Flourish: Living In A Pinocchio Nation

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Let's just take a minute and remind ourselves that there's going to come a day, as certain as you're standing in this room right now, there's going to come a day when all that we've had faith in is going to be seen.

The Bible says right now that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

Translation, uh, there's going to come a day when it's going to become obvious who was right.

And I just want to say, you're not crazy for what you believe.

And believing the gospel.

If people think you are, you're not the first one.

Paul had to write to the Corinthians and he said, Hey, if we're out of our mind, it's for the sake of God.

He said that in 2 Corinthians because they wrote back to him and said, We think you're crazy, dude.

All this God talk.

Lighten up.

It's 2016.

One day this is all gonna go down, it's like the Bible says.

So that you're here today is not a waste of time, it's an opportunity to prepare yourself, to make the most of the time you have left.

I'm 51 years old.

Means I got more life behind me than I've got left in front of me.

And so the older I get, the more authentic and freed up I should become.

You should ask yourself, do we want more of that?

And so if you've if you're one of the people that's got more life behind you than you got less in front of you, because I doubt I'm gonna live to be 102.

My wife prays I don't.

See, I'm just saying, as we get older, let's don't become more vague, universalist, non-believing.

Don't let the salt lose its saltiness, beloved.

All of us that got more behind us than left than left in front of us, we ought to be the people that are speaking the truth in love louder and longer than anybody around us.

Because here's the deal: we've lived long enough to know what the truth is.

We've seen enough, been through enough.

When we got married, we we gave each other gold, yellow gold rings, not platinum.

And so if you're in the room today and you're 60, don't coast.

Because one day this is all gonna go down, and you don't want to spend the last chapter of your life just kind of vaguely, just kind of not making anybody uncomfortable.

No, make your grandkids uncomfortable.

Look at your granddaughter and go, Really, you gonna wear that?

Out of love.

Some of you are like, Well, you've seen my granddaughter, huh?

Let me voice a prayer and we'll we'll get at it today.

Lord Jesus, we don't want to just coast because you didn't coast.

And you were faithful all the way up to the finish.

And so we want to be those kinds of people, God.

We don't want to just say, hey, you know, it's no big deal.

No, it's a big deal.

It's a big deal because we live in a culture that is built on a lie and continues to lie that celebrates.

The Bible says of the devil that he's the father of lies when he speaks, he speaks his native language because that's all he can do.

And yet, Jesus, you said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

You said, We'll know the truth, and the truth will set us free.

Let the freedom that comes from the truth adorn our lives today.

Let us increase in our understanding of the truth, and also increase our understanding of the consequence of a lie today, as a result of being in your word together.

We ask all this in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seed.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Exodus chapter 20.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

And if you don't have one, it's rolling your row.

I think I'm on my page 61.

Uh, we're going through the book of Exodus.

We got to the Ten Commandments, and uh, and we just kind of call this series on the commandments flourish because uh the the the Bible is not written.

The Ten Commandments are not individual areas that God sends us on.

He says, Don't steal, don't lie, uh, don't commit adultery.

That's not individual things.

Those are to be lived out in a community of faith with other people who help you and pray for you and kind of support you.

And so uh we we're gonna get to the ninth commandment today, and I want to talk to you today about living in a Pinocchio nation.

Living in a Pinocchio nation.

And what I mean by that is that let me just put all my cards on the table.

I'm deeply concerned that we live in a culture that doesn't know how to not lie.

I just put it out there.

And if you don't believe me, just go home today and turn on your TV and watch the five people that are still running for president.

And ask yourself, which one of these liars do I believe?

Because it's just, and they got they got PACs and super PACs, and they got cabinet, and they got all these people that kind of help craft a lie to where it sounds uh believable.

Uh and let me just start with this that 25 years ago there was a book written called The Day America Told the Truth.

The Day America told the truth.

And these two guys went out and interviewed people from all over the country, a random sampling of people, and asked them questions and said, Hey, no one's gonna know what you said, just here's the questions, answer them.

And in the book, it was it was staggering back then, uh, and it's only gotten worse, but they they they realized that nine out of ten Americans lie regularly.

Uh, probably the most shocking one though was this for ten million dollars, seven percent of people would kill a stranger.

And by the way, they said for nine million, eight million, seven million, and it kept going down.

It didn't go down, it went from seven percent to five percent when they got to a million uh to a million.

So for a million dollars, five percent of people in America would kill a total stranger.

And here's a summary of what the book produced.

Americans are making up their own rules and laws.

We choose which laws of God we believe.

There's absolutely no moral consensus in this country.

Religion plays almost no role in shaping most lives.

Uh basically, what is happening is that people want to sin more than they want to do right.

They do not want anyone, including God, to tell them that they cannot sin or to condemn them for doing so.

Sin is a word that creates discomfort, and most people desire it removed from the American vocabulary.

Hear that last sentence again.

This is 25 years ago.

25 years ago, sin is a word that creates discomfort, and most people desire it removed from the American vocabulary.

And I'm gonna say to you that 25 years later, they pretty much succeeded.

Nothing's a sin anymore.

It's just personal preference.

And so, into such a culture, God says, Hey, do not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Translation, don't lie, don't make stuff up that isn't true and say it about other people or about yourself.

Because when you do this, uh when God says, hey, it makes us one of the Ten Commandments, what God says is doing that is a sin.

God uses a word we don't want to use anymore, which is why I say we talk while I want to talk to you about living in a Pinocchio nation.

We live in a nation full of people that just on the spur of the moment will just say whatever they got to say to get out of the circumstance.

I was talking to a guy last week who goes to this church who's a good guy.

He said, Hey, what are we doing after Easter?

We're gonna get back and finish the commandments?

Yeah, which one's next?

The ninth commandment?

Well, what does that say?

Well, it says, you know, you should not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Well, it basically don't lie.

Oh man, I'm gonna have to skip that day.

Why would you have to skip that day?

Well, you know, I'm in business and you know, it's just kind of I don't I don't lie, I kind of stretch the truth.

Hey, if you got phrases for lying, you lie.

Uh just just come out with it.

And and and I said, hey, here's the way you if you really want to stop doing that, what you gotta do is just out yourself.

When you catch God, say, can you feel yourself lying?

Oh yeah, it doesn't bother me as much as it used to.

Bad sign.

But it still bothers him.

He said, Hey, I I I still kind of feel it when I when I tell a little white lie, and I'm like, what, a little white lie?

Are there adjectives that make lying okay better?

And he said, Well, I okay, okay, don't don't don't ride me.

What else?

And I said, Hey, here's how you break that habit in you.

When next time you feel it, just kind of say, Hey, time out, you know what?

I just lied.

What I just said you wasn't true.

I need you to pray for me because I want to stop lying.

I call them little white lies and fibs and stories, and I fudge a little bit on my taxes or whatever.

Uh, because here's the deal.

We justify lying based on the people we lie about.

The IRS, we can lie about them.

Ted Cruz is gonna do away with them anyway.

We don't need them.

And so here's here's here's the problem.

And my friend, I said to my friend, I said, so if you really want to break that, that's what you do.

He looked at me and he goes, I think I just keep lying.

Now, here's the thing: that man loves Jesus.

I believe that with all my heart.

I really do.

It's just we live in a Pinocchio nation where it's it's just become part of the social fabric of our culture.

And into such a culture, God says this in Exodus chapter 20, verse 1.

Exodus 20:1

And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

You shall have no other gods before me.

You should not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness or anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or is in the water under the earth.

You should not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

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.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

On it you shall not do any work, you or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has given you.

You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

The great Swiss theologian John Calvin said this.

He said, The eighth commandment binds my hands.

It says, Thou shalt not seal.

He said, The ninth commandment binds my tongue.

It limits what I can say, because he understood his nature is to shade the truth or tell a quote unquote little fib.

And so what I want to do this morning is I want to make four points about how we kind of got to this place.

I'll start off talking about a culture of a lie of the lie and how we we live in a country that we've kind of just kind of built this in as part of our verbal DNA, and I think it's costing us more than we realize, and then we'll look at the anatomy of a lie, and then we'll end on a on a more positive note.

I don't want you to be depressed, but I want you to understand, just kind of zoom the camera back and see the big picture consequence of living in a Pinocchio nation.

And the first point that I want you to understand this morning is what I call a culture of the lie.

We are a culture that's just kind of ingrained in us.

Uh, have you tried to buy a used car lately?

Let me let me just start there.

Or have you tried to take something back that broke that's under warranty?

And they go, oh well, you know, on the third harvest moon, you know, it's just it's just part of our culture.

And so, as I was studying, I came across a guy who made three points that that I want to kind of unpack just a little bit about how this is is bigger and more detrimental than we realize.

And the first thing I want as far as a consequence of what happens when we as a culture just embrace the lie.

And the first consequence is this is that lies subvert a fundamental requirement for civilization.

And it's this trust.

A lie is that when we lie, we subvert a fundamental requirement for civilization.

See, trust is the building block of civility.

If we don't trust our neighbors to speak the truth, because in the time of Israel and the people of God, people died on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

People could conspire to get together and accuse somebody of something.

And if it if it was an offense that required the death penalty, that person was put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

So if you couldn't trust your neighbor to speak the truth, what you have is a very uncivil society within which no one trusts anybody.

And so you spool this forward into our day and age, and what you have is you got people, by the way, my neighbors that live next door to me, they have a key to my house.

Because I trust them.

They know my alarm code.

When I'm not there, they'll text me and say, hey, I need to borrow a shovel, or I need to borrow your fertilizer spreader, or I need to borrow your lawnmower.

Mine broke, and they will go unlock my door and disarm the alarm and go in my garage.

And I think they eat out of my refrigerator while they're in there.

I think they watch TV or whatever, because I think we got more channels than they do.

I think their kids come over and have a sleepover when we're not there.

I do have, hey, the McClendon's are gone.

Come on, bring your friends.

And guess what?

That doesn't bother me at all.

You know why?

I trust them.

They're my neighbors.

Now, the flip side of that is I have a key to their house.

I won't tell you what I do when they're not home.

I go over there and make sandwiches out of their refrigerator.

I just, I'll text them, you're out of milk.

They'll text back, get out of my house.

You can't make me.

I rang the doorbell the other day.

I had a bowl of oatmeal with some raisins and walnuts, and I said, Hey, I don't have any milk.

I need about this much.

And they said, Sure, come on.

I walked in, their kids were like, This is creepy.

And I was like, shut up.

And I opened the refrigerator, poured me some milk.

I walked out.

I didn't say thank you.

I didn't say my thank you, no.

I just went home and ate my oatmeal.

Why?

We trust each other.

That's a fundamental building block of a civil society.

And so lies subvert this.

And so if you're not careful, what happens if you can't trust your neighbor and then you got to take him to court?

Well, you can't trust the court to get a true witness to eliminate a false witness, then the courts become a sham and justice becomes an illusion.

And you think, okay, where do I go to get a fair hearing?

What happens if you spool this out?

Once you lose trust, you spool this out.

What you have is a society that trusts nobody and any and that doesn't trust anybody or anything.

And the end result is this deep sense of ruthless self-centeredness where nobody trusts anyone.

Now just let me read that again.

Let me say that again because I want you to grasp that I'm saying to you, this is the kind of culture that we live in.

When we lose trust, you have a society where no one trusts anyone, then the end result is this deep sense of ruthless self-centeredness where nobody trusts anybody.

And I would say that that's the culture we live in.

And that's not a bad thing, that's a good thing.

Here's why.

Because people that speak the truth in love stand out.

The Bible says you shine as stars in the universe as you kind of hold forth the word of life.

You see, because if you if you lose, when you lie, what you're saying is we don't have to trust each other, and then it's every man for himself.

And the Bible says this is what this is what humanity wants.

Humanity wants to get it to where we all do what's right in our own eyes.

See, the second consequence is this is that lying is a reflection of a worldview.

Lying is a reflection of a worldview.

We forget that.

When someone lies, what they're saying to you is this is how I see the world.

A worldview is kind of like the windshield in your car.

It's the lens through which you see everything.

There's two dominant worldviews.

There's what I would call a Christian worldview, and then there's a secular worldview.

There's this way of looking at the world that is not Christian at all.

And the Christian worldview believes certain things and adheres to those things.

And a secular or post-Christian, non-Christian, whatever.

By the way, uh, we live in a post-Christian society.

You know that, right?

I know some of you are gonna be like, oh, you know, we were founded, our founding fathers.

Hey, I would go back beyond the founding fathers, back to the pilgrims.

If you want to do something interesting today, Google this little, I forgot, I don't know what it's called, but it's a pilgrim, it's a monument that were built to the pilgrims.

That this is when they landed, they established this country based on this.

Because if you just go back to the forefathers, some of those guys were Yehos, okay?

Some of them were deists, they were not all Christians, okay?

Go back to the pilgrims and find this monument and you'll see what they built and what they wanted it built on, and why they came here.

It's it's fascinating.

You'll stop trying to quote the founding fathers and but and misquote some of them.

Go back to that and you kind of see, you know what, there's something bigger here.

And so they had a what's they had a Christian worldview, and they did what they did because of the way they saw the world.

Now, we live in a post-Christian culture.

I'm raising two daughters in a post-Christian society.

What I mean by that is Christianity is no longer esteemed and valued like it used to be.

I'm not saying it's not true.

I'm just saying, used to society and culture kind of kind of gave some acknowledgement and recognition to Christianity.

Now it doesn't.

There was a day when nothing was open on Sunday.

Here's how shallow I am.

This is my deep, deep thought from this past week.

Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday, but the Christian bookstore is open.

Thank you.

It's just, I'm just like, what does Chick-fil-A know that the Christian bookstore doesn't?

And so here's what I'm saying: the existence of truth has kind of been forfeited by people in a postmodern society.

Truth doesn't exist.

Our society denies the existence of absolute or universal truth.

Uh, and basically it argues that all truth is socially constructed.

Stay with me.

I want to sound eggheaded, but but but but in a post-Christian mindset and worldview, you know, truth doesn't exist.

It's just a socially constructed truth is uh is a compliment we pay to these ideas or propositions that serve our interests.

Truth, what you call the truth, is really just some ideas that serve your interests.

And so we call them true because we can establish them as true and we can bind them as authoritative on other people, and then we can extend our own power.

That's why everyone's a victim.

Because if you tell people the truth, then that's a hate crime, and you're victimizing them, and they could sue you for that in this day and age.

And so we have a worldview where truth is not made, excuse me, where truth is made, it's not found.

There's no truth that exists objectively apart from anybody or anything.

It's just truth is made.

It's just it's it's what I think.

If truth is a social construct, then we create the truth as we go along.

And if it's not really true, it's just what we call the truth, then you don't have to tell each other the truth because truth doesn't exist.

Now let me say that again because some of y'all are like, I didn't know there was gonna be a pop quiz today.

Uh we live in a culture, it's post-Christian, okay?

And and that's not a bad thing, it's not great, but but but the real thing shines the brightest.

Light shines the brightest in darkness.

Okay?

So don't leave and kind of go, wait a minute, we're not the majority.

No, the salt has lost its saltiness somewhere along the way a generation or so ago.

And now we got a post-Christian generation.

My kids grow up and and and they're around, it's not the dominant worldview.

It's just not.

You say, Well, we're a Christian nation.

What nation are you living in?

Have you listened to our leaders, our political leaders, talk lately?

And so, see, in a worldview, the secular progressive worldview, truth is made.

It's not found.

It's your truth, my truth.

I was talking to a 23-year-old guy the other day who he was telling his buddy about him and his girlfriend, and they're living together escapades and how it's hard.

And I started chuckling, and he said, What's so funny?

And in my mind, I thought, you really want to know what's so funny?

And so he said, What's so funny?

And I said, You just gotta work hard to make that enjoyable.

And this conversation spooled out, took about 12 to 15 minutes, and it was great.

I said, I ain't hating on you or anything, but what you're doing is wrong.

It's not just wrong, it's sin.

And so God's never gonna bless that.

You want to act like a boy to a bunch of women, but God created you to be a man to one woman.

So you're being a boy to a bunch of girls, but you should be a man to a woman.

He's like, Man, you hating on me.

Oh, you tripping, you tripping.

I'm not going anywhere, I'm not taking a trip, I'm staying right here.

And he was just like, and he looked around his friends to kind of get their endorsement, kind of like, can you believe this guy?

And I just looked at him, just smiled and said, Yeah.

Because here's the thing.

Now, by the way, if you're in this room and you live together, I ain't mad at you.

I'm not gonna tell you, you fornicating sinners.

I didn't say that to him.

I just said, here's the thing.

You're gonna have, have you lived with anybody before you live with this woman?

Man, that's my own business.

That means yes.

Anyway, we'll continue.

Uh, and I just said, here's the thing.

You are, you've made the exchange.

You've kind of exchanged the truth of God for a lie.

See, there's a truth that God says about everything, and when we don't kind of build our lives around that, you're building it on the sand.

And so you've kind of built your life around this truth.

You've exchanged the truth of God for your truth, and and and you've worshiped and served the creature instead of the creator who's forever praised.

And so you're gonna have to serve this woman and worship this woman and her you to make this look enjoyable.

Because anytime you exchange the truth of God for a lie, you're obligated.

You lose the freedom that comes from the truth, and you choose the bondage that comes from a lie.

Man, you tripping.

Once again, I'm not going anywhere, I'm just trying to tell you.

I try I'm not judging you, not hating on you.

I just thought it was funny.

You're telling all your friends, and I said, This isn't gonna get better.

And he said, What you know about living with a woman?

I've lived with one for 23 years.

By the way, I went to Enchanted Garden yesterday.

Yeah.

They have free, no, not right.

Shut up.

No, no, they have free popcorn.

Now my wife was like, Isn't this good?

No, this is not good.

I'm here because I love you.

I don't love Enchanted Garden.

They can have free popcorn every day.

I don't care, okay?

So I'm telling I kind of I I know about living with a woman, but here's my point I'm he's not a bad person.

I'm not a good person.

Look at me.

Have a different worldview.

Do you hear what I'm saying?

We look through the wind chill.

His is tinted one way, mine's tinted another.

And and and and I don't dislike him.

Matter of fact, I speak out and say, see, it's not just telling the truth, it's testifying to the existence of truth.

We have a dual responsibility.

We'll get to that in just a minute.

I just want to say, in this worldview, truth is not made.

Excuse me, truth is not found, it's made.

And so if truth is a social construct, then you create the truth as you go along.

It's not really true, it's just what we call truth.

So there's your truth, my truth.

We don't have to tell each other the truth.

Why?

Because truth doesn't even exist.

And here's what it goes back to for a lot of progressive thinkers and policymakers in government and in our culture.

They love to quote a man named Frederick Nietzsche.

Nietzsche was a German philosopher.

Uh he was very high, brilliant man, very high thinker.

He was a cultural critic, he was a poet, he would go to church and he would listen to preachers and they'd walk out and he would see him on the street, he'd yell at them, You killed God! You killed God, because Nietzsche wanted more than the church gave him.

And so he turned against the church.

Nietzsche said this.

Progressives love to quote this.

He says, Truths are illusions which have forgotten, which we have forgotten are illusions.

They're metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force.

Coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins.

The 23-year-old I was talking to, he had a pocket full of metal.

I had coins.

He thinks a dollar is worth a dime.

Nothing has value.

It's just he's ruled by his appetites.

He's not a bad man.

I cared deeply about that guy.

And by the way, he wasn't offended.

Not one time did he look at me and say, Man, I don't like you for this.

Matter of fact, when I got ready to walk away, he said, Where is this church you pastor?

I said, It's right up the road.

I might come sometime.

I said, You and your girlfriend be more than welcome.

Well, you know, you know, you said we live in sin.

Absolutely.

You do.

That's sin.

And there'll be a consequence for that.

And I don't know what it is.

I don't get to pick, and I and I don't wish that on you.

But you can't break God's law without there being a consequence.

Otherwise, why not just live outside of God's law?

Why even have it?

You're a law unto yourself.

All right, all right, you're tripping again, you're tripping.

Okay, I I I walked away and thought, I'm gonna tell my wife next time she tells me something I don't like, you're tripping.

Just to see how that goes.

See, but here's the third part of this progression of a culture that's based on a lie.

Here's the third part, third consequence.

Without truth, you have no shared meaning.

Without truth, you have no shared meaning.

If you've got adult kids and and they've kind of gotten off the reservation, you ever try to talk to them and tell them, hey, you know, you weren't raised this way, this is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they kind of look at you like, what's the big deal?

And your heart just breaks.

Here's what you're talking to.

You're talking to a kid who has a pocket full of metal.

They don't value, they're not coins anymore.

They've lost their embossing.

They don't know that that dime's worth 10 cents, they don't know that core is worth 25 cents.

They just kind of like, hey man, that's your truth.

I think that's great.

That worked for you and mom, but I gotta find my own way.

Don't don't don't be mad, don't yell.

Just kind of realize, oh, my son or my daughter, they may be 19 or 26, they may be 40.

And you may just be like, what do you do?

You you gotta love the truth more than they love what they're doing.

See, without truth, you have no shared meaning.

You say, what do you mean?

Truth like marriage, God, authority, law, order.

For a lot of people, law and order is a show on NBC.

Law, order, morality, illegal.

There's a word that we have drained of its meaning.

Nothing's illegal.

I can't have another conversation with another person who tells me, well, I mean, marijuana is legal in Colorado and it's eventually gonna be legal in America, so it's not wrong that I smoke weed.

What did you just say?

And I'll turn to the Bible because I and I'll just quote Romans 13:1 says, Let every man be in subjection to the law of the land, for there's no authority except that which is given of God.

Romans 13:1

See, the authority that exists over you is given of God, and so when you break that law, it's not illegal, it's sent.

Well, that's your opinion.

I'm talking to a young man who's got a pocket full of metal, not coins anymore.

They've lost their value.

Now, I don't get mad.

I I had that conversation a lot.

Hey, Pastor, is it wrong to smoke pot?

I'm like, really?

This is the biggest question you got to ask me?

And by the way, here's the thing: I don't talk to people about where they are right now and their experience.

I talk to them about, hey, let's spool this trajectory out.

You because if you think this way now, what are you gonna value when you're 40?

If you think this way when you're 24, what are you gonna value when you're 40?

Oh, I don't need to get married.

Marriage is just an outdated institution.

We just live together.

Okay.

If you think this way now, and it and that's kind of the dominant thought pattern.

Uh, by the way, again, I'm mad at you, but I'm not gonna apologize for what the Bible says, because for me, it's still a coin.

It still is embossed and has a clear value on it.

And God says, hey, here is the situation, here's the circumstance.

Translation, here's the truth.

Because without truth, you have no shared meaning.

And without a shared meaning, what can you agree upon?

It's like someone breaking into your house today, and you're saying, hey man, I got a burglar in my house.

He's like, No, I'm not a burglar, I'm just a curious man.

With a gun, and some duct tape.

Yeah.

And some zip ties.

I'm not a burglar.

We don't have a shared meaning without truth.

And here's what I'm saying to you, and I'll get off of that.

Look at me.

We are headed that way as a nation, folks.

Because we don't have shared meaning.

What happens is whoever can come up with the slickest, most intellectual sounding definition and argument, they rule the day.

It's that that's that's the danger of the lie.

Second thing I want to tell you is just the anatomy of a lie.

The anatomy of a lie.

What do you mean?

Telling a lie is never as simple as innocent as we make it out to be.

We say, I told a little white lie, I told a fib, I fudged a little bit, uh, I did this, I did that, I told a story.

That's my favorite.

I told a story.

Uh in reality, the motivation for lying goes much deeper.

Okay, so I brought you some reasons for why people lie.

And it just listed up there to escape accountability, to create a fantasy life, escape our mundane life.

A lot of people lie because they feel like my life is not like cool and hip and sexy enough and exciting.

You know, I got two kids and I clean the house and I wait for my husband to get home, and and you know, it seems like all we do is work and recover from work.

And so we go, and by the way, social media is a platform for lying.

I mean, if people were half as interested in real life as they are on Facebook, we would be an enthralling nation.

But they're not.

But anyway, avoid punishment to get what we want, to manage people's impression of us.

Impression management, one of my favorite ones.

Basically, that's referred to as stealing admiration.

You say, What do you mean?

We steal people's admiration when we lie to them about ourselves, uh, and it's never as fulfilling as we need it to be.

Here's why.

Because we know their admiration of us is based on a lie, so we have to tell bigger and more lies.

And pretty soon the return on investment on lying isn't what we thought it was gonna be.

And so we got to just keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on uh to exploit others, to avoid awkward or unwanted conversations.

Uh one of the guys this morning, we were at our 8 o'clock staff, we meet his staff to pray, and one of the guys we're talking, he said, Well, we're talking about lying, and they're like, Oh, you're gonna get emails for this.

I said, I'm sure I will.

Uh one of the guys said, Yeah, my wife asked me, Do I look better with or without makeup?

Save yourself, my man.

Just save yourself.

It's like your wife saying, Does this dress make my backside look big?

Looks like a sack of chicken nuggets, whatever you put in there, it doesn't matter.

Nobody's gonna say that.

You're gonna be like, uh, whatever you wear looks awesome.

Awesome.

Looks good.

Yeah, some of you guys were like, uh, mm-hmm.

Uh look at the last one.

We when we one of the motivations for lying is we display our lack of trust in God.

See, when you lie, what we're saying is, hey, I've got to control this situation because if I just tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may, I may not get what I want, and I want to be creator.

You say what?

See, there's a difference in behavior and motivation.

Let me say that again.

There's a difference in behavior and motivation.

Just picture if there's a big apple tree here on the stage.

The apples on the tree is like behavior.

That's the lies we tell.

Now you can see, ah, there's a bunch of apples on the tree.

You can pick them all off and say, I'm not gonna lie anymore.

And you can walk out of here and go, I'm not gonna lie.

And then a day, an hour, whatever, something will come out and you'll be like, ooh, and the apples will grow back.

See, things don't change.

Behavior doesn't change until you understand the motivation.

If the behavior is like the fruit on the tree, the motivation is like the roots of the tree.

It's down here under the ground where you can't see it.

You gotta ask yourself and teach your children from the time they're little, when you catch them lying.

You ever catch your kids lying?

See, they don't know that we can just tell by the way they're talking.

You're lying right now.

Oh no, no, no.

And so they just start making it up as they go along.

Matter of fact, I almost put it in my notes by the way, there was I read an article where this child psychologist said, you should encourage your kids to lie because it teaches them self-autonomy.

Yes, yes.

You teach your kids from a young age that they get to define their truth.

And this person teaches at Harvard.

It's just like, what a world are we living in here, people?

But back to the root.

See, you ought to ask your kids, not just when you catch them in a lie, don't just, hey, that's a lie, don't lie.

You're this is the consequence for lying.

Ask your kids this question: hey, do you understand why you lie?

Because until you understand what motivates you to lie, you'll lie the rest of your life.

Because when the motivation is understood, then the behavior changes.

Imagine sitting down with somebody at a sales meeting.

Imagine a salesman coming to you and calling on you tomorrow at work, and him sitting down and saying, Hey, Bill, before we get going, I just want to confess, sometimes to close a deal, I'll lie about the effectiveness of our product.

And so if at any point you think I'm lying, call me on it because I want to stop lying.

Can you imagine walking up on a car lot and a used car guy saying that?

Hey man, my I I lie for a living, so I'm gonna try to get over on you, and I'm gonna try to make as much money as I can off of you.

So please be sure and hold me to the truth.

See, the anatomy of a lie, that's that all that is motivation.

I'm not saying lying's not to issue, I'm saying the fruit comes from the root.

Third thing I want us to understand about living in this Pinocchio nation that we live in is simply this: the consequence of lying.

The consequence of lying.

You say, What do you mean the consequence?

This is Romans chapter 1, verse 24 and 25.

Romans 1:24

He says, Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who's blessed forever.

Amen.

Hear that, hear that, that middle part.

Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator.

That's what I was trying to get my 23-year-old friend to understand.

When you exchange the truth of God for a lie, as it relates to anything: morality, money, friendship, politics, whatever, food, just pick anything, music, anything.

There's a truth.

God has a truth about that.

And when you exchange that for a lie, then you you you you you've done this, you got two parts to this.

There's an exchange, and then there's a consequence.

There's an exchange.

You ought to ask yourself, can I still feel myself making that exchange?

Can I still feel myself kind of?

I want to exchange the truth of God for a lie in this situation.

That's a bold, honest prayer to pray.

I want to exchange the truth of God for a lie.

I'll go first.

I wanted to exchange the truth of God for a lie yesterday with my wife, after I worked in the yard all morning, and she said, You want to go to an enchanted garden?

No.

Actually, what I said was, I said, We just looking or we buying?

Because if we're gonna get stuff, then I'll go.

But if you're just gonna walk around for hours and not buy a thing, I'm gonna resent you when it's over, and I you will not want me on the trip because I'll just start acting out like a little kid.

Yeah, I don't want that.

And then she went and she asked our daughter, hey, you want to go to enchanting garden?

And she said, Yeah.

And my wife said, Well, let me know if you change your mind.

I'm gonna leave in 10 minutes.

I'm like, you don't give an 18-year-old a back door.

When she says, I'm going, boom, get your shoes on, let's go.

Went back in there, said, All right, you want to go?

Well, I changed my mind.

I'm gonna stay here and do homework.

Laying in her bed.

At 1 15.

My wife came out.

I could tell my wife was kind of like, I don't want to go by myself.

I wanted to exchange the truth of God for a lie.

Here's what I wanted to do.

The truth is, husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

I was on a glide pattern to the airport.

I was all sweaty.

I'd mowed, edged, cleaned up everything.

I'd straighten some stuff up in the garage.

I built something.

I was gonna take a shower, watch the golf tournament, watch two basketball games, bam! And something in me said, Hey, part of loving your wife like Christ loved the church is giving yourself up for her.

Won't you give up watching the golf tournament, go to Enchanted Garden with your wife?

Lord, the devil's trying to tempt me not to get enough rest.

Yeah.

I even said this, Lord, it's my Sabbath.

That's one of the commandments.

You don't want to be a hypocrite, do you?

And then I looked at my wife's eyes and I found my sorry self saying, Hey, let me finish this sandwich and I'll go to enchanted garden.

No, I don't want you to go with me.

You're tired, you need it.

Yes, I do.

And then I thought this if I go to enchanted garden with her, then she's gonna owe me.

Yes, I did.

See, I'm exchanging the truth of God for a lot.

Because here's the truth of God.

Just love your wife like Christ loved the church and don't expect anything in return.

Because sometimes when I go the extra mile for my wife, I know the rest of you sorry rascals don't think this way, but sometimes when I go heroically to Enchanted Garden on a Saturday where every woman and their dog is out there pulling these wagons behind them, I'm like, y'all need a traffic cop out here.

When I do that, what I think is now she owes me, and I get to I get to define what she owes me.

By the way, that's exchanging the truth of God for a lie.

That's not love, that's lust.

And so I went to enchanting garden.

And we walked down every aisle.

And my wife said, Oh, these are perennials.

I'm like, I don't know what that means.

These are annuals.

Help me, Jesus.

Oh, Jesus, help me.

Oh, because see, when I get there, I want to give a little sarcastic, funny commentary about everything.

And so she's like, see, this is not so bad.

Here's the thing.

Hey, look at me.

We're just about done.

You still with me?

See, here's what happens as the consequence of lying is you make the exchange, you exchange the truth of God for a lie.

Ask yourself today in what area of my life am I exchanging the truth of God for a lie?

Because when you do that, there's always a consequence.

Here's one of the consequences of exchanging the truth of God for a lie.

You have to serve the lie longer than you imagine because you got to worship and serve.

The consequence of the exchange is who and what you worship and serve.

And when you lie, you gotta serve that lie for a long time.

You say, What do you mean?

You lie and somebody comes up later and asks you about it, and you can't remember all the details of the lie you told.

You're like, oh BR549 or 327, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh.

And the person's like, ah, no.

No.

No.

See, here's here's here's the good news.

Fourthly and finally, we're people of the truth.

That's why, that's why the guy, the 23 year old I'm talking to, he was like, You tripping, you tripping.

He kept coming back.

And I was like, hey man, it's like a buffet.

Take all you want, but eat all you take.

Man, you're pretty righteous for an old dude.

I mean, for an old man, you know, I can tell you old by the way you talk.

I'm thinking violent thoughts in my mind.

I'm like, hey, do y'all prosecute murderers here?

But but here's the thing: he's just he's just lived that way his whole life.

He's got a pocket full of round metal, that's it.

Being people of the truth, what do I mean?

See, what gets lost in the Ten Commandments is their communal nature.

They're intended to be heard and obeyed together for the betterment of the whole, us as the people of God, but also for establishing what the people of God look like, love like, talk like, speak like, live like, and who God is.

And what God is, God's very compassionate.

People ask me all the time, how can you have a conversation with people like that and and and not be frustrated?

He just he just doesn't know.

He's not living in the truth.

I don't yell at him, I don't call them names.

I'm just like, hey man, if this is good and it's sin, which it is, imagine how much better it could be if it wasn't sin.

What are you saying?

I'm saying, to quote that great theologian Beyoncé, put a ring on it.

No, no, no, no, no.

I can't be doing that.

Why?

I'm 23.

Okay, then move out and stop doing married things.

Oh, that's your opinion.

Translation, that's your truth, not my truth.

But see, we're the people of the truth.

These are not individual moral errands that God sends us out.

We have this dual responsibility to speak what is true, but also to speak on behalf of the truth.

Let me say that again.

I'll read you a passage of scripture and we'll be done.

We have a dual responsibility to speak what is true, but also to speak on behalf of truth.

And the Bible talks about it like this in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11, and it gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to mature womanhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

Ephesians 4:11

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we're to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ.

Ask yourself this question: if you don't start speaking the truth in love, how are you ever going to grow up?

How are we gonna grow?

He says, We're to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, this makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

See, we speak the truth in love, and that causes us to be built up in love.

I end with this question.

If the motivation for speaking the truth according to the Bible is love, then what is the motivation for lying to someone?

And so, see, at its core, what it comes down to is a real simple proposition.

Do I love these people or do I hate these people?

That's why the Bible says, God says, Hey, I got 10 things to say to you that are gonna cause your life to flourish.

And one of those is you should not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Let's pray together.

Take just a moment.

Let's just think about what we've not just what we've heard, but what we've sensed God saying to us.

If you're a believer here today, what God said to you is, hey, you're people of the truth.

You're the people whose yay is yay and nay is nay, because anything more than that is from the evil one.

Yes, we live in a post-Christian culture.

That doesn't excuse all the Christians in the culture, it doesn't excuse us from engaging the culture in heady dialogue when necessary, and in plain speak when necessary.

Just ask the Lord.

Hey, what's what really motivates me when I talk to people?

Do I really love people?

Do I love them enough to tell them the truth?

Let's think about these things.

God, maybe we should ask ourselves today, who is it easy for me to lie to?

And then we should turn around and ask you to make it harder for me to lie to that person.

Because I really love them and I'm I'm I'm talking to them like I hate them.

Thank you that the Bible is so practical and so full of grace and mercy that Christ died for people who lie, who fib, who shade the truth, who stretch the facts, who tell little white lies.

Whatever we call it today.

Christ died for all of that.

So we could be free.

We could be people of the truth.

We could be people that speak the truth in love.

So there's not shame today, there's forgiveness, there's mercy.

We can come boldly before the throne and receive mercy in our time of need or our place of need as people of need.

That's the gospel, and for that we're grateful.

And so, Lord, I pray that the freedom that comes from the truth would adorn our lives.

We ask for this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

In speaking the truth in love, you're inviting your culture to taste and see the goodness of God.

It is not hate, it is love to tell the truth.

Depart now and remind yourself who you really love.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you or dismissed.