Integrity: Beyond Casual Promises | Matthew 5:33-37

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, thanks for tuning in and thanks for being a part of the Bible Guys. If you're a long time listener, we just want to say thank you for coming and visiting us. You're amazing every day. You are amazing people. They keep coming back. It's the only reason we keep doing it. No, it's true. It's true. So and share it with other people too. By the way, if you want to share a link, or maybe if you like a particular podcast, hit forward and post it or do something you know, post hyper put a hyperlink, because you know the Bible Guys dot com you know is you know we could always use more people listening. Yes, absolutely, well, we just want to help as many people as possible. That's right. And it seems like whatever it is that you love about the Bible Guys, probably some of your friends would love the same thing. And we regularly have people say, oh, man, you know, I feel like I can understand the Bible. I can track along. It's understanding and that's what we're trying to do. And it's practical, right, Yeah, we have a little bit of fun doing it so well. Speaking of fun, Jeff, we have a segment that Desiree put together, and it's actually I think we've only done this once one other time. It's called rapid fire Roulette, okay, and it says Jeff will ask us rapid series of unexpected, hilarious questions while Chris answers as quickly as possible within thirty seconds, no repeats, no overthinking. Okay, So I'm gonna how many seconds do we have? Well, it says. Within thirty seconds. I no, I'm sure to. Answer the question within thirty seconds, but I'm gonna try to do it within ten seconds. Okay, ready, yep, it is cereal soup. No? Why why because it's not soup? Okay, because it's milk and sugar. Yeah yeah, okay, a lot of curries use milk. Anyways, what's the most suspicious vegetable? Tomatoes? If David fought Goliath? Now, what weapon would he use? Oh? I can't overthink this. Uh uh SPI. Pulls that's the weapon. Yeah, he chove a stone four thousand years ago, but he's gonna do that three thousand years ago. Okay, Uh, what snack thinks it's better than it is? Oh, pudding pudding? Really yeah? Putting especially uh like like like jello pudding. Wow? Okay. What's the most aggressive condiment? Uh? Horse tradish? What food smells like regret? Uh? Uh pickled pig's feet? Okay, I get thirty seconds to laugh? Is that not true? Probably? Yes, that's true. Uh is a dog of sandwich? Yes? Question mark? Or is it something else? I think it's a sandwich, I really do. Yeah. I mean it's it's meat between between you know, bread, only just in a creative. Way, right, I think so? Yeah, Okay, I think it's a sandwich. What's the worst plague Egypt didn't get? Oh uh bamboo under a fingernails. Let my people go, or everybody's gonna get a Chinese bamboo torture. That's right? Is that it? Really? Yeah? Sure? Wow? Wow? What? Uh? What object in your house would snitch on you? What object in my house would snitch on me? My TV? Just just talking about the hours that I waste. What's the least relaxing relaxing activity. The least relaxing relaxing activity, Oh, she whish cleaning the garage? Is that relaxing to you. Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me. You like things in order? Yeah, okay, what church song needs to be retired? O? Uh see, I'm not good at church song titles, to be honest with you. But but better as one day in your courts is already retired. But when that thing was popular, I hated, And if anybody ever decides to bring it back, I'm like, dear God, no I had. I had an instrumental thing playing at my house a couple of weeks ago, and it was just playing through the house. I like to do that sometimes, and that song comes up and I just skip. I could stand. Who makes an instrumental of a song that only has three notes? Right? Yeah? Yeah? But just the lyrics in general? Okay? Well, would your inner voice be named. Vinnie? Vinnie? Uh uh, I'm not gonna ask that one. Uh. What item would make a terrible hat? Uh? A cat? Okay? Wow? A live cat? A live cat would not make a good hat. It's correct, Okay, it says no, it says no thinking. That's right. I didn't think about. That all right. What smell means this church has been here a while? Uh? Mildew mild. That's true. That it's true. Oh yeah, you ever walk into church, it smells like an old folks home. Dude, that was half the churches growing up, half the churches growing up. We're all old, nasty, small churches. Mm hmmm. Uh. What thing in your office is silently judging you? M Oh, you're not gonna like the answer. I have a display of international things, and I used to travel the world, and now I don't go anywhere except for one place, and I have regret about that, and. So that judges you. Yeah. Oh, we got to do that more. Yeah, it says to me, look a, you used to care about the rest of the world. I feel that way all the time. Really, yeah, all right, Wow, we got to change that. Yeah. Well, there you go. That's a good one. Yep, all right, we'll end with one more. Yep. Ready, what food would be a terrible roommate? Oh? What food? The terrible roommate? Indian food? All Indian food. Okay, you just yeah, the most populous planet on the most populous nation on the planet. You just tacked them all off. That's right, that's right. Yeah. So I remember when I first moved here in two thousand and four, I had a good friend Dan, and Dan was Indian and his wife was more Indian than he was. And they said, you've never had Indian food, and I said no, And he says, well, there's a plaza right next to your house. Come and meet me there. And I said okay. And at the time, I was wearing a suit because I had done a funeral. So I had done a funeral. And then I met him there and we went inside and spent two hours and ate Indian food. And then I came out and I realized I immediately had to take that suit to the dry cleaners because my suit smelled like curry curry, and it's like it was so strong that when I walked in through the door, my wife goes, oh, oh, what where were you? And I said, I was at this Indian restaurant. She says, take that off, throw it in the back of your truck. And I realized, holy cow, Like, what kind of food is so strong? When you're talking about a good one? But but but anyway, I thought to myself, what kind of restaurant it's so strong that that you have to dry clean your food every time you. Go in, it clean your clothes. Yeh, me too. You don't have to do you like Indian food? Yes, I actually did like it. I do like it. Yeah, I liked it. Yeah, it's an acquired taste for me. But now you know, I eat any food all the time, so I really decided to like it. There's an Indian restaurant not far from my house called Pink Garlic, and his family is from India. But then he has a bunch of restaurants in London and opened one here in our area. And I love their food and uh mango, lassie, those are fantastic. I love tandory chicken, I love I love any of the the curries. And but you have to admit that's a good one to choose. It is very very strong smells that were not accustomed to. Yeah, so my, but. They come here and they wouldn't like the smell of fried chicken in your house. Right. So my mother tells me the story that my my grandmother, who's who's passed, came over on the boat from Italy when she was When she first moved here, she got an apartment and then she lived there for years and she loved it. And then there was a lady who moved in next door who was Indian, and because she had so much, she cooked Indian food and it was the smell was so strong. She moved. Oh, she said, my mom had to move. Oh, yeah, because it was so strong. It's just surprising combinations of flavors. My wife and I were in Delhi last summer and we went to the spice market there where they sell all the spices wholesale, and it's an entire I don't know, six blocks of just jillions of spice shops and guys running up and down the street. And it just was so strong and pungent, and it was hot that day and it was amazing. I've got like a million pictures. We bought some spices and bought a bunch of I bought some tea in one of the shops, and we bought some Gara masala and some different different spices for to come home and cook with. And it was amazing, just incredible, just this behive of activity. That's awesome. Well, that was a good one. I enjoyed that one, so we I don't have any transition. Well, I asked you do you like Indian food? And you said yes. And you know, the Bible says, let you yes, be yes, and you're no be known. It is where it is, there it is there, you go. I spoke the truth. About that's right. Well, that's the whole premise behind that. That game right is just to get you to be honest about your opinions. There it is. And so in Matthew chapter five, Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart. And then throughout the rest of the sermon on them out five, six and seven, he talks about different things that hint at a pure heart, and one of them. So yesterday we talked about what our eyes are looking at, right, that kind of thing, and lust and those things. And today in verse thirty three he talks about our words, and he says, you've also heard that your ancestors were told you must not break your vows. You must carry out the vows you make to the Lord. But I say, do not make any vows. To not say by Heaven, because heaven is God's thrown And don't say by earth, because the earth is his footstool. And don't say by Jerusalem, for Jerusalem is the city of the Great King. Do not even say by my head, for you can't turn one hair white or black, just say as simple yes I will or no I won't. Anything beyond this is from the evil one. Yeah? Is that something? Yeah? Yeah, that's interesting. How yours is an NLT, Yeah, and mine's an NLT. But sometimes the translations are older versions of it or young or newer. But like there was like five different things that were a little bit different. Interesting. Yeah, did it say just as simple yes I will or no I won't. They'll be in the last verse. Simple yes I will or no I won't. Then it says anything beyond this is from the evil one. You said anything anything beyond this is from the evil one. Oh m, interesting, I thought I thought I heard you said something different. Yeah, huh uh. Yeah, so there there was a couple in there. I'm not going to go try to compare. But yeah, but the main idea is your yes this should mean yes, and your nose should mean no. And you should be a man of your word. You sation in the. Book of James talks about this as well. Right, he says, out of the same fountains should not come bitter water and sweetwater. Right, yeah, he said, so, so therefore, let your yaba, let your nabyn, let's your yesbs, let's your let's your no, be no, and so do not swear by anything. And so I I actually took this literally, and I still do think it means to be literal because I was just watching what was it? It was Infinity Wars, remember Avengers Infinity Wars where Gomora asks Quill to she says, hey, I know things, so you know promised that What a terrible thing to bring up. But she says, promised to kill me if the never captures me. But then she but then he goes, well, and then she puts his hand, she puts her hand over and she says, swear by your mother. Oh wow. And then he goes, okay, I promise. And that was the thing that she knew that he was going to keep his word because he swore by his dead mother, right. And And I sometimes think to myself, like, if if you're a person, I think that things like that are okay, I really do. I think that things like that are sometimes okay. But that's I don't think that's the heart of what Jesus was talking about. I think what he's saying is if you have developed a reputation that where nobody believes you unless you say, okay, say Christian promise. Right, It's like it's like, oh yeah, yeah, that's true. Okay, yeah, Christian promise. Yeah, that's true. If you've developed a reputation to where you people cannot take you at your word, to where they have to actually say, okay, you have to say Christian promise, because we used to say that Christian promise. We used to say that. In that silly Yeah, I never I've never heard of that. Oh yeah, well I think it's something we made up. But but or they say, you know, swear, swear, swear, swear to God. That's would be the more common thing, right, swear to God. And he says, don't do that. He says, don't do that. But if you're a person who who your word is not good enough, then then that he's saying, like you, you shouldn't have to be a person that has to swear by heaven or earth right, or say Christian promise, or swear to God, or swear by your mother because your regular word is not good enough, because it's all about the heart's intent, right, So it's it's not a cardinal sin to swear by your mother, dead mother, and that's not a cardinal sin, and I think that that's okay to do. I don't think that's the sin part. I think the sin part is is if you if your word cannot be trusted, then Jesus is saying, then you shouldn't be a person that has to swear by other things. Just be a person who has integrity in their word. Right. So God is not against vows, right because in Leviticus, in Numbers and Deuteronomy he spells out if you make a vow, you have to keep it right. But we try to get overly emphatic because we've developed a relationship of breaking or a reputation of breaking our vows. So then we get overly emphatic, and it's that I swear to God, I swear to my dead mother or whatever. And Jesus is saying, don't do that. Just don't do it. There's don't give anybody a reason to believe you're not going to keep your word. Be a man of your word, be a woman of your word. Just just do what you're gonna do. Yes should mean yes, No should mean no. And the more words somebody starts putting behind a thing, usually the more intent they have of getting out of it in some way. The Book of Proverbs says in a multi there's no shortage of sin in a multitude of words. Right. You ever notice my grandfather used to I've told a story a few different times, but in Elba, Michigan, there used to be a general store and the men during the all the farmers in the area would go down to the general store, sit around, play checkers on the pickle barrels. They had like three pickle barrels, and they play checkers on the top of the pickle barrels, and they get all the business done. All right, we're gonna plant the Hey. Great, if you plant, you know, eighty acres of Hey, I'll buy twenty five acres of that. Hey, they work all that out. I'll be handshake. Right. When my grandfather's name was Fenton. When Fenton Avery Forrester shook your hand and said I'll buy it, it was a done deal. Guys say I'm going to rent a tractor. I'm gonna rent a combine because they didn't own combines. I'm gonna rent a combine for two weeks, and that'll pay for a third of the costs. And two other guys step and say I'll do a third. I'll do a third. Okay, good, I'll go put the deposit down and they shake their hand. They would do huge amounts of business just with men shaking hands and agreeing. Right. It's like jeremyguire, my word is stronger than oak. Yeah, then he violated it. Yeah, exactly. Now. The other side of it is, we've had agreements where all of a sudden, some property owners, somebody comes in and they've got they've got stack of papers this bak and we got initial here, here, here, here, and here and here and here and there and there and sign here and sign here and sign there and initial this and initial that, and sure enough, later on you find out there's twenty loopholes that advantage the person who needed me an initial here, initial there, sign here, sign there. There's a reason why I don't qualify for what I thought I got, but there's a reason why that guy gets more. Right. So, this is what Jesus is saying is, don't develop this reputation that more words are gonna guarantee a thing, because they don't. Don't go around guarantee and stuff. Just let your yes b yes, and your no be no. And if you have to say I swear to God, Well, then listen. Either that person doesn't trust you to begin with, you shouldn't be going down that road, or you don't have a reputation that's good enough. You need to repair your reputation. And the only way you can do that is actually making yes b yes, and actually making nob no right. Right, Yeah, Yeah, it's really good. And I think that, Uh, I hope, I hope this is true. But I hope that I've worked on this enough to where I told you. For some reason, this has always jumped out in my mind. And uh, and so we stopped. We stopped doing the whole like Christian promise thing, and we actually told each other we're like the Bible says not to do that. If you're going to say yes, just just let your yes be yes, let your no be no. And I think I've tried really hard my whole life, uh uh to be that kind of person. So I think my family definitely knows. Right. So if I say yes, they're like, Okay, it's a done deal. I think they think that. And if I say no, my family thinks, okay, it's a done deal. And and I and I, uh, gosh, I mean what else do you have at the end of at the end of your life, you know you have a good name. We just talked about that on Sunday, right, Sunday was all about character. A good name is to be chosen over, you know, riches or gold, great riches or gold. And uh, you know I've already mentioned two movies. It's also Entangled, remember where remember that cartoon Entangled Disney where Flynn Ryder she says, once I make a promise, I always keep that promise. And she introduces that concept to Flyn Wrider at the beginning, and then at the end of the movie she says, if you just let me heal him, I'll never try to escape from you. And she said, I promise. And as soon as she said I promise, the wicked Villain Lady is like okay, And she knew that she could trust it because she said the word I promise. Right, regardless of whether you use the word promise or not, it's just this idea that she has this reputation of saying, as soon as I say something, you know it's going to happen. And I think that there's an integrity piece of that that is more valuable than just about anything. I made the comment in my message, and I should have written this in the message, but I never gave it to you, And and my son, who listened to me on Saturday night, told me, I should have given this to you. But for about fifteen years I had a plaque on my desk, and then it broke and and you know, I regretting not having it now, but it just guided me my whole life. And it was a quote by Woodrow Wilson, but Woodrow Wilson was really quoting the Bible, right, because he's a godly man. But it actually says if I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself. True, right. And so I just remember thinking, there's been times in my life where people have either thought something about me and it's been unfair to me, you know, like somebody else gave a false impression or something like this, or maybe somebody misinterpreted me or something. And I've felt the need to where I had to go and try to control my reputation. But I've always resisted that urge because I've always leaned back on this biblical principle that was quoted by Woodrow Wilson. I thought to myself, it's not my job to control what you think of me, right, It's just not my job. It's not my job. I don't have that job. My job is to control my integrity, my character, right by what I say and what I do. And it's like what I say and what I do for them to come together and have no gaps, right, And and that's really what character is. And so if I just do that, then I'll let my reputation work it out in your mind. So if you hear something about me that's not true, I'm gonna leave it up to you to say I don't believe that, because that is not the kind of person he is. So a lot of times people get really grumpy about and this is kind of a pivot just a little bit as we finish up. Uh, people get grumpy about language being used. Oh, you shouldn't swear, You shouldn't cuss, you could, you shouldn't curse. Yeah, right, And a lot of times people will use cussing, cursing and swearing interchangeably, but they're very distinct distinct. Right, So this is don't swear and swearing is making a vow I swear to God kind of a phrase. That's that's a that's a different thing. Right. Now, you're standing in court and you you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. God, Jesus doesn't say you must never make a vow. There's multi versus. The Bible say if you make a vow, you must keep the vowel. That's right, right, But Jesus is saying, listen, it's a waste for you to go around saying I swear to God, I swear to God, I swear to God. If you have to do that all the time, people don't trust you. And that's why you're trying to use a higher power. You're invoking something more powerful than you because you're not trustworthy. Right, that's so don't swear. Cursing would be words like gd yep, rights, it's those it's those vulgarities that we use to curse. Now, Jesus did say, whatever you bind on earth or be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. So if you're going to curse something or somebody, it better be legit, like honestly, that's what you mean, right, right, And then cussing is bad manners. Right, it's just bad. There's some cultural words that are just really you know, have vulgarities to them, and they're bad manners. No, Bible doesn't really talk much about that other than, you know, don't let evil corrupt communication come out of your mouth. He talks about that kind of thing. We should be people who have clean, clean mouths. But he doesn't really seem to point out the idea that a cussword is a is a sin. But he does point out you can sin by swearing, and you can sin. It's possible to sin by cursing. It's not always that that's true about both of those. But there are tremendous cautions about all three of those kinds of phrases, right, the vulgarities versus a curse, versus a vow versus a swear, and so all of those we should be very very cautious and careful in using those. And so he just says, and let your yes be yes and your no be no. Yeah, that, by the way, you said a pivot. But but that that was very relevant to these verses. I love that. That's really great. So hey, and that is our time. So what a great passage of scripture. What a great discussion, Jeff, congratulations for bringing that out. The distinction between cursing, cussing, and swearing, by the way, I think that that's I think that's a brand new piece of information for most of our listeners, because I don't think most of our listeners probably put enough energy into just you know, trying to distinct. Sure, find the distinction between those. Most of what we say is swearing or cursing is mostly just bad manners cussing, right, most of it, right, But we should be really careful about the swearing and cursing. Yeah, that's great. Okay, well, hey, we'll see you next time, hopefully on the Bible guys. H