Keep Your Word

Matt 5:31-37

Early in my ministry, I worked with a preacher that taught me what I didn’t want to become as a minister. He was a good man, a dedicated personal worker and evangelist. The problem I had was that he was so dedicated to the church that 4 of his 5 children left the church because dad never had time for them and their spiritual needs. In telling me the story, he felt bad that his children left the church, but with all the thousands he had brought to Christ, it was worth the sacrifice of his children.

Between that and my own growing up as a minister’s kid, I vowed that I would never put church so high that my children would leave the kingdom because dad never kept his word to them. I feel as strongly about that today as I did 15 years ago.

If we as Christians won’t keep our word, why should the world? If we don’t keep our word, how do we expect the world so see that we offering them something so much better by being a follower of Christ?

PRAYER

I. Keep Your Word

A. The connection of these two passages

1. If you read these two passages understanding a little of the culture they were written in, you see a connection between them.

2. They are both dealing with keeping your word

3. Look at what you find in both passages

a) Don’t say something you don’t mean

b) Just say “yes” and “no”

c) When you manipulate to get your own way, you go wrong.

B. Divorce-remarriage

1. Historical setting is found in Deut 24:1-4 READ

2. Where everything started going crazy was how Jewish scholars defined “displeasing”

3. The first part of the Talmud, are quotes of famous Jewish religious leaders.

4. These quotes are used to help define various teachings in the Talmud, or Jewish book of Doctrine.

5. Two men you see quoted most often are two men who lived about the same time Jesus did, Shammai and Hillel

6. Shammai was a conservative scholar who said displeasing meant only one thing.

a) In the Jewish tradition, after the wedding was over and the people were enjoying a feast, the bride and groom would go to their room for the first time of being intimate together. After that first time, the husband would take the sheets to the door and hold them up to show everyone his bride was a virgin. If she wasn’t a virgin he had the right to divorce her because she was not what she claimed to be.

b) If the man couldn’t show evidence that his wife was a virgin, that was displeasing, so many times the groom would have his best man sneak a goat bladder into his bedroom so he could show “evidence” whether she was a virgin or not. That way he wouldn’t lose face in front of everyone. Then he would divorce her later on quietly.

c) It was a legal game they were playing with the words of Moses.

7. The other scholar was considered more liberal and took a wider definition of displeasing.

a) Hillel stated first, that a husband should always seek to keep his wife beautiful in his eyes. He wasn’t advocating divorce for any reason.

b) His view of displeasing was that if a wife failed in her wifely duties any time during their marriage, that was displeasing and the husband could then divorce her with the proper documents.

c) At the time of Jesus everyone asked, “who’s side are you on, Shammai or Hillel?”

8. Jesus chooses not to get caught up in this debate, so he simply says, “keep your word. If you make a vow, honor it.”

C. Word game offenders

1. the Jews played word games with Moses’ words by practicing “serial monogamy”

2. They were technically right, but morally wrong.

3. Jesus tells us not to play word games. Mean what you say.

4. But look at all the books on the subject by our brethren.

5. We’ve played unbelievable word games with this passage on both sides of the spectrum.

D. People of our word

1. Larry Calvin tells an excellent story of being a person of your word.

2. When he was 7 years old, his grandfather had a Model T car he wanted so sell. A man came along and liked the car, and offered him $1000, but he wouldn’t have the cash until late that afternoon. Larry’s grandfather and the man shook hands on the deal. About an hour later, another man came and offered him $2500. His grandfather laughed ruefully and said, “boy mister, I wish came a little earlier, I just shook hands with a man for the car at $1000.”

3. Mr. Calvin said that incident stuck with him for the rest of his life on seeing his grandfather as a man of integrity.

4. In the book “The Hidden Value of a Man” there is a story with the opposite effect. A man tells a story from when he was 12 years old. His father had promised to go on a boy scout camping weekend with him. He was so excited about the trip. He got all his gear together and waited anxiously for his father to get home Friday, so they could meet with the other fathers and sons. The 5 o’clock time came and went and finally the father got home at 7pm. He said he got held up at work and couldn’t come home in time. the boy was really disappointed, but then the father said that they could meet everyone else at the camp area the next morning. They would leave at 7am sharp. The boy hardly slept that night and got the car all packed and ready to go by 7am. Dad wasn’t ready, in fact he didn’t even get up until 9:30. He told his son his back was really hurting him and couldn’t sleep on the ground, and also had a commitment he had to keep for later that day. He then asked the boy to get all the camping gear out of his car so he could go to the appointment. When he thought his son wasn’t looking, he got his golf clubs and headed for the appointment. the boy said, “I realized he never wanted to go camping with me, but didn’t have the guts to tell me.”

5. When you look at our culture, you see we are a culture that is having an integrity crisis.

a) We can’t trust our politicians to be honest with us. The tell us one thing while campaigning and then do something quite different once in office.

b) Our business leaders are deceiving and lying about their businesses causing people to lose trust in stock market.

c) You get to the point where you don’t believe anyone is really telling you the truth any more.

6. That needs to change, and the change needs to start with us.

7. We need to be people of integrity.

a) When we promise something, no one should doubt that we will do everything humanly possible to fulfill that promise.

b) Whether to our spouse, work, family, friend or someone buying our car. Our word should mean something.

c) If we do that, maybe we can have some influence in others becoming the same way.

d) Maybe the day of handshake can come back to our culture.