Sunday Sermon Matthew 5:33-37
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Are there any announcements?
Please pray for Mary Lewis and her family and friends. Bill passed away Saturday at 12:30pm.
Today is Potluck Sunday and everyone is invited after church! It is downstairs in the fellowship hall.
Good News! Mike, Eddie, and Art removed our stumps for us yesterday! A big thank you to them!
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning and welcome to FCC, where we worship God in Spirit and in Truth, one verse at a time, one Book at a time.
We have come as far as Matthew 5:33, so let us open out Bibles there and dive right in.
Read Matthew 5:33-37
Read Matthew 5:33-37
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
Prayer
Prayer
Lord Heavenly Father, we have come with expectation desiring to hear from you. So, please remove every distraction in our lives that could stop us from hearing from you, and worshipping you whole heartedly. Please rally around Mary Lewis, her family, her friends, and immerse them all, in your grace and love with the loss of Bill. Lord, even though we rejoice because he is with you now, we grieve because our brother is gone. Please comfort Mary and the family and may your peace surpass all understanding now.
In Jesus Name, We Love You! Amen!!!
Review
Review
Last week we looked closely at divorce in Matthew 5:31-32, and what Jesus had to say about it. And although, it was uncomfortable for us to look at this, it is necessary to study the whole counsel of God.
Thank you for your feedback and encouragement both here in person and from those listening online.
It is clear from Jesus’ teaching that the divorce rates were high, therefore Jesus spoke into this destructive dilemma and corrected the Pharisee’s teaching that was wrong.
Jesus set things in order that were wrong because men were divorcing their wives aa a rapid rate for just about anything under the sun.
We learned last week that there is only two reasons in the Word that are ground for divorce:
We learned last week that there is only two reasons in the Word that are ground for divorce:
Does anyone remember what they are?
Adultery, which is sexual immorality.
Abandonment.
However, even though Jesus gave these two reasons, we must never forget that God’s heart is always forgiveness and reconciliation when possible.
And No, God does not expect us to stay in a physically, emotionally, verbally, or sexually abusive home.
If this is going on in your life, or the life of someone you love, then please protect yourself and your children and separate for the sake of safety, healing, hope, forgiveness and reconciliation provided you both get help.
The goal is not divorce, the goal is forgiveness and reconciliation when possible!
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’
Let us remember that Jesus is teaching us what it means to be Kingdom people and his focus has been both vertical and horizontal, but here in verse 33 through the rest of the chapter, we will be focusing on our horizontal relationships.
Jesus gives us six examples of this in His sermon or six illustrations for us to follow as Kingdom people.
The religious leaders of the day were doing eisegesis, not exegesis .
They were teaching the text wrongly to benefit them.
They were all about external performance and the letter of the law and Jesus flips that tables of their hearts and says its about internal obedience and the spirit of the law.
So those Rabbi’s of old taught that you shall not swear falsely, but perform you oaths to the Lord.
Have you ever uttered an oath?
Have you ever verbally bound yourself, in a solemn and official way, to do a thing or fulfill a promise - calling upon God to bear witness to your words, and calling upon other people to bear witness to your pledge before God?
Have you failed to fulfill these?
We all have fallen short on fulfilling our promises or oaths if you may, and this is what we are going to talk about today.
Jesus is dealing with the sin of lying here church, and there are many ways that the people in his day were doing it and even though they did it then, we are still doing it now and it should not be so.
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 2243 Down Trend in U. S.
In 1924 Liberty magazine sent out 100 letters to people selected at random throughout the U.S., enclosing $1 bill, saying it was an adjustment of an error which the addressed had complained of—which really did not exist. Of the 100 recipients, 27 returned the dollar, saying it was a mistake.
Then in 1971, Liberty again conducted the same test. But now only 13 returned the money!
Has lying decreased in the US over the last decade? NO, it is at an all time high!
Just think of the political promises of our politicians over the years when they say they will not raise taxes and they do....
Church, lying is rooted in deception and deception is in our DNA as we inherited it from our parents Adam and Eve.
It is easy to tell one lie, but not easy to tell just one lie.
John Blanchard
There are six things which the Lord hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil, A false witness who utters lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers.
The OT does permit us to take oaths, even oaths in God’s name:
You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name.
Even in the NT we see Paul swearing by God’s name.
In particular he calls God as his witness:
For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers,
For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness—God is witness.
And there others times in the Pauline epistles that we see him doing this.
So lets go back to our text:
“Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ “But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. “Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
A "vow" is a solemn promise or pledge before God or before men; and an "oath" is the solemn, verbal appeal used toward God to bear witness that the vow will be kept or that the truth will be spoken.
At the heart of the whole idea of such things is the conviction that God truly is, and that He truly bears witness to what is said by us.
It's the idea that God truly is in heaven, that He takes very seriously the things we say, and that He is able to act to either enable us to keep our word or to take us to task for failing to do so.
And I suggest to you that what Jesus is dealing with in this morning's passage is the sinful belief that that's not really true. Whenever someone falsely utters an oath or insincerely takes a vow, they are behaving as if God were not really there or does not really bear witness to what is said.
Whenever we pledge ourselves to something or promise to do something or claim to be speaking the truth, but don't really mean what we say, we are actually expressing the belief that we're not ultimately accountable to God for our words.
Look at what Jesus taught about our words:
But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
But to utter an oath that we don't really mean, or to vow ourselves to something we don't really intend to do, is to deny what Jesus said about our words.
To utter an oath to make a promise falsely is to behave as if there is no God church for God hates lies!!!
Lying is a certain mark of cowardice.
Thomas Southerne
The whole world system is based on lies because it is under the sway of the wicked one and:
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
Satan is the Father of Lies church and Jesus is the Way , the Truth, and the Life.
Jesus exposes the lies in our hearts that have been sown by the wicked one and the Holy Spirit convicts us when we are lying or better yet how about when we exaggerate or flatter to make ourselves out to be something that we are not.
Basically, this text points to the Pharisaical traditions that grew up around the true meaning of the Law.
The Jews did not deny the law they just added to it or somehow went around it.
He who tells little lies, will soon think nothing of great ones, for the principle is the same.
John Ploughman’s Talk, Page 155
Charles Spurgeon
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black.
Jesus is using a composite of many verses form the OT here to make his point.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
And you shall not swear by My name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.
He does not say that we cannot swear by his name, but rather to not swear falsely church and that is what was going on in the days of Jesus.
Numbers 30:2. Deuteronomy 23:21-24 also.
Did you know that we are taking God’s name in vain when we profess to be a Christian, but way we live proves otherwise?
That means we act one way in church, but a different way in our homes, or our places of employment.
Is our private lives different than our public lives?
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black.
The Pharisee’s who here trying to keep the letter of law and legalistic, did everything they could do to not swear falsely by the name of the Lord by looking for loop holes.
Look at the text.
they swore by heaven
they swore by Jerusalem
and by their own heads, by the way, their was no hair color back in them days:)
For example, one Rabbi says that if you swear by Jerusalem you are not bound by your vow, but if you swear toward Jerusalem then you are bound by your vow.
When you have a system that has created loop holes to get around the law, then what happens is the oaths and vows that are given no longer foster truthfulness, but weaken the cause of truth and promote deceit.
He who permits himself to tell a lie once finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time till at length it becomes habitual.
Thomas Jefferson
Note two ideas here:
The principle of the Law then is to be honest.
The perversion of the Law is to find loop holes church.
When we go this route and try to keep the letter of the law, instead of the spirit we will seek to justify our sin.
Let’s not make promises that we cannot keep and let us remember that life and death are in the power of the tongue.
The greatest way we can avoid making oaths and vows that we cannot keep is by thinking before we speak.
Make our words few church and our actions many.
Do not be rash with your mouth, And let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth; Therefore let your words be few.
In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, But he who restrains his lips is wise.
According to Solomon, incessant talking leads to sin. This is not meant to be understood in a wooden, literal sense.
Rather, the point is that a wise person knows when to stop talking.
In fact, when in doubt, it's better not to speak than to say something one might regret later.
Church, much advice is given in Scripture about the importance of controlling one's speech.
The more words a man uses to convince us, the more suspicious we should be.
So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
God has given us two ears and one mouth for a reason.
He wants us to listen twice as much as we speak church.
Oaths, vows, and promises were God design to encourage truthfulness not to be deceitful like a salesman.
But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
Our words should be so solid that a simple yes or no should be sufficient.
The minute you have to say, “I swear!” They are not!
Jesus taught that our conversation should be so honest, and our character so true, that we would not need “crutches” to get people to believe us. Words depend on character, and oaths cannot compensate for a poor character.
A lie is a snowball. The longer it is rolled on the ground, the larger it becomes.
Martin Luther
How many of us exaggerate our stories to make ourselves look good?
How many of us say will do things and instead renege on these responsibilities?
How many of us give half-truths, which is not truth at all?
Look at what our final verse says:
But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
Note: When we fail to fulfill our vows and oaths we lie and guess where this lying comes from church>>> The evil one!!!!
May we be people of the Book that have integrity and that fulfill our promises!
Praise God we serve a God that cannot lie and his promises are yes and amen!
Prayer
Prayer
Lord God, here we are at another text that has convicted our hearts, we ask that you would forgive us for lying at times and for not fulfilling the promises and commitments that we have made. Please help us to let our yes be yes, and our no be no as you lead. Make our words be few and our actions be many. Please father set a coal upon our lips that the only thing that exits our mouths are words that glorify you. Bless our fellowship now and we break bred together!
In Jesus Name, We Love You! Amen!
“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” ’
THE LORD BLESS YOU!
YOUR MISSION STARTS NOW!