Telling the Truth
Written by Ed Allen
Saturday, 20 January 2001 19:00
Ephesians: Christianity for Dummies
Father, we thank you for drawing us here and we know none of us are here by accident. We are here by your design to hear from you, and there is so much we bring with us that inhibit us from hearing from you. We believe by faith that you want to speak and we know from experience that we need to hear it. Father, we’re carrying things this morning that impede your voice, that block our ears and we want to give those to you, we want to deposit that with you so that we could be clear and free. Lord, I pray that you would make us people who would tell the truth. Forgive us for our tendency to exaggerate, for our tendency to shade, to distort, to cloud. Father; please forgive those of us today who are living a lie. Set us free Lord, because we know the truth sets us free and we long for the freedom of it, but in some ways we cannot imagine it. Help us, strengthen us, equip us to speak the truth to one another in love. Make us people who can let your character shine through us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
(Movie clip: Pinocchio)
Telling the Truth
“A boy, who won’t be good, might just as well be made of wood”. We know from experience the truth behind Pinocchio’s experience of lying. We know that lying is tricky business. Like Abraham Lincoln said, “No one has a big enough memory to lie“. We know that lying gets us into trouble, still we do it! Lying has become an intrical part of American culture. If you don’t believe me, look at the way our culture responded to President Clinton’s famous lie. Polls told us that most people believed that he lied publicly, completely and boldly without qualification yet his favorability rating didn’t seem to suffer at all from the lie. Why? Well, the same polls told us that most Americans assume that all politicians lie and furthermore they believe we all lie about sex.
In his book, “The New Doublespeak”, the author William Lutz claims that within American business circles a whole new vocabulary has evolved that is designed to confuse. Listen to this: We don’t say recession anymore, we say “meaningful downturn in aggregate output”. Instead of trash dump, cities and counties now call those “resource development parks” and stolen goods are now called “temporarily displaced inventory”. We even have words for lying itself. Lying has been given a facelift. Instead of calling it a lie we prefer to call it “strategic misrepresentation” or “reality augmentation”, and here’s my favorite “terminological inexactitude”.
In a Peanuts comic strip depicting the first day of the school year, students were told to write about returning to school and all their emotions. So in her essay, Lucy wrote “Vacations are nice but it’s good to be back to school. There is nothing more satisfying or challenging than education and I look forward to a year of expanding knowledge.” Needless to say the teacher was pleased with Lucy and complemented her profusely on her fine essay and in the final frame; Lucy leans over and whispers to Charlie Brown “After a while you learn what sells”.
As a culture I think we have clearly learned what sells. You know, you’ve seen it, on CNN there is a daily show called the Spin Room where they unpack for us, everyday, how much spin has been put on the political dialogue. I read an article from the New York Times a couple of months ago. They had surveyed PR firms and PR departments of corporations all over America and according to this survey, 25 percent of PR agents confess, admit, to lying for their clients - and I want you to know they differentiated lying from embellishing -- 25 percent admitted to lying for their client. Let’s not allow ourselves to think that this problem is out there somewhere with our awful culture. The problem is us. Have you ever exaggerated your salary or your achievements? Have you ever fudged on your age? Ever overstated your children’s accomplishments? Ever enlarged on your past somehow to impress? Did you overlook some piece of income that should have been reported on your taxes? Did you ever try to hide something you bought or cover-up somewhere you had been? Have you ever expanded the details of some story to emphasize the reaction or get more out of it? Have you ever made up a story to explain why you were late, or why you missed an appointment altogether? These are just things I have heard of other people doing, none of them are things that I have actually done myself! In our own minds we call those incidences “distortions, exaggerations” an embellishment, but God calls them lies.
Some of you know the prison cell of actually living a lie. You have tried to hide an affair or a shady business deal or a part of your past that you will believe will stain other people’s impressions of you. You know the weight of that. You know the unfortunate truth of what Martin Luther said; “A lie is like a snowball. The longer it’s rolled on the ground the larger it becomes”.
Regardless of how honest we think we are you and I need to stand under the searching light of this biblical truth. “When we act out of the character that God is reproducing in us, we will tell the truth”. When we act out of the character that God is reproducing in us, we will tell the truth. We will be people of integrity. We will be people whose inside and whose walk and whose life matches our words and our words match our insides, in our walk, in our life. We will be people who tell the truth.
Last week we took a convicting and compelling look at the downward cycle of disobedience. I had a number of you thank me last week. A couple of people said you were talking about me, and I want to say publicly this morning, no I wasn’t; I was talking about me. You have experienced the downward cycle of disobedience, some of you, the downward cycle of self-ruled life, what the bible calls sin. It begins, we said, with hardening of the heart, which is really a determination to do whatever we want to do regardless of what God says. Hardening of the heart. Then we spin downward. This leads to ignorance which is really unawareness, a sense of cloudiness, a cluelessness that covers our mind and sinks into our spirit and if we don’t arrest the digression this leads to futility in our thinking, which the bible unpacked for us by saying “Darkened understanding and a deep sense of separation from God and the benefits of knowing him”. We lose hope, we lose a sense of, and we lose the real protection of being underneath a connection to God. And this gives way, in turn, to insensitivity. Our minds, hearts and wills become callous, both to the constraints of our own conscience as well as to the voice of God. We have no feeling, ultimately, and the end result of this journey downward, downward, downward, is we rush headlong into our own passions without restraint. We throw ourselves with abandon upon our temporary pleasure. I had two people come and thank me because it help them have an explanation for someone in their life, someone very important in their life, and they could see now why they had really become a totally different person because of the cycle of disobedience. Who is this person that was my mother, that was my father, that was my brother, that I was married to it. Who is this?! This is a completely different person. Well, this is someone who is living outside, completely outside, of the government of God’s grace. This is someone who has thrown themselves with abandon onto their pleasures. This is a life without restraint and it ultimately enslaves us. It will not satisfy us. But the bible assures us that that’s not who we are if we have a connection with God through Christ. That’s not who we are. We are people in whom God is reproducing his character. So we put off the old self, who tends toward the cycle of sin and we put on the new self in whom God is being reproduced. If we do this, we will tell the truth. Let me read Ephesians 4:22-25.
Ephesians 4:22-25
“(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.”
Why does God tell us not to lie? Let’s cover the liabilities of lying. Let’s take the downside first.
Lying damages our relationship with God.
Proverbs 6:16-17
“(16) There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: (17) haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood...”
Here is a list of things God hates:
- Haughty eyes
- a lying tongue
- hands that shed innocent blood
- a heart that devises wicked schemes
- feet that are quick to rush into evil
- a false witness who pours out lies, and
- a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.
Haughty eyes; a lying tongue; hands that shed innocent blood -- the list goes on, but I want you to notice what’s socked in the middle of that: a lying tongue, along with hands that shed innocent blood, murder essentially. Lying is not a small thing in God’s mind.
Proverbs 12:22
“(22) The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful.”
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. But those who act faithfully are his delight.
Lying damages our relationship with God. You know, it is interesting; ultimately all lying involves our relationship to God. All lying involves our relationship to God. The bible makes it clear that when Ja’Ree lies to Ty, her relationship with God is smack in the middle of that and is impacted profoundly. There is an interesting story from Acts 5 for those of you who know it, there are a couple of folks named Ananias and Sapphira and they were part of the first church in Jerusalem, and a church in Jerusalem was rocking. They were growing dramatically and they were meeting one another’s needs, they were bringing their stuff and their money. They were giving it to the apostles. The apostles were taking that and then distributing it to people as they had need, wherever they had need. The bible makes it clear, the apostles never said, hey, bring all your stuff to us because this is communism! The apostles never said that. The people, out of the goodness of their own heart, and because of their kinship with one another were bringing their goods and their money, giving it to the apostles. The apostles were distributing it to whoever had need so that it could actually be said of them, no one among them had any need. Isn’t that unbelievable? This is one couple, Ananias and Sapphira, who sold a piece of land and decided that they would keep some of it back for themselves. In other words, they would lie to the church; they would lie to the group. And they would go give a large sum of money to the apostles and get some applause -- we don’t know that for sure but it may have been what motivated them -- but they were going to keep some back for themselves. They bring it to the apostles and Peter says a profound thing. He says, “Why have you lied to the Holy Spirit”? Not to me, not to us, not to the church, why have you lied to the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, all lying involves our relationship with God.
Benefits are Temporary
Second liability of lying: The supposed benefits of lying are temporary. I read one author this week that said he believes we lie for two reasons. We lie, number one, to self- protect. We insulate ourselves from trouble. Second, we lie for personal gain. We lie for prestige or maybe for money or for applause. But the supposed benefits of lying are temporary. It always catches up with you.
Proverbs 12:19
(19) Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.”
The proverbial way of saying, the benefits are temporary, and then...
Proverbs 21:6
“(6) A fortune made by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare.”
Poof, it’s gone.
Lying leads to ruin
The third liability is packed in the second part of that verse: Lying leads to ruin. Lying leads leads to ruin, and again...
Proverbs 21:6
“A fortune made by a lying tongue, is a fleeting vapor and a deadly sneer”.
It captures us, it enslaves us. In Proverbs 12:21 there is an interesting way of saying the same thing...
Proverbs 12:21
“(21) No harm befalls the righteous, but the wicked have their fill of trouble.”
Proverbs 20:17
“(17) Food gained by fraud tastes sweet to a man, but he ends up with a mouth full of gravel.”
It seems to be good on the front end but when it goes down, it’s nasty.
Lying creates kinship with the devil
Fourth, lying creates kinship with the devil. Now this was the one that rocked me this week. Now I know that there are some of you in here this morning who are so sophisticated that you don’t really believe in the devil. And I want you to know he’s happy about that. Lying creates kinship with the devil. The bible gets an awful lot of mileage out this business of kinship, this connection. It’s one of the most central images of spiritual truth in the bible. In fact, we are exhorted of course to call God our Father and we are brothers and sisters of one another, in other words we are one big happy family, a pretty sick family, but we’re one big happy family. Well, also the opposite is true. When you act in ways that are consistent with the downward cycle of sin, you create kinship with the devil. Kinship with the devil. You become part of his family, as it were, Jesus makes that clear.
John 8:44
“(44) You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Not holding to the truth. Again truth telling equated with murder. For there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks; in fact he speaks his native language, for he is a liar, and the Father of lies.
Four liabilities for lying:
- Lying damages our relationship with god.
- The supposed benefits of lying are temporary
- Lying leads to ruin
- Lying creates kinship with the devil
Benefits of Lying
Okay, how about the upside? The benefits of lying. Let me give you three:
Truth is a prerequisite to worship
First, truth is a prerequisite to worship. Now, I think most of us, maybe all of us love to be in love. We love the way it feels. We love the heart racing, the emotion of it. That’s why we like romantic comedy. We love to be in love; and we love to tell our love ones that we love them. We like to express it, because we like the benefits of it, and we like how it makes us feel. We find pleasure in loving, and pleasure in expressing our love. Well, I want you to know there is infinite pleasure in infinite love, and that’s what we have with God. We have infinite pleasure when we connect with him in a loving relationship, and that pleasure finds its climax in the expression of our love for him, and that’s what worship is. It’s expressing our love for God, our passion for Him. Now wouldn’t all of us love to feel the infinite pleasure of being infinitely in love with an infinite being? That would be infinitely pleasurable. What’s the prerequisite for that?
John 4:24
“(24) God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
If we are going to experience God in worship, or if we are going to experience the pleasure of genuine worship of God, we have got to tell the truth about ourselves to one another.
Truth fosters freedom
Second, truth fosters freedom. We said a minute a minute ago, that lying is a deadly sneer. Truth fosters freedom. Let’s look at...
John 8:32
“(32) Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Truth is related to wickedness
Third, and this really has more to do with the nature and character of truth than with benefits, but its part of it. Truth is inversely related to wickedness. Now for those of you who like to draw a graph, think of it this way. Think of a graph with an x-axis and a y- axis and truth is up here and truth is down here. The greater degree of truth there is in our lives, the less wickedness there is and the reverse is reverse is also true: the greater wickedness there is in our life, the less truth there is.
Now don’t skip over that, let’s think about that for a minute, because more than anything else, that’s what struck me as I was working through the scriptures this week, concerning truth. Truth is inversely related to wickedness. Again, pause for a moment. Several times in the scriptures, and I’m going to show you a few of them, truth is contrasted with wickedness. Not with lying -- with wickedness, and the reverse is also true, wickedness in several places is contrasted with truth, not with goodness, with truth. It’s as if wickedness, evil, the cycle of sin in your life can’t abide with the truth, it has to cover up, it HAS TO cover up! You know how it is when you are caught in that downward cycle of self-rule, you’ve got to cover it up. To expose it, to bring it to the light ends it, and frankly you continue in it because you don’t want it to end. You and I are in the cycle of disobedience, because we want to be there. That’s what it means to have hardened our hearts. And truth is a leap out into the light and into freedom. You know sometimes, the first step into the light is a rough one.
Ever wake up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom? Or in our case, Diane wakes up in the middle of the night, right when I’ve been in bed for a little while, she comes over, wants to look at something on her calendar, BANG, the light goes on and WHAOW, my eyes have adjusted to the dark! It’s awful. Sometimes, a journey into the light, if it’s sudden, it’s a little painful, but it’s freeing. It’s freeing. We stay in the cycle of sin because we want to be there. To be there, we have to keep it in the dark.
John 17:17
“(17) Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”
is an interesting one in this connection: “Jesus, praying for his disciples said to the Father, sanctify them, make them holy, not by washing them” and that’s sometimes an image that’s used “not even by your Holy Spirit” and certainly that’s what happened, “not by making them good. Do not sanctify them by discipline, sanctify them by your truth”. Your word is truth. More to the point,
Romans 1:18,
“(18) The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,”
This is a brilliant passage from the apostle Paul where he does the exact same thing that he did in the passage last week. He unpacks, in even more detail the cycle of sin, and he begins it like this: “The wrath, the anger, the fury of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and the wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness”. Suppress the truth by their wickedness.
It’s not just that people don’t get it, it’s that people don’t want to get it and the way we keep ourselves from getting it is by wickedness.
1 Corinthians 13:6
“(6) Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
This is probably a verse that all of you have at least heard, many of you will be familiar with it, some of you had it read at your wedding.Listen. Listen to the contrast. “But rejoices in the trust”. Now wouldn’t you expect it to say, rejoices in goodness, rejoices in righteousness? Instead, the bible has contrasted here wickedness and truth. This figures. Lies are used to cover up the steps in our journey in downward cycle of disobedience. Little wonder the bible so often uses the image that God is light and that wickedness is darkness.
Okay, now I know that we had snow this morning and we got up and it was a little difficult to be here today and overall we’re kind of having a sleepy day aren’t we? So let’s do a one moment of spiritual aerobics, because we’re about to come to one of those points where I come to every week and I say “if you miss everything else, don’t miss this”. So don’t miss the next couple of minutes. Lock into this. Are you feeling distant from God today? Well, tell the truth about your sins and bring it to the light. That is an abrupt and an immediate way to snatch yourself out of the cycle of sin.
James 5:16
“(16) Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
I want you to know, personally, I need some motivation for this, because this is not something that I am usually happy to do. I’m not real excited about running to any of you and saying: “Let me tell you the worst and most embarrassing things about my life. You know what I’ve been doing this week that you just wouldn’t believe? I mean it’s despicable and you’re going to think a whole lot worse of me, but let me...” I’m not anxious to do that. So I need some motivation, and here it is. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
Anybody feeling a need to make the connection? Anybody feeling a need to have your heart drawn back to God? Maybe drawn back to a friend, maybe drawn back to a husband or wife? Confess your sins. Feeling distant from someone today? Tell the truth. Now listen carefully, don’t tell their truth, tell your truth. Tell what you’re feeling, tell what you’ve done. Tell how you have sinned; tell about your confusion. You’re not responsible for their truth and their truth doesn’t help you tell your truth, and that doesn’t mean go to Diane and say, “Diane, you know, I’m confused, because you’re such a jerk. You’re trying to tell Diane’s truth. You tell your truth. Diane, I’m confused and I’m sorry. I don’t really get what’s happened between us. I’m feeling hurt and you know what I’ve done, I’ve thought less of you and I’ve judged you and I’m sorry and now everything that happens between us I see in that grid and I just can’t help it and that’s my sin and I’m sorry. Tell the truth.
How do we walk away from lying?
As we walk toward the truth we walk away from wickedness and we walk into the light and into freedom and into worship. How do we do it? We’ll be quick from here on in, so listen up.
Evidently, the bible knows that this is not too complicated. This business of telling the truth is not too complicated. It may be difficult, depending on how deeply impeded the liar, the habit of disobedience is in your life, it may be a hard thing to do, but it’s not complicated. Get it? It’s not complicated, it may be hard, but it’s not complicated. The bible makes it very clear. Put off falsehood and speak the truth. It’s that simple.
First of all, put off falsehood. It will not simply fall away. It must be discarded. Every one of us, there are parts of our character that tend toward falsehood. Expel those tendencies, discard them, get rid of them, and secondly, speak the truth. The truth is in you. If God is in you, then the truth is in you, so speak it. Thirdly, we’ve got to add one qualification, speak the truth in love. Don’t speak the truth as a club. Don’t speak the truth to beat one another up, speak the truth in love.
Finally, why should we do it? “Because we are one with one another”, Paul says. You cannot understand the letter of the Ephesians we have been walking through. You can’t understand God’s intention for the church or for your life, unless you understand this. You are interconnected with other Christians, along side whom God has called you. You are part of the same body. So tell the truth to them.
We did a training yesterday for some of our home fellowship leaders at a church in Ashburn, and many of our home fellowship leaders and apprentices and potential home fellowship leaders came to this seminar yesterday. The seminar leader did a really interesting exercise. He had a bunch of rubber bands that were two rubber bands tied together and he had us stand in circles of like six or eight people. One rubber band you would put around your wrist and then the other half of that same rubber band that was connected, the person to your left would put through their wrist. And then you would put your left wrist through the other half of the rubber band that was on that person’s wrist. Then he threw a ball into the middle of the circle and we had to toss the ball around to one another, around the circle. Not to the person on your left or right, but toss the ball around the circle.
He stopped us after a while, and he said, “What are the implications for home fellowship”? “What are the implications for community”? You get it don’t you? We’re connected to one another, so that when Terry moves to catch the ball, if I’m on her right my left hand has to go with her. If Tim’s on her left, his right hand has to go with her, as Terry moves her hands in. We’ve all got to cooperate and to a larger or lesser degree, that impacts the whole circle. Gee whiz, if somebody makes a bad throw, we’ve got to all back up, so we can catch the ball, and sometimes, if it’s off to the left or right too much and there has to be a dramatic move, somebody’s wrist gets rubbed. You know, we rub against one another. We’re connected to one another. Now I want you to imagine, somebody taking both of their hands and running to the middle of the circle and shaking them up. That’s going to jerk the elbow off of the person to the left or right and that in turn is going to drag the rest of the circle, and that’s what happens when we lie. We throw ourselves into the middle of the circle, and we shake things up and everybody around us, especially those that are closest to us are dramatically affected. We’re rubbed. Our hearts, our minds and our spirits are rubbed raw. Don’t lie, because you are members of one another, you’re connected to one another. Don’t do that to one another; tell the truth, because if you’re living out the character that God is reproducing in you, you will tell the truth. So live it out. Live out the life that God has deposited in you. Speak the truth.
Imagine the chaos that would be created if your body lied to itself. It says we are members of one body. Imagine you want to be disciplined, you wake up one morning, you set the alarm for 5 o’clock, you’re going to get up, you’re going to serve your family somehow, and then your going to have a great, awesome time of prayer. You’re going to try and pray for an hour and nothing’s going on, the phone’s not going to ring at 5:30 in the morning, you’re ready to go. So the alarm goes off, you wake up, you’re feeling a little groggy, but you’re going to make it happen, so you decide to get out bed and your right leg says, “I’m not going to tell anybody, but I’m going to stay in bed”. You see the confusion and the chaos that’s created, right? The bible says speak truth to one another, because you’re members of the same body. Don’t do that to one another, it creates unimaginable chaos.
I used this illustration a couple of years ago. I want to pull it out again because there’s an addendum to it.
Soccer player Rob Mel, a senior at Wheaton Christian High School, isn’t used to publicity, much less letters from former Presidents, but his unusual action in a hotly contested soccer match was reported by local newspapers, and then by nationally syndicated news columnist, Bob Green. In the closing seconds of a game against Wabunsky Valley, a team high ranked high in the state; Mel managed a breakaway and kicked the tying goal. With Wheaton fans cheering the upset and Wabunsky fans protesting that the goal was late, Mel walked to the referee and asked if the official time was kept on the scoreboard or on the referee’s stopwatch. The scoreboard’s time was official, the referee told him. Mel then explained that just before his kick, he had seen zeroes on the scoreboard clock. Since he hadn’t heard a whistle, he kept playing, but his goal was late, and he didn’t think it should count. The referee reversed his call and awarded the game to Wabunsky Valley. That night Mel went home to his homework. “I didn’t think much about it”, he later said, I hadn’t done anything that great. For me, acting honestly was just a reflection of Christ in me”.
I used that illustration a couple of years ago, here at Gateway. Many of you weren’t there then, but I used that illustration a couple of years ago and it’s one that we remember. Now this illustration has a nice wonderful ending. Sometimes it doesn’t when we’re honest. But this one has a great ending. Rob went on to play soccer for Wheaton College and he helped them win a national championship in 1997.
Well, Diane told our boys that illustration, or they may have even heard it on the Sunday morning that I told it. This past year our youngest, Graham, was playing on a travel soccer team and this team’s pretty serious about their stuff, and Graham’s a pretty serious little soccer player. So I didn’t get to go to a lot of the games this past season because they played on Sunday afternoon and usually I did community study on Sunday afternoons so Diane went to most of the games. A couple of times in one game, they called the ball out, and gave the ball to us, and Graham says to the referee, “You know, that ball was out on me” and the parents of course on the opposing team, went “way to go, son, thank you”. Here’s the great thing, we come home that night and Diane’s telling me about this and bragging on Graham and his character and Graham’s kinda beaming and I’m thinking, “Well, let’s don’t get carried away with this. It was just an out of bounds ball”. Honesty is a tough thing. It doesn’t come naturally to us. In the small things and in the big things. What comes naturally to us is hiding and covering. You know why we don’t lie more? We don’t lie more because we’re okay people and we don’t believe we need to lie more. The test of lying is when you need to lie, then do you tell the truth?
Let’s pray:
Father, forgive us for the ways that we have lied this week simply by allowing someone to believe something that wasn’t true. By encouraging a better, brighter, stronger opinion of ourselves than we know we deserve. Lord I do ask, if there is anyone here this morning who is living a lie, I pray that you would speak words of freedom, give them hope, give them a sense that there’s something better. Help them move beyond it. Give them a picture of what a Declaration of Independence would look like. Strengthen the places that are weak and help them speak the truth. Finally Lord, help us to be people who speak loving truth to one another. In the strong name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.