Live What You Believe

[podcast]http://www.revkwon.com/podcast/sermon-promises.mp3[/podcast] Let me begin by saying that this has nothing to do with promises. I’ll tell you why. It’s because Jesus himself submitted to an oath and if you don’t believe me, go look at Matthew 26:63. The Sanhedrin asks Jesus under God’s name for him to testify to who he is and Jesus answers! Jesus was under oath when he says, “watch when I sit on the right hand of God in heaven. This sermon is not about promises. It has nothing to do with promises. People will tell you not to make promises that you can’t keep, and to shy away from such things, but I’m telling you right now that it has nothing to do with promises or your inclination to keep them. This sermon today is about your faith in God and the implications of what you believe in how you live out your beliefs. That’s a mouthful and I know that’s hard to understand, so let me get you started in understanding what I’m talking about. Ex: When people have faith, they live a certain way. That is, they live in a way that fulfills what they believe to be true. So when you say you believe Jesus saves you from sin and that you’re no longer guilty from that sin, you live in a way that no longer is guilty from that sin that trapped you in guilt. Here’s a more concrete example. When you believe that Jesus calls you from nowhere to be a world changing doctor, then you live in a way that supports that calling—you eat, sleep, study and speak like a world changing doctor. The same thing applies to being a rock star or even a civil servant—you live your life like you’re called to it. The biggest problem is that we know one thing in our heads, but we don’t actually do it in real life. And for as long as you sit there and don’t do it, how can you ever say that you really believe in it? You can’t, it’s impossible. So I’m telling you again, this sermon isn’t about promises. It’s about how you live your life truthfully. Let’s read Matthew 5:33-37 ³³ “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.’ ³⁴ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. ³⁶ And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. ³⁷ Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:33-37) Why this passage has nothing to do with promises: two reasons. First reason, because people know better than to break one of the Ten Commandments: thou shall not bear false witness. Simple—God tells people that when they are under God, they shouldn’t lie. The reason you shouldn’t lie when you’re under God is because God sees right through the lie and sees the intention. So you shouldn’t lie. So this passage has nothing to do with promising to God. You don’t need to promise anything to God. Second reason this passage has nothing to do with promises: you don’t control enough of anything to make good on any promise. That is to say that you can’t will things to happen. So to say that you’re promising to do something is silly considering you can’t even tell your hair to stay black when it wants to turn white. Trust me, it’s a true story. Why do you think I shave my hair every two to three weeks? Yes, it’s true, it’s because I have a halo of white hair that I can’t will back to black anymore. The only thing I can control is how short that white hair is. I want to make this clear—this passage has nothing to do with promises or oaths. It has nothing to do with promises or oaths because God knows, Jesus knows that you can’t keep a promise even if you wanted to; but more importantly, it’s obvious to everyone whether or not you kept or broke a promise, so Jesus is skipping that, we should know better. If we make a promise do everything you can to keep it. If you break the promise, whether because you wanted to or because you didn’t have the ability to, regardless, it’s broken, so there’s no point in trying to lie about it. Okay, so what in the world are we talking about then? I know that’s what you’re asking. I told you from the beginning that this sermon is about faith and how you live out what you believe. A few weeks ago, at the beginning of November when we first started this series, we spoke about a little project we were all going to engage in called “Angel Tree.” Now the purpose of us working this little project was simple: we wanted to share the love of Jesus to people who didn’t have it for some reason or another and since Jesus loves us so much, we were going to share that love. When we started that project we said we would pray for the child we selected. But more than that, we said that we would save money on our own, our own money and buy the gift. It’s not coming from your parents but it was a gift from your heart to the child you selected. You were going to pray for your child and keep it real. I want to ask, how many of us are actually keeping up with praying for the child that was selected? Do you remember their names? The reason I ask is because if you don’t remember their names, do you think you really believe Jesus loves you so much so that you have enough love to share? You see, what we believe dictates our actions. Jesus was talking about it here in verse 33: “You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn…” You know what that means? It means that if you believe something in faith, then you don’t have to be forced to do it, nor do you have to be guilted into doing it—you just do it. I think your small group leaders and bible study teachers are going to frame it for you this way: “promises are a poor substitute for integrity.” Jesus is saying this right from the beginning. If you believe what you say you believe, you’ll just do it. Nobody is going to have to force you to do it, nor will you have to feel guilty about not doing it. Do what you believe. Sometime in the waning years of the twentieth century, I would say 1998 or 1999, you know before Y2K, I was a part of a church youth group. I’ve told you before, back in the 1990s I didn’t have that much talent. I was bad at math, horrible at music, terrible at art. I was just a “B” student, like the teachers would give me a “B” because I would “B” in class. You know, I wasn’t even as good looking back than as I am now. I mean, Michelle can tell you, I’m a stud muffin now. But the worst part was, I had lived 16 years of my life, and my dad was a pastor, I had more bible passages memorized then I knew what to do with, and I was not a Christian. Because I was not a Christian, I did not live like a Christian. I cursed more than a sailor. I got into more fights with gangsters than gangsters. But since my dad was the pastor of the church, I had to go church and be a part of the youth group. So I was. I sat in the back. I was a pain in the butt, I would always get into trouble. And back then, there was no such thing as child abuse, so when I got in trouble, my youth pastor would take a baseball bat and swing at me—that was the love of Jesus. Everybody who grew up in a Korean Church in the 90s say Amen. Okay, crickets. Why am I telling you this? It’s about verse 37. I want us to look at verse 37 again: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” Jesus is saying here simply, “You can’t be more than what you are and who you are. If you believe it, then live it.” When Jesus is saying “simply” he is saying that we are who we say we are, let’s not try to call a circle a square or a square a triangle. When I got into trouble one of those Sundays in youth group, and clearly I wasn’t saved by God back then, my youth pastor said to me, “you’re so gangster and cool? You’re not even half the gangster I was. You’re a scrub. You can’t even keep up with being a good gangster, you’re like half a gangster.” Then he shared this passage with me. Let’s go to Matthew 13:18-23, its not in your notes, so open up your Bibles. This is why you need to bring your Bibles, just in case I decide I want to look at more passages. ¹⁸ “Hear then the parable of the sower: ¹⁹ When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. ²⁰ As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, ²¹ yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. ²² As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. ²³ As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” If you believe something, then you’re going to live that way. That’s why Jesus says don’t pretend to live something by swearing to God that you live that way. Moreover, Jesus says in chapter 5, don’t even pretend that it’s your plan to live a certain way when you currently don’t live that way. No, either live that way or don’t, let’s not play games. Do you see this parable Jesus tells? He says when somebody hears something and doesn’t believe it, that’s Satan stealing faith. Then there’s people who have faith, but for some reason or another, stops living in that faith. Then there are people who have faith, but they want to pretend like something else is going on for some reason, the Bible says because thorns choke them out, but we’re not going to look into that in depth. Then there are people with faith that live their faith, Jesus says that they will yield a life that’s much more than they ever expected. Simply do what you say you believe. If you’re sitting in a spot right now and you know you believe something from God about you right now but you’re in the thorns choking. Or you’re shriveling up and you’re not living the way you know you should be living, don’t worry, God’s got a word for you and it’s our memory verse. The reason it is our memory verse is because this is where most of us are in life. We’re not always living the life we say we believe. I know that to be true and I’m a professional Christian. Look at 2 Timothy 2:13, “Our faith may fail, his never wanes— that’s who he is, he cannot change!” (2 Timothy 2:13) Let’s pray.