Great Reversal: A simple Yes

Beth Heib

Before we start digging into God’s word today, I want to ask Sandra Puliz to come forward because she and I have been conspiring to honor someone here at REC.

Ok:

What is God’s greatest desire for his kids?

What is your greatest desire for your kids?

I think for God is that humanity will come to have a relationship with him

But even deeper than that is that we will become the fullness of who we were created to be.

The Apostle Paul once said this:

Romans 8:19 

“For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed”

This is one of my favorite verses and a verse that just drives me as a pastor

It means that all of creation is just waiting for the day when God’s kids really look like him...

Almost as if the whole earth will rejoice when Peace, patience, joy, self control, kindness, goodness & self control reigns in this earth...

And for the last month we have been in a sermon on the mount series and as we continually dig deeper into Jesus words we are discovering what it looks like for us to really truly look like Jesus

So before we get into the text this morning, I want to just remind us of the quote I brought up a few weeks ago.

And I just want to bring up this quote one more time because it has been super challenging to me as I have been re-reading the sermon on the mount.

An orthodox Rabbi once said

“The history of Christianity is the history of christians trying to evade living out the sermon on the mount and avoid its plain meaning”

Not challenging at all right!?

And to your credit, I have heard so many stories of you all applyingThe Sermon on the Mount in your lives and relationships...

And that is awesome because the reality is that this is so hard! Following Jesus in the sermon on the mount is really the process of denying yourself your own fleshly desires and asking Jesus for the strength to live by the plain meaning of his word

So before we get into what Jesus is going to teach us today…I want to ask the question

What is deceitfulness? What is deception? and why does it matter?

Have you ever been deceived in such a way that it hurt?

Have you ever deceived others in such a way that you felt guilty about it

Not Lying...

Lying is knowingly misleading others by giving false information

But Deceit:

There is a difference and its subtle but it makes all the difference

Deceit is distorting the truth for the purpose of misleading others or defrauding others

While deceit is lying, deceit has a much more sinister tone about it…Because with deceit you use some of the truth

Deceit is most threatening...

Because it looks like the truth but it is just a parody of it

Deceitfulness starts in the garden of Eden

Well it all starts here:

Genesis 3:1-4

The New International Version Chapter 3

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

It starts with Adam and Eve being deceived…and did you see how this crafty Serpent did it?

Did God really say? The Serpent who is “The evil one” made them cast doubt on God’s word...

And then what the serpent did was he offered another reason that God wouldn't want them to eat of the tree..

What the Serpent did was make Adam and Eve think that it was God who was really deceiving them

So Eve at the fruit and immediately she knew she was wrong

Genesis 3:13

The New International Version (Chapter 3)

13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

She knew it…She had been deceived

And what gets me is that even if your deceived it doesn’t make you innocent

Because it means you knew what the truth was and you listened to the lie anyway..

It means you bought into the deception knowing full well what the truth is

The reality is that as Christians we need to be able to spot deception. And the way to do that is to always seek truth

Numbers 23:19 says

The New International Version Chapter 23

19 God is not human, that he should lie,

not a human being, that he should change his mind.

Does he speak and then not act?

Does he promise and not fulfill?

It is a staple in the Old Testament that God is the creator, the source of life and the source of truth

When Jesus is talking with His disciples Jesus would say this

John 14:6

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Here Jesus is saying straight out that he is the Truth.

So

What we believe

truth is not a what it is a who

In our secular world, sometimes people will say there is no truth or truth can only be found in science…And while truth can be found in science, truth can be found in all kinds of areas of life, its is truth because of a who not a what. Its truth Because God is the source of all truth and he designed it that way

In the book of John, Jesus has multiple conversations surrounding what the truth is with the Pharisees

Jesus knew of the plot that was being hatched by the pharisees to kill him so he says this to them:

John 8:44-45

The New International Version Chapter 8

44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!

Jesus told the pharisees that when you lie and are deceitful then you look like your own spiritual father…who in this case is the devil or the evil one

But see when you are a truth teller…you look like your father…who is God...

So all of this sets us up for what we are going to read in the sermon on the mount today

But lets recap

Adam and Eve were deceived…But they were responsible too because they knew the truth and they caved

God is all truth, in fact Jesus calls himself, the way, the truth and the life

And Jesus calls Satan the father of lies

And when we get into the Bible about Satan or the Evil one or the Devil…One of the things that you will see is that he lives as a knock off of what is really good, he is just a parody of the real thing

So all of this plays together as we get into the sermon on the mount today:

Matthew 5:33-37

The New International Version (Chapter 5)

33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. 

What Jesus is teaching here is both really simple and really deep...

In the simple sense Jesus is just laying out his expectations of life in his new kingdom

Jesus lays out what it looks like for us in our character to follow him. That we would be truthful, because God is truthful

Jesus people are simply truthful. We should live in such a way that what we say just turns out to be the truth, because we represent truth

Lately my life has been so full that I have been careful not to overcommit to anything…Because when I start over committing, I stop keeping my word…And when I over commit, I stop keeping my word to my family…They are the ones that suffer

See in following Jesus we are the ambassadors of God himself and in God there is no falsehood, he is all truth

So what Jesus is saying is that when we become accustomed to living by the truth then we will never need to add words on to what we say. We can just live by a simple yes or a simple no. and thats it.

So in the simplest form of what Jesus is saying here: is Tell the Truth

Its so simple and yet so hard to live out...

But what I want to do for a few minutes is to uncover the deeper meanings of what Jesus is saying

What Jesus is saying here is that there is a subtle art of manipulation at play when it comes to swearing falsely

What Jesus is probably doing is pulling from this verse here:

Deuteronomy 23:21-23

The New International Version Chapter 23

21 If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to pay it, for the LORD your God will certainly demand it of you and you will be guilty of sin. 22 But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty. 23 Whatever your lips utter you must be sure to do, because you made your vow freely to the LORD your God with your own mouth.

In Deuteronomy it even says, hey its just better not to make a vow at all

So an example of a vow is someone today who would say…I swear to God..

I think even someone who just emphasizes that they promise they will do something over and over again

We have probably all been burned by someone who has promised and not delivered

and we probably have burned other others by making false promises

So I want to talk about three things that adding to our “yes” does

Adding a vow creates a false confidence

-As a pastor I have grown very wary of when someone says “God told me” Now God could have told someone something…

But I listen more when people admit that God told them something and then it happened...

But when your in a meeting and someone says…Well God told me we need to do this thing or that…I actually get upset and here is why...

Saying God told me or I swear to God or something like this: What someone is really doing is temporary short circuiting my ability to reason so they can get their own way.

It is a surgical move of manipulation....

It is saying, God is all knowing, God is all powerful, if God said it then it has all authority...

But its a selfish way of invoking God’s name because I need to win

It is a way that people get their way through crafty manipulation

It i

Adding God’s name to a promise takes God’s name in vain

What we are doing when we add God’s name to a promise is essentially speaking on God’s behalf…and since God is all truth and all power then why should you ever question it?

What we are doing is making God a utilitarian tool

We are including God in on our deceit

But God is not our tool.

Whenever we use God’s name in a promise what we are doing is an attempt to dethrone God as king so we can sit on his throne.

It is a way of saying that you can trust me because of God

Politicians are famous for this…Whenever there is a war, look out for God language…God being on our side…God will make sure we win

During the civil war both the north and the south claimed that God was on their side…

How do we know God wants that at all?

Truth telling is evangelistic

We have to realize our role in the kingdom of God

2 Corinthians 5:20 says

The New International Version Chapter 5

20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

An ambassador speaks for the king

We have to be careful to not be deceptive when we speak because when we speak people are looking at you wondering what your God is like

when we tack on God’s name or other random religious vows to our speech and then we fail to live up to our end of the deal...

Not only are we made out to be liars, but we make God out to be a liar as well

In the end Jesus will say that anything other than a yes or a no, comes from the evil one...

Why? because he is the father of all lies

He is the one who twisted the truth in the garden

He is the one who lies effortlessly and naturally

Jesus wants his kingdom people to be defined by the truth and not lies

So the question bears repeating....What’s God’s greatest desire for his kids? Other than just coming back into relationship with God I think God wants us to come to the fullness of who we were created to be.

God is all truth and through a relationship with him, he can transfrom your heart

In some of the very last words written in the bible, the Apostle John sees God bringing fourth a new heaven and a new earth…

John sees that this new creation will welcome new creation people into it

Revelation 21:7

The New International Version Chapter 21

27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Deceit has no place in the new creation…for it ruined the last one

God is all truth and desires for you to be truthful because at the end of the day our deceit has no place in his kingdom...

Response:

Search me oh God

Jeremiah 17:9 says

The New International Version Chapter 17

9 The heart is deceitful above all things

and beyond cure.

Who can understand it?

Maybe your here and your a christian and you struggle with deception...

I mean the prophet Jeremiah, he got it…he understood the way the human heart is...

Maybe your prayer today is Search me oh God!

Reveal my deceitfulness...

walk with me…Help me to live in your truth!

Follow Jesus

Maybe your here and you know that your deceitful and you know you need to change.

The answer is not TRY HARDER

The answer is not to watch your words!

The answer is having a relationship with all truth himself...

If your here and you don’t yet know Jesus as your king and your savior…all who is true...

He died for a relationship with you...

That can begin with a prayer of being with a prayer of openness to Jesus

So we have this moment during this next song…how will you respond...

All of creation is eagerly anticipating the day you will step into your calling to become a child of God…When you will look like your father in heaven

Penny’s Baptism