Sermon Transcript

Introduction

Alright, Church, go ahead and turn your Bibles over to Matthew 5. We’re back to the Sermon on the Mount. So right now, Church, we are going through a series called “Who Is Jesus and What Does He Want?” Not because we don’t know who Jesus is and not because we don’t know what He wants, but because we have been called by Him in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 to make disciples of all nations, and a key part of making disciples is to teach them to obey everything Christ has commanded us.

So the effort of this sermon series is for us to look at what it means to believe in Jesus, because that’s one of the first commands of Christ: to repent and believe, right? And then the other thing is a group of action steps. At this point, we have found ourselves in the Sermon on the Mount, which is Matthew 5-7. Most of this is going to be commands of action, and today that is where we find ourselves. We find ourselves in the command of action to be an honest people.

Church, rise with me and read with me from Matthew 5:33-37. I am reading from the Christian Standard Bible. We have English Standard Version in the pews, if you don’t have one, as well as King James. Matthew 5:33-37.

“Again, you have heard that it was said to our ancestors, You must not break your oath, but you must keep your oaths to the Lord. But I tell you, don’t take an oath at all: either by heaven, because it is God’s throne; or by the earth, because it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your head, because you cannot make a single hair white or black. But let your ‘yes’ mean ‘yes,’ and your ‘no’ mean ‘no.’ Anything more than this is from the evil one. (CSB)

This is the word of the Lord, Church, you may be seated.

Father, I thank You that we as your Church, as your bride, can come here today and praise You and worship You, that we can see and taste You on your throne, that You have invited us to belong to this global movement where we are making a difference in the nations because You have filled us with your Spirit. Now, Father, I ask that you would fill me with the Holy Spirit today for my mind to be sharp and focused and not distracted left or right by anything. I pray that you keep Satan out of this place and all of his demons, and that they would not be allowed to thwart us from properly receiving your word, and Father, I pray that You would bless the congregation for them to be given ears to hear and eyes to see so that they can truly grasp You, your love for us, and the Gospel so that we can make a difference in Wake Forest, Raleigh, Wake County, and even to the nations. Use this service and claim it, Father. Please make this your home today so that we can have our hearts recalibrated to properly put You on the throne of our hearts. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

Alright. So, Church, we live in a world that rewards duplicity. Who here has heard that word before? Alright. I love this word because it comes from this Latin root meaning two faces. Duplicity is where we say one thing, but we mean something entirely different in our hearts. We’re not being honest, and we have bad intentions. The world rewards duplicity. Let that sink in. We live in a world that will reward you for being duplicitous, for being two-faced.

We got politicians as probably everybody’s favorite example of duplicity, right? They promise you the world to get your votes so it rewards them, but the second they get in the office, they forget about you, and they don’t deliver on the goods, right? But it’s not just politicians. You see, sometimes it’s employees. I remember when I was a waiter, we had to, back then, report all of our cash tips because it needed to be taxed. Well, if you got cash tips, the only ones that were reporting the cash tips were the Christians because it is more rewarding to not tell the truth—for them.

And then, not only that, but, you know, parishioners. You see that pesky pastor in public, and the pastor says, “Haven’t seen you in a while. Sure would like to see you on Sunday.” And the parishioner says, “Oh yeah, you’ll see me soon.” Now, knowing full well, it’s probably not going to come back. But you get rewarded because the pesky pastor goes away, right? Duplicity is everywhere in our world, and people reward it. You can get something out of not telling the truth.

That is the nature of what Jesus is dealing with today in our passage. He is dealing with duplicity in the religious teachers of first-century Israel. And they very much benefit from duplicity. But Christians, this is the main point of today’s sermon, so hear me well. Christians must not live lives this way, but we must live lives that are so marked by honesty that our word becomes the gold standard. Our lives must be so marked by truth-telling that nothing defeats the standard of the words that come out of a Christian.

There are many Christians who understand this, and it used to be the golden rule that if you were looking for a contractor or a businessman, you went through the Yellow Pages—kids, this was a published book about 20 years ago. You open up the Yellow Pages, and you start looking for your contractor, but you’re going to put your finger on the one that has a fish on it, right? Why? Because that means that this guy running the business is a Christian, and his word is supposed to be the gold standard. This is the kind of kingdom that Jesus is looking to build. He’s looking to build a kingdom of citizens who have such honesty in their heart. They don’t even have to take any oaths. They don’t have to swear in God’s name because you know that person follows Jesus. They don’t have to swear an oath. Everything they say is true. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

The world, however, recognizes duplicity and rewards it. You will make your pockets fat, your friends aplenty, if you are duplicitous, saying one thing and intending another. And everyone recognizes this reward system. If you have a weak conscience, then you will be tempted to be dishonest, to gain, to work the system in your favor. If you don’t have a relationship with the Lord, you will reward yourself through dishonesty. This is what the Pharisees did, the teachers of Jesus’s day, but this is not what Christians ought to do.

Non-Christians rewards themselves through duplicity (5:33-36)

That is why our first point today, if you’re following in the bulletin, is that non-Christians reward themselves through duplicity. If you are a duplicitous person, you have two faces, and you are a lot like the Irish folklore figure, the fairy known as Leanan Sídhe. A leanan is a fairy in Irish folklore that will try to smooth-talk you and fill you with creativity. If you’re a pianist, you’ll play like Mozart. If you’re a painter, you will paint like Van Gogh. But as she leans in to speak sweet nothings into your ear, you lean in for a kiss, and all of a sudden, poison is flooding your veins. That’s the nature of a duplicitous person. And this is what the religious teachers of Jesus’s day did. Not only did Jesus condemn it, but He says that it is demonic. It is from the evil one. They were making the oaths with their mouths, but their hearts intended something different.

Now, Jesus and the Pharisees did not agree on everything, but one thing they did agree on was that everyone must fulfill their vows to the Lord. But what is a vow, and how is that different from an oath? Because, as I read from our Bible translation today, you’ll see that Jesus used the word oath, but that is not the same as a vow. Jesus is condemning the first-century Jewish practice of oath-making as dishonest and evil. But first, let’s look at what vows are. Vows are promises made to God. And on this point, the Pharisees actually obeyed God. You see in Deuteronomy 23:21-23, it says:

“If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to keep it, because he will require it of you, and it will be counted against you as sin. But if you refrain from making a vow, it will not be counted against you as sin. Be careful to do whatever comes from your lips, because you have freely vowed what you promised to the LORD your God. (CSB)

So if you swore by the Lord’s name, you were expected to keep it. But Jesus is not addressing vows in our passage. Jesus and the Pharisees agreed on that. But the difference here is they’re using the word oath. And on this fact, Jesus and the Pharisees disagree. When Jesus says, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not swear falsely,’” or “You shall not make an oath falsely,” He’s talking about oaths.

So what are oaths? Oaths were promises not made from a human to God, but they were promises made from one human to another human. So that’s the difference. The difference between oaths and vows is one is to a human, and one is to the Lord. You see, and not all oaths were equally believable, but you can tailor an oath to make it sound more credible. How would you do that? Well, you bring in collateral. If you’re trying to make a loan from a bank, you have to give collateral, right? You could just walk into a bank and be like, “I need five thousand dollars. Trust me, I’ll pay it back.” How’s that going to work for you? “OK, fine, five thousand dollars, and I promise to give you my house if I fail to pay you back.” “OK, you got it.” All of a sudden, the oath just skyrocketed in believability, right?

So, how do you increase the believability of an oath? You introduce collateral. And that’s what they did. They started swearing on things as collateral in their oaths. So we do this when we actually make oaths; we say, “Cross my heart. Hope to die.” Come on, Church, I know you all grew up as kids. “Stick a needle in my eye.” Alright. What’s the collateral? Your eyeball and heart. OK, man, I’m glad you all are alive today. But let’s say somebody doesn’t pay you back. What are you going to do? Are you really going to take their eyeball and heart out? You’re not.

You see, this is how they’re gaming the system. The problem with collateral is that it makes oaths sound very credible, but almost never enforceable. And this is true even in first-century Israel. The Pharisees, the religious elite, they loved to game the system to their advantage in oath-making, and they would do it by using collateral, and they would do it so that they could get rewarded through their duplicity because they would use collateral, swear on things that were never enforceable. So they get the benefit of sounding credible, knowing full well that they’ll never actually have to pay up and fulfill their oath. This is the nature of religious people. The Pharisees would word their oaths with surgical precision. They are so good at making it sound that they are one of the most honest people you will ever encounter through their oath-making.

You see, if they made an oath and they used God’s name, it now became a vow, and they had to fulfill it. On this point, Jesus and the religious elite, they agreed. But what would they do? They would swear on things used as collateral, things that were very holy. To gain more believability, they would swear on things like the temple. They would swear on the altar that’s in the temple. You can find that in Matthew 23:16-22. But we’re not going to focus on Matthew 23. We’re going to focus on the things that they swore on in Matthew 5.

They needed to keep their vows to God, but they did not believe they needed to keep their oaths to humans. That’s the ultimate problem. They said, “If you make a vow, fulfill it. But if you make an oath, you don’t have to.” And that’s where we come to the ultimate problem of oath-making. It has in its heart duplicity. The Pharisees did not believe that humans deserve the same degree of honesty as God. And that is the ultimate problem of duplicity.

Duplicity Is Wrong Because It Degrades Human Dignity

So in your bulletin, I want you to write this in. You’ll see a blank there. Fill in this blank: Duplicity is wrong because it degrades human dignity. Saying one thing and intending to do the opposite is ultimately a violation of the image of God that is within us. The entire reason we give humans respect is because humans bear God’s image. Murder and duplicity are wrong for the same reason. They are an assault on the image of God.

So if you think dishonesty is nothing too bad to bat an eyelash at, just think about that. It is wrong for the same reason as murder. It is an assault on the dignity that we all bear because we all bear the image of God. So if you say one thing, you’d better intend to follow through with it. Now, hear me, Church. If something comes up, like you get a flat tire, that’s not what Jesus is talking about. OK? But the person who says one thing and never has the intention of fulfilling it, that’s what we’re addressing today.

You see, the dignity of humans and God, it’s not just one-directional, right? In other words, we give humans honesty because we give God honesty, and humans bear the image of God. So that’s one direction, but the direction also goes in the opposite direction. You see, Jesus says that when He comes back, He’s going to judge us because we took care of Him in prison, because we gave Him food when He was hungry and gave Him drink when He was thirsty. And they are going to look at Him and they will say, “When did we do this for you, Lord?” And Jesus is going to tell them:

Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me (Matthew 25:40).

So we treat people with honesty because we treat God with honesty. And when we treat humans with honesty, we are treating God with honesty. Do you follow? We need to look at fellow human beings this way as image-bearers. Therefore, the problem with the Pharisees’ view of oaths and vows is that they did not take the inherent worth of human beings. Human worth comes from the reality that we bear God’s image. If the Pharisees recognized that God’s image demands respect for every human being, then they would have the same standard for vows as their standard for oaths.

In Church, we must have an appreciation for the inherent dignity of every human being. I don’t care if they vote for a different political party than you. I don’t care if they wear the wrong clothes for their gender. You see, they might be confused, but we are not. They bear God’s image, and we are going to treat them that way. Amen?

So now that we know that they did not need to keep their oaths to fellow humans unless they bound the oath using God’s name, they still needed to make their oath believable. So, as we talked about, how did they do that? They used as collateral things that were very much appreciated. You see, when a poker player is playing a match, and he’s got nothing in his cards, what’s the best option for him?—Fold?—That’s what he should do. I’m glad to see that there aren’t a lot of poker players in here. I’m just joking. But what they do is bluff. And what’s the best way to bluff? You go all in, right? If you really want to, “Oh, this guy’s really believable. He just put everything on the line.” He might not be holding any cards. Well, that’s what they’re doing when they take collateral in their oaths by swearing on things like the temple and the altar. They’re going all in.

But folks, I want you to recognize that this is demonic economics. How is that? This is demonic economics because it maximizes the perception of your sincerity. It minimizes your commitment, and it maximizes your reward. Why is it demonic economics? It maximizes the perception of your sincerity. It minimizes your commitment, and it maximizes your reward. This is from Satan.

You see, this is the nature of religion without a relationship. Do you know what I mean by that? This is what it looks like to put on Christian shoes and not talk to the God who loves you. You see, Christianity without a relationship to Jesus is a surface-level relationship, and you don’t know the God who made you, who died for you, who loves you. It is religion without a relationship. And what does a religion without relationship look like? It looks like you have no commitment. You’re very good with Christianese, but you’re not a good Christian on your knees. And this was the Pharisees. They serve the Lord with their lips only, but not with their hearts.

Hypocrites! Isaiah accurately prophesied about you when he said: “These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me” (Matthew 15:7-8).

They weren’t interested in being rewarded by God on Judgment Day. Why? Because they would rather be rewarded by recognition from humans in this world.

They do everything to be seen by others (Matthew 23:5).

Ultimately, religion without relationship is just a godless religion. It is no different from Islam. And that is the driving force of two-faced promise-makers. Instead of serving the God who loves them, they are serving themselves. But we must not be like that, Church. We must serve the Lord through honesty.

Oath-Making Is Wrong Because It Mismanages God’s Property and Challenges His Authority

Now, despite these teachers’ best efforts to skirt commitment, Jesus condemns their behavior. We have seen that duplicity is wrong because it is an attack on human dignity. But now Jesus further condemns it because of its logic. So how does He condemn their logic? They think they are eliminating a commitment to their oaths by taking God’s name out of the equation. They aren’t swearing on God’s name, so they think they are scot-free. But Jesus says otherwise. He says you cannot take God’s name out of your oath and be let off. The object that you are using, you see, to make as your collateral in your oath, it is not yours to begin with. And the reason oath-making is wrong in Jesus’ eyes is that everything belongs to the Lord. And you cannot use God’s stuff as collateral in your oaths.

When you swear on an object within an oath, that object is supposed to act as collateral, right? Well, this is what the elite were doing. They were using God’s property as collateral. Therefore, oath-making—in your bulletin—is wrong because it mismanages God’s property and it challenges His authority. So what were they using that belonged to God? Well, they used heaven, for example. We see this in Matthew 5:34. You cannot swear by heaven because it is God’s throne. You cannot swear by the earth because it is God’s footstool. This actually comes from Isaiah 66:1:

This is what the LORD says: Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. Where could you possibly build a house for me? And where would my resting place be? (CSB)

The Pharisees thought they knew the Bible. Well, they missed this one, apparently. His point is that you cannot swear on anything that belongs to the Lord because it is not yours to bargain.

The other one that they swore on is the city of Jerusalem. But Jesus says you can’t do that either because it’s the city of the great King. Jerusalem is not yours to bargain. This comes from Isaiah 24:23:

[T]he LORD of Armies will reign as king on Mount Zion in Jerusalem… (CSB)

Jerusalem is God’s city. You cannot swear on it. But what about this last one? You can’t swear on your head. You would think, “Well, at least I got my own life, right? I can make that a bargain.” Every human belongs to the Lord and exists under His authority. Even for these non-Christians, they cannot swear by their own lives because they do not have authority over their own lives. And that is what Jesus means by “you cannot make a hair white or black.” You see, changes in the hair point to God’s authority over your life. And you cannot swear by something that does not belong to you.

This means that we must abandon, Church, the American idea that you are the master of your own destiny. It’s garbage. You are a servant of your Master who dictates your destiny.

For none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord (Romans 14:7-8, CSB).

Jesus Is Primarily Forbidding Casual Oath-Making

So, Church, we cannot make oaths using collateral because everything belongs to the Lord. But this begs the question, does that mean that we can’t make oaths at all? Because that’s what the Amish, the Mennonites, and the Quakers believe. They can’t make oaths at all, even in court. But I want to give you this caveat. Okay? And in your bulletin, Jesus is primarily forbidding casual oath-making. Why do I say that? Because in Matthew 26:63-64, you see that Jesus actually engages in an oath. The high priest looks at Jesus, and he says, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah.” If you study ancient Jewish literature, you would know that this is them legally forcing Jesus to enter into an oath, a vow actually, because they’re using God’s name, I suppose. And when Jesus speaks up, He agrees to the terms, and He engages in the oath. We must understand that Jesus is not forbidding all oaths. He is forbidding casual oath-making in everyday conversation.

So at this point, we have seen how the people of the world, they enrich themselves through dishonesty. We have also seen that they do not fear any repercussions for their dishonesty because they do not fear the Lord. They are more concerned about rewarding themselves with rewards from men in this world rather than being rewarded by God in the next. And that is where Christians differ, Church.

Christians Must Reward Themselves Through Honesty (5:37)

And therefore, our next point is, Christians must reward themselves through honesty. You see, Christians don’t need to be dishonest to reward ourselves because we know that God will take care of us anyway. Jesus says in Matthew 7:9-11 in his same sermon that we are looking at today (Matthew 5-7):

Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him. (CSB)

God’s got our backs. So what’s the point in lying? You don’t have to. You can pay all of your taxes, and God will provide. How about that?

So, Church, that’s one reason why we can be honest. The other reason we can be honest is because we’re not like the Pharisees. We are not a people who only serves God by our lips. We also serve God from our heart. This is why Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven. (Matthew 6:1, CSB)

So, if you give, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Right? It’s this beautiful word picture that your giving is supposed to be inconspicuous, and you don’t have to tell anybody because God is going to reward you, and that is what you prefer to receive, a reward from the Lord, not rewards from men. You see, that’s where we differ, Church. That’s why we’re different from the Pharisees. We can be honest because we know that God is going to reward us, and that is why we say Christians must reward themselves through honesty. We’re not really rewarding ourselves; we’re just serving the Lord, and we know He will reward us for it.

Jesus Depicts a Kingdom Where the Word of His Disciples Becomes the Gold Standard

But Jesus has another motivation for our honest living. You see, Jesus desires a kingdom where the word of every citizen is the gold standard. You know, when I first became a Christian, before I became a Christian, it was very common for me to just say, “No, I swear to God,” right? And it sounded just like that because I’m from New Orleans, right? Real bombastic like, “I swear on my mama’s grave,” but my mom is alive, right? So anyway, but this is what my life was like before I met Jesus. I had to swear for everything to get people to believe me. Why? Because in the world, we know everybody’s a liar, and I know people are probably just going to assume I’m a liar, so I swear even if I am telling the truth.

But when I became a Christian, I entered into a community that was so saturated with integrity that all of a sudden, swearing an oath sounded like a foreign language. I entered a group of people who were so honest, they never needed to swear. And it did not dawn on me that I had been swimming in a saturation of integrity until I heard a non-Christian years later say, “I swear I’m telling the truth.” And all of a sudden, my first inclination was to go, “You’re lying.” Not because of what they said was incredible, but because I hadn’t heard somebody say, “I swear,” and it automatically reminded me of my life before I knew Jesus. People who swear are people who have to fight for an honesty they don’t naturally have.

Church, we are to be a community and a kingdom that is so saturated with integrity and honesty that our word is the oath. That’s why Jesus says, “Let your yes mean yes.” Anything more than this is from the evil one. So, Church, do not feel like you must ever swear an oath, but also be a people that is incredibly marked by honesty in your speech. Do everything you say, or at least say everything you intend to do, nothing more.

And not only that, I want to give you the greatest word of honesty ever spoken, ever in creation. And that was this word: God loves you. God loves you tremendously. In fact, the greatest word of honesty is:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16, ESV)

We as sinners, we are liars, we are thieves, we are adulterers, we are murderers. We are all that is wicked in our own standing. But God loved you so much that He would not let you rot in your wickedness. But He is also so just that He does not give people a get-out-of-jail-free pass without punishing sin. So how could God reconcile His love and His justice at the same time? They are met in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave you His love, and He bore God’s wrath at the same time. He is Love and Justice. And He did that for you. Every single person in this room. That’s the greatest words of honesty. And those words can mark every step we take in God’s creation.

Let the love story of Jesus be your motivation, Church. Let God’s love for you be the reason why your word becomes the gold standard. Amen? Let’s go to the Lord.

Father, I thank you for raining down and showing up today and being the God who loves us, who speaks to us, who is our Preacher and our Teacher. We are your disciples, Lord. I pray that you would help us to be the honest people that you are making, to love you through our integrity in the world, Lord. Even as we are beaten, persecuted, and mocked, let us be that people. Father, we love you, and we praise you. In Jesus’ name, amen.