4 – What Would Jesus Say Today About Truth Telling

by Jeff Fry

Darwin Park Community Church

Thesis: We must not allow lies and deception to creep into our life.

I.       Intro

A.   Review

1.     What would Jesus say today about anger?

a)    Over 50% of counseling problems in christian counseling offices have to do with unforgiveness

b)    Urgency to reconciling with people/brother

(1)  Talk to the person we are angry with

(2)  Forgive

(3)  Hypocrisy of worshipping a forgiving God and yet not forgiving your brother

(4)  Harbouring unforgiveness while trying to open up your heart to God in worship will not work

(5)  Integrity of heart

2.     What would Jesus say today about purity of thought?

a)    Today there are oh so many opportunities to set our minds on things that are impure

(1)  with the internet porn has come into the home on demand

(2)  looking at porn is  seen as betrayal by spouses esp. wives.

(3)  Drastic measures must be taken to avoid impure thoughts – do what you have to do as long as it doesn’t involve sin (gouge out your eye, cut off your right hand)

b)    God  is holy, pure – we must be like him (imitators of God says Ephesians).

3.     What would Jesus say today about injustice?

a)    Don’t resist an evil person

b)    Doesn’t mean to be a doormat which perpetrates evil or enables disfunction, but means that we should not be a scrooge, tight-fisted, stingy.

c)     Generous God, we should be generous too.

B.   Examples:

1.     Bill Clinton’s impeachment by the House in 1998 due to his inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky and his giving false testimony while under oath about the relationship.

2.     MP Expenses Scandal: Recently in the news we have seen what a lack of truth-telling and deceit can do to a person and to even a whole political system. 

C.   This Week:  Christ-followers must not allow lies and deception to creep into their lives.

II.    Christ-followers must not allow lies and deception to creep into their lives.

A.   State

1.     Read passage (Mt 5:33-37) & Background

a)    What is the context?

(1)  Set again within the context of the sermon on the mount.

(a)    Theme: kingdom of heaven and the values of the new kingdom that Christ has started with His coming.

(b)   Jesus doesn’t abolish the OT Law but redefines it and reinterprets it with a greater authority.

b)    To whom is Jesus talking?

(1)  Primarily to the disciples, but the crowd is in the background (seekers)

(a)    Therefore it is also a form of evangelizing the crowd by finding those who want to live by kingdom values and follow Christ

2.     “Again you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep oaths you have made to the Lord’.

a)    This quote of Jesus’ is not a direct verse from the OT but a summary of the verses in the OT on the topic of oaths.

(1)  Leviticus 19:12 “Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God.  I am the Lord”.

(2)  Numbers 30:2 “When a man makes a vow to the Lord and takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.”

3.     But I tell you do not swear at all …

a)    The antithesis by Jesus (opposite) is that we shouldn’t swear at all

b)    What does this mean?

(1)  Does it mean that we should never take any oaths (e.g. in a court of law)?

(a)    No, because according to 1 Corinthians we are to obey the governing authorities who sometimes require oaths to be take in a court of law.

(b)   Paul in Scripture swears by God’s name : he calls God as his witness in Romans 1:9; 2 Cor. 1:23, etc.

c)     Oaths in Jesus’ day

(1)  In Jesus’ day the OT idea of an oath was being abused.  People used the idea of an oath to excuse themselves of telling the truth and keeping their word.

(a)    By Jesus’ time, the Mishnah, the Jewish code of law, had a whole tract on oaths – when they were binding and when they weren’t. 

(b)   For example, one Rabbi said if you swear an oath BY Jerusalem then you are not bound by your oath, but if you swear an oath toward Jerusalem, then you are bound by your vow. 

(c)    This no longer upholds truth, it diminishes it and that’s why Jesus says “but I tell you do not swear at all”.

(i)      It’s too important to play games with.

(ii)    If you undermine truth, you undermine the character of God

(iii)   Because God doesn’t lie.  Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should change His mind”

d)    Truth-telling is the basis of relationships because what you say either builds trusts in a relationship or breaks down trust in a relationship.

(1)  Truth-telling builds trust

(2)  Deceit breaks down trust

(3)  All kingdom values in the sermon on the mount uphold values which give life and build up society and are good for society, while Satan, the Father of lies, upholds values which destroy, tear down and diminish the very fabric that gives communities of people life. 

(4)  That’s why true community and true societies have to be built on kingdom values, otherwise they lead to destruction.

(a)    If a car is broken and you could take it to anyone in the world to diagnose the problem the best person to take it to would be the one who made it.  A broken model-T ford I’d take to Henry Ford to fix because he knows how every inch of it works.

4.     “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.”

a)    God is behind each of these examples that Jesus gives

(1)  Heaven is God’s home

(2)  Earth is also God’s

(3)  Jerusalem is God’s city in the sense that the Jews had dedicated it as their holy city where the temple where God dwells is.

(4)  Only God controls the color of our hair, not us.

b)    Everything you say you say in the presence of God so you should always speak the truth.

c)     There should be no need for an oath to strengthen truthfulness which should always be our motto when speaking.

5.     “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

a)    In Jesus’ context this was the best way to speak because oaths were used to undermine truthfulness, not support it and encourage it.

b)    If men are going to play games with oaths like that then Jesus will just abolish oaths. 

c)     Jesus is interested in truthfulness, integrity.

B.   Illustrate

1.     it is clear that this dedication to truthfulness made a big impact on the early church as the first New Testament letter , the letter of James, reiterates this exact teaching of Jesus.

2.     Essenes

a)    They were a Jewish sect from 2bc – 1ad who were dedicated to living the Jewish religious life including asceticism, poverty and abstinence from worldly pleasures including marriage. 

(1)  They had a lot wrong

(2)  But at least one thing right: truthfulness

Josephus, a historian of that time, writes:  “Any word of theirs has more force than an oath; swearing they avoid, regarding it as worse than perjury, for they say that one who is not believed without an appeal to God stands condemned already^”

(a)    Reputation, character is everything

C.   Apply

1.     Today Jesus would say to us: We must be careful not to say ‘yes’ out of courtesy and politeness while knowing that we will never follow-through on something. 

a)    Sometimes things come up and that is life but I am talking about when you agree to something but in your heart you have no intention of following through  - that’s wrong and that is what Jesus is railing against here.

b)    Better just to be honest and say ‘no’. 

c)     Again, like throughout this sermon on the mount, with Jesus it is a matter of the integrity of our hearts

(1)  Slippery Slope: If you compromise the integrity of your heart once then the next time gets easier and easier and it becomes a slippery slope.  Jesus knows this and wants us to guard against it.

2.      

III.  Conclusion

A.   I was once with Michael Fabricant, MP from Lichfield.  He relayed to me a story of a local man running for local government office.  The man owned a shop in town here.  And Fabricant told the story of how this man mentioned to one person before the local election , “If you vote for me I’ll give you a free ……”.   Fabricant told him right there on the spot, “Don’t do that … never do that”.

1.     Michael Fabricant told me that he is the son of a Rabbi.

2.     maybe that’s why Michael Fabricant couldn’t be touched when the expenses scandal came out!

B.   Best to tell the truth even if it won’t be popular or if you will have to pay a price for it.

1.      because remember you are in the presence of God who is a God of truth and your witness for Him is more important than any amount of money, any number of votes, any amount of popularity

2.     And you’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that your conscience is clear.