Message 03-30-08 Brunch Worship

Series:            Following [Sermon on the Mount]

Scripture:            Matthew 5:33-37

"Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' But I tell you, do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

Title:                                        Yes and No

Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that he is the person who interprets life for us. Jesus is the one who tells us, who tells Christ followers, how to understand life.

Sometimes when you go out to eat at a restaurant you can order a meal and you learn that there are other things that come with it. But there are some restaurants where everything is “ala carte”. You have to buy everything separately. Now that can be a pain if all you want it a meal, quickly, but it can be great when you realize that you get to picture just the things you want. So you might pick grilled chicken breast and two pieces of chocolate cake and no vegetables. That can be great.

Sometimes when people come to church they think that this is the way to get into God. They think if I take a little of this, because that sounds good or a little of that because that sounds good, and I’ll just leave that alone because well that sounds hard – they think they’ll be able to put together their own Christianity. And that’s what they do, but it’s not Jesus’ Christianity. It’s their own. What Jesus tells us is that we can’t pick and choose we have to come to him. It may feel good for a while to always eat a piece of grilled chicken and two pieces of chocolate cake, but pretty soon my body is going to want something else. I won’t be too healthy if that’s all I eat. You see there are restaurants where the chef – the cook who owns the restaurant – will choose what the meal will be. When you come to that place you just eat what the chef chooses and that’s the way Jesus describes himself. He’s setting out what’s good to eat for our souls and he says I’m the one who knows what’s good and what will be a benefit, so don’t try to pick and choose – trust me. It will be good.

That’s what Jesus is doing in the Sermon on the Mount. He’s challenging the people to trust him with the guidance of their souls.

At this point he is telling the people not to swear. Now sometimes people think that means “don’t say bad words” but that’s not what Jesus is talking about here. It’s funny because both “swearing” and “cursing” used to be ways of validating truth. You proved something as true by saying, “I swear” or by “curses” – “May God strike me down if I don’t do this.” Now, swearing and cursing have become using vile words. But Jesus is talking about promises – making promises. Jesus is talking about promises and telling us how to live simply. Jesus is telling us to just say what we mean and to mean what we say.

Let me give you a picture of this. Sometimes we baptize babies in our church. Sometimes babies are baptized up here and sometimes they are baptized downstairs in the sanctuary. Where they are baptized the same thing happens. The parents of the baby promise that they are going to bring up this little boy or girl so that they will come to know Jesus. And then the church people, upstairs or downstairs, promise that they will help that mom and dad or family so that this little baby will come to know Jesus.

Now for years and years children are brought to church or to Sunday School or to youth group, just so they can hear about Jesus and get to know him. For years and years moms and dads keep their promise to help their little boy or girl know about Jesus. For years and years the church people become Sunday School teachers or youth group leaders or even just friends with the little boy or girl and they tell that boy or girl about Jesus – because that’s what they promised.

And then as young adult these young people go to Confirmation Class. As they go through Confirmation the students get a chance to think about everything they heard or learned about Jesus – so they can make up their own minds about what they believe. Then, at the end of Confirmation, the students write out what they believe and share it with the elders of the church. If the elder agree then this young person gets to join the church. And the elders confirm that they, and all the rest of the church people, kept their promise. The moms and dads confirm that they kept their promise. And the Confirmation Class students confirm that they have come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior and they confirm the baptism they received as babies is their own baptism.

Confirmation is the confirming of the baptism that a little baby receives, but it is also the confirming of a promise kept. We make promises in this place in which we say that we will do things for a very long time. Fourteen, fifteen or sixteen and even sometimes 17 years is a long time to keep a promise.

We have people who keep promises for very long times that are sitting right here. Some of those people are married people and some of them are people who are doing certain work. Soldiers and Sailors are people who make very important promises, doctors and lawyers make very important promises.

Jesus says that we should be the kind of people who keep promises, not by making a big deal of them but by simply doing what we say we’re going to do. If we say we’re going to help someone, then we help them. If we say we’re going to do something then we do it.

Jesus says that when we are people who follow him that we don’t make big promises quickly, but when we make a promise we keep it. We do what we say we will do. We do what we say we will do even when it may hurt us. You can tell someone who follows Jesus because sometimes keeping their promise will cause them to do things that don’t make life easier for them.

Let me tell you a story about a man in a Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. About ten years ago Gregg Simmons was a brilliant young businessman whose ideas had helped revolutionize American Life Insurance. He flew to New York to make a presentation to the board members of AT&T. It was a deal with a commission worth more than a million dollars. At the last minute, the AT&T CEO was delayed. He requested that Greg make his proposal the following day. Greg

politely explained that was not possible. “Tomorrow” he said “is my daughter’s fifth birthday. I promised her I’d be at her party.”

For Greg, keeping his promise to his daughter was more important than a million dollar deal.

Now, you might think of all sorts of good reasons why that was the wrong choice or that Greg should have realized what was more important to the future. There’d be other birthdays and he could lose this account.

But Greg kept his promise to his daughter and what he didn’t know was that he would die in a mountain climbing accident a few months later.

As Christ followers we remember that God created the world with words. God created everything with words. He calls to be like him, to be people who create our world with words. So he tells us to say words that will last like mountains, to say words that will live like evergreen trees, to say words that bring life like rivers. We are to say words that create a true reality. You see Jesus is calling us into reality, in to real relationships. He’s telling us to say simple plain truth that we can fulfill.