(based on Southeast Christian Church’s series “Living a Life of Integrity”)
SERIES: “WORDS OF WISDOM FOR KINGDOM LIVING”
TEXT: MATTHEW 5:33-37
TITLE: “KEEP YOUR PROMISES”
INTRODUCTION: A. A wealthy businessman lay on his deathbed. His preacher came to visit and talked
about God’s healing power and prayed for his parishioner. When the preacher was
done, the businessman said, “Preacher, if God heals me, I’ll give the church a million
dollars.” Miraculously, the businessman got better and within a few short weeks was
out of the hospital.
Several months later, the preacher bumped into this businessman on the sidewalk
and said, “You know, when you were in the hospital dying, you promised to give the
church a million dollars if you got well. We haven’t received it as of yet.”
The businessman replied, “Did I say that? I guess that goes to show how sick I
really was!”
1. A few years back two guys interviewed thousands of people, and they published
their findings in a book called The Day America Told the Truth.
a. Of those surveyed, 91% said that they lie on a regular basis.
b. 86% said they lie to their parents regularly,
c. 75% said they lie to their friends,
d. 69% said they lie to their spouses.
e. 50% said they regularly called in to work sick when they weren’t
2. Doug Sherman and William Hendricks, compared the ethics of Christian and non-
Christian adults.
a. They found that almost as many Christians steal from work as non-Christians,
b. Almost as many Christians use company phones for personal long distance. As
non-Christians
c. And they found that Christians are just as likely to falsify our income taxes, and
commit plagiarism, and give bribes to obtain a building permit, and ignore
construction specs, and illegally copy computer programs, and steal time from
work, and exaggerate our products, and selectively obey the law.
B. Matthew 5:33-37 – “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.’ But I tell
you, do not swear 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. Simply let your
‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”
--This passage reveals some important reasons why we must live truthfully:
1. First, dishonesty undermines our relationships
a. When we lie and don’t keep our promises it destroys trust and trust is what
healthy relationships are built upon
b. Honesty helps us grow in our relationships with Christ and with others
--Eph. 4:15 – Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up
into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
2. Second, dishonesty is contrary to the character of God
a. God is a commitment-keeper
--Num. 23:19 – God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he
should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and
not fulfill?
b. Satan, however, is the father of lies
--Jn. 8:44b – 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.
3. My dad has a saying that has stayed with me through the years: “Don’t fudge
now.”
a. The slang term “fudge” in reference to stretching the truth comes from a sea
captain named Fudge
1). He became notorious for telling all kinds of lies, tall tales and exaggerations
about his improbable adventures at sea.
2). It was said of this Captain Fudge that he “always brought home his owners a
good cargo of lies.”
b. By the mid-1800’s the expression “no fudging” was being used in America by
children to dissuade friends from cheating at marbles.
--As a young man, my dad was a marbles champion in south
Georgia (with a big trophy to prove it.) I guess that’s where he learned the
phrase.
e. One thing that both of my parents stressed when I was growing up: Always tell
the truth
--If I did something wrong and then lied about it, I was in “double trouble” but
if I told the truth, the discipline wasn’t as bad as when I ‘fessed up to what I’d
done.
C. Being a follower of Christ means a commitment to truth
--We need to be people of our word
1. You want to be known as someone who keeps your promises no matter what
2. However, there are some common justifications that most of us give for breaking
promises
a. I didn’t think it was all that important
b. I thought I might be able to keep the promise
c. It seemed the right thing to do at the time
3. I want to challenge you in three areas this morning:
I. KEEP YOUR PROMISES…EVEN WHEN THEY SEEM INSIGNIFICANT
A. When you start to justify a little dishonesty because it seems insignificant, be careful because you’re one
step closer to doing what you never thought you would do
1. The little areas test our integrity
a. God takes stretching the truth very seriously
b. Every time a casual commitment is broken, an incremental amount of damage is done
2. How many of you are familiar with these common “lies”?
a. Honest, I only need 5 minutes of your time
b. Your table will be ready in just a few minutes
c. The check is in the mail
d. We service what we sell
e. If elected, I promise…
-- A busload of politicians were headed to a convention but because of highway construction,
they had to take a detour down a rural road. The driver was having problems with this windy,
country lane and lost control of the bus. It ran off the road and crashed into a tree in an old
farmer’s field.
The old farmer was driving to town when he noticed that that there was a gaping hole in his
fence. He went to investigate and saw what had happened. He went back to his truck, got a
shovel, and buried all the politicians.
Since the politicians never arrived at their destination, a state trooper was dispatched to locate
them. He backtracked their route, followed the country road, saw the wrecked bus in the field,
and looked up the old farmer that owned the property. The trooper asked the farmer where the
politicians had gone. The farmer informed the trooper that he’d buried all of them.
The trooper said, “Didn’t you call the coroner? After all, not all of them might have been
dead.” The old farmer replied, “Well, some of them kept sayin’ they weren’t but you know how
them politicians lie!”
B. We might be very familiar with those lies but there are other lies that destroy our integrity:
1. There are several ways we can be careless with the truth on a daily basis because we don’t see it as a
big deal
a. We lie to cover up our mistakes
b. We exaggerate
c. We mislead
d. We give false flattery
e. We deceive or cheat
2. Rodney Buchanan, a preacher in Mt. Vernon, OH: “Who has not been startled to hear yourself say
something that is an exaggeration without even thinking about it. It is not that you began the
conversation with the intention of saying something that was not quite true, but before you knew it you
found yourself embellishing a story. Are you honest about your age? Have you been thoroughly honest
with your taxes? Have you ever been dishonest about the time you claimed you worked, or not given
an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage?
Have you ever cheated on a test? Have you ever lied to get out of trouble? Have you ever
complimented someone when you didn’t mean it? Have you ever kept silent when you should have
told the truth? Made yourself appear better than you are? Lied to gain an advantage or get your way?
Misled someone to save face?”
3. Eph. 4:25 – Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor…
II. KEEP YOUR PROMISES…EVEN WHEN YOU REGRET MAKING THEM
A. Maybe you regret making a promise because things didn’t turn out the way you had hoped
1. Maybe when you made the promise, you’d hoped that you would have:
a. More time
b. More money
c. More knowledge
d. More energy
e. More whatever (you fill in the blank)
2. Maybe you made a promise to do something because you thought you’d get something in return:
money, favors, popularity, position
--Now it looks like you’re going to have to do what you promised and not get anything.
B. Some people think that if they don’t commit to anything, it’s easier to get out of the obligations and
responsibilities implied
1. However, there are times when we have to make commitments
a. We have to promise to do certain things whether we like it or not
b. It’s our commitments that define who we are
2. We can make promises that we don’t like but fulfill them in ways that show integrity and fortify our
witness for Christ
-- Once there were two brothers who were very rich and very wicked. Both of them lived lives of
sinfulness and debauchery and used their wealth to cover up a lot of their wickedness. Both were
members of a local church and used their money to be in positions of influence.
The old preacher at this church had retired and a new preacher had been hired. This preacher was
a man who preached the gospel with zeal and courage and lived an exemplary life. The
congregation began to grow at such a rapid rate that they needed to build a new church building.
At this same time, one of the brothers got sick and died. The new preacher was asked to do the
funeral. The day before the funeral service, the surviving brother pulled the preacher aside and
handed him an envelope. He said, “There’s a check in this envelope that is large enough to pay off
the new building. All I want you to do is tell all the people at the funeral tomorrow that my brother
was a saint. Do you think you can handle that?” The preacher shook the brother’s hand and said, “I
will do precisely what you have asked.” The preacher immediately took the check to the bank and
deposited it to the church’s account.
The next day, the preacher stood in front of the large group of people who had come to the
funeral and said, “This man in the coffin was an ungodly sinner and wicked to the core. He was
unfaithful to his wife and abusive to his children. He was ruthless in business and a hypocrite in
the church. But compared to his brother, he was a saint!”
C. Maybe you regret making a promise because keeping your word ends up costing you more than you
expected
1. Ps. 15:4 describes a righteous person as one “who keeps his oath even when it hurts.”
--Maybe things have not turned out the way you had hoped, but you keep your commitment anyway
2. The brilliant Christian scholar and writer C. S. Lewis took that truth seriously. His biography tells
of the suffering he endured because he kept a promise he had made to a buddy during World War I.
This friend was worried about the care of his wife and small daughter if he should be killed in battle,
so Lewis assured him that if that were to happen he would look after them.
As the war dragged on, the man was killed. True to his word, Lewis took care of his friend’s
family. Yet no matter how helpful he tried to be, the woman was ungrateful, rude, arrogant, and
domineering. Through it all, Lewis kept forgiving her. He refused to let her actions become an excuse
to renege on his promise.
3. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Jesus follows His section on divorce with the challenge to keep
your promises
--We seem to have a problem with that in our nation
a. We promise to love, honor, and cherish in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, until death
do us part
b. Yet, almost 50% of all marriages in the United States end in divorce
--Christian marriages are no better percentage wise
c. For some reason, we have trouble keeping those wedding vows
d. Divorce is not an unpardonable sin and there is healing and pardon for broken marriages
--Jesus is simply saying that we shouldn’t take the easy way out. Sometimes promises are tough to
keep but we need to keep them to the best of our ability.
4. Another problem is that we have trouble keeping our promises to Jesus
a. We stand in front of a group of people and proclaim: “I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
the living God and I accept Him as my Lord and Savior.”
--We like the Savior part but we’re not too bothered about the Lord part –
b. So we let our promise slip
1). The lodge and the civic club meetings become more important than fellowship with the
Body of Christ
2). Watching TV or going to sporting events becomes more important than studying the word of
God
3). Talking to friends or business colleagues becomes more important than spending time in
prayer
4). Our business becomes more important than God’s business
5. Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches an Egg, tells the story of an elephant, named Horton, who promises to sit
on an egg and hatch it for it’s mother, lazy Miss Mayzie. As the days and weeks go by, Horton just
keeps sitting there on that nest up in a tree. All his friends encourage him to forget his promise and
play with them.
a. Do you remember his response? “I meant what I said, I said what I meant. An elephant is faithful,
100%.”
b. What could God do with a congregation that had that commitment?
III. KEEP YOUR PROMISES…EVEN WHEN YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS
A. When you can keep a promise to yourself, you will tell the truth to others
1. Promises to ourselves are sometimes the hardest ones to keep
2. There is no accountability and seemingly no consequences
3. Once you start breaking promises to yourself, it becomes much easier to break a promise to others
B. Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 5 that whenever we make a promise we do so in the presence of God
1. When we break a promise, we’re not just lying to others or ourselves
--We’re also lying to God
2. Back in Jesus’ day, the Pharisees had developed elaborate rules governing when a man was bound by
his word and when he was not.
a. If I swear by Jerusalem, I am bound by my words. If I swear towards Jerusalem I’m not bound.
b. Any promise I make using God’s name binds me, but if I can avoid using God’s name when I
make a promise, maybe I don’t have to keep my word, they thought.
--So they began to swear by anything that sounded like it might mean something
c. In fact a whole book of their law-code dealt with making vows and promises – which ones you had
to keep, and which ones you didn’t.
3. We have similar oaths to swear we’re telling the truth:
a. Cross my heart and hope to die (stick a needle in my eye)
--Oops, sorry. I had my fingers crossed
b. I swear on a stack of Bibles
c. If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’!
d. May lightening strike me if I’m not telling the truth
e. I swear by my mother’s grave….
f. With God as my witness…
g. Wayne Smith, “If you know you’re lying, and the Lord knows you’re lying, it’s the same as telling
the truth.”
4. Jesus said in vss. 34-35 – “But I tell you, Do not swear 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.”
a. Some groups have declared this passage to mean that Christians cannot take oaths in courts or
anywhere else
1). The Old Testament records that Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph and Jonathan all took oaths
2). Jesus swore an oath in His trial by the Sanhedrin
3). Several times in the New Testament, followers of Christ swore oaths
b. What Jesus is wanting is truthfulness. all the way around
1). If you’re one of God’s people, then whatever you do reflects on God
2). John Stott, Christian Counter-Culture: “However hard you try, Jesus said, you cannot avoid
some reference to God, for the whole world is God’s world and you cannot eliminate him from
any of it.”
5. God takes lying very seriously
a. Prov. 12:22 – The Lord hates liars, but is pleased with those who keep their word.
b. Rev. 21:8 – But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those
who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars–their place will be in the fiery lake of burning
sulfur. This is the second death.”
C. How do I get better at keeping my promises?
1. Admit your struggle
--At one time or another, we’ve all struggled with the truth. Sometimes it’s just easier to fib
a. The down side is that our culture despises dishonesty coming from people who claim to be
Christians
--We can do some terrible damage to our witness and even the cause of Christ when we’re not
people of our word.
b. People are looking for authenticity wherever they can find it.
c. Admit that truthfulness can be a struggle
--But recognize that Jesus says, “No matter what, tell the truth!”
2. Monitor your promises
a. Reliability builds credibility
--Can other people count on you to follow through and do what you say you will do?
b. Do you ever say, “I’ll pray for you,” just because it sound like the right thing to say?
--Do you ever actually pray for that person?
c. What about in business?
--Is what you advertise what you deliver?
d. Eugene Peterson, The Message paraphrase of our text: And don’t say anything you don’t mean.
This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down
a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ’I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ’God be with
you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious
lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say ’yes’ and ’no.’
When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.” Just say, “yes” and “no.” It
sounds simple enough. And yet we know speaking the truth is anything but simple.
3. Examine your motives
--Why am I making this promise? What do I really want?
a. Do I want success at the cost of relationships?
b. Do I want acceptance, even if it means being less than truthful?
c. Ann Hibbard, Life at Work Journal: “The test of character comes when being truthful endangers
what you want.”
CONCLUSION: A. Living an honest life, keeping our promises can be difficult
1. Did you know that several of the Bible’s greatest “heroes of the faith” were liars?
a. Abraham lied to the Egyptian Pharaoh saying that his wife Sarah was actually his
sister.
b. Jacob lied to his father Isaac saying that he was actually his brother Esau, so he
could receive the blessing meant for the eldest son.
c. Peter lied to the servants and soldiers surrounding the fire outside the trial room
where Jesus-Peter’s friend, teacher and Lord-was being tried, convicted and
sentenced to the cross, saying, “I tell you I never knew the man!”
d. Paul, after his own fashion, was so blinded by his own arrogance that he sought to
suppress the Truth of Jesus Christ.
2. However, the Holy Spirit can work miracles and change a liar into a person of
integrity
a. Abraham came to a point and place in his life when he was able to trust God for
everything, even the life of his beloved son Isaac.
b. Jacob, after a night of wrestling with God, was able to trust God with everything he
had, and so he returned to face his brother Esau whom he had cheated and
betrayed.
c. Peter was able to trust God before the same crowd that had called for Jesus’
crucifixion when he stood up at Pentecost to proclaim the same name he had
denied a mere 50 days before.
d. Paul, who called himself “abnormally born” because he persecuted the Church,
eventually wrote: “I preach Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
B. Jesus faced the gut-wrenching choice of keeping a costly promise.
1. God had been promising for thousands of years to send His Son to save the world
through His death and resurrection.
a. But when the moment of truth came in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus felt the
weight of the difficulty of keeping this promise.
b. In fact, He asked His Father, “If there is any other way, please let this cup pass
from me.”
--Jesus knows what it’s like to face a promise you don’t want to keep
2. But in that moment of truth, when He realized there was no other way to save us,
Jesus became the ultimate promise-keeper.
--Jesus kept His word to die in our place, to absorb all of our sin, to be cut off from
the Father, so that we could live and be forgiven and be reconciled to the Father.
