Introduction:
If I'm Going to Tell the Truth: (James 5:12)
- I must understand Truth is the highest priority .
- I must stop Seaking Deceptively .
Matthew 5:33-37
Matthew 23:16-19
- I must speak Honestly .
- I must reckon with the Consequences for lying .
Matthew 5:34-37
- I must do What is true .
Colossians 3:9 - Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.
Ephesians 4:25 - Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
Matthew 7:12 - So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
1 John 2:3-6 - And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Good morning, beloved. We are coming to the end of our study in the book of James.
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So if you would turn to James chapter 5, that's where we're going to pick up at verse 12.
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If you don't have a Bible with you, there's one in the seat back. We know the print is kind of small, but it is a step up from the entire scripture engraved on a grain of rice.
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And we do have more large print Bibles in the back, the hardbound ones back there, so feel free to go back and get one of the larger print versions.
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All right, I hope you're all there at James chapter 5, and as we kind of customarily do, if you would pray for me, and I will pray for you. Let's pray.
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Oh gracious Father, it's somewhat ironic to me that you would appoint an inveterate liar like me to preach a sermon on the truth, but we must preach your truth.
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Father, you and I have talked almost every day about what this sermon would be.
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And I pray that we hear not my words, but only your word. For your word is truth.
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Your word gives life. Your word sanctifies us.
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And I pray, Lord, in every heart this morning, you would plant your word deeply.
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Give everyone listening, whether here in person or watching from home or on their computer, Father, plant your truth deep within us, that we may know truth in our inmost parts.
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We ask in the great name of our Savior Jesus. Amen.
03:02-03:45
So James chapter 5 verse 12, we have a single verse this morning, "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. We live in a culture so awash in lies it is nearly impossible to know what is true. Advertisers claim that using their product it will vastly improve your life. The media outlets and the talk shows and the view, they will spin events and use words to promote the agenda they want you to believe.
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Celebrities and politicians issue apologies worded so carefully they do not acknowledge responsibility and they don't even actually apologize. And of course politicians, they will say anything and everything to get votes and to demonize and destroy their opponents and agitate their electoral base.
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We're told the economy's doing great, the border's secure, the climate crisis and white heterosexual males, greatest threats to human existence right now.
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Men can be birthing people, but killing a pre-born child, that's an act of love.
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The scientific data says stay six feet apart.
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And the riots have been mostly peaceful.
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And in case you hadn't heard, the Secretary of Defense has been working from home.
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The list is endless.
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White lies, fibs, half-truths, exaggeration, spin, evasion, partial disclosure, concealment, bluffing, deception, hypocrisy, bald-faced, outrageous lies saturate every level and aspect of our culture.
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And it's all designed to manipulate and to mislead and manage you in some way.
05:12-05:19
We almost expect to be lied to and maybe we think at some level it's okay for us to lie.
05:20-06:44
We may not give what we say a whole lot of thought. We might be kind of careless with our words and we may not even recognize we're lying. And you know we only get upset about it when someone lies to us, when those lies affect us personally. I was once involved in a lawsuit over a government contract and I was representing the US Army. The Army had canceled the contract because the company had basically failed to perform over two and a half years. And throughout the contract performance the Army's contracting officer and the government inspectors had a very difficult time getting straight answers out of the two brothers who owned the company. Now the brothers were Hasidic Jews and you might ask well how did a couple of Hasidic Jews get a government contract? That's a long story I can tell you afterwards if you're interested, but these two brothers had all kinds of excuses for why they were unable to perform the contract. Well during the time the army was trying to get them to perform, one of the government inspectors confronted one of the brothers about, shall we say, his unreliable answers, and the brother responded, "John, I would never lie to you.
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I may mislead you, I may deceive you, I may conceal things from you, but I would never lie to you." And now a story about making, you know, fine distinctions about the truth might be kind of amusing, but if we examine ourselves as we're going to do this morning, we will realize we're not a whole lot different. But we're supposed to be different. We are supposed to be truthful, we are called to be truthful. As disciples of Christ, we are to put away falsehood and speak the truth to one another. That is what James 5.12 is all about, how to tell the truth.
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So, if I'm going to tell the truth, I must understand that truth is the highest priority. James begins, "But above all, my brothers." Just a quick note, "brothers" there, the Greek word can be "brothers" and "sisters." It's not just the the male believers. He says, "But above all, my brothers and sisters." So let's stop there. What James is about to say must be important. The Greek rendered "above all" means above and before. It is the first thing, the main thing, and it applies to all of us. James uses the phrase "therefore" in his letter six times and he says things like, "Know this, listen my brothers, and behold." So he's emphasized things before, but what is different about this verse? And is it connected to that he just said, say the verses we spoke about last week? Is it connected to anything else in his letter? It seems to me that this is the capstone of his whole letter. It sums up and emphasizes all of his points so far. Have you noticed in this series, in the letter actually, have you noticed in James' letter how frequently James emphasizes speaking, usually as a source of sin and problems, and relationship conflict. It's not just the passages on the tongue either. So I'm not I'm not going to review all the sermons that have been preached but I encourage you when you read James to note how often he uses words like ask, say, boast, speak, grumble, and mouth. James is very interested in how we talk. This reveals what is in our hearts. What we say reveals what we think of God and what we think of other people. As James begins to sum up his letter, he practically shouts it, "But above all, my brothers and sisters, this is the highest priority of the Christian life. This is the main thing for you to know." So we had better pay attention to this main thing. Well, what is that main thing? He says, "Do not swear either by heaven or by earth or any other oath." So if I'm going to tell the truth, I must stop speaking deceptively. And when James says, "Do not swear," he's not talking about cussing and using bad words, although we should certainly stop swearing in that way too. James is talking about swearing that involves making a promise to do something and then confirming that promise with an oath appealing to a higher authority, meaning that there will be consequences for breaking my promise.
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James' brother Jesus also preached on swearing in the Sermon on the Mount, and chapter 5, verses 33 through 37. "Again, you have heard it was said to those of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.' But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king and do not take an oath by your head for you cannot make one hair white or black let what you say simply be yes or no anything more than this comes from evil the old covenant did not prevent swearing an oath or prohibit swearing an oath and often making a sincere oath and keeping it was considered a righteous thing to do. Yet both James and Jesus tell us, "Do not swear at all." Why? Well, it's likely because of the way people at the time made oaths. They were swearing falsely and deceptively. They were doing it in a way that left a loophole or gave them a way out. In short, they wanted to be able to weasel out of their promises that they made. Let's look for a moment at how oaths were taken in first century Israel. The Jews were to take their oaths only in the name of God, Yahweh, but any sensible Jew who had little or no intention of keeping a promise is not going to take an oath in the name of Yahweh because doing so would most certainly call down judgment from heaven on his head when he broke his oath. So people supposed they could swear by something else, something less, that still sounded weighty, like the throne rather than the name of God. The Jews had developed such a sophisticated system of swearing oaths that Jesus criticized the lawyers and religious leaders who enforced it. Let's look at Matthew chapter 23. Jesus says, "Woe to you blind guides who say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath. You blind fools, which is greater, the gold of the temple, that has made the gold sacred?" Excuse me, let me start over. "Which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?" And you say, "If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing. But if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath. You blind men, for which is greater the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?" We might imagine a conversation in first century Judea between Ishka Bibel and Shlomo when their agreement falls apart. "Shlomo, last week you swore to me by the temple that you would buy all of my sheep today for a thousand shekels and now you say you will only pay 700. Yes Ish, but I didn't swear by the gold in in the temple. And what's more important, the temple or all its sacred gold?
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And besides, all your sheep are diseased. I am released from my promise.
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Unless you think I'm picking on Jewish people, I am not. Some of my ancestors are Jewish.
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So why are you telling us this, Rich? It's kind of amusing, but it's hardly relevant to me.
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I've never sworn an oath in my life like Shlomo and Ish, but you have and you do.
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It just looks a little different from first century Judaism. We make oaths and vows and pledges often. When two people get married, they vow before God to love one another for so long as they live, and when someone testifies in court, they take an oath under penalty of perjury to To tell the truth, so help me God.
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When you take out a car loan or a mortgage, don't listen to that, Alex.
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When you take out a car loan or a mortgage, you vow to pay it back, because if you don't, the law is going to come looking for you.
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If you were a scout, you took an oath on your honor.
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If you serve or have served in the military or as a police officer or as a public servant, took an oath of office.
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And I know one vow, a pledge, that almost every single person in this room has taken. Do you want to start it with me?
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I pledge allegiance to the flag, right? Yeah, we take oaths, we just don't recognize them as such. And those are all positive examples of oaths. The majority of people taking them do so sincerely. But here's some other examples of the way we take oaths, some not so sincere. Have you ever noticed how often people preface something with "to be honest" or "if I'm being honest" or "I got to be honest with you" or "I'm not gonna lie to you" or "to tell the truth" or "actually" we say that one in our house a lot. Actually, why do we feel the need to say such things if we are in fact going to tell the truth? Are we not in effect taking an oath by attempting to puff up our character for truthfulness in the eyes of another person? And yet when we hear such things, when people say that kind of stuff to us, our lie detectors are activated and we're immediately on our guard. Do you remember the kind of things we did as kids, right? If we made a solemn promise or sworn to secrecy, we would pinky swear, right? Or we would say, "Cross my heart and hope to die.
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Stick a finger in your eye." Do kids still do this stuff? Am I showing my age?
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Am I showing how old I am? Right? But we would do that stuff, and then what also would we do? We got our fingers crossed behind our back. Because if I give me an out, if I broke my promise, why that gives me an out? I don't know. It just did.
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We see this with marriage today. I promise to love you and cherish you for so long as we both shall live, but sign this prenuptial agreement in case I fall in love with somebody else. We try to make deals with others to manage and manipulate them. "Honey, I swear I won't buy any more clothes on credit. If I do, you can cut up all our credit cards." "But I still have my own credit card and I'll make ATM withdrawals to buy clothes." "Babe, I swear this is the last time I will look at that website. If I do, you can disconnect the internet." She's not going to disconnect the internet. And you're just gonna go look at porn on your phone or you'll search with stealth mode. I swear that's the last drink I'll ever take, or I'm sorry I promise this is the last time I will hurt you. Okay, you promised that before. Were you telling the truth then or are you telling the truth now? Are you lying then or are you lying now? Or we try to make deals with God. Lord, if you will just let me win this jackpot. I swear I'll never play the lottery again." But I got FanDuel downloaded on my phone. All right, God, if you'll just change him and fix our relationship, I promise I'll change too, I swear. And of course, that immediately goes out the window as soon as the next argument starts. James precisely because it so often involves duplicity and loopholes that allow us to weasel out of a promise. We too must cease swearing in the form of worthless promises and vainly puffing up our character for truthfulness. So if I'm going to tell the truth, I must speak honestly. It would be good at this point to ask, "Well, if James is so concerned with truthfulness, as you claim brunk, why didn't he just say, "But above all, my brothers, always tell the truth.
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Above all, be truthful." Well, there's perhaps several reasons. One, because oath-taking was a real problem for Jewish believers. Two, because those Jewish believers might have said, "Tell the truth? No problem, I'm a truthful person." But a third reason might be the most important, because oath-taking is evidence of a heart problem. What does the prophet Jeremiah tell us?
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The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Throughout his letter, James has driven home the fact that what we say reveals what is in our heart.
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The opposite of speaking deceptively is to let your yes be yes and your no be no. Well is that all there is to it? Just answer yes or no? Will that take care of your heart condition? I suppose if we took a poll at the door and asked people as they came in, do you consider yourself to be a truthful person? Almost everyone who entered this morning would have said yes. And why would you say that Christian? Maybe your answer would simply be, well I always try to tell the truth. Or maybe your reasoning goes something like this, the truth is found in Christ, I believe in Christ, and Christ is in me, therefore I've become a more truthful person. Do you know what that makes you?
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A living, breathing, walking, talking oath. If you profess to be a follower of Jesus, You are always under oath. You are obligated to tell the truth always and in everything.
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How are you doing in that department?
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I have to confess my original ideas for this sermon were all lofty, kind of philosophical musings about the truth, you know, very 30,000 foot level stuff. And This notion that I am always under oath pulled me up short and brought me under a strong conviction. To preach to you, I had to admit to myself that in many of the things I say, I am not telling the truth. And it's not just me, because as I said, we grow up in a culture accustomed to lying, and we all rationalize and justify our own lies. I looked to that fount of all truth and wisdom, the Internet, for some statistics. Do you know the average American lies three times a day? There was a study in Great Britain that revealed that men lie an average of six times a day while women average three lies a day.
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Three lies a day equals about 90 lies a month and that's 1,080 lies a year.
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Multiply that by your current age and that amounts to a lot of weaseliness.
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The majority of survey respondents said they lie, usually little white lies, in order to avoid conflict or avoid hurting someone's feelings.
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75% of the respondents in the British survey said it was acceptable to lie to spare someone's feelings.
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That's probably a lie in itself, isn't it? Because the reality is people lie to protect themselves and their own self-image. Let's look at some common lies. What do you think the number one lie is?
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The number one lie that's told, any guesses?
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"I'm fine, it's fine, I'm fine," or "I'm fine, I'm fine, just leave me alone, I'm fine." You hear those words and you know everything is wrong.
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Everything's wrong, nothing is fine, but yet we say that to either, "I'm fine, now I want you to bend the knee and come groveling and figure out why I'm what's really the problem," right? See, we say those kinds of things to manipulate people. How about its close cousin? "Nothing's wrong, why should anything be wrong?" Why, everything is wrong. You need to figure out what it is. How about excuses? Do we ever tell excuses? Do you know what an excuse is? An excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. I don't know why but that makes me think of those little cocktail wieners. An excuse is just about as appetizing. So what do we say? "I'm sorry I'm late. I ran into to some traffic. I didn't leave until just like five minutes before our appointment, but there was traffic, right? Oh hey, sorry I didn't reply. I didn't see your message. I just swiped and deleted it. How about this one? We're so busy. We've got so much going on. Hey, I got to jump on another call because I'm tired of talking to you. How about flattery? Have you ever flatter anybody? "You look great! You haven't changed a bit!" Exaggeration. This is my favorite. This is my favorite exaggeration. I hear it all the time. Frankly, I hear people say it to their kids. "You, that was awesome! You're awesome dude! You graduated from fifth grade.
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Graduation wasn't even a, fifth grade wasn't even a thing when I was a kid." Right? How about this one? This is a good one. "I went to church with Najee Harris." Okay, he came in one time and he sat in the back row and Then he left when he realized that he was in the wrong church But I went to church with Najee Harris How sincere are we in what we say to others every day How much of what you say to others shades the truth to put you in a good light to protect or enhance your reputation?
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What do you say to persuade someone that you are a trustworthy person an upright person a reliable person a likable person How much of what you say is designed to manipulate or manage others in some way?
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And you're willing to lie to them to bend them to your purpose How much of what you say is a lie intended to end an unpleasant or uncomfortable conversation to make an excuse, to delay an undesirable outcome. Do you exaggerate or flatter to manipulate people? We must stop speaking this way and speak honestly.
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Here are some things to think about before opening your mouth again. Check your motives. Why do I want to say what I'm about to say? Is it self-serving? Is pure? Is it loving? Is it necessary? Is it true? Check your emotions. Remember, we are to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. If you're agitated or angry, it's probably best not to speak until you've cooled off. Choose your words carefully. Make them simple and sincere. Make sure they are accurate. Don't exaggerate or use words that blow things out of proportion. You always and you never are unhelpful and most likely untrue. It might be more accurate to say sometimes or there are times when you haven't done such-and-such. And as I said, not everything is awesome What words do you have to describe the Lord God Almighty if your new truck rims or your latest manicure is awesome?
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And you don't really love everything that you say you do I Love ice cream. I love my mom. I Love my pet. I love Jesus. I Think you get the point And while you are learning to choose your words carefully, work on increasing your vocabulary so that you have fitting words to use in every occasion.
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So how are we doing?
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You still convinced you're a truthful person?
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So much more truthful than the readers of James' letter who needed this upbraiding?
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much more truthful that you don't need to hear anything more? But wait, there is more. If I'm going to tell the truth, I must reckon with the consequences for lying. James concludes the verse so that you may not fall under condemnation.
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Many of the commentators I read on this verse don't even touch this. Don't want touch it. If you have a study Bible, look in your notes and see if there's a note on condemnation. But there it is, and we have to grapple with it. This is a strong word in the Greek, "krisis," and it means judgment, libel to punishment, or as translated in the ESV, "condemnation." What does James mean by this? He means that if you're careless with your words, if you're a chronic liar, there will be consequences. But condemnation? Is he saying I'll experience eternal damnation for lying? Well, Satan is a liar and the father of lies and he will be spending eternity in the lake of fire. If you're not a believer in Jesus and you're a compulsive liar, well then yes, you're going to be spending eternity with your father the devil. But James is writing to believers. Romans 8 says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's very true. Your sins are all forgiven. But that does not change the fact that lying lips are an abomination to God. Pastor Jeff talked about this same thing last week. There will be a day of judgment for believers and each one of us will have to give an account for our works and our words. There will be rewards given for righteousness and and rewards forfeited for sinful behavior.
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Make a note, first Corinthians 3 verses 11 through 15.
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First Corinthians 3 11 through 15. Maybe you can talk about those verses in your small group this week.
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And yet we keep on sinning with our mouths.
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Jesus had something to say about this to the Pharisees. He said in Matthew chapter 23, "You brood of vipers, how can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good person out of all his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak. For by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned." There's two things to note here. First, the way we speak is a litmus test of our salvation.
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Pastor Jeff mentioned last week that how a person handles money reveals much about their spiritual condition. So also with our words. Out of the abundance of one's heart the mouth speaks. What you say reveals a great deal about your heart and how seriously you follow Jesus. We need to set a guard over our lips. We need to cry out to God to give us clean hearts, to help us keep our tongues from speaking evil and our lips from speaking lies. Second, Jesus says we're going to have to give an account for every careless word.
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And yet we keep on sinning with our mouths.
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You know what a swear jar is?
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Anybody have a swear jar?
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It's like a jar.
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And people, every time they swear, they put some money in the jar.
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And then when they get enough money saved up, they have a party or they go on vacation.
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I don't know about you, but giving yourself reward seems counterintuitive if the goal is to reduce swearing. Well, if you keep on swearing with your mouth, you won't have a swear jar on the day of judgment when you have to give an account for your words. You may have a dumpster and it's going to be filled with 50 and 100 dollar bills and it's gonna be on fire. You will forfeit the reward you could have had from speaking the truth in all circumstances. You may say, "Rich, aren't you just kind of overstating things here? A dumpster fire, really?" Let me ask you, does Jesus, your God and Savior, tell the truth? Does he take telling the truth seriously? Do you know of any scriptures that give us license to lie, mislead, or manipulate with our words? Do you know of any righteousness ever produced in this world in your life as a result of lies? May God impress on our minds the seriousness of speaking truth so that we will have no reason to be ashamed of our words now or on the day of judgment. We must stop sinning with our mouths and speak honestly. Now that's the end of the verse and I could finish right there. We don't want to end there do we? This sermon is about how to tell the truth and we need to change in this area of our walk. So if I'm going to tell the truth I must do what is true. But I do my best to tell the truth. I'm living my truth. I always tell the truth from a certain point of view. That's the problem, isn't it? We have been bombarded with ideas that the truth is relative, that it's cultural, it's a construct. So if I tell the truth most of the time and especially about important things, well I'm doing better than the average bear.
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It makes me think Yogi Bear was pretty deceitful most of the time. But this is the conventional wisdom, isn't it? And as we learned in a previous sermon, wisdom like this is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. If we want to be truthful and we are commanded to do so, we have to know where to find truth. Well, good news. We which tells us truth is a person. Jesus Christ. And he said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." And Jesus points us back to Scripture to know the truth. He said, "Sanctify them in the truth.
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your word is truth." So from Scripture we know that Jesus is the truth and he affirms the Scriptures are the truth. Oh, so I just need to know what's in the Bible to tell the truth? No, you need to do what is commanded to tell the truth.
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Now Jesus modeled this for us. He obeyed God's Word perfectly. He kept the whole law and never sinned in what he said or did. He only spoke what he heard from his father and he only did what he saw his father doing. When Jesus was debating with some of the Jews, he said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does that the Son does likewise. So if you want to be truthful you must imitate Jesus and like him do what God commands. Now have we not heard this before in James letter right? You can repeat it with me. Be a doer of the word and not a hearer only. So what commands are we to obey? All of them. All of them. So that means you must read and study your Bible. There's no substitute for renewing your mind with God's Word. But relating to our speech and its effect on our relationships, here are a few pertinent commands. Colossians 3:9 do not lie to one another seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. Ephesians 425, therefore having put away falsehood let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members of one another. And then Matthew 7 12, whatever you wish that others would do to you do also to them for this is the law and the prophets." I mean really, do you like it when people lie to you? I don't think I have to answer that question. This is not legalism. This is what love looks like. Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Obedience is proof of our faith and proof that we truly know and love God. Let's look at 1st John 2 3 through 6. "By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, 'I know him,' but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word in him, truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he, Jesus, walked." Again, this is not about trying to keep God's commandments to earn his approval to get into heaven. You cannot earn God's approval by doing good works. You can only gain eternal life by recognizing right now that you're a sinner and that your sins have separated you from your creator. Your sin has put you squarely under God's wrath, but this is the good news.
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Jesus Christ died for sinners. He obediently gave his life for sinners on the cross. He was buried and he rose again on the third day. All of that according to the scriptures.
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and he did that to give eternal life to everyone who repents and believes in him.
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There is salvation in nothing and no one else, for there's no other name but Jesus, given among men under heaven, by which we must be saved. If you are concerned about your eternal soul, you need first and foremost to obey the command to repent and believe in Jesus.
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If you've never done this, come talk to me, talk to Jeff, talk to Taylor, talk to one of our elders.
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And if you're sincerely obeying and doing what God has commanded, what do you have to lie about?
41:58-42:25
You will be doing the truth, thus you will be telling the truth. You'll have nothing to hide, no reputation of your own to protect, no longer will you be using or manipulating people with your words. And beloved, when we do sin with our mouth and we wrong another, we need to be quick to ask for forgiveness immediately. You see, that's the wonderful thing about life in Christ.
42:26-42:39
He's always present to forgive, to correct, and to help us obey. You see, you will be speaking the truth because you will be doing what is true. Your yes will sincerely be yes.
42:40-43:22
Your no will be straightforward and honestly no. You won't need to preface what you say with phrases like, "not gonna lie to you," because you will have so much integrity. People will believe what you say. Your word will be your bond. You will be imitating Jesus Christ, who in love did everything his father commanded, and you will not fall under condemnation, but you will have a great reward." As our worship team comes forward and we conclude this message, we need to realize that a message like this requires a definite response.
43:24-43:42
We have seen how we speak is of the highest importance to God, who spoke everything into existence, who speaks to us through his creation, who speaks to us through his word, who in these last days has spoken to us by his Son, who always speaks what is true.
43:44-43:50
What commitment will you make today and this week in response to God's word?
43:51-43:51
Will it be?
43:52-43:54
I'll try to be more truthful.
43:56-43:59
Well, you might as well say, "I'll do my best to lie less.
43:59-44:04
Cross my heart, hope to die." Because that means you're still a liar, doesn't it?
44:06-44:08
Beloved, that is not for us.
44:08-44:10
For us, there is only one response.
44:11-44:15
My Lord and my God, I will tell the truth.
44:17-44:17
Let's pray.
44:19-44:42
Our gracious, loving Father, our truth and our life, again I ask, plant your word deep in our hearts, convict us of your truth so that we will be always and ever truth tellers in all we say, all we do, all we think.
44:43-44:51
And I pray that you would help us each day to become more and more like our Savior Jesus Christ.
44:52-44:54
And it's in His name we pray, amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read James 5:12
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What are some reasons we may not take our responsibility to tell the truth seriously? How valid are those reasons?
What are some excuses people make to minimize the wrongfulness of lying?
What types of lies are you most prone to telling? For example, exaggeration, excuse making, stonewalling (“I’m fine”), etc.?
Does the connection between keeping the Lord’s commands and being truthful make it simpler or harder to tell the truth? (1 John 2:3-6; Matthew 7:12)
Breakout
Pray that the Lord will impress on our hearts the imperative to be truthful, and that as a congregation we will be committed to telling the truth in love..
