Psalm 36:1-12  (NIV)

¹ An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes.

² For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin.  ³ The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful; he has ceased to be wise and to do good.  ⁴ Even on his bed he plots evil; he commits himself to a sinful course and does not reject what is wrong.

⁵ Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.  ⁶ Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep.  O Lord, you preserve both man and beast.  ⁷ How priceless is your unfailing love!  Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. 
⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights.  ⁹ For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

¹⁰ Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart.  ¹¹ May the foot of the proud not come against me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.  ¹² See how the evildoers lie fallen—thrown down, not able to rise!

We will continue to look at specific fruits of the spirit.  We will be looking at Faith and Trust today.  God changes us from the inside out, by the Holy Spirit working within us.  This process is a life-long shaping of us to be the people that reflect the Christ working in our lives.

Ephesians 4:14-15, 20-25, 29 (NIV)

¹⁴ Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.  ¹⁵ Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

²⁰ You, however, did not come to know Christ that way.  ²¹ Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.  ²² You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds, ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

²⁵ Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.

²⁹ Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

We will begin the sermon today with the word truth.  Faithfully speaking the truth can be demanding, and problematic.  Truthful means that we refuse to deceive people.  We are called to speak the truth.

God gave us, through His Word, something that is present called speech act theory.  That is: that every word is actually a deed.  We tend to think that word is for conveying information, but also for accomplishing.  Words have a purpose.  So, in order to see if something is truthful, we need to examine whether or not it is accurate, but also what the purpose of those words are.

1)  Scripture says any deception is wrong.

2)  Scripture says truthfulness is also about making and keeping promises.  We are part of a covenant community; followers of Jesus make and keep covenants and promises.  The Church is a reflection of the promise and covenants in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  We are the continuation of the salvation history of the Bible, and we are living those covenants in our daily lives, as God continues to shape us during our faith walk on this earth.

Keep every promise you make and only make promises you can keep.  ~Anthony Hitt

“When we make a promise, we take it on ourselves to create a future with someone else, no matter what fate or destiny may have in store.  This is almost ultimate freedom.  When I make a promise, I beat witness that my future with you is not determined by the hand I was dealt out of my family’s genetic deck.  When I make a promise, I testify that I was not routed along some unalterable itinerary by the psychic conditioning visited upon me by my slightly wacky parents.  I am not fated.  I am not determined.  I am not a lump of human dough whipped into shape by the contingent reinforcement and aversive conditioning of my past.  Now I know as well as the next person that much of what I am and what I do is a gift or a curse from my past, but when I make a promise to anyone, I rise above all the conditioning that limits me.  No German Shepherd ever promised to be there with me.  No computer ever promised to be loyal for life.  Only a person can make a promise, and when he does, he is most free.”  ~Lew Smedes, Mere Morality

Smedes is saying if you cannot make a promise, then you are a slave to circumstances, or feelings, or fears, or even impulses.  Smedes says to make the promise is freeing.  People of integrity aren’t afraid of promises.

3)  The third aspect of practicing the truth and being truthful is integrity.  People of integrity aren’t afraid of promises.

The idea is to be the same person everywhere you are.  No pseudo self in one place, but you are your real self somewhere else.

Everything you say is under oath because we are always standing before God.  There are no levels of truth; there is truth and then everything else.

Matthew 5:37  But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’  Whatever is more than these is of the evil one.

4)  The next part of the practicing the truth, Paul says, “Simply speak the truth and speak the truth in love.”

This requires a step back to think through how we might best to share the truth.  We need to choose words that build up, designed to benefit.

Relations of power “are indissociable from a discourse of truth, and they can neither be established nor functional unless a true discourse is produced, accumulated, put into circulation, and set to work.  Power cannot be exercised unless a certain economy of discourses of truth functions in, on the basis of, and thanks to, that power.”  ~Michel Foulcault

If you and I get our sense of worth as people from the love of God, the free grace of God, then the truth becomes a way to delight God, and delight in Him.

We know the issue is that when we claim something is true, we stand on Scripture.  People want to know what truth is, and we point to Scripture.

Paul says if we are followers of Jesus with integrity, we will share the truth with delicate love.

C. S. Lewis said culture laughs at honor and then turns around and is shocked to find traitors in its midst.  We see corruption and cheating and ask, ‘where did all this come from?’  We have abandoned the idea that God created certain truths.  And the thing is truth without love is not really truth but more of a power grab.  But love without truth is cowardice flattery, or intellectual laziness.  Truth and love go together or not at all.

Paul is saying: truth and love go together.  Truth without love isn’t truth, and love without truth isn’t love.

Jesus went to the Cross to be the truth that God’s law cannot be broken without consequences, and to be the truth that God loves us despite our sins, and He wants us to be with Him forever, free from our sins.  This is being the truth and being love at the same time.

Minister to the people in your life this week, with the truth spoken in love.  Think about how Jesus has softened your heart and all He has given you.  God bless, have a good week.