Being A Truthful Person
Matthew 5:33-37
OKAY MGCC – let’s do this, WEEK 21, in our verse by verse study of the Gospel of Matthew.
THIS MORNING
WE - are going to unpack Matthew 5:33-37…
NOW - as I began my week I thought we would dive into Matthew 5:33-48 (16 verses) and finish chapter 5…
So my first sermon title was…
“Be Truthful, Don’t Retaliate, Love Your Enemies”
HOWEVER - I quickly discovered that this was a little ambitious, so my second title was…
“Be Truthful and Don’t Retaliate”
AND THEN – after more study I come to the conclusion that this should be the title of today’s conversation,
“Being A Truthful Person”
UNDERSTAND MGCC – as we unpack Matthew 5:33-37…
We are going to see one more contrasts between the righteousness of Pharisees and Teachers of the Law… and the surpassing righteousness of those who live in His Kingdom.
QUESTION…Do you believe…
• THAT IF - God’s people were truthful,
• THAT IF - those who claim to follow after Jesus, poured out ‘honesty’ and ‘truth’ wherever they are,
whoever they are with
. THAT – the world we live in would become a better place
. THAT – truth and honesty matter?
OKAY – here’s our text for this morning…
Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 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. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. - Matthew 5:33-37
Prayer
QUESTION…
Do you think that there is a problem with dishonesty and an aversion to the truth in our culture today?
YEAH – lying seems to be Americans favorite pastime.
LIKE – it’s getting harder and harder to find truth anywhere.
In 1991 James Patterson wrote a book called, ‘The Day America Told The Truth,’ here is the opening sentence of that book…
“Americans lie. They lie more than we ever imagined, when we began this study. But they told us the truth about how much they lie.”
The book goes on and it says…
“Just about everyone lies. 91% of us lie regularly. The majority of us find it hard to go through a week without lying.”
Gina Scott writes in the introduction to her book, ‘The Truth About Lying,’ (2010)
In recent year we have been facing a crisis of conscience over the ethical state of our nation. We have been going through a national soul-searching and judging, assessing ourselves in the light of traditional core values of honesty and ethics, and reviewing and purging many fundamental institutions in revulsion to a decade of greed and excess.
Why? Because we have seen more and more indications that acts of lying, deception, and other unethical deeds for short-term gain and personal advantage may have deeper, more serious consequences in undermining the bonds of trust that create relationships and community and give strength to the nation as a whole.
YEAH – I think Gina is spot on…
Lying undermines the bonds of trust that create relationships and community and give strength to the nation as a whole.
According to a 2002 University of Massachusetts study, 60 percent of adults cannot have a 10-minute conversation without lying at least once (the average was three lies).
QUESTION… why do we lie? We lie to…
• Protect ourselves, Avoid punishment
• Gain an advantage
• Get people onto our side
• Escape blame
• Get out of something we don’t want to do
• Make ourselves look better
• Protect other’s feelings
The deist Voltaire said, “I am very fond of the truth, but I am not fond of martyrdom.”
UNDERSTAND MGCC - This is Voltaire’s way of saying that I would really like to live in a world where we tell the truth all the time, but I have come to realize that if I tell the truth all of the time, then one day someone will kill me.
OKAY…
I would like to ask 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?
OKAY - 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?
NOW - 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.
LIKE - we don’t really see some 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.
I wasn’t really lying
• I was exaggerating, I was embellishing
• I was just fudging the truth a little
• I was just leaving some stuff out
BUT LISTEN - the problem with this kind of attitude, is that it creates a culture (like the one that we currently live in)
that is pervasive with dishonesty and lying.
AND B/S – I think that we all know, that the more lies there are in society, the more difficult it is to navigate through the culture to determine what is really truth.
NOW – I don’t know about you… but as we were going through the 2 year COVID nightmare.
I just wanted our leaders and the media to tell the truth
The whole truth and nothing but the truth.
AND LISTEN – as 2022 progresses closer and closer to the mid-term election in November, we will be bombarded with lies and the deliberate distortion of the truth at every turn, LIES…
• From the lips of politicians
• In political adds
• On the Cable news networks, and
• Lies, flooding everyone’s newsfeed on social media (lies that even Jesus-followers are all too quick to share, without knowing whether it is true or not… if it happens to support one of there chosen positions… “Yeah, I don’t like him, her or them… it has to be true… ‘SHARE’)
UNDERSTAND B/S - tragically… the challenge we now face as Americans, is not who is telling the truth, but who is telling the least amount of lies.
“The President has kept all the promises, he intended to keep.“ — George Stephanopoulos
Larry King Live, CNN (February 16, 1996).
BUT LISTEN B/S – as prevalent as lying and dishonesty seems to be in our day…
THE TRUTH IS - that lying has been around from the very beginning of creation… YOU KNOW – way back in that garden paradise, when satan (the father of lies) began bombarding mankind with his lies and deceit… “did God really say…?”
AND UNFORTUNATELY - Adam and Eve both took a bite out of his lies… and you know the rest of the story.
We now live (not in a garden paradise) but in a fallen, corrupt, broken world.
IN – John chapter 8, the religious leaders are refusing to see the truth that Jesus was the one who the Scripture had promised would come, and here is what Jesus said them,…
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. – John 8:44
OKAY – according to Jesus when we lie and are untruthful…
• We are carrying out the devils desires
• We are speaking his native language
• We… and I don’t even want to say this… we are acting like we ‘belong to him.’
UNDERSTAND B/S – Jesus in His Manifesto, wants to make it perfectly clear that those who live in His kingdom are to be a truthful people… are to be people who are known for their honesty and truthfulness.
Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made… - Matthew 5:33
Break your Oath = the word used means to swear falsely
Vow = a fence or an enclosure that retrains a person. The idea is that you have enclosed what you are saying with the truth.
QUESTION… What is an oath?
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.
Now most of 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.”
OR – maybe we are familiar with some oaths we took as child…
You know, when we pinky swore or said something like… ‘cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.’
QUESTION
WHY – did we say those words or pinky swear?
SO THAT - people could be more certain that what we are saying is true.
NOW – one of the primary purposes of oaths in the Old Testament were to seal and agreement…
To Seal An Agreement or Promise…
We see this in Genesis chapter 22 when God swears an oath to Abraham after he obeyed God’s command to take his son Isaac to the top of the Mountain…
“I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” – Genesis 22:16-18
God wanted Abraham to know that He would keep His promise…
LATER – in Genesis 24… Abraham who is about to die, wants his servant to go back to his homeland to find a wife for his son Isaac… but he does not want the servant to take Isaac with him, so Abraham has him swear an oath…
“Make sure that you do not take my son back there,” Abraham said. “The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father’s household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give this land’—he will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there. If the woman is unwilling to come back with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine. Only do not take my son back there.” So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter. – Genesis 24:6-9
SO – the primary purpose of oaths was to seal an agreement.
AND IN - the first century, oaths had been extended 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.
AGAIN – God has no problem with oaths, but He did have a problem with how the Pharisees and Teachers of the law were using them… to actually promote lying.
NOW - one passages that these ‘Religious Elite’ distorted and twisted and taught others to do the same was Leviticus 19:12 where God says
“Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.” - Leviticus 19:12
LISTEN B/S – what God is saying, IS…
“If you invoke my name in oath (in order for people to believe that what you are saying is true)… and you are swearing falsely, you are lying… you profane My name… so don’t do it.
AND UNDERSTAND - when the people gathered on that hillside heard Jesus’ say.. “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.
YES - I agree Jesus… if I invoke the name of the Lord in my oath I am bound, I am obligated to keep it.
BUT LISTEN - as we talked about the last few weeks, we know that the Pharisees and teachers of the laws, were also looking for or loopholes in the law that would allow them to kind of keep the law (at least in their mind) but also allow them to live the that they want.
SO – the attitude developed of…
“Hey 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 instead substitute something else for His name.”
SO THEY - got into the habit of substituting words that seemed to relate to God, but weren’t the same as swearing directly to God.
YOU SEE – they had convinced themselves (with the help of the religious elite, that as long as you don’t actually swear by God’s name, than what you are promising is not actually binding?
LIKE – making a promise with our fingers crossed behind our backs…
UNDERSTAND B/S… in the time of Christ
• Oath taking had become lie making
• Instead of promoting confidence, it promoted skepticism
• Instead of a mark of integrity, oaths became a sign of deceit
• As long as I swear by something less than God it is okay to lie, to not keep my promise
AND B/S – Jesus takes that attitude and belief head on.
But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all:
Note – Jesus is not taking about valid oaths to seal an agreement. I mean, Jesus even took an oath in Matthew 26 at His trial.
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. 3And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. – Matthew 5:34-36
UNDERSTAND B/S – Jesus is saying… God is everywhere and in every conversation. AND IF – you think you have found some clever way of making lying okay and breaking a promise acceptable… such that you are safe from my judgement… you could not be more wrong!
QUESTION…
How does God feel about lying and breaking our oaths.
No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence. - Psalm 101:7
What are worthless and wicked people like? They are constant liars, signaling their deceit with a wink of the eye,
a nudge of the foot, or the wiggle of fingers. – Proverbs 6:12,13
There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him… a lying tongue… a false witness who pours out lies.
– Proverbs 6:16-19
The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy. Proverbs 12:22
A false witness will not go unpunished and whoever pours out lies will not go free. – Proverbs 19:5
Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found or taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern. – Isaiah 30:12-14
Revelation 21:8…
Says that the fate of all liars is the fiery lake of burning sulfur.
B/S - in a world overflowing with lies and lairs… Jesus says that those who live in His kingdom are to be a people of truth.
People who do not need to swear or resort to oaths in order for people to believe that what they say is true.
All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. – Matthew 5:37
But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.
– James 5:12
John Stott writes in his commentary on the SM.
The modern application is not far to seek, for the teaching of Jesus is timeless. Swearing, (oath taking) is really a pathetic confession of our own dishonesty.
Why do we find it necessary to introduce our promises by some tremendous formula, “I swear by the Archangel Gabriel and all the hosts of heaven,” or “I swear by the Holy Bible?”
The only reason is that we know our simple word is not likely to be trusted. Interestingly, the Essenes (a Jewish sect contemporary with Jesus) had high standards in this manner. Josephus wrote of them: they are eminent for fidelity and our ministers of peace. Whatsoever they say also is firmer than an oath. But swearing is avoided by them, and they esteem it worse than perjury, for they say that who cannot be believed without swearing by God, is already condemned. As A.M, Hunter puts it, “Oaths arise because men are so often liars.”
AGAIN B/S - in a world overflowing with lies and lairs…
Jesus says that those who live in His kingdom are to be a people of truth. People who do not need to swear or resort to oaths in order for people to believe that what we say is true.
All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. – Matthew 5:37
HEY – we are almost done…
BUT – did you know that you being honest, being a truthful person is part of the armor that God calls you to where so that you can take your stand against the evil one.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, - Ephesians 6:10-14
The belt of a Roman soldier held all of the other parts of the armor together.
In like manner the belt of truth, holds together the armor of the Christian.
AND LISTEN – this belt of truth is not, truth as in God’s truth
• there is no article,
• and that peace of the armor is mentioned later in verse 17… the sword of the spirit which is the word of God) –
rather it is our personal integrity and honesty.
Without which…
A Few Questions as we wrap up…
• Are you a person of honesty and truth
• Have you kind of put lying in the… it’s a big of a deal category. Maybe rationalizing that you are not ‘technically’ lying
• Can/do people trust what you are saying is the truth
• Do you ever have to add ‘some kind of oath’ to get people to believe you… ‘I’m telling the you the truth, I swear to God?”
• Can you be trusted to keep your promises?
• Are than any promises, you need to follow through with
• Have you kept your promises to God
Becoming A Truthful Person
Search for the cracks.. spending some time looking at the major areas of your life (work, home, church) and identify anywhere that you may have a truth issue.
Look for patterns… Is there a certain area where you have a weakness…Are there certain situations where you struggle with the truth.
Face the music… Face your flaws. Admit your mistakes and apologize to those you have hurt. Stop running from the truth.
Rebuild… It is one thing to face up to your past action. It’s another to build a new future. Create a plan that will make you a more truthful person.
But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us… was not “Yes” and “No,” but in Him it has always been “Yes.” For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.
– 2 Corinthians 1:18-20
