I would like to start off with a few questions that require an honest answer. The first question is how many of you have told a lie in the last five years? I am not talking about the white lies when your wife asks you if her jeans make her butt look big. I am talking about honest to goodness lies. How many in the last year have told a lie? How many in the last month? How many in the last week? Today? Some of you are taking the Fifth Amendment. The second question is a little bit easier. How many of you would say you are an honest person? Interesting. The same people that just admitted they are liars now basically are saying they are honest people. How can that be? Psychologists have an answer. They say the reason we can hold two conflicting ideas about ourselves in our brain is because we have the power to rationalize things. We don’t really see some of actions even though they might be wrong. We don’t technically see them as lies so it doesn’t affect our self-worth or our idea of honesty. For example, if you were filling out an application for a job or preparing a résumé and you are updating your profile on LinkedIn and you added a degree or skills or jobs you didn’t have, many people would not consider that a lie because it is just embellishing and everybody does it so it isn’t really a lie. Seeing that it is tax season, everyone is filling out their tax return. Technically, you are supposed to put your income down from all sources, including the cash tips or the business you did on the side and got money under the table. Technically speaking, you are to add it to your income tax because it is taxable. But I suspect that some people don’t do that because everybody leaves things off. Uncle Sam doesn’t need more of my money anyway. That is where we get into the idea that when we fudge the truth a little bit, it is not really technically lying because everybody does it. The problem with that is it creates a culture that is pervaded with dishonesty and lying. As we know, the more lies there are in society, the more difficult it is to navigate through the culture to determine what is really truth. A perfect example is the ongoing arena of political candidates. No matter who you are voting for, basically all the candidates lie to a certain degree. The challenge we have as Americans is not who is telling the truth but who is telling the least amount of lies. It gets very difficult to navigate society. We are able to hold these seemingly conflicting ideas in our head that we are basically honest people, but there are times when you can fudge the truth a little bit. I think that is the attitude that Jesus is trying to address today in Matthew 5. Again, we are going through the series called Learning to Live Everyday Life Like Jesus. It is a sermon series based on the Sermon on the Mount. Today, we are going to deal with the topic of oaths and lying, and falsified oaths. I would like to have somebody stand up and read the passage Matthew 5:33-37 from the NIV. (Scripture read here.)
I am sure many of you read that passage and on the surface level it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense what is going on there. That is why it is helpful to give you a little bit of background as we move through it. The passage opens up with Jesus saying “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.’” I would suspect that most of us know what an oath is, but in case you don’t I am putting up the dictionary definition. An oath is a solemn appeal to a deity or some revered person or thing to witness one’s determination to speak the truth, to keep a promise, etc. Many of us are familiar with the oath you might take in a courtroom setting where the bailiff asks you to repeat “I solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me God.” That is an oath we are thinking of. It is very similar to what Jesus is referring to here. An oath back in the day and even today seems to add a lot of weight to your words because technically speaking we know if we break the oath that we have given to God then at a minimum we are going to be charged with perjury in the courtroom. At a maximum, we are going to experience the wrath of God. Oaths are very serious things. In the first century, the oaths would often extend out into the culture and the marketplace. People would take oaths when they were dealing in transactions. They would take them when they were exchanging property, selling animals or livestock and that sort of thing. So oaths were very common. They find their biblical basis back in the Old Testament. There are many passages that speak of that. But one passage in particular comes out of the book of Leviticus 19:12 where it says “Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.” As a side note, when he is talking about profaning the name of the Lord, he is not necessarily talking about what we think of as a profanity, although that is obviously not a good thing to use the Lord’s name in vain. But what he is talking about here are oaths. Oaths we would take where we would invoke God’s name as a witness that we are about to tell the truth. When these people heard Jesus’ words where he said “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’” most of the people would nod in agreement. I understand this. Any oath I make when I invoke the name of the Lord, I keep it. I keep that particular commandment. But as we talked about the last few weeks, we know also that the Pharisees and teachers of the laws would look for loopholes in the law that would allow them to kind of keep the law but also allow them to get what they want. The attitude developed if I can’t speak falsely in a particular situation because I have invoked the name of God, then maybe I should try a different strategy. Maybe I should not swear an oath in the name of God but possibly substitute something else for that name. So they got in the habit of substituting words that seemed to relate to God but weren’t the same as swearing directly to God. They would swear by heaven or swear by earth or swear by the city of Jerusalem. Later on we would see they would swear by the temple or the gold in the temple or the altar in the temple. It is similar to how we would say I swear on a stack of Bibles. In some sense it is swearing on something holy. It is giving credibility to words, but it is not quite the same as swearing to God. That way, if you broke the oath, you wouldn’t have to deal with the wrath of God. This is a loophole that the people developed.
Jesus, as he does, often sees through those types of loopholes. That is why he goes on to say “But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black.” What Jesus is doing here is shooting holes in their loophole and their flawed logic suggesting that just because you say I swear by heaven that you are not going to be in trouble if you break that particular vow or that promise. You are basically doing the same thing as swearing to God because, after all, heaven is where God’s throne is located. Or when you swear to earth, it is like swearing to God because earth is God’s footstool. Or when you swear to the city of Jerusalem, it is a very holy place because it is the city of the great king probably referring to King David or the coming Messiah. Or you shouldn’t even swear on the head of a human being because God made the head and he made every hair on their head. So when you swear to a head or a piece of hair, it is the same thing as pretty much swearing to God. In fact, Jesus would probably say that if somebody swore to something else in creation, like I swear on a stack of rocks, it would be the same thing as swearing to God because God’s fingerprint is on everything in creation. What Jesus is suggesting is that an oath is an oath. An oath is an oath to God no matter what you swear on. On a stack of Bibles, heaven, earth, fruit. No matter what it is, it would basically be the same thing because these things are all connected to God because they were all made by God. So if you break that oath, you are going to have to deal with the wrath of God.
At this point of the story, people are probably getting a little nervous or a little upset at Jesus because he appears to be closing their legal loopholes. They may even be thinking if I can’t swear on anything, then what am I to do. Jesus seems to anticipate their question, and he goes on to say “Simply yet your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” He is basically saying just be the type of person that you can rely on to be honest. You don’t need to swear on an oath. When you think about it, the only reason we have oaths is because it is the general consensus that most people are dishonest. People cannot be trusted. That is the only reason we take oaths. Because we can’t be trusted. So you need some sort of a commitment to some form of a deity or else there is a chance the person may lie. Supposedly, an oath is going to make them think twice before they lie not only because they can be charged with committing perjury but because they would have to endure the wrath of God. Most importantly, what Jesus is trying to get across is that kingdom people are honest. They are basically honest, good people. Really good, honest people. This goes back to the idea of the whole context of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of God is now. It is not some way down in the future. It is not something you are going to experience in the future. The kingdom reality is happening. When Jesus came onto the scene and said “I cast out demons by the finger of God” that means the kingdom of God has arrived. It arrived 2,000 years ago. So the kingdom of God is coming in. What he is suggesting is that kingdom people need to develop a kingdom mindset. That means they don’t act religious and do religious things to give the appearance of being good people. They are just naturally good people because they are citizens of the kingdom. Jesus, in his words, is anticipating a kingdom that is not characterized by dishonesty but is characterized totally by honesty, which means you don’t have to take an oath on a stack of Bibles. It means you don’t have to take an oath on anything. The reality is kingdom people can be relied on to be honest no matter what.
That is kind of those passages in a nutshell. But I suspect when it comes to dishonesty or comes to the white lies or however we perceive lies in the culture, a lot of you remain unconvinced that lying is totally wrong. You still think it is okay to bend the rules a little bit. In a courtroom situation I would tell the truth because I don’t want to deal with the wrath of the judge or God. But when it comes to filling out a résumé what is wrong with adding a few extra facts? It is not that important. It may get me the job and after all I deserve the job anyway. What is wrong with fudging on your income taxes and not including the money you receive on the side? What is wrong with lying to a spouse? What is wrong with a little plagiarism when you are submitting a paper at school? What is wrong with that? Why shouldn’t I be able to lie? The short answer is that you are image-bearers of God. You are image-bearers of God. When you lie, when you are deceptive, when you are dishonest, you are basically bearing the image of Satan not the image of God. Way back in Genesis, we know that “God created man in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” He repeats created three times and repeats image twice. God created us in his image. It doesn’t mean that we physically look like God, but it means that we have been given the attributes of God. We have the ability to have the attributes of God. One of the key attributes of God is his truthfulness. So when God created Adam and Eve and placed them in this beautiful paradise and said you have dominion over all of creation. All I ask is that you continue to submit your life to me, continue to reflect my image in a very positive way. We know that that image was shattered when Satan entered into the picture. Satan is called the father of lies, the deceiver. He comes into the picture and shatters that image of paradise. Shatters that image of truthfulness because he got Adam and Eve to buy into his lie and become disobedient. Basically, they were deceitful and began to hide from God. That deceitfulness broke through and came out into the whole world following that disobedience of God. Deceitfulness, lying, dishonesty came through like a flood into the world. So much so that not two steps out of the garden we see Cain killing his brother Abel. Why? Because he presented an inferior offering to God and tried to pass it off as good as Abel’s and God called him out on that. He was so upset he ended up killing his brother Abel. Those lies and deception just kept going on down history. We see it with Abraham lying to Sarah. We see it with Jacob lying to Esau. We see it with Joseph’s brothers lying to the father about Joseph. We see it all through the Bible and all the way down history even to today. There is not a sector of society that has not been impacted by what happened in the garden. Starting with homes, schools, universities, TV, internet. They are all infiltrated with lies and deception. We especially see it in the business world. We see it so much it is expected.
Before I was a pastor, I was in the business world for about 15 years in the Northwest. This was during the dotcom boom where everybody was making all sorts of money in the 90s because of these new internet companies coming on. I got interviewed for an internet company in Seattle. I remember thinking if I get this job I am going to be well off. I am going to be set for life. I am sitting for this interview with some millionaire in a hotel in Seattle talking to him. I feel he is starting to ask some probing questions. He set up this hypothetical situation. He said if you were selling our software in a conference room with a client and there were other companies trying to sell their competing software and you knew in your heart of hearts that their software was better than yours what would you do? I thought this guy is just testing my honesty. I said I would try to come up with the strengths of our particular software. He said no. You know their software is better. You know your product is inferior. What would you do? He kept probing me. Finally, he said what you would need to do is you would need to lie. You would need to lie about your product because every single day in the business world and especially in the computer industry there are billions of dollars on the table. If you don’t do everything you can to get your hand on that money it is going to be gone. So you have to be willing to lie, steal, whatever it takes to get those sales. About that time I just remember having a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach realizing that I don’t think this is a company I want to work for. I don’t think I could do it. The point being is that lies, deception, dishonesty has just infiltrated every sector of America.
The good news is that Jesus Christ came into the picture 2,000 years ago to begin to reverse that whole trend. He came to be an imager-bearer of the truth. There are many passages that speak of this. One in particular you may recall is when Jesus was standing in front of Pontius Pilate the day of the crucifixion and Pilate was questioning him and made a sarcastic comment “You are the king of the Jews, right?” Jesus’ response was “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” He came to testify to truth. Not only did he come to testify to truth. He was a living, breathing, physical manifestation of truth. One of the passages many of you are familiar with comes out of John 14:6 where Jesus says “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.” Jesus was truth. The Father was truth. Jesus came to manifest the truth. He came to bear witness to the truth. He was the physical manifestation of truth. The truth about God, about his attributes, his love for his people, and especially about the forgiveness of sins that comes through Jesus Christ on the cross. He came to reveal the truth of the kingdom of God.
We have been talking about the kingdom of God is open to anybody but once you come in and become a citizen of the kingdom there are new expectations. And really began to speak about the truth about each one of us. We are children of God. Children of God, which is an interesting phrase that I think most of us skip over. Think again back to the first chapter of John where John talks about the word became flesh. The word Jesus became flesh incarnate. It talks about how Jesus came to those that were his own. In other words all of humanity. But his own did not all receive him. Then he goes on to say “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to be children of God – children born not of natural decent nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” This is powerful stuff. In fact, I suggest that if Christians would ever grasp onto the reality that they are children of God, they would basically have no real identity issues. They would understand who they are in the eyes of God. Children of God, which means they bear the image of their daddy. They bear the image of truthfulness. Which also suggests that maybe the reason why we have so many lies and so much dishonesty in the world is because people are seeking that identity. The sense of self-worth that we were designed to have from day one in the garden, when sin entered the world that was lost. We lost that sense of self-worth of who we are. Everybody wants to know who they are. They want to know their sense of identity. They want to be identified by something other than their job or their role in life. They want to know they have a real sense of value and identity. They are desperate for that. When they are desperate, they have to fabricate an identity. They have to use culture to fabricate an identity. To create a false ID so to speak. They do it by lies, deception, whatever it takes. A psychologist suggested that the two primary reasons people lie are desire and fear. Think about it. If you don’t have any sense of identity and you are hungry for that you are going to go after identity. You are going to try and find your sense of self-worth in people, possessions, things, relationships, money, career, and all this kind of stuff. You are going to go for it. So much of society finds their identity in relationships, going after money, they find it in greed, they find it in fame. Those things fill up the self-worth bucket or at least they think it does. They fill it up only to see it begin to leak out. So they get a little bit afraid. Fear. When you are afraid of losing any sense of identity you have because you are going to be exposed for something, you are going to do whatever you can to preserve that sense of identity. Even if it means lying. That is the pattern out there. That is what we see. Why do most people lie? Because they are afraid of being found out that they are not who they think they are or they are not the person that they want people to think that they are. So they lie because they have no sense of identity. If they lose that, they have nothing. Kingdom people approach life differently. They have a sense of identity and a sense of self-worth just by virtue of being a child of God. They don’t have to go out and seek a fabricated life that they have to constantly go around and cover up for. They live an uncomplicated life because as a child of God you are pretty much safe in the kingdom of God. Rather than going around and trying to lie and manipulate and twist life according to your needs, you begin to let those old things go.
Paul says it best in Colossians speaking of the Christians where he says “But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” What he is saying is grow up into the life that God has given you. Grow up into the image that you have been given when you accepted Christ as Lord. Restore back the image that was intended for you in the very garden. When you do that, you aren’t going to have any need to lie. It doesn’t work. When you actually see yourself as a child of God yet still commit sin and lies and all that kind of stuff, you are actually acting in some sense insane. Somebody told me once that insanity is being some other person than you know you are. You are operating outside of yourself. So for a Christian who sees him or herself as a child of God and you continue to participate in these types of things, you are operating in insanity because you are not operating true to who you know and who you are and how God created for you.
A lot of information there. I want to wind this down. I could say a lot more about this. But in summary the point that Jesus is trying to make is kingdom people are honest. They see themselves not living in this world. They see themselves living in a kingdom reality that is characterized by honesty, not dishonesty. They also see themselves as created in the image of their Creator. The very image of God. Like Jesus Christ, they feel responsible for bearing witness to that image. Bearing witness to the truth. When they enter out into all these segments of society and the nooks and crannies of the world, the business world, the universities, Facebook pages, whatever, they always operate from a posture of integrity. A posture of honesty. That doesn’t mean you aren’t going to mess up sometimes. You are going to find yourself in some tough situations. But it means your life is bent towards living an honest life. When you do that on a regular basis, when you train yourself to do that, before you know it, you are going to find that you are actually taking everyday steps to live everyday life just like Jesus. Let us pray.
