Yes or No

Let’s start by reading our text in Matthew 5:33-37 (NIV): “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.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath 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. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

I’ve entitled our talk today “yes or no” from that last verse. Jesus makes it very plain for us – this is not one of those veiled Scriptures where it’s unclear what we are to do. In preparing for this teaching, I feel like I’ve just been squeezed, sliced, diced, smelted, distilled, seared, and centrifuged for good measure – I fall so far short of God’s standard of holiness – I’m preaching to myself today as much if not more than to any of you. I thank God that He is so full of grace and forgiveness and second chances!

Jesus Christ is the most real person who has ever lived! The essence of His command here is to . . . SIMPLY BE REAL! You guys know how much I love acronyms, and today is no exception. Throughout my teaching today I’ll mention lessons we learn from Jesus’ command to say “yes or no” beginning with the letters in those words, “Simply be real”.

The context of our verses here is that Jesus is talking about what the Kingdom of heaven looks like. People of the Kingdom are honest, straightforward, truthful people. It almost seems too simple, doesn’t it? Surely there are more important matters to consider and problems to solve in this world than worrying about how we speak to one another? Today we’re going to see how very important our words are. As Christians, everything we do and say is important because of who we are in Christ and because of the effect our lives, and our words, have on others.

We can easily see that Hitler’s and Judas’ lies and actions came from the evil one. I don’t think the primary purpose of this passage is so we can identify in others what comes from the evil one. I think Jesus said what He said to show us how we as Kingdom people and followers of Christ are to speak. Jesus is telling us to always and simply speak the truth in all our ordinary conversations and communications. If we had to pinpoint one main problem in communications, what would it be? We just can’t believe what is being said. In one form or another, lying is a huge problem. Whether we’re looking at the political arena, sports, news, statistics, books – what is said and what is true are not necessarily related. Even in the personal arena, in our most intimate relationships, lying abounds. Walt referred to our nation’s scandalously high levels of divorce and infidelity in the previous class in this series. How does this match up with the statistic that in a 2009 Gallup Poll, 78% of Americans identify themselves as Christians? By and large we as the people of God have forgotten Jesus’ teaching on truthfulness and integrity in speech. As those who belong to Christ, we should be aware that every conversation we have is in the presence of God. Even a so-called private lie or even an exaggeration might be the one thing that comes between a person’s soul and his eternal salvation. It pains me to think about this, because I have blown it countless times in this area, but I feel the need to emphasize this point. Every conversation we have is in the presence of God. Everything we say has the potential to greatly influence what other people will think of God. Everything we say has the potential to greatly influence what other people will think of the Church. We are bearers of Christ’s image, and representatives of His character.

I want to read to you part of our passage as Eugene Peterson interprets it in The Message – “And don’t say anything you don’t mean . . . You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace . . . When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.”

I’ve organized my teaching today around little marks that can be used for good purposes, but can also be used to embellish words with religious lace. These little marks seem so insignificant that they occupy peripheral positions on the keyboard. Often the most profound lessons in life come in the simplest ways. We’re going to pay attention to the punctuation, in order to learn some important lessons about how we as Christians are to speak.

Jesus didn’t direct us to say “Yes, and” or “No, and” [say as though going on]

The first lesson we can learn from this text is to speak with simplicity. The law permitted both divorce and swearing, but it’s important to realize that neither was commanded. Neither should be necessary. God allowed divorce in certain cases because He knew our hearts were hard. He allowed swearing of oaths in certain cases because He knew we have a tendency to lie. Jesus’ teaching shows us that there’s a better way. We can speak with simplicity, yes or no.

The terms “oath” and “vow” might dull us into thinking that this passage doesn’t apply to us very much. We don’t hear about taking oaths much unless the topic is a court of law or a wedding ceremony. But how often do conversations include “name dropping” or “expert talk”? These are forms of oaths that people use to cover their own dishonesty. Why do we find it necessary to introduce what we’re saying by mentioning a name, quote, trend, or fact that we think is more likely to be believed than we are? The only reason is that we know our simple word is not likely to be trusted. We try to induce people to believe us by adding something extra. Almost every advertisement and promotion in our market-driven world relies on exaggeration.

A. M. Hunter, a 20^th century Scottish theologian, said, “Oaths arise because men are so often liars.” The same is true of all forms of exaggeration, hyperbole and the use of superlatives. I am preaching to myself here – I was trying to explain this point to someone this week and found myself saying “I know I exaggerate all the time” (pause) 🙂 We’re not satisfied with saying we had an enjoyable time; we have to describe it as “incredible”, “awesome”, “the bomb.”

Since we’re coming up to the 12 days of Christmas, I thought I’d share with you Wikipedia’s 12 contexts of exaggeration:

1. boasting and bragging
2. flattery
3. a type of deception
4. amplifying achievements, obstacles and problems to seek attention
5. magnifying small injuries or discomforts as an excuse to avoid responsibilities
6. a form of cognitive distortion called magnification
7. overemphasizing one issue and downplaying the other to divert attention from it – see also “Spin”
8. inflation of the difficulty of achieving a goal after attaining it, possibly to improve self-esteem
9. a grandiose sense of self-importance
10. theatricality and exaggerated expression of emotion
11. focusing on the worst possible outcome, however unlikely, or thinking that a situation is unbearable or impossible when it is really just uncomfortable.
12. amplifying or fabricating the faults of the victim in order to blame them

The more we resort to overstating the case, the more we devalue both our language and our commitments. Our unadorned word should be enough.

Jesus was clear that we were not to say “Yes . . .” or “No . . .” [say vaguely]

The next lesson we can learn is to speak with integrity. We need to say what we mean – it should be clear and consistent. A practical picture of this came up in my home while I was preparing this teaching. One of my children half-closed the front door when she went outside. Her thinking was that if she left it all the way open, a cat might sneak in before the storm door swung shut. If she left it all the way closed, someone might lock her out. The problem was that when the edge of the door is in contact with the frame, a half-closed door appears from a distance to be closed, leaving the house open to unwanted guests (or unsupervised cats!). If we are not clear with our words, it can leave other people thinking we’re saying the opposite of what we actually mean. If we are inconsistent in our speech, then we will not be believed even when we are speaking truthfully.

Albert Schweitzer, the philosopher and doctor, wrote that “When human discourse is debased so that under certain circumstances Yes can mean No and No Yes, community is destroyed.” Speaking with integrity to one another demonstrates value for each other’s infinite worth as image-bearers of Christ. In our conversations we ought to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Everything we say affects others. We are to be about building one another up. Speaking clearly and consistently has a positive impact on the community of Christ.

Moses’ law allowed oaths and swearing because those laws were designed to encourage truthfulness and to elevate its value. Only false or irreverent oaths were forbidden, ones that broke the 3^rd commandment by taking the Lord’s name in vain. Sadly, though, by Jesus’ day the Jews had built up an entire legalistic system around these teachings. One rabbi said that if you swore by Jerusalem then you were not bound by your vow, but if you swore toward Jerusalem then you were bound. You can imagine where that kind of pettiness lead. What was intended to produce truthfulness and freedom and life degenerated into terrible rules to delineate when you could get away with lying and deception and when you couldn’t. Loopholes abounded depending on whether a person invoked the literal name of God or something else. The result was a system where deceit was passively encouraged and lying was justified through evasive swearing.

Jesus cut right through this kind of game-playing by abolishing oaths and vows altogether. We are not to invoke God’s name or anything else in order to guarantee the truth of what we say. Jesus went right to the heart of the law – God’s intent was truthfulness, pure and simple. He wants us to have such integrity that whatever we say is on its own absolutely believable and dependable. A person of integrity is one who, in normal conversation, is so truthful, real, innocent, and trustworthy that our words are believed without adding anything extra. A single word from a disciple of Jesus should be considered as trustworthy as a signed document or contract. Jesus plainly attributes anything extra added in order to deceive to only one source – the evil one, Satan. How often do we stoop to repeat stories but add a little slant? How often do we paint ourselves in a more glamorous light than the raw facts allow? How often do we say we’ll do something but then omit to do it because it’s too inconvenient? How often do we fudge the numbers or the details to fit what we want to prove? Certainly we all make honest mistakes, but deception is never ok. We can’t be too careful when it comes to speaking unadulterated truth because the cultural current towards deception is so strong.

Jesus didn’t mean for us to say “Yes!” or “No!” [say in a childish way]

Our next lesson is the realization that to obey Jesus’ command, we need maturity. The Bible is full of exhortations for us to grow in maturity. The Weymouth translation equates maturity of character with godly speech – James 3:2 – “For we often stumble and fall, all of us. If there is any one who never stumbles in speech, that man has reached maturity of character and is able to curb his whole nature.” How do we stop stumbling in our speech? How do we stick with just yes or no? Through self-discipline. We need to develop good habits. When we have a habit of doing something, we don’t even notice we’re doing it. Establishing a habit requires a decision to begin, followed by lots and lots of practice. The Lord has given us everything we need to obey Him in this. 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” (NLT)

While Jesus told us we needed to be childlike to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, He didn’t tell us to be childish. Children are impulsive in how they speak and act. When we were children, we spoke, thought, and reasoned like children. But we are to put away childish things as we mature. If as an adult, our behavior or speech is characterized by impulsiveness, it’s because we haven’t disciplined ourselves. The challenge is before us to reform every habit that doesn’t line up with the life of Christ by God’s power and presence. Well-loved devotional writer Oswald Chambers exhorts us to never form a habit gradually, but to do it sharply and definitely and never allow a break. We have to be tough on ourselves. My daughters tell me that certain ballet positions and movements have become second nature to them because they’ve practiced them so many times over many years – they have developed what is called muscle memory. In the same way, with persistence and practice, new habits can become second nature, so that we’ll respond in a Christ-like manner even in a crisis. When we’re scratched, what do we bleed? Truthfulness and honesty, or fragments of facts, words of wandering, and epithets of exaggeration? A crisis will reveal whether or not we’ve been practicing. We can’t blame the devil for our inattention and lack of discipline. Good habits require hard work and self-discipline.

Jesus certainly doesn’t want us to say “Yes*%@#$^)(! “ or “No*%@#$^)(!”

Our next lesson is that of purity. I talked at length about this when we looked at the Matthew 5:8 Beatitude. When I was in high school, I played cello in a string quartet – we called ourselves the Concords, because we wanted to be like the dictionary definition, “a stable, harmonious combination of tones.” Well, we had a good time together anyway 🙂 Our words should harmonize with our lives – if we truly belong to Christ, then our words should be pure and reflect the character of Christ. There’s no place for blankety-blanks, whether they’re words with four letters, sarcasm, cynicism, scathing criticism, sniveling complaints, or anything else we’d be ashamed of saying in God’s presence. If wearing a cross or having a picture of Jesus on the wall or tattooing “two ears one mouth” on the back of our hand reminds us that we are constantly in God’s presence, then by all means we should avail ourselves. Psalm 86:11 (NASB) says – “Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name.” We need God to create concord between our hearts and our mouths, to make us pure from the inside out.

Jesus’ intention wasn’t that we say “Yes?” or “No?” [say timidly]

The next lesson for us to learn is that when we do speak, we should speak with lion-heartedness. Proverbs 28:1 (NLT) says, “The wicked run away when no one is chasing them, but the godly are as bold as lions.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, “We have all become so uncertain of principles in this loose, effeminate age, that we are afraid of denunciations such as we read here, and are almost ready to condemn our Lord for having spoken . . . as he did. Shame on us!” If Lloyd-Jones perceived the age as loose and effeminate 50 years ago when he wrote this, I shudder to think how our current age would be described! Our era is so loosey-goosey, namby-pamby, confused, loopholey, and narcissistic that “thinking” has almost become old-fashioned. We live in the age of relativism where for many people, even the word “truth” has lost its meaning and has come to mean “true for me” and nothing more. Words that used to be simple like “family”, “life”, “person” have been so diluted in meaning that common speech is no longer clearly and widely understood or accepted.

We need strength of heart and the courage to be bold in order to speak such that both we and our listener are certain of what we just said. There’s no place for talking out of both sides of our mouths. Yes or no isn’t trying to guess what the other person wants to hear. We need a balance of truth and grace; we need both honesty and honor. It’s often difficult to speak the truth, but the bottom line is that we are to fear God, not man. We need to speak truthfully, regardless of whether or not it is what another person or group wanted to hear. And that takes lion-hearted courage.

Sometimes we can start out saying yes or no but face opposition, some kind of coercement designed to make us change our minds. We need courage to stand strong in our convictions. A friend of mine called a doctor’s office the other day to cancel her appointment. She was due for the next course in a series of treatments, but her body had not yet recovered from the previous visit. The person doing the scheduling for the multi-office big business practice immediately began sending a deluge of reasons as to why she needed to keep her appointment – guilt trips, fear, manipulation, expert talk – the works (notably absent was compassion!) – to convince my friend that she needed to get her treatment. My friend calmly waited for her to finish, then said simply – “Please hear me. I’m telling you “no” with a period!” This is where I got the idea for the format for this teaching – thanks Susan!

The Lord will give us courage and confidence to hear His voice and simply speak what He gives us to say. Lacking courage in our speech is an indicator that we’re not fully trusting God in some way. God tells us to “take courage,” “have courage,” “be of good courage,” “hold onto our courage,” “be men and women of courage.” It’s possible to lose courage or have it melt away . . . it’s up to us to ask God if we lack courage and to put it into practice by standing firm in Christ.

Jesus didn’t tell us to say “Yes, but” or “No, but” [say in a defensive way]

The next lesson we can learn is one of Yielding. Hebrews 5:7 says in the NIV that Jesus’ prayers were heard because of His fear of God, His reverent submission. He was fully yielded to the Father. The Bible teaches us to submit to God, to His law, to governing authorities, to church leaders, to our spouses, to one another. Submission includes knowing that there’s “a time to be silent and a time to speak.” If we look carefully at how Jesus spoke, we see that He never defended His own honor. People called Him all sorts of horrible names, but He remained silent. However, as soon as someone said something against His Father’s honor, He spoke up with all kinds of choice words (“you brood of vipers”, “whitewashed tombs”, “hypocrites”). It’s not our place to defend ourselves with our words. The Lord is our defense, our fortress, our shield. Saint Augustine wrote in his “Confessions” that God healed him of the lust for vindicating himself. We can surrender this bad habit to the Lord in prayer and ask Him to rewire our thinking. He wants us to trust Him in every imaginable way – we do that by yielding our will to His and leaving everything in His hands.

What Jesus told us was to say simply “Yes.” or “No.”

God created us to be real – before God, before others. God wants us to simply say “yes period” or “no period” – to speak with brevity. If we would learn to listen more to His Words than to our own or other people’s, then we would be so much more effective in the Kingdom of God. Back in 10^th grade my history teacher had us write a 1500 word paper. I didn’t even like history that much at the time and managed to write 5000 words – he took me aside and kindly explained that next time I needed to be more brief. That was great advice. One of the big lies our materialistic culture brazenly proclaims is that more is better. Brevity means that we simply say what we need to say, without embellishment. We’re so proud of our ability to blab – we have talk radio, talk shows, Google talk, conservative talk, progressive talk, sports talk, even talking heads. But Proverbs 10:19 says “Too much talk leads to sin. Be sensible and keep your mouth shut.”

Our next lesson is to speak with earnestness, to mean what we say and not try to be more than we are. We are finite, we have limitations. Let’s aim to not pledge what we can’t deliver. Sometimes out of a heart of genuine love and compassion, we tell one another, “I’ll be praying for you” but how often do we forget to do so or pray inconsistently? I find that I’m not able to adequately pray through (or even remember) EVERY prayer need that arises. A more honest approach may be to use those 7 words that Nancy mentioned in her teaching last Sunday – “Can I pray for you right now?” We can trust the Holy Spirit to bring prayer needs to our attention. Could it be that He wants us to be present in the moment for others and pray for them on the spot? I love technology, but I’m not sure how many of our favorite technologies Jesus would use were He walking the earth today. I think He would be fully present in the present with each person. He could have reached more people 2000 years ago by doing more mass rallies, more feedings of multiple thousands. But He chose to give the gift of attention to individuals – I want to borrow a quote from Nancy Penton that she gave me last week – Simone Weil said, “Attention is the purest and rarest form of generosity.” Speaking earnestly is meaning what we say, recognizing our limitations, and giving generous attention to individual precious people created in God’s image.

Our next lesson in saying “yes or no” is to speak with respect. Jesus gave us a very high standard of communication. Respect isn’t about putting “sir” or “ma’am” at the end of every sentence. It’s a matter of the heart. Respect comes when we have a proper view of God and a proper view of ourselves and others. God hasn’t left this up to us to figure out on our own – it’s clear in Scripture how we are to speak and act. Imagine if every conversation were recorded and played back in heaven when we stand before the throne of God. If that doesn’t put the fear of God into our speech, I don’t know what will! Jesus says in Matthew 12:36 that we will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word we have spoken. The Message puts it this way – “Every one of those careless words is going to come back and haunt you. There will be a time of reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation.” Let’s not live as though Jesus never mentioned this matter. He’s told us how to speak to God and how to speak with one another. It’s up to us to obey.

Our next lesson is exaltation. As I said earlier, Jesus didn’t defend Himself, but He sure did defend His Father’s honor. Psalm 99:9 says to “Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the LORD our God is holy.” The Holy Spirit changes our standard of honor. It should be water off our backs what people say about us. But we are to exalt the Lord. To exalt means to praise highly, to glorify, to magnify, to lift up the voice. Out of our mouths should flow rivers of exaltation to the Lord. He created us for this purpose – as the Westminster Catechism says, the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Let us exalt the Lord and bring glory to Him with our words.

The next lesson we can learn is awareness of how we affect others. I want to read you a quote from a book I’m currently enjoying, Windows of the Soul (Ken Gire) – “The difference between the inscripturated word and the incarnate word is the difference between the recipe and the bread . . . So often, though, instead of giving out bread to the hungry, we give out recipes . . . all of them come full of words. Good words, many of them. Well-intentioned words, certainly. But words that have not been made flesh. Words that have not dwelt among us. I wonder what would happen if one day all of those words went away. What if one day the entire body of Christ were struck dumb? Couldn’t write a word. Couldn’t speak a word. Couldn’t even move our lips to mouth one. What then? What would be left? Our lives. And what would our lives say? . . . Would the writing on the pages of our lives, which we always took to be literature, turn out to be the scribbling of a preschooler? Or would the pages simply be blank?” “Preach the gospel always,” Saint Francis said, “and when necessary, use words.” He said that because he realized that the words that affected others the most are those that have been made flesh and dwell among us. When asked why he wanted to go to Africa to work among the natives, Albert Schweitzer said it was because he wanted his life to be his sermon. He wanted the days of his week to be a Sunday text so clear and compelling that little else needed to be said. As it turned out, little else needed be. His life was heard by millions. He said, “My life is my argument.”

Finally, the last lesson is the most important one. Above all, we need love. Truthfulness is a basic value because relationships depend upon it. Lying is a vice because it undermines relationships. Truthfulness, however, is not the ultimate value. Love is. Love must be the highest value that guides our speech. Without love, I am nothing.