Matthew 5: 33-37 (ESV)

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.^[a]

Introduction

We have been listening to the series on the sermons on the mount, listening to Jesus speaks, and here Jesus is both announcing the kingdom of God and inviting people beginning with Israel, God’s people, to know Him as king, and to enter God’s kingdom through His finished works.

Kingdom people, according to Jesus, live radically different lives.  And, how radically different as we have been listening through the last 7 weeks from the time we started on anger – the way we handle our anger, to the way we handle our lust? The old way of misinterpreting the law by God’s leaders then, was as long as we do not psychically murder people, we are fine; as long as we do not psychically commit adultery, we are fine. But according to Jesus, if we harbored anger in our heart, heart anger is equal to murder; if we lust with our heart and our eyes, that is tantamount to adultery.  This is totally radical teaching. This is Jesus coming in God’s end-time purposes to ushering a kingdom as never seen and experienced before. In that sense, Jesus “Up” the standard of God’s laws, and actually this is only by His death and resurrection and by the Holy Spirit living in believers that we can live this way.

Sidelining God’s Word

Today, in the bible passage that we have just read, Jesus speaks about keeping oath, or keeping promises. God’s people as we have seen, slowly but surely was sidelining God. Let me ask: How did you sideline God in your life? You sideline God by sidelining His word that His word is no longer important. And once you sideline His word, you will sideline His way of living.

The Jews then were sidelining God in the way they handled their anger, in the way they handled their lust, and in the way they handled their divorce; they had a low view of God. So Jesus continued to say, in regards to relating and dealing with neighbors, the neighbors that God gave us, it was very common for them to make oaths or promises, and they made oath either by swearing by heaven or by earth or by Jerusalem. Why heaven? It is God’s throne. Why earth? It is God’s footstool. Why swear by Jerusalem? It’s God’s city. As they made these oaths to their neighbors as God’s people, they thought that as long as they didn’t mention the personal name of God, and the person of God, then the oath and promises they have made, was not binding.

We have a phrase here, in Singapore and in Malaysia, “Bo Ba Kai”; it means that it doesn’t obligate us to keep the promise. And Jesus is saying: This is totally wrong! This is wrong towards God, and this is wrong towards our neighbors. He teaches us that to be His kingdom people, we are to do something totally different in following Jesus. Let your “Yes” be “Yes”, let your “No” be “No”! And He says anything else comes from evil.

We know from Jesus’s teaching and from bible’s teaching, evil is usually associated with the devil. This means that if we do not let our “Yes” be “Yes”, and “No” be “No”, we will fall under the domain or the zone of the devil, who is a twister of God’s words. He always has bad intention against God and bad intention against us, but he always has a good impression and he carries it with a good look. Jesus always says to us: Never fall into that type of living i.e. when we have bad intention in our heart towards others, but we portrait an image, put on a good face, a good visage and a good impression. 

So what lesson can we learn? How can we live it out and practice it? Basically Jesus is teaching us:

Step 1:  Get the Intentionality Right

The first thing to get right as Jesus people, as kingdom people, is our intensions, our intentionality. Every day that God gives us from morning to night, do we have any intention to love others? Do we have any intention to bless our neighbors? And to love and bless our neighbors means to do good to our neighbors. So, this is the first thing to sort out.

As you listen to this, as you begin a new day or you live through the day, have you sorted out your intention? Do you have any intention in your heart to bless your God-given husband, your God-given wife, your God-given children, your God-given father and mother, your God-given friends, your God-given boss, your God-given colleague, your God-given patients or clients? If we don’t sit down to reflect on our intention: is there any intentionality to bless, to love, to do good to our neighbor, then we will never get this right!

Step 2:  From Intentionality to Implementation

Secondly is to then move on from intentionality to implementation. So, we move from our heart to our lips. And you know how hard this is for us to really keep our promises to do good to our loved one, to do good to our neighbors. And so, I want to ask you: How many promises have you broken to your parents? How many promises have we as parent, broken to our young children?

A young boy was sharing once with me, “My father, he always says that he will bring me to the Zoo; he always says that he will bring us on holiday, but I have given up believing in him because daddy never keeps his promises.” This was only a young boy, and his father would always say “I am busy”, “I got work to do”, “I will bring you to the Zoo”, “I will bring you for an outing”… but most of the time it seldom happens. Say what you mean, mean what you say.

You know we have no power to keep our promises. So, we truly need the finished work of Jesus, that saving work of Jesus, the empowering of the Holy Spirit, to be born again, to be new people, where firstly the intention of our hearts is good, the implementation is also good.

Step 3:  Reset Button

Sometimes in the busyness of life or in the unforeseen circumstances of life, it’s so hard to keep every promise to our loved ones, our boss, our colleagues, our patients, our clients because there are so many needs around us.  If we find ourselves in that position, it’s not the lack of intentionality or the lack of sincerity, but it’s truly just the lack of time and availability to do so. If we are in that position right now, take heart  – if we “failed” to keep such sincere intentions and promises, God knows! We can always press the “reset button”, the so called “promise keeping repentance, and promise keeping renewal” button.  Why don’t you practice this – maybe once a week, as a family, for all the promises that you have made and you could keep, give thanks to God! Praise Jesus! And for all the promises that you and I have every sincerity to make but no ability and no availability to keep, we can always turn to God and ask for a new beginning. In that way, we press the reset button, the “promise keeping renewal button”, and then you will always be the man, the woman, the boy or girl, the parent, the husband or wife, who is both willing and daring to keep promises, and simply let our “Yes” be “Yes”, “No” be “No”.

Summary

Do not sideline God’s Word, because by sidelining God’s Word, we sideline His way of living. Keep our promises to our neighbours as they are, starting with good intentionality, then from intentionality to implementation, and then press reset button to have a new beginning again whenever we cannot keep the promises out of busyness of life. But, we truly need the finished work of Jesus, the empowering of the Holy Spirit, to be born again, to be new people, in order to enable us to keep promises to our neighbours.