Making And Keeping Promises

The importance of being promise keepers

Good morning. As I was meditating further on this passage yesterday, it reminded me of some events that maybe changed the introduction because I thought this might be a good time for a family history for us at Jefferson Park. I see back in December 2009, a young man named Matt, came up to me at a church service where we went to church in Louisville, Kentucky, and he showed me just before Christmas that the church where his father was attending in Charlottesville, the pastor had just stepped aside. Lisa's family was from Harrisonburg, so I thought I'll offer to preach, knowing it might be difficult during that time of year. The only way I knew to get in touch with the church, though, was through a friend of mine named Greg, who's in D.C., and he had preached here a few times, Well, they were cutting his time short there in D.C., and he was hoping to be a candidate, and he was a candidate and was hoping to be the next pastor here at Jefferson Park. So he responded to my email just asking, you know, can you connect me with who, you know, I could talk to to preach here. He said, are you trying to steal my church? And I assured him, no, I was fully intent on being a professor. I was looking at different teaching jobs. And I said if you're a candidate, I would not put my name in here to be a candidate for the search committee. Fast forward to March when, over spring break, we were in Harrisonburg and a friend, Asher Griffin, who will be with us in May for more story time then. After leaving, Asher and I went with some folks in one direction, Lisa with her family went in another direction. And we both left thinking that this is, This is a church we could see ourselves at. Some folks in the search committee even asked me afterwards if I would consider putting my name in, and well, because I'd given my word to Greg, I was obnoxiously coy. Because I wanted to, but I said I wouldn't. As Lisa and I talked later, our desires kind of grew more and more for Jefferson Park, but it was clear I wouldn't and could not put my name as a candidate. Someone even contacted one of my professors, Michael Haken, who had preached here a few years prior to 2009, and he came to me and said, Keith, my church seems to be interested in you. Are you not interested? And I said, actually, I really am. I want to be there. I think I have the internal call to be there, but I gave my word to this friend, and he was resolute. You must keep your word. Let's pray for that other candidate. You're going to do a different job. So he prayed with me. He continued to pray. We continued to pray for the Lord's will. We'll call this next character Bruce, an elder at the church with me in Louisville, came to me kind of oddly. Hey, tomorrow, call me when you need to. All right. So then the senior pastor said, hey, can we talk tomorrow? And my wheels start turning. Well, Monday, the senior pastor of the church I was at, he told me that he was resigning. All right, well, I'll go meet Bruce. And I'm kind of thinking, Bruce, he's not going to ask me to be the senior pastor, because he actually didn't think I should be a pastor. He didn't think I was a good preacher, so. He met with me to inform me that he had already asked our mutual friend Greg in DC to come back to Louisville to be the pastor of that church. And I'm thinking, this is all working out. Greg didn't take his name out of the pool, though, until like one week before they were not taking any more applicants. I should say it was very painful. I felt called here. My feelings can be deceiving. God works everything out in his own will. I knew no matter what, God was going to care for myself, for Greg, for the church in Louisville, for Jefferson Park. I can assure you 15 years later, I'm even more confident and thankful that God is trustworthy. I knew that I had to be faithful to what I had committed, and I knew God would be faithful to fulfill his will. As I share that testimony of how God was good, this passage is challenging for me. I have a hard time being overcommitted. That isn't like the job description, what's your greatest weakness, I care too much. No, I live in constant chaos and disorder in my own head and therefore in my life. I don't know how many times I have been at lunch and then Ben texts me, somebody's here to meet you. You're scheduled, double booked. I also just burdened, I can't keep the commitments I want in the way I would like. As a follower of Jesus Christ, We need to be trustworthy. As followers of Jesus Christ, we should see our word as something sacred. It's an incredible power we have to give ourselves over in promises. In a way, we receive so many promises from God. This morning, we're considering the power of words, the power of promises, the importance of keeping those promises. Some of the promises we have in scripture. I forgive you. I love you. I am with you. I am for you. Those are promises God makes to us. Those are the promises he then calls us to make towards each other. Life is really built upon what promises we're going to prioritize. The promises we're going to make, the promises we're going to keep. Our words commit us in such a unique way. How we choose to prioritize what we will do is going to determine who we become. Here in this passage, Jesus the King is speaking to us, the citizens of the kingdom. He's telling us all of his blessings, he's telling us who he is, he's telling us who he expects us to be. We're in the Sermon on the Mount, if you're new with us. We're hearing, we're in the middle of these six statements. We're picking up on the fourth one now. You have heard it said, but I tell you. And Jesus is interpreting his law for his people. This morning, as we look at this passage, Jesus, the fulfillment of all of God's promises, teaches us the importance of being promise keepers. Jesus, the fulfillment of all of God's promises, teaches us the importance of being promise keepers. First, each of these sayings have had three parts. We'll have three points to the sermon. The first is honor God with your promises. This is verse 33.

Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.

Jesus is affirming the Old Testament law in this passage and in the three previous. He's declaring this is what God has said. And then the bud is clarifying and interpreting over against wrong interpretations. Here, the declaration comes from Leviticus 19. That's what Huynh read earlier. And you heard that repetition, for I am the Lord your God. There's five sections. And over again, God is telling his nation Israel, the citizens then of the people of Israel, I am the Lord your God. As you're going to go and be my people, my kingdom in your new land, you must obey my laws. And in many ways, it's just an outflow of what the Ten Commandments are. He's helping us see the importance of our relationships and how we relate to him. Leviticus 19, if we're to consider it, it shows us about God. It teaches us a lot about God. God who loves justice hates our theft and our crime. The God who loves truth hates our lies. The God who loves blessing hates our curses and insults. God had been teaching Israel and teaching us in the book of Leviticus, and teaching us even here. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not lie. Do not swear falsely. Now often as we think, you know, do not take my, the Lord's name in vain, that's referring to using his word as some kind of an expletive. Now that is included, but primarily that's not keeping your promise. because as Yahweh's name is upon you and as you are a representative of Yahweh, as you're a representative of Jesus Christ, your word reflects Him. The swearing falsely of Leviticus 19 verse 12, that could have two different settings. One would be in a court, where as you're called to give testimony, will you testify to the truth or will you testify a lie? To swear falsely would be to misrepresent Yahweh by lying in court. The other would be in a community. To swear falsely would be to make a promise in a transaction and not keep your end of the promise. It would be not telling the truth, it would be slander, it would be misleading somebody. Our words matter to God. In Matthew 5, 33, Jesus says, do not swear falsely. Speak the truth and be faithful to that truth. Speak the truth and make sure that that truth is what you're committed to. And he clarifies that with that second statement, but you shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. Notice the emphasis there is saying something that you will do and not doing. Committing yourself in a way, in a contract or in a covenant and not performing what you have promised to the Lord. or in the name of the Lord. Why is this so important? As believers of the God who is a covenant maker and a promise maker and a promise keeper, God keeps his word. He must, he cannot lie, he is true. God has spoken promises. Remember in Matthew, he continued to say over and over again, and thus fulfilled the promise, and thus fulfilled this passage, and thus fulfilled this promise. God is true to his word. What God has sworn, he has performed. And as those who are under that blessing, we are called to be like God. Blessed, we are blessed by the promise making and keeping God. and sort of be like Him. We're to be representatives of His truth by making the right promises and keeping those promises. God is a promise maker and keeper, and those made in His image and those renewed in the image are called to follow Him. Now this is important for all people at all times, but it's especially important, I think, in our world. We live in a maybe world. Christian, if you're committed to always being a maybe, you're not going to mature in Christ. The highest calling of God is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind. Love is a promise. That highest calling is a promise that directs your life. Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your life, that can't be a random act of kindness. It can't be walking along just waiting to feel love or fall in love. If you fall in love, please get out. Love is where you commit yourself. Love in scripture is meant to be a patterned life, directing yourself towards God and all that he says is good. This is my desire for you, that you would enjoy the full blessed life of God. And if you want to write some of what that looks like, I would encourage you to read and discuss Psalm 1. Blessed are those who delight in the law of God. They don't walk with the sinners. They don't sit with the scoffers. They delight in God and his law. What that delighting means is you're committed, you're loving, you're hearing the word of God and you're seeking to make promises to that good law that's gonna make you like that tree planted by the waters that grows strong, healthy, sturdy, steadfast, fruit-bearing. Promises. Promises to God are how you get your roots promises, or what keep you from being that tumbleweed that's blown just by the wind. Committing the right promises and keeping those promises, or how your roots grow deep to soak in the Word of God that you delight in. The reality is we're all making some kind of promises. We're all sending our roots into some kind of delight and source. Is it the Word of God that's going to help you become that strong, productive, fruit-bearing tree? Roots grow deep with consistent, constant patterns of making promises. Present the way of Jesus in his narrow way. Here are the promises of God. Again, I forgive you, I love you, I'm with you, I'm for you. See, he's worthy of trust. You can see the other promises of God. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Love one another as Christ loved you. Love your neighbor as yourself. The whole pattern of the Christian life should be built around these love commands. And there's a wonderful order there. Love the Lord your God, that's the one that's directing everything. Because as you meditate upon the fact that you're called to love God, you receive, why is it you can love God? You can answer. Because he loved you first. God is love and he sent his son to bear the wrath of his righteousness to forgive us. We can love God and that can direct everything else. Loving our neighbor as ourselves with a close to love, those who are near us. We love one another as Christ loved you. I'm convinced Christ loves me more than I love myself. So we see there's an order. A love for creator. A love according to the covenant with Christ. A love for neighbor, those who are close in location. That doesn't mean they're like us in every way, but that means they're near us. I print that as just some tools to consider what kind of promises you're making. Where and with whom are you directing your time, attention, and your promises? Is it out of order? Even within each of those, there's a way you can double click. Love one another, that is your church. There's a closeness, we're to love each other as our church members, and we're loving other churches around the world, we pray for them, we pray for other churches in our city, but there's a way in which we're ordered here as covenant members, but then, the call to husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, that's the same measure. There's a priority there, though, for the wife among the members. Love your neighbor as yourself. There's another significant qualifier, even your enemies. There's a way to make sure we are established in God's love by making sure we're keeping the promises of his host. Next point, do not embellish your promises. Point number two, do not embellish your promises. Jesus' correction here is confronting the way the Pharisees have sought to practice promise-making. Verse 34.

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.

Jesus is confronting the Pharisees and he's done so in a number of ways because the Pharisees have kind of a clever way of looking at the law and most of them are unlawful. The first thing we need to see to really understand what this passage is doing is the word for swear in Matthew 5 through 33 is different than the word for oath in 34. He's speaking of two different concepts. We cannot pretend that verse 34 is a life verse that you should never commit yourself to anything. That would be unhelpful and unwise. 34, that word oath carries with it that there is a way that you're appealing to something greater than yourself. You're invoking some kind of transcendent entity with the promise. So 33 is the kind of promise God expects you to make truthfully and truly. 34 is what he's warning against, and that's saying, no, I'm gonna make a promise, but I'm gonna embellish it. I'm gonna make my promise a super promise. The Prophets seems like it'd be super religious. I'm gonna promise on the temple, in heaven. Jesus goes through the different things they might promise. We see the same pattern in Matthew 23, the same kind of warning. 33 is promising yourself a yes and no. 34 is seeking to embellish with some kind of out external appeal to something else. Notice he says, do not take an oath twice. The first three are things outside of you, greater than you, heaven, earth, Jerusalem, and there's always a reference to these things are God, why would you even think to make an oath? Something so much greater than yourself. The other one is interesting. Do not take an oath he repeats again, and even by your own head. You can't control if you have white or black hair. Or hair. You only are responsible for saying yes, I commit myself, or no, anything beyond this is evil, he says. We're supposed to make promises. Simple, straightforward, promises. That should be sufficient for someone who tells the truth. We give ourselves over with our yes and our no. When we say we're going to do something, we give ourselves over. The embellishing is over against phony promises or embellishing. Now the thing about what the Pharisees do with the different promises of God and commands of God, there's a couple ways in which he might be confronting them. First and foremost would be that they're seeking to make their promises greater than they really are. They're using some kind of appeal to a transcendent entity to try to appeal to somebody that they're more truthful than they really are. I think it kind of makes them liars. The second would be some way in which they're taking oaths and they're seeking to apply a rule that says, well, if you make this super spiritual oath, it'll let you out of this oath. I think we'll see an example of this in Matthew 15. where they created this thing called Corbin as a way of getting out of the command to honor your mother and father. There's a way in which you had this super spiritual way of committing yourself in a promise that relieved you of other ways in which you're supposed to honor God. And thirdly, it was finding loopholes. And the Good Samaritan is actually a reflection on Leviticus 19. Love your neighbor as yourself. The Good Samaritan parable is just putting the finger on the fact that the Pharisees, they create a loophole to say, well, I love my neighbor, but only the neighbors I really like. The neighbors that are like me, rather than the neighbors that I recognize God made in his own image, who are all like me. They had these different rules of trying to twist scripture to satisfy the sins of their own heart Well, therefore they become their own God. So each one of these teachings is addressing the heart in that we're supposed to commit our hearts to truth, we're supposed to keep those promises we make to truth, and we're supposed to avoid the kinds of promises that are sinful. The Pharisees wanted to twist God's word, or use something greater than themselves to appeal to. The simple teaching is straightforward, verse 37.