only reason oaths seem necessary is because we live in a world where words are often used to deceive and coax and manipulate and threaten. Words are used to help the speaker appear to be trustworthy, truthful, credible, knowledgeable, authoritative, and legitimate, whether he is or not. In such a world, we often do not know if a person is “serious” or not; “for real” or not. People can be deceitful. We all present a certain face to the world, but may be someone quite different than the person we present. And so we take our place in a world that often lacks authenticity at best and is manipulative and deceitful at worst, and words are the frontline tools we use. But instead of dealing honestly with the root problem (the devaluing of words due to the deceit and duplicity of the human heart), we keep piling on more words, trying to sound more and more “honest,” and “authentic” and “genuine” and “sincere.”
-Take a look at advertising to see how words build up to the point where they mean nothing. Have you bought new furniture recently? Does it bother you that the furniture store had its once-in-a-lifetime overstock sale last week and you missed it? They said last week they had the lowest prices – EVER. What a bummer if you missed that one, because according to the nice man on television, it will NEVER happen again. Wow, that’s harsh. Millions of people are going to have to pay more for their furniture now.
-How do you respond to these slick ads? Some swallow them and get down there before they miss the sale, but a lot of people (and maybe you’re one of them) just say, “Whatever.” We know we’re being lied to. Words are devalued. They are used to get us to buy something. We roll our eyes and live our lives.
-How about the stores that absolutely, positively (more embellishment) will not be undersold? Hey, that sounds awesome! That is, unless you can find a lower price somewhere else. Those from big-box stores don’t count, unless you get it in writing and not even then. Bring all estimates into the store with the salesman who quoted it to you and a notarized copy of the original estimate within 30 days – walk-ins welcome, appointments required, yada, yada, yada.
-Whatever. Too many words. No meaning! Words that are meant to communicate are used to disguise, creating confusion instead of clarity!
-How about the car shops where absolutely everybody will get financing? Ever tried that before with bad credit? Whatever.
-How about that TV ad for the latest episode of your favorite show? “You will not believe your eyes. Tune in for a special once-in-a-lifetime presentation. You’ll never see anything like this again.” So you tune in and the big moment comes. And it’s a life and death struggle – this time with both life and death hanging tenuously in the balance. Someone might die. Or someone might live. We don’t really know, but the two hang in the balance on this once-in-a-lifetime television event. When it finally happens, it will be the moment of a lifetime, as you find out whether life or death prevails in this struggle where it will definitely be either one or the other or both. Your friends will talk about it at school or work for minutes tomorrow. Then the moment comes and it’s over. Maybe it was a good time, but probably not a once in a lifetime television event. Whatever!
-And forget about the political ads and election season. Whatever.
-Here’s one for you. How about when Christians say something like this: “Since I met Jesus everything in life is just great. I don’t have any worries or concerns and I just have joy every moment of the day.” Whatever!
-In every arena of life – from commerce to personal relationships to media to news to religion, on and on it goes. Words are inflated, overblown, used to sell us things, convince us of things the speaker already knows aren’t true, or aren’t technically true.
-And we know that most words we hear are empty, and designed to be that way. In a world like this, we are conditioned to respond with “Whatever!” It seems our only recourse is to resort to the cynicism and skepticism that the word “whatever” communicates. But can we go through life with these attitudes and have kingdom hearts? Are we to have hearts of exaggeration and manipulation or skepticism and cynicism? Of course not! This is why Jesus stands opposed to inflating our words, why he insists that a yes is yes and a no is no and we leave it at that.
-Empty promises breed unbelief. People lose faith in us and in God when we fail to keep our word. If someone cannot trust us to keep our promises, they may never get close enough to the One we say we serve to believe His promises. They reason, “If that’s how Christians are, then it must be how Christ is.” Let’s learn from our Master and be men and women of our word. As a result people will see the authenticity of God’s word in us, and we will have much more credibility as we share our faith.
-Some of you may struggle in this area of making promises you don’t keep while some of you don’t seem to have any problem at all. Well, let’s look a little closer to be sure we haven’t missed the personal application of the words of Jesus.
II. Truthful People are treasured by God
-Suppose you were in debt and you promised the business that you would pay off a portion of your debt each month. How are you doing with that? Are you making your payments on time?
-Maybe you borrowed a book from someone, with the understanding that you would have it back by a certain date. Where is that book right now? How good are you at borrowing things and getting them back to the rightful owner in a timely manner? When we borrow something there is an assumption made that you will return it before you forget who it belongs to.
-Maybe you’ve failed in a certain area and you got mad at yourself, and say, “God, I promise I will never commit that sin ever again!” How are you doing with that promise?
-The Bible is clear from front to back that truthful people are treasured by God. Psalm 15:1 says “Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart!” In other words, the person who will spend eternity in the house of the Lord is the one who lives the truth and speaks the truth. Truthful people are treasured by God.
-Jesus says in Matthew 12:36, “I tell you that men will have to give an account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word they have uttered. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned.”
Conclusion: One of the gifts God has given us is verbal communication. Let’s ask Him to help us use it the way He intended. If you have trouble keeping your word, ask Him to help you not make promises you cannot keep. Also ask Him to help you follow through.
[Portions of sermon adapted from Marc Axelrod and David Flowers, sermoncentral.com]
