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To Tell The Truth
What’s New On The West Side? One Sermon That Changed The World
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TO TELL THE TRUTH
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:31-37 ESV)
TRUTH MATTERS
Riley came home from her first grade Sunday School class. At the lunch table, her mother asked, “What did you talk about in class today?”
“We talked about what it means to tell a lie,” answered Riley.
“Oh interesting,” said her mom; “and what does the Bible say about lying?”
“Well,” Riley replied, trying to remember her memory verses, “A lie is an abomination in the sight of the Lord, and an ever-present help in time of trouble.”
Isn’t that the truth?!
In 1956, CBS debuted a game show called “To Tell The Truth,” and it has appeared in several different decades. Maybe you remember it hosted by Bud Collyer, or Garry Moore or Anthony Anderson. But in all its iterations, three people would appear on stage, while the host would read out the strange experience or unusual occupation belonging to one of them. Four celebrity panelists would have to guess which of the three contestants was being described. To make it interesting, and to make sense of the show’s name, the two imposters would lie, trying to make you believe the lie and get you to choose them.
It works great in TV shows. It works terribly in real life. Suppose you are happily married and I handed you an envelope. “In this envelope,” I say to you, “is absolute, 100% proof whether your spouse has ever cheated on you.” Remember, you are happily married, and not knowing of any unfaithfulness (or, assuming faithfulness) has been a major component in your happiness. Here is the question: would you open the envelope? Most people answer “yes.” No amount of pleasure will satisfying our deepest longings for the truth. We will stand cold, naked, and alone—face to face with the nagging feeling that what we find pleasing can never measure up to what we find to be true.
Truth lies at the heart of all relationships; indeed, it is part and parcel of the fabric of any society. Because without truth there can be no trust. Immanuel Kant was a great ethicist, deeply influenced by his Lutheran upbringing. He argued that the way you can decide if something is wrong, completely wrong, always wrong, is this way: could you imagine a world where everybody did that thing whenever they wanted to? If you can imagine it, would you want a world where everybody did that thing whenever they wanted to? He used lying at his chief example. If people lied whenever it suited their fancy, you could never really know how much money is in your bank account, if your package is really on its way, if anything is really as it seems. Can you imagine a society where every business CEO only revealed the truth about their product if there was enough money in it? Where every teacher was a fraud, and every preacher was a sham? Look around! Maybe you could imagine it, but the question is “Would you want to live in a world like that?” So Kant argued one thing that is clearly and obviously wrong is to tell a lie; for if a person believes ethics means anything, he must tell the truth.
Without truth, there can be no rights. If there is no truth, everything reduces to power games and manipulation. Rights become preferences for individual competing groups; but there can be no certain inalienable rights—not if there is no such thing as truth.
Without truth there can be no freedom. Os Guinness helped me see this by sharing the following stories. Freedom isn’t simply freedom “from” something (like addictions and oppression); freedom is also freedom for something. Freedom to truly be yourself implies there is a true “you” to which you are entitled. G. K. Chesterton pointed out that if you have a camel and a tiger, both in cages, and you wanted to set them free, you wouldn’t think the answer is to remove the hump from the camel or the stripes from the tiger. You would know that is not setting them free, it is manipulating their identity. To know what it means to set them free, you first need to know what they are. Freedom assumes and requires truth. No truth—no freedom. In his Nobel speech, Alexander Solzhenitsyn declared that “one word of truth shall outweigh the whole world.” Or to borrow a line from Jesus, only the truth will set you free.
VERBAL MANIPULATION
Do you remember that Brady Bunch episode where Greg learns how to twist the truth when selling his awful car? Even Greg can’t bring himself to call it lying. He calls it “guilding the lily.”
Oh we see people guilding that lily every day, don’t we? The product we buy on Amazon or on the screen when we roll down our window to order never quite looks as good in real life as it does in the advertisements. And then you learn that French fry in the ad isn’t a French fry at all—it’s plastic. That’s not ice-cream; it’s mashed potatoes. The sauce looks so juicy—that’s because there’s wax in it.
And we can lay it on real thick too, can’t we? There’s a word for all of this. “Manipulation.” We manipulate our pictures on social media, using ever filter known to man, airbrushing out all the imperfections to give an impression that never actually existed in real life; but then we call it “putting our best foot forward.” We see the media do it after a political debate; but they brazenly call it “spin.” I once heard of a school who thought the people in their science department didn’t look as good (physically) as their art department. So they had their art teachers wear lab coats and hold test tubes and pose for the cameras to put in the catalog. They called it “effective PR.”
Manipulation. It’s become second nature to us. Always coaxing, always sugar-coating, always trying to tailor our words to fit what we want you to hear, not the truth as it actually stands.
Manipulation. Leaving things out, adding things in, twisting, distorting, revising and retelling. And we always have good reasons. In the interest of not hurting your feelings, not divulging private information, not exposing our own mistakes, not lessening the effectiveness of our pitch, we manipulate—and we do damage to the truth.
Let’s admit it. Studies show we tell a lie once every 3 minutes, and that someone deceives somebody else in 2/3rds of all conversations.
When we tell that story again—the one about the fish we caught: and it’s bigger this time.
When we add a line in our resume that wasn’t true, but it made us look or sound better, and covered up a weakness.
When we pad our business expense account.
When we mirror whoever we are talking to, changing what we really think to agree with what they are saying so they will find us likable, or think we are in the know, instead of admitting: no, I have never read that book you are talking about; no, I don’t agree with that view; yes, I have been talking about you behind your back.
What if there was a drone with a powerful microphone, and it picked up every word you spoke the entire day (in public and in private). And then the next day, it played it—out loud—for all your neighbors to hear. Would your words to them match up with what you said about them?
Jesus is making one simple point. Tell the truth. Mean what you say. Keep your word. Let it be as good as gold. Speak truth to your neighbor. Reveal the situation for what it is. Don’t engage in verbal manipulation.
IN THE NAME OF THE LORD
I’ll tell you how they did it. First century Jewish people would say things to each other that you couldn’t really take to the bank; but when they really wanted to convince you of something, they would say “I swear by the heavens; I swear by the earth; I swear by the temple; I swear by the altar.” If you are wondering if they are dancing around just saying the name of God, you’d be right. Do you know why they danced around it? Because there was a command against it. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” says the third commandment; “for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain” (Ex 20:7 ESV).
You might, intuitively, see one obvious problem with their interpretation of that commandment. They went for the wording, not the meaning. Or as we might say—they went for the letter of the law, not the spirit of it. That’s true. Swearing by the heavens and the temple is swearing by the name of God; and Jesus points that out. But there’s a second problem with their interpretation of that commandment. I learned this from a Jewish person. This passage isn’t even primarily talking about your words. To belong to Israel was to wear an incredibly precious badge. But some of them wearing that badge followed the ways of the pagan world around them. What did it say to outsiders? What did that say about God?
Do you know what Jesus probably had in mind when he made a commandment to never take the Lord’s name in vain? He meant in word and deed, don’t betray your calling. You bear the Lord’s name; it’s stamped on your forehead. Don’t live in such a way that you wish it was covered up. When no one is looking…are you who you say you are?
Jesus says to people who want to seek the heart of God—be people of the truth. Let your words and deeds reflect our God who is full of grace, and full of truth. And if you think, “well, I didn’t pinky swear; I didn’t invoke the name of God so it’s ok I didn’t really mean it,” you forget that in everything you do you invoke the name of God, because the name of God abides in you.
CONCLUSION
So put it all together. These two passages and this sermon. Here is what Jesus wants from his people. Two Things. #1: Put your trust in God. Believe that God is taking care of your future. If we aren’t acting out of anger toward someone, or lusting for money or power as if we want something from someone, think about how that frees us. We can live lives so pure and simple, so full of God’s goodness, that we could care less whether we make a lot of money or a little, so we have no reason to change the story to get the outcome we need. As the little boy quoted Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd, I don’t want nothin! We can simply live in authentic relationships and accept whatever outcome results.
#2: Go love your neighbor. Put their needs before yours and put the truth above all. Love your neighbor enough to tell them all the things wrong with the car you are selling. Love them enough to tell them the truth, not make up an excuse.
Can you even imagine a world like that? Complete, honest, unadulterated truth? I can. Do you know why? Because God—your God—is not only the way and the life…He is the truth. And he is truly yours. No ifs, ands, or buts. No qualifications. Not only when you do it all right. Do you know how I know that? He said “I do.” He is eternally covenanted with you. And he will never leave you nor forsake you. I swear to God.
This is a sermon preached on October 1, 2023 at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) entitled “To Tell The Truth.” It is the seventh lesson in a sermon series called “One Sermon That Changed The World.” This lesson is available to watch or listen, and appears on the Life on the West Side podcast (Season 3, Episode 6). Available on all podcast platforms.
One Sermon That Changed The World
Happiness. Think of it as our ultimate goal. We go through pain, sweat, and tears; endure endless years of pressure and experience the daily grind in our attempt to reach it. The problem is that no matter how hard we try, happiness seems to elude us.
Would it surprise you to learn that God has given us a prescription? In the first century, a sermon began circulating containing the teachings of Jesus Christ offering a description of a truly blessed life. We call it the Sermon on the Mount. John Wesley called it "the complete art of happiness."
Join us this fall as we begin a 3-month long journey to find happiness. "One Sermon That Changed The World: A Study of the Sermon on the Mount." Our Dive Deeper class will be using a guided workbook called “Living The Sermon on the Mount,” prepared especially for this series. This guide is a free gift to use for an individual, small group, or church-wide study.
Stream our lessons Sundays at 9 AM (CST) on facebook or YouTube or on our website. If you are in the middle Arkansas area, we would love to have you join us in person. I’ll save a seat for you.
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My name is Nathan Guy, and I serve as the preaching minister for the West Side Church of Christ in Searcy, Arkansas. I am happily married to Katie and am the proud father of little Grace. You can find more resources on my website over at nathanguy.com. Follow me: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (X), Threads, and YouTube.