OPEN: I once read the true story of a husband and wife that returned from a day of shopping to find that the light on the answering service was flashing. The husband went over and activated the machine. The only message was from a friend of his wife Janet. The friend had called to say she had applied for a job and needed a character reference - basically someone who could verify she was honest and trustworthy and she said she had given the interviewer Janet’s name.
Then the friend said that there had been a form for Janet to sign. "But I couldn’t find you," the friend concluded, "so I forged your signature."
APPLY: Throughout the Bible there’s a powerful emphasis on God’s people being honest.
Psalms 15:1-2 declares: “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.”
Psalms 51:6 “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts.”
In John 4:24 Jesus said “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
James 5:12 warns us “Above all, my brothers, do not swear— not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your ‘Yes’ be yes, and your ‘No,’ no, or you will be condemned.”
And of course our text today tells us: “…each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.” Ephesians 4:25
ILLUS: Back in 1996 a psychologist at the University of Virginia (Bella D. Paulo) did a study of 147 people between 18-71 who were asked to keep a diary of all falsehoods told they had told over a week.
He found that most people lie once or twice a day.
He estimated that each of us lies in 20% of social exchanges lasting 10 or more minutes.
In one week alone, 30% of us deceive others in one-on-one interaction (Psychology Today 5-6/97)
In addition, this psychologist found that:
10% of lies were exaggerations,
60% outright deceptions,
But MOST were subtle lies, often of omission.
AND even though an average of 1 out of 7 of lies is uncovered, more than 70% of liars surveyed said they would tell their lies again.
Why had this psychologist studied lying? Because truth and honesty are highly valued commodities in any society, whether Christian or not.
How many of you hate it when people lie to you? (most hands went up).
How many of you would dislike being called a liar? (all hands went up)
I. (Pause) Now a quiz:
How many of you think we (as Christians) should ALWAYS tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
How many of you think we shouldn’t ALWAYS tell the truth…?
How many of you aren’t holding up your hands because you’re sensing a trap here?
ILLUS: Have you seen that Geico commercial on TV where the woman comes into the kitchen and asks her husband: “Do you think this dress makes me look fat?”
Do you remember what that husband says? “Yes, of course it does!”
All across America, you can hear the collective groan of men as they lift themselves out of easy chairs and shout: "NO! Don’t say that!"
That man may have told his wife the truth… but that particular truth wasn’t the smartest thing he ever said.
ILLUS: I much prefer the answer a man gave to his wife when she asked: “Do I look fat?”
To which he replied: “Do I look stupid?”
LOOK with me to Ephesians 4:29 “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
Now, what I’m going to say next may make you uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. But I’m convinced this is a Biblical concept:
The only time we shouldn’t be telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth… is when that truth damages and destroys the people around us.
You might ask: Jeff, how can you say that? Well, I can say that, because I believe it’s Biblical.
One of the most unusual stories in Scripture is told in the Exodus 1. There, we’re told that the Egyptians began to fear the Israelites that lived in their country. And the Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew mid-wives who always helped women deliver their babies:
"When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live."
The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"
The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive." (Exodus 1:16-19)
Now, were the mid-wives honest? No… they lied!
These women were speaking to the Hitler of their day, the Stalin of their era. He was a thug intent upon murdering all the boy children in Israel. Had they told him the truth there is no telling what evil he would have devised…
BUT THEY LIED!
Yes, they lied
(pause…) And what did God think of their action?
Exodus 1:20-21 “So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.”
He rewarded them! WHY? Because, what they did, they did for God. They didn’t lie because they feared for their own lives. They lied because they “feared God.”
My point is simply that: The only time we shouldn’t be telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth… is when that truth damages and destroys the people around us.
ILLUS: I once knew a man who “honest” with his wife.
He told her what a bad housekeeper she was
He told her what a rotten mother she was
He told her how unattractive she was
He emotionally brow beat her until she began to tell falsehoods to protect herself from his constant accusations.
THEN when he caught her telling those lies… he told her that she was a liar.
Now what he told her always had a measure of truth to it.
· She probably wasn’t the best housekeeper in the world
· She probably wasn’t the perfect mother
· She may not have won any beauty contests
· AND she did lie to avoid his emotional abuse
This husband spoke “truth” to his wife.
But it wasn’t a “wholesome” truth
It was NOT a truth he used to “edify” her
It was truth intended to drag her down and destroy her.
Paul tells us: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Eph. 4:29)
And: We should always “Be kind and compassionate to one another... Ephesians 4:32
II. Why do people ordinarily lie?
They don’t usually lie to protect OTHERS feelings or lives. Most people lie to protect themselves. They lie to cover their sins or hide their failures.
ILLUS: Most are like the child whose mother walks into the living room and sees a glass of spilled milk. The mother looks at her child and says “Did you do this?”
To which the child replies: “Not me! I didn’t do it”
Now, the mother knows there’s been no one else in the living room but that child… and the child knows she knows. But that little boy or girl tells the lie hoping to escape punishment.
The problem with lying to cover our sinfulness and our shortcomings is that even though we hurt others by doing so, one of the main people we end up hurting and deceiving is ourselves.
ILLUS: Remember Watergate scandal that bro’t down President Nixon’s presidency? One of Nixon’s former Aides - Jeb Stuart Magruder recalled:
"We conned ourselves into thinking we weren’t really doing anything wrong, and by the time we were doing things that WERE illegal, we had lost control. We had gone from poor ethical behavior into illegal activities without even realizing it."
They’d conned themselves! They’d deceived themselves!
Augustine once observed: “Before God can deliver us, we must first undeceive ourselves.”
How can we do that?
Well, King David had a technique for avoiding self-deception: He asked for God’s help. David wrote: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps139:23-24)
David realized that most of us have spiritual blinders on. We view our actions as justified and righteous. We wouldn’t have done them otherwise. And even when we know those actions are wrong, we find a way to put a spiritual spin on them so they sound right. But David knew what Jeremiah tells us “The heart is deceitful above all things…” (Jeremiah 17:9)
Thus, we cannot undeceive ourselves without help. David asked God to come in and “search” his heart, “examine” him, “try” his motives. He started out by being honest with God so that he could learn to be honest with others.
But now the problem is, many people have trouble being honest even with God. They believe that somehow – if they’re clever enough – God won’t know they’ve sinned.
BUT David wrote: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” (Psalm 139:7-12)
There’s no place you can hide from God. There’s no place God can’t hear you, or see you, or know what you’re thinking.
But even David (who wrote Ps. 139) tried – at least once - to hide his sin from God:
In Psalms 32:3-5 he writes: “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD’— and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”
You see, the key to being honest with ourselves is to be honest with God. To repent of our sins. To confess our sins to Him. And then deal with the sin.
Because… you see… God doesn’t want to destroy us. He wants to build us up. He wants us to learn to be honest people/ to be truthful people.
III. But why is HONESTY so important to God?
Why should God care whether we tell the truth or not?
Why should it matter that we are known to be honest people?
Two reasons come to mind:
1st – Our God is a truthful God
When God says something, you can depend on its being true. And – just like any good dad - God wants His children to grow up to be like Him.
The 2nd reason is closely tied to the first one. If Christians are dishonest – what does the world say of us? That’s right, they call us Hypocrites.
Why would they call us hypocrites? Because they know our God calls us to higher standard of honesty/ integrity.
ILLUS I heard a story about a preacher who was asked to substitute preach for a local church. That Sunday morning his text was “Thou shalt not steal.”
Well, the next morning he stepped on a bus in town and handed the driver a $10 bill.
The driver handed him back his change, and as he went back to his seat he counted his change. But before he could sit down, he realized that the driver had given him a dollar too much.
His first thought was, “The bus company will never miss this dollar.”
Then quickly came the realization that he could not keep money that did not belong to him. He made his way to the front and said to the driver, “You gave me too much change.
The bus driver smiled and replied, “Yes, a dollar too much. I gave it to you on purpose.
You see, I heard your sermon Sunday, and I watched in my mirror as you counted your change. Had you kept the dollar, I would never again have had any confidence in preaching.”
People are watching
People are listening
They want to know… do we really take our God seriously
They want to know… do you really love Jesus enough to live an honest and righteous kind of life
And What They’ll Think Of God… may very well depend upon what they see in us.
CLOSE: Sports Illustrated once carried the following story
The game was played in Wellington, Florida. In it, a 7-year-old first baseman, Tanner Munsey, fielded a ground ball and tried to tag a runner going from first to second base. The umpire, Laura Benson, called the runner out, but young Tanner immediately ran to her side and said, "Ma’am, I didn’t tag the runner." Umpire Benson reversed herself, sent the runner to second base, and Tanner’s coach gave him the game ball for his honesty.
Two weeks later, Laura Benson was again the umpire and Tanner was playing shortstop when a similar play occurred. This time Benson ruled that Tanner had missed the tag on a runner going to third base, and she called the runner safe.
Tanner looked at Benson and without saying a word, tossed the ball to the catcher and returned to his position.
Benson sensed something was wrong. "Did you tag that runner?" She asked Tanner.
His reply: "Yes."
Benson then called the runner out. The opposing coaches protested until she explained what had happened two weeks earlier. "If a kid is that honest," she said, "I have to give it to him."
The world looks at our lives, and they listen to our speech to determine whether we live our lives to glorify our God
When they hear us being honest… even when it causes us to suffer loss or pain
… if they can trust us to be honest in that kind of area of our lives
… THEN maybe they can trust us to speak truthfully about our faith in Christ.
OTHER SERMONS IN THIS “THAT AIN’T RIGHT” SERIES:
Damaging the Truth - Ephesians 4:17-4:32
Being Filled With the Spirit(s) - Ephesians 5:15-5:21
The Disease Of Jonah - Hebrews 12:14-12:17
It Was Just A Little Mistake - 1 Kings 13:1-13:32
Abuse of Power - Deuteronomy 18:9-18:14
