Watch Your Words

Go ahead and open your Bibles to Matthew 5 again this morning as we continue our walk through the Sermon on the Mount.

As you are turning there, can you glance up at the screen for a second, and someone tell me who this is: <show picture>

This is Horton the Elephant, one of the most beloved characters ever created by Dr. Seuss.

Now, it is my understanding that Dr. Seuss wasn’t a Christian, but Horton’s is known for several catch phrases that actually fit well for citizens of Jesus’ kingdom.

What are some of those phrases?

The key one I want to focus on this morning is this one: <second picture>

“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful 100%.”

The quote comes from the story Horton Hatches the Egg, where he commits to sitting on a nest until the egg is hatched. In spite of ridicule and opposition, he keeps his word and is faithful to the end.

It’s a great kids story that we use to teach them the importance of integrity and keeping their word, but I wonder if that is a lesson we need to remember as adults.

Apparently, it is, because that’s the lesson Jesus is going to give us today.

He isn’t talking about sitting on eggs while the momma bird goes on vacation; instead, Jesus is telling us that citizens of his kingdom must be people of their word.

In fact, if you catch nothing else from this message, I want to challenge you to serve Jesus well by becoming a man or woman of your word.

We see this in Matthew 5:33-37, so let’s read it together.

Just like with previous sections, Jesus starts with an Old Testament teaching that had been corrupted.

He is establishing the patterns of behavior that should characterize those who are citizens of his kingdom.

To clarify, Jesus isn’t talking about “swearing” here as in using inappropriate or vulgar language, although that is something we are to avoid according to passages like Ephesians 4:28.

The Old Testament teaching he was referring to here was things like:

Numbers 30:2 CSB

When a man makes a vow to the Lord or swears an oath to put himself under an obligation, he must not break his word; he must do whatever he has promised.

Remember, the Pharisees and religious leaders in Jesus’ day were experts at keeping the Law, so they looked at those verses and said, “Okay, if I make a vow to the Lord, I will have to keep it. Instead, I will swear by something else so I can break it if it doesn’t work out.”

In other words, they wouldn’t say, “I swear to God,” because that was binding. They would say, “I swear by heaven or by the earth or by Jerusalem or by my head,” because those things didn’t matter as much.

As ridiculous as it may sound, that’s how they approached oaths.

What is Jesus’ response? The expectation of his followers is that they would live lives of such integrity that their words could be trusted without having to give some external assurance.

As followers of Jesus, our lives are supposed to back up our words so there is no doubt that we will do what we say we will do.

Here’s the question: is that true of you?

Our lives should always back up our words if we are citizens of his kingdom.

In fact, that really is the theme that covers through this week and the following two passages as well.

For today, though, let’s look at some of the specifics of what Jesus tells us about watching our words.

He outlines for us two main reasons why we need to watch our words:

1) Watch your words because everything belongs to God.

Look back at verse 34.

Again, let me remind you what the Pharisees were doing.

They knew God said that if we swore by him it was binding, so they decided to swear by stuff that they didn’t really think he was directly involved in.

It sounds kinda smart on the surface, doesn’t it? “If I pick the right combination, I can keep the Law, I can make it sound impressive, and I can convince the other person I am serious, but if I back out, it isn’t a big deal.”

Your neighbor asks you to come help him at harvest time, and you say, “I swear by heaven that I will help you.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? But in their mind, that gave them an out.

What does Jesus say? Heaven is God’s throne, so that’s out. The earth is God’s footstool, so that’s out too. Jerusalem is his special city, so I can’t do that either!

Cool, so does that mean I can swear by the city of Chicago?

No! That misses the point: the fundamental error they made is the same one we make: we put God into a limited compartment.

You are here, or you are taking time to watch this service, which is fantastic that you are devoting time to worship and studying God’s word.

Here’s the question, though: do you recognize God’s presence and activity in the rest of your life as much as you do with what happens at 11:00 on Sundays?

I know recently these have been the same location, but God is present in your house, in your car, in your classroom, and at your job.

He isn’t just with you at church, he is present in all of creation at all time.

David said this in reflecting on it:

Psalm 139:7–12 CSB

Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I live at the eastern horizon or settle at the western limits, even there your hand will lead me; your right hand will hold on to me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will be night”— even the darkness is not dark to you. The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to you.

There is absolutely no place in all of creation where God isn’t present.

The Pharisees knew that, but they acted like it wasn’t true.

By placing different levels of value on their oaths, they put God in a box and acted like he didn’t really impact the rest of it.

Listen, guys: as we have seen throughout our series on the Sermon on the Mount this year, if you have been saved, then you have been drawn to God through Christ and now are called to live like he is the Lord, the Leader, the King of your life.

He isn’t just the king of your church stuff or even the king of the 15 minutes you read the Bible and pray once a day; he is the king over every aspect of every moment of everything you are.

That changes a lot of things, doesn’t it?

At the very least, it ought to change the way we use our words.

Many of us have been ordering things online from Amazon or other retailers.

I am not trying to talk about about anyone, because I know that delivery drivers have been the unsung heroes of this isolation.

However, how do you feel when you see the driver toss your package on the porch? You cringe when you open it because you are just waiting to see what’s broken.

You know what else we think? “That company is terrible.”

We look at the actions of that driver and make an assumption of what the entire company is like.

We think, “Man, FedEx or UPS or DHL or whoever is terrible because they don’t care about my stuff.”

Doesn’t the same thing happen when Christians don’t back up our words with actions and follow through?

We don’t just make ourselves look bad, we make the Kingdom of God look bad!

We are showing we don’t care, because we toss words around like just one more package in the mix.

It hurts the reputation of the God who loved us so much, so individually and corporately, that he would come to earth himself and die in our place and be raised from the dead so you and I could be saved.

Our words matter in every aspect of our lives. That’s why Jesus would later rebuke the Phariessees and say:

Matthew 12:34–36 CSB

Brood of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. A good person produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil person produces evil things from his storeroom of evil. I tell you that on the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word they speak.

Every careless word, everything you said you would do but didn’t intend to carry out…every careless word we speak will be brought into judgment.

So, we need to watch our words because everything in creation belongs to God.

Not only that, but Jesus tells us...

2) Watch your words because you are not in control.

Sometimes, the Pharisees would swear by their heads.

That sounds a little strange to us, but the idea was that my head is something I can control.

I can control what I think or say or do in my head, where I can’t control the earth or heaven or Jerusalem.

What does Jesus point out, though, in verse 36?

You have absolutely no control over the features of your head!

Some of you are showing that this morning with your quarantine hair—as much as you have tried to cover the gray hairs with dye, you can’t change them back to black or brown or red or whatever color they were when you were younger.

As we plan, as we make commitments, we always need to remember that we don’t really know what is going to happen.

James addressed that in his letter:

James 4:13–16 CSB

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes. Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

Haven’t we seen this in a huge way over the last few months? One week, everything was normal and there was just some stirring on the news about some virus from China, and the next thing we knew, the life shifted into isolation, closures, layoffs, or overwork!

We didn’t see it coming, and individually, there was very little we could do to stop it.

As you and I make plans and give our word, we need to remember that we do all these things as servants of the king of the universe, and his plans may look very different than ours.

Israel got in trouble with this. They would have an enemy, they would consult God, and he would deliver them. The next time they got in trouble, they just ran straight at the enemy without consulting God first, and they lost!

I am afraid we do the same thing. We make commitments and promises too quickly, thinking that we are the master of our fate and the captain of our souls, when in reality, we can’t even change something as minor as the color of a single hair on our head.

So then, Christian, watch your words.

Live in such a way that you don’t need to swear.

Live your life so that your “yes” means “yes,” and your “no” means “no.”

Say what you mean, and mean what you say, because your Lord was faithful 100%.

Isn’t that the example that Jesus set for us?

On multiple occasions, Jesus told the disciples that he would go to Jerusalem and be killed.

If there was ever anyone who had a reason to back out, it would have been Jesus. He didn’t do anything wrong, and he didn’t deserve to die.

In fact, as Jesus was being arrested, he even told Peter that he had the power to stop the whole thing at that very moment.

However, Jesus kept his word and went to the cross, dying in our place, and rising from the dead, and now ruling over his kingdom.

It is his perfect obedience that makes the way available for us to go into heaven. We lie, we break promises, and we sin in so many other ways. Yet, because Jesus was willing to trade our sin for his obedience, we can come into his kingdom based off what he has done, not what we do.

He is the one who then strengthens and equips you to become a person who keeps your word. It isn’t in your strength, but in the strength of the God who is present with you everywhere!

Surrender to him, or live your life like he is in charge and become a person who keeps your word.

It is in light of this sacrifice that we want to take a few minutes and remember his death, burial, and resurrection through taking the Lord’s Supper together...