Matthew 5:33-37

I must admit that I'm tempted to not preach this morning and just let Wes and Liz keep singing songs and Wes preaching homilies in between the songs.

!

Our text for today will be Matthew chapter 5 verses 33 through 37.

Matthew 5:33–37

And this text falls within what is most often called the Sermon on the Mount.

We've been in for quite some months now.

And across our study of the Sermon on the Mount, we've considered two prominent themes.

So two large frameworks that I think are important for us to have on our minds as we venture into any smaller part of this great sermon.

The first is human flourishing.

What does it look like to live well as a citizen of God's kingdom?

What does it mean to be a good citizen of this good kingdom?

And we see that the human flourishing that Jesus teaches is not the same as the flourishing that the world would teach us.

Jesus says at the very outset of the sermon,

Blessed are those who are poor in spirit and who mourn and who are meek and who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

who are merciful, pure peacemakers,

and those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

It's the ones that Jesus calls flourishing.

He steps into a world turned upside down by all of the self-sitterness and self-promotion of His day and ours

and turns it again right side up.

So that's the first theme.

The second theme is the theme of whole person righteousness.

And that would be to say that we are meant to be holy and blameless before God in all senses

and that we are flourishing when we're doing this thing.

These themes don't, they interact quite often in the text.

Jesus has taught us that citizens of His kingdom are keepers of the law.

Not that they gain their citizen by the keeping of the law,

but that they have been granted citizenship by the mercy of God.

And that this keeping of the law evidences their citizenship.

God's people, the citizens of His kingdom, should be zealous to please their king,

to walk in His ways.

And this law keeping, this righteousness, is not merely meant to be an outward working,

but an inward one as well.

Both the actions, but the intentions, the feelings, the emotions.

What we hope to see accomplished by the actions.

Every bit of our being is meant to be leveraged in service to God.

And this is what Jesus means when He says in Matthew 5 and verse 20,

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,

you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The listeners of His day would have been shocked by this.

The scribes and the Pharisees seemed to have it all figured out.

They were the most outwardly righteous.

They seemed to be following God.

But He then begins to press this point by using a series of phrases,

beginning in Matthew 5, verses 21 and 22.

Matthew 5:21

You'll note at the beginning of 21,

You have heard that it was said to those of old.

And then the beginning of verse 22,

But I say to you.

He's taking these common teachings, the rabbinical teachings of the day,

these standards by which people would have looked at the scribes and the Pharisees

and called them holy,

and He's correcting them.

He's showing how they don't actually get to the point.

This whole person righteousness that's required of us by God.

And He does this six times to the end of chapter 5.

And what He's doing is bringing about this correction of common misinterpretations

of the law in His day.

And we are apt to these same errors.

We may not pick them up as rabbinical teachings,

but we may pick them up in other forms in our day.

This morning's text is the fourth in this series

and concerns the making and keeping of promises.

Human societies depend upon truthfulness.

It would suggest that they will both rise and fall

based on the degree of truth that is contained within said society.

We certainly live in a day that it is very difficult to know

what the truth is and who is telling the truth.

It is difficult to trust much of anything that you read or hear any longer.

And if you try to delve down and figure out what the truth is,

I find I often get much more confused.

The state that we find our society in

should not be the case amongst followers of Jesus Christ.

Citizens of the kingdom of heaven

are to be characterized by truthfulness.

Truth ushered us into the kingdom.

And so we are to be lovers of the truth.

On your bulletin, you'll find a Richard Sibbes quote

who was a 16th century Puritan.

I love this.

He said, when we come to be religious,

and by that he means converted to God,

not the way we think of outwardly religious.

When we come to be religious,

we lose not our pleasure, but translate it.

Before we fed on common notions,

but now we live on holy truths.

We should be lovers of the truth as God's people.

And so this morning we will look at our text

simply and briefly to that end.

Before I read the text, beloved,

let me remind you that this is God's word to us.

It was written for his glory and our good.

And as such, we would all do well to listen to it

in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.

So Matthew chapter 5, and I begin reading in verse 33.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

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.

We must first look at the misrepresentation of the law

that Jesus is correcting.

We need to understand the negative command found here

in order to understand the positive.

What is Jesus saying we ought not to do

in order for us to understand what it is we are to do?

And so you see in verse 33,

Jesus again with this phrasing,

you have heard it said to those of old.

This was their statement.

You shall not swear falsely,

but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.

This rabbinical teaching was an amalgamation

of a number of Old Testament texts.

It's not a direct citation from any Old Testament text.

They likely had in mind texts like Exodus 20,

and verse 7,

you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,

for the Lord will not hold him guiltless

who takes his name in vain.

So you shouldn't make a promise on the name of God

and then not keep the promise.

This would be an infraction of Exodus 20,

and verse 7.

They also may have had in mind texts like Deuteronomy 6,

it is the Lord your God you shall fear,

Him you shall serve,

and by His name you shall swear.

Or Leviticus 19, 12,

you shall not swear by my name falsely,

and so profane the name of your God.

I am the Lord.

So now on the surface,

this seems very satisfactory.

This idea of you shall not swear falsely,

but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.

But there were two very common

and very unsatisfactory practices

in the oath-taking of Jesus' day.

And we have to do a little work to understand that.

If we simply come to the text,

we're not his primary audience.

We're the wonderful beneficiaries

as a secondary audience,

but he's speaking to a people.

He's speaking to a culture

and practice of the day.

So there's these two very common

and two very unsatisfactory practices

in the oath-taking of his day.

Number one was frivolous swearing.

Oath-making.

I don't mean cursing.

I mean oath-making when I say swearing.

Frivolous swearing.

People would make an oath

for almost anything at all.

So insignificant statements

were placed on the same level

as very serious statements.

If you should ever be called

to testify in a court of law,

you will be asked to swear

to tell the truth,

the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth.

This is a very serious matter.

You've been called as a witness

and your testimony may free

or imprison someone.

This is a weighty matter.

But at times,

many people in our day

will make a trivial statement

and then follow it with something like,

I swear,

or I swear to God.

That's the kind of frivolous activity

that was happening in his day.

The application of oath-taking

to things that didn't deserve

the weight of oath-taking.

This is this frivolous swearing

that I'm referring to.

James Montgomery Boyce,

who was a 20th century Presbyterian minister,

in his commentary on this text,

said this,

it was exactly as if a servant

who lived in the household

of an honorable state official

should go around talking about

the honorable house,

the honorable chair,

the honorable mop,

the honorable dishpan,

and so forth.

His speech would then have

much less meaning

when he called

the Lord of the house,

Your Honor.

So this was a prevalent thing

in the day,

but the more serious abuse

of oath-taking of the day,

which Jesus more poignantly addresses

in this text,

was evasive swearing.

Evasive swearing.

People were afraid

to make an oath

in the name of the Lord

because they were either

telling less than the truth,

they were out and out lying,

and they didn't want to take

an oath in the name of the Lord,

fearing judgment,

or they were afraid

that they would be unable

to keep their promise,

or had no intention

of keeping their promise at all.

So, they developed the habit

of swearing on something lesser,

like heaven, the earth,

Jerusalem, or their own heads.

They'd swear on their own life.

And these oaths

were not considered binding.

So you could take an oath,

but in a lesser thing

than God Himself,

and you could get out of it.

It wasn't really an oath at all

in that case.

Jesus speaks to this

in Matthew chapter 23.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

This is the chapter

where all the woes

to the scribes

are contained within.

And He says,

beginning in verse 16,

Woe to you blind guides

who say,

if anyone swears by the temple,

it is nothing.

But if anyone swears by the gold

of the temple,

he is bound by his oath.

So these are these laws

they put in place.

Jesus says,

you blind fools,

for which is greater,

the gold or the temple

that has made the gold sacred?

And you say,

if anyone swears by the altar,

it is nothing.

But if anyone swears by the gift

that is on the altar,

he is bound by his oath.

You blind men,

for which is greater,

the gift or the altar

that makes the gift sacred?

So whoever swears by the altar

swears by it

and by everything on it.

And whoever swears by the temple

swears by it

and by him who dwells in it.

And whoever swears by heaven

swears by the throne of God

and by him who sits

upon it.

The Pharisees,

in an effort to carefully

keep the law,

so often lost sight

of the spirit

of that law

and became far too concerned

about the letter of it.

People lived,

as many do today,

as if any part of their life

could ever be separated

from the presence of God.

And this is simply not so.

So this was the misrepresentation

of the law that Jesus is correcting.

It appears on the surface

to be so good.

If you make an oath,

keep it.

But this was the practice

that was going on

in the day

to try to avoid

the biblical way

in which oaths are meant

to be made

and kept.

So he's correcting them.

This frivolous

and this evasive swearing.

One minimizing the truth

and the other avoiding it

altogether.

And he does so

with the following statement.

We've read already.

Verse 34,

Now there are many,

even today,

that believe that Jesus here

is abolishing

the practice of oath-taking

completely.

He is entirely doing away

with it altogether.

There are those

who refuse to make promises

with any degree

of gravitas

who do not hold

that one should take

an oath in a court of law

or that doctors,

police officers,

military personnel,

judges,

our elected officials,

and so forth

should be sworn in

to their prospective offices.

They all take oaths

when they do this

to upkeep

particular promises

of that office.

I am not one

of those people

and I will show you why

from the two testaments.

So what I'm doing here

is I'm debunking

the idea,

I hope,

that we ought not ever

take an oath

that Jesus' word,

but I say you do not

take an oath at all,

has to be placed

in its proper context

and in the larger context

of Scripture

to understand

what it is

he's combating

specifically

in the Sermon on the Mount.

So let me show you

from the two testaments

briefly.

So first in the Old Testament,

I read it to you already,

but in Leviticus 19.12,

God gives instruction

for the taking of oaths.

He tells us

in this particular case

how not to take an oath.

So there's a positive

implication as well.

He says,

you shall not swear

by my name falsely

and so profane

the name of your God.

I am the Lord.

So the inverse of that

would be to say,

you should swear

by my name truthfully.

If you make an oath,

you should keep said oath.

Many Old Testament saints

made oaths.

Abraham swore by God's name

in Genesis chapter 14,

Genesis 14:22

verse 22,

and verse 23

as he interacts

with the king of Sodom.

He says,

I have lifted my hand

to the Lord,

God most high,

possessor of heaven and earth,

that I would not take

a thread

or a sandal strap

or anything that is yours,

lest you should say,

I have made Abram rich.

He's saying,

I have lifted my hand,

I have made a promise

in God's name,

in His presence,

with Him as the witness

of the promise

that I'm making to you.

And he affirms this

to the king of Sodom

by telling him this very thing.

Another example,

amongst many,

David and Jonathan

covenanted together

in the name of the Lord

in 1 Samuel chapter 20

1 Samuel 20 · chapter mention

and verse 16.

And Jonathan made a covenant

with the house of David,

saying,

May the Lord take vengeance

on David's enemies.

Right?

He calls God,

right,

to uphold the covenant

that they make together

in that case.

So those are just two

of the many Old Testament examples

I could provide.

But more importantly,

I want to look at the New Testament

on the matter.

Right?

So those who would say

that Jesus has come

and He's put away the practice,

right?

So there's a practice

we've established.

And I want to show you

that the practice continues on

in the New Testament as well

and spend a bit more time there.

So in the New Testament,

and I think the highest example

we may have here,

earthly example,

Jesus swore an oath

when He was on trial

before Caiaphas

in Matthew chapter 26.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

This is verse 63 and verse 64.

It says,

But Jesus remained silent.

And the high priest said to Him,

I adjure you by the living God.

Tell us if you are the Christ,

the Son of God.

And here he's doing,

he's appealing to God Himself,

right?

Before God,

in the name of God,

speak the truth.

And what does Jesus say in response?

You have said so.

He doesn't say to Him,

right?

Well, I'll tell you,

but I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to swear

on the name of God

that I am in fact

the Son of God.

But when He says it,

He says,

You have said so.

He affirms the very thing

that Caiaphas is asking Him to do.

Further,

Paul swore oaths.

And we don't pick these up often,

but this is what he's doing.

Romans chapter 9 and verse 1.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

He says,

I am speaking the truth in Christ.

I am not lying.

My conscience bears me witness

in the Holy Spirit.

He's appealing to God

as the witness of His truthfulness.

And in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 23,

2 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

I think more emphatically here,

he says,

But I call God to witness against me.

It was to spare you

that I refrained from coming again to Corinth.

So again,

appealing to making a promise.

I'm speaking the truth

and God will bear me witness

for this truth

that I am speaking.

Most importantly to the case I'm making,

the writer of Hebrews tells us

that God Himself

swore an oath

to His people.

And this is Hebrews chapter 6.

Hebrews 6 · chapter mention

And I'd like for you to turn

and look at this with me.

Beginning in verse 13.

Verse 13.

Verse 13.

The writer of Hebrews

is writing at this point

to give his readers

a confidence in the promises of God.

A confidence that remains

for us today.

It was certainly active for them

and is still active for us.

And he bases that confidence

in an oath

made by God Himself.

If we think that oaths

are no longer allowable,

I would tend to think

that oaths are broken in that case

and we cannot have this kind of confidence.

So he writes,

beginning in verse 13,

For when God made a promise to Abraham,

since he had no one greater

by whom to swear,

he swore by himself,

saying,

Surely I will bless you

and multiply you.

And thus Abraham,

having patiently waited,

obtained the promise.

For people swear by something

greater than themselves,

and in all their disputes,

an oath

is final

for confirmation.

So when God desired

to show more convincingly

to the heirs

of the promise

the unchangeable character

of His purpose,

He guaranteed it

with an oath.

He made a promise.

He swore by Himself.

God,

who cannot change

and cannot lie,

swore an oath.

And it is a blessed oath,

right,

that all the nations of the world

will be blessed

in Jesus Christ,

the seed of Abraham.

So Jesus is not telling us

that we cannot make

large,

weighty promises.

Jesus is warning against

the type of promise making

that was so prevalent

in His day

and

in ours.

And He works through

unraveling their logic

of swearing on a

lesser thing,

doesn't He?

He says the lesser thing

really belongs to God

anyway,

right?

Heaven is the throne of God,

earth is His footstool,

Jerusalem is His city,

and you can't even

control your head.

I am also the God

of your life.

So swearing on anything lesser

is to swear

by God Himself.

Jesus will not allow anyone

to play games

and cheat the rules.

He sees the motivations

and purposes

of our hearts,

this whole person

righteousness,

right?

All of our lives

ought to be lived

quorum Deo,

that is,

in the presence

of God.

Jesus is saying

don't make frivolous

or evasive

promises.

When you make

weighty promises,

they should be made

as a people

who love

and walk

in the truth.

And we do make

these sort

of weighty promises.

I would not want

to do away

with these kinds

of promises

that we make.

As examples,

we do so

in our marriage vows.

We agree

that God

is presiding

over our marriage.

We are making

promises

to each other,

big promises

to each other.

We are making

an oath

as we covenant

together in

marriage.

And,

we have done

so as a covenant

community.

Those of you

who are members

of our church

and those who

aren't,

come on,

get on the process.

But,

we have made

weighty promises

to one another

and we've done

so,

we've taken

this oath,

we've sworn

by God.

Listen to

the conclusion

of our membership

covenant.

Those of you

who remember

signed this.

It reads,

I enter into

this covenant

together with

Christ Family

Church under

the common

goal of

obedience to

glorification of

and joyful

satisfaction in

Jesus Christ

because I believe

and assert with

the rest of the

body that we

need one of

those help

to do so.

As believers

and disciples

of Jesus,

we have entered

into a covenant

relationship with

God who revealed

himself in

Jesus Christ.

The blessings

and promises

of this covenant

have been freely

extended and given

to us.

Therefore,

out of wonder,

love,

thanksgiving,

and reverence,

we hereby accept

and take up

these covenant

responsibilities

which accompany

said privileges

together as a

covenant family.

This is our

reasonable service

and we should

do nothing

less.

God help us

all.

We rely on

his grace alone

and hold fast

to his promise

that there is now

no condemnation

for those who

are in Christ

Jesus.

May his

grace provide

for all

that he

commands.

We have

made weighty

promises.

We have

taken an

oath to

one another

and I'll

leave out the

details of what

that covenant

says but to

walk in truth

together,

to pursue

Christ together,

to take the

gospel to the

nations together

is the summary

of those

promises that

we made in

the name

of God.

Jesus is

telling the

listeners of

his day

and us

this morning

that when

we take

oaths,

the people

that we

are making

promises to

should be

able to

believe what

we have

said because

our lives

are characterized

by the truth.

To make this

point further,

Jesus goes on

to say,

let what you

say be

simply yes

or no.

Anything more

than this

comes from

evil.

I believe

here that

Jesus is

speaking to

our everyday

interactions with

one another,

with our

spouses,

our employers,

our employees,

your pastor.

If you

say that

you will

do something,

your life

should back

the answer

of yes.

You should

be

trustworthy,

a person

that can

be trusted

as honest.

If you

are asked

a question,

you should

give no

reason for

anyone to

doubt your

answer.

Our lives

would be

characterized

in this

way.

In the

original

language,

Jesus

actually

says,

let what

you say

be simply

yes,

yes,

or no,

no.

Your

translation

may in

fact render

it this

way.

It's a

little more

faithful if

it does

on this

particular

verse.

This

redundancy

in Jesus'

speech is

much like

his teaching

that begins

with truly,

truly,

I say

to you.

It places

emphasis on

the weightiness

of what was

said.

This was

common

practice.

You repeat

a word.

We really

are supposed

to pay

attention to

this word

that has

repetition

with it.

It adds

a weightiness

to it.

Our

yeses

and our

nos

should hold

value in

the minds

of our

listeners.

We as

American

English

speakers don't

need to go

around saying

yes,

yes,

and no,

no.

The point

being,

I think

why the

ESV

translators

just said

yes and

no,

is because

we're

supposed to

say yes

and it

carries

that weight.

It carries

the truly,

truly weight

behind it.

People would

hear us

and believe

us as

followers of

Jesus Christ.

As lovers

of the truth,

those who have

been redeemed

by our faith

in it,

we should be

speakers of

the truth.

We are

children of

God and

God cannot

lie.

Titus

Titus 1:2

chapter 1

verse 2,

we are

not

children of

Satan.

In John

John 8:44

chapter 8

verse 44,

Jesus accuses

the religious

leaders of

his day by

saying,

you are

of your

father,

the devil,

and your

will is to

do your

father's

desires.

He was a

murderer from

the beginning

and does

not stand

in the

truth because

there is no

truth in

him.

When he

lies,

he speaks

out of

his own

character,

for he is

a liar and

the father

of lies.

This should

not be us.

And in

Matthew 12

Matthew 12:34

verse 34,

he says again

this indictment,

you brood of

vipers,

how can you

speak good

when you are

evil?

For out of

the abundance

of the heart

the mouth

speaks.

Good trees

produce good

fruit.

Apples don't

grow on

pear trees.

Apples don't

grow on,

right?

I have now

been recorded

singing and

that's frightening.

No

nana's come,

it only

grows plums.

Your heart

is where

the words

of your

mouth

grow.

Your mouth

is where

the words

of your

heart

go.

Jesus

change

our

hearts

to bear

good

fruit.

Citizens

of his

kingdom,

that was

entirely

unplanned

by the

way,

citizens

of God's

kingdom

will be

truth

speakers.

This

qualifies

us.

And again,

we are not

citizens because

we speak

truth,

but because

we are

citizens.

We're

desirous

for this.

We hunger

and thirst

for this.

We long

for God's

spirit to

work in

us this

righteousness

that seeks

truth at

all cost.

May we

be a

people set

apart for

the praise

of God

in all

that we

do.

May we

be characterized

as followers

of the

truth by

being speakers

of the

truth in

all things

to all

peoples

for the

glory of

God.

I want

to leave

you with

one last

reading.

This is

from 1

1 John 1 · chapter mention

John

chapter 1

and this

is verses

5

through 10.

John

writes,

this is the

message we

have heard

from him

and proclaimed

to you,

that God

is light

and in

him is

no darkness

at all.

If we

say we

have fellowship

with him

while we

walk in

darkness,

we lie

and do

not practice

the truth.

But if we

walk in

the light

as he

is in

the light,

we have

fellowship

with one

another and

the blood

of Jesus

his son

cleanses

us from

all sin.

If we

say we

have no

sin,

we deceive

ourselves

and the

truth

is not

in us.

If we

confess

our sins,

he is

faithful

and just

to forgive

us our

sins

and to

cleanse us

from all

unrighteousness.

If we

say we

have not

sinned,

we make

him a

liar and

his word

is not

in us.

Let's pray

together.