Matthew 6:7-13 Shine!

Matthew 6:7-13  And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.  “This, then, is how you should pray:  “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us today our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one’”   

We who are in the Lord should be confident that God hears us at all times.  In our attempt to know God, we often treat him as if He is not near us.  Cavalierly, we behave as if He is deaf or diminished in his thinking, in need of many words to hear and understand our petitions.  Of course, this is untrue of God.  Christians should accept our position in Christ as firm and intimate: we died with him and are raised with him.  He is always with us, even when we are not thinking or doing the right things.  Christ and his work are embedded in our souls; therefore, He helps us when we speak a word of faith.  Paul reminds the church of the Old Testament promise, The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.  (Romans 10:8)  We are people with faith that unlocks the door to God’s heart, not our many words or desperate pleas.  Some religions favor the repetition of prayers as if by doing so, they can demand God’s attention or please him by their repeated words and phrases.  But Christians are the temple of God, cleansed by the blood of Christ.  God is not far away from them in another heavenly sphere or dimension where we must call him down.  He is in our mouths and our hearts, ready to hear us, ready to respond to our needs and requests.  He knows us—knows whether we are asking amiss, seeking our own desires or asking in earnest for God’s will in our lives.  We do not always believe everything that happens to us is in God’s plan for us.  But God can take the most difficult and damaging experiences in our lives and bring good out of them.  We might feel as if a sword has pierced our hearts because of some horrific experience, but as with Jesus, bearing the hurt and shame of the cross, God is preparing us for eternal life.  Often we feel a life of ease and pleasure would be best for us as Christians, but God’s greater plan of eternal life and imaging him overrides everything in our lives.  We must live by faith, believing the work of Jesus Christ of more importance than anything else in our lives.  Paul expresses clearly our need for God’s intervention when we are experiencing the caldron of fear, difficulties, and confusion.  In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.  (Romans 8:26-27)  The Spirit INTERCEDES for GOD’S PEOPLE.  He expresses our deepest needs and our pain to God; He also expresses our thankfulness and joy to God.  The Spirit intercedes for us, asking for God’s perfect will in our lives: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  If the Spirit does so much better than we can, should we stop petitioning God for help?  No, God has given us words to communicate with him.  He desires to hear our voices asking him to be the good Father that we know He is.  Jesus wants believers to seek God, realizing He hears our words.  Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.  “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!  (Matthew 7:7-12)  We are God’s children; He is our Abba Father.  The originator of all life: He made us in his image with a plan for us to communicate with him.  Our experiences on Earth, the good and bad, are worked out by him for our eternal good because of his love for us.

Christians know we are not to pray to false gods that come from man’s imaginations.  We are not to be like the pagans for they pray to powerless manmade gods, deities without ears, eyes or feelings.  In the Old Testament people prayed to sculptured idols made from various materials such as wood, stone, precious metals or gems.  The adulterous behavior of the Israelites with these gods brought damming judgment on them, even their removal from Canaan, the Promised Land.  God will have no other deity or man replace him in man’s worship.  He alone is to be honored, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  He is to be honored, worshipped; his name should be glorified.  Religious activity such as the Old Testament act of sacrificing animals or the perfunctory repetition of words will never please God.  He looks at the heart and its earnestness.  His desire is for intimacy with his creation.  He reciprocates our love toward him, saying, “I will never leave you; I will always be with you; you are my lovely ones.”  As faithful believers we communicate with God often, beseeching him to help us live successful, godly lives.   We pray for others as well, for we want God’s will to be fulfilled in everyone’s lives.  We never give up on our prayers for others: our leaders, friends, Christian brethren, families, and for ourselves.  We follow Jesus’ advice.  Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’  And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me.  The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed.  I can’t get up and give you anything.’  I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.”  (Luke 11:5-9)  We do not need to be audacious, for we are known by God as his lovely ones, his children.  He always hears our knock; he always responds to us in the context of his will; and his will is for us to be eternal beings, never to experience eternal death.  The Father knows what we need from him most: eternity with him.  This is his will for us, so the Father knows what you need before you ask him.  He knows our lives, the holy and the evil, the great and the terrible.  But the power of the Spirit has resurrected us into eternal life.  The Spirit’s assignment in us is to present all our needs before God, often with a deeper understanding of what we as humans can know or express.  God leads us in a path of righteousness, of holiness; helping us to navigate successfully through this world of pain and suffering.  He gives us what we need for strength: Give us today our daily bread.

We have a debt that we owe to God and that debt is to love him with our whole being.  Why a debt?  When Adam sinned, he placed his will before God’s will.  He gave himself preeminence over God’s way of life.  Jesus asks us to pray that God’s will be done on Earth, not Adam’s will, not his sinful legacy.  So we all have a debt to pay, the debt is sin.  In Jesus’ prayer, He prays, And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  He is asking God to give us mercy, to forgive us of our debt to him, to forgive us of our waywardness.  Of course in Jesus Christ, we have found mercy, for He paid that debt completely for us on the cross, but we still have an obligation to God and that is to express his mercy and grace to people around us.  We are to forgive our debtors.  When we take communion at the Lord’s table, we are to cleanse the air of any animosity that we have for our fellow brethren or clear up any animosity that someone has against us.  Jesus said if we want to offer a gift at the altar and we know someone has something against us, First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.  (Matthew 5:24)  We are to forgive people and to ask people for forgiveness if they feel we have wronged them or abused them in some way.  If we covet God’s forgiveness, we must reveal the attitude of Christ toward the world: He died to save the sinners, even the ones who hate him, despise his goodness.  We are to be like him.  Jesus prays that God should help us resist the temptation that the evil one constructs.  The devil wants people to hate each other.  He says we should be rational beings, taking an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  His world is constructed in this violent way.  Evil and hurt exist around us; it is the way the world has been since the fall of mankind.   In his prayer, Jesus asks God to keep us from the innate condition of man, his natural way of living without God.  Loving God with our whole heart and loving others as ourselves is the opposite of sin and our selfish wills.  By living for God, we will be delivered from Satan’s plan for our lives.  Our lifestyle is to image God to the world as we comfort people in distress, care for the disadvantaged, house and feed the poor, lift up the broken hearted, make straight the crooked paths in wounded people’s lives.  In other words, we are to be like Jesus.  We are the salt of the world, the light in dark places.   Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.  (Matthew 5:16)  In the Lord’s prayer, God’s will is to be done on Earth as it is in heaven.  This is the Spirit’s prayer for us who are around this morning’s breakfast table.  

  

Matthew 6:1-5 Have Mercy on Me!

Matthew 6:1-5 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.  If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.  “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.  Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.”

True Christianity is a belief that God exists and that all things are to be done for his pleasure and glory.  God is the rewarder of those who seek only to please by channeling their lives into doing good.  Christians who walk through their lives with the emphasis of helping people, seeking the best for all the lives they contact will be greatly rewarded by the God of creation.  Faithful Christians who house, clothe, and feed people during their short lives will be richly rewarded when they meet God after their demise.  As we read in the Bible, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.  (Hebrews 11:6)  God is a good God, faithful to all who do his will.  Jesus gets down to the nitty-gritty of religion when He tells the people that serving God should be done without needing some sort of recognition or reciprocation from humans.  Sadly, often religious people of all persuasions seek recognition from other humans.  Without a desire to please God only, we come into the context of many religions: to please men, to be seen by others.  Many clergy and religious devotees around the world separate themselves by their clothing, appearance, living spaces, and even the way they act among men as monks, priests, clerics, gurus, and the like.  They want to be seen, recognized for their piety, their way of living, their humility, their attributes of goodness; but Jesus said all of this kind of thinking and acting will not be rewarded by the God of heaven.  He will not share in any way his glory; his position of being the only one holy and good.  Jesus told the rich young man that no one was holy, only God.   As Jesus started on his way, a young man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him.  “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered.  “No one is good—except God alone.”  (Mark 10:17-18)  Christians are to do good, to express their allegiance to God in a positive and helpful way to all of humanity.  They should be leaders in lifting up the oppressed, the downhearted, the needy, and all who have a difficult time living in this world; but honoring God and him only should be the centerpiece of their lives.  He must be glorified, not people.  As Jesus said, No one is good—except God alone.  No one knows the truth of goodness nor its origination but God, for He is the fountain of everything that is right or holy.  Jesus who lived a righteous life withheld the tag of goodness to himself: He places it on his Father above.  God is the source of righteousness, clean living, and goodness.  

When we reflect God’s goodness, we should Be careful not to practice our righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.  If we do, we will have no reward from our Father in heaven.  It is our obligation and privilege to display God and his goodness to the people of the world, but we are not to do positive things for humanity for our own honor or recognition.  When we accept honor for ourselves without deflecting to God as the originator of all goodness, we fall into the mode of sin.  Adam and Eve’s rebellion brought separation between God and man.  When we do good to others, the motivation comes from God, even if we are not believers.  John wrote: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.  (1 John 1:5)  As Jesus told the young man, only God is good.  If you think you are good young man, go home and sell all you have and follow me.  By doing that, the world will hate you, hunt you down and try to kill you.  Of course, the young man wanted eternal life, but not at that price, for he was much involved with this world, tied down by the wealth he possessed.  When we follow Jesus completely without seeking recognition for ourselves, we often walk a lonely road, with little reciprocation for our love and kindness.  The apostle Paul in reaching out to different communities in his ministry of the Good News, often felt isolation and even poverty.  To validate his ministry to others, he worked with his own hands to keep himself alive.  He did not depend on the gifts of Christians for his survival.  Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.  (1 Thessalonians 2:9)  Paul was willing to sacrifice everything for God.  His life was on display before men, but he did not want their praise or any credit due him except his desire to please God.  He did not do his good deeds before men to gain their recognition.  He just wanted to please God with his life as a living sacrifice.  We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts.  You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness.  We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority.  Instead, we were like young children among you.  (1 Thessalonians 2:4-7)  Paul attempted in every way to be innocent of maneuvering people for his own benefit.  He did not desire their recognition nor their reciprocation: he just wanted to please God.  Jesus in today’s focus tells us that our good deeds first and foremost should be a gift to God.  We are to do all things for his recognition and eventually his reciprocation.  We are to serve him and him alone with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.  Do not announce your good deeds with a trumpet, focusing attention on yourself; instead, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.  No trumpet is needed in heaven to draw God’s attention to you; He sees all things and will reward appropriately.    

When we pray, we should not use prayer as an arena for our thoughts, we should pray to God.  Often when people pray, they pray to others.  They forget that they are before the throne of God; consequently, they fail to address their words to the Creator and not to others.  This is quite a common failing when praying in a congregation.  God is listening and He knows our hearts, but still our focus can stray from communicating to him.  And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  In every prayer, we must present our petitions to him directly, not to others.  He alone can answer our prayers, and He alone can change the hearts of men.  We cannot do that no matter how much massaging of people’s minds we attempt in our prayers that are supposedly directed to God.  Our minds and words in prayer should be fixed on the fact that we are talking to God.  We are in his throne room now, not in our churches or buildings.  In the above focus, Jesus emphasizes that the priests enjoyed praying before people.  They loved to be the ones called on to give the invocations, petitions to God.  But their prayers were not heard by God or honored by him because their words were focused on their own grandiose feelings.  God honors the humble in heart, the ones who know that help and holiness originate with God, and He is listening to them attentively.  To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’  But the tax collector stood at a distance.  He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’”  (Luke 18:10-13)  Praying, like giving to the needy, is a sacred activity.  God has given us words to talk to him; He has given us strength to help others.  We are to honor him, for everything worthwhile or good comes from his hands, from his existence.  We are but representations of his goodness.  Let us do everything for his glory, for his benefit.  Like Paul, let us yield to the Lord.  At the end of his life, he could say, For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.  (2 Timothy 4:6)  God will reward us for such a life.  In fact, He has already rewarded us, for He calls us his sons and daughters, free to enter into his household or presence anytime we desire.  Love God with all your heart and work for him only, not yourselves.  In prayer or service, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.  (Philippians 2:3-4)  Amen.   

Matthew 5:38-48 Children of Your Father!

Matthew 5:38-48  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'  But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.  If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.  And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.  If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.  Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.  You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.  He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?  Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?  Do not even pagans do that?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

We will not, we cannot be perfect outside of Jesus Christ, the Perfect One.  Often people quote the above scripture or part of it to express who God is and what He desires of us.  Sometimes Christians will point to someone in the Christian world who fulfills part of the above focus.  Of course that is good.  However, today’s verses display God’s nature, not man’s nature.  In our human condition, we are jealous, envious, hurtful, revengeful, unloving, and the like.  Most of us partaking of this breakfast will admit that we and other Christians experience difficulty being good or sinless.  Often with sincerity Christians reject those troubling characteristics of mankind as part of their own humanness.  However, for us not to understand the basic nature of man that is within us is to declare Jesus Christ’s crucifixion for our sinful state as unnecessary.  If we accept it, we might consider Jesus Christ’s work as somewhat nice, curative, restorative, not accepting totally the fact that we too are as depraved as anyone else, only our circumstances differ from the most evil among us.  We might think, maybe the world is rather evil, but we are not.  However, we know we would strike back if assaulted or if our loved ones were assaulted in front of our eyes.  We would probably even kill to get away from such evil.  We know that our spirits are extremely reluctant to help an enemy, definitely not willing to carry his satchel or pack an extra mile.  We know we would not gladly hand over all of our possessions to someone who sues us.  Our nature does not fit in well with such actions.  We definitely will not in any way love those who line us up against the wall and then shoot us for no reason.  We will not love those who behead us.  Our nature does appreciate these subservient ideas.  In spite of our imperfections, we claim that the Holy Spirit will help us face the adverse situations in our lives.  We so easily deceive ourselves.  We tend to excuse our spirits of anger or bitterness; we justify them with excuses.  Often when we think of the basic nature of mankind, we ascribe sinful deeds to the other side, not to our side or to ourselves.  It is the others who are wicked, not us.  If others would only agree with us and be reasonable, then we could be friends, allies, and so on.  But dear friends around the table, you need a SAVIOR, ONE WHO IS PERFECT, for God fully understands your sinful nature.  He knows your life from the very beginning when you were a child.  He has investigated you, found you on the wrong side of PERFECTION.  In him you will follow his will to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.  (Matthew 5:44)  

A cursory look at the history of mankind reveals the violent, vindictive nature of humans.  On every continent, we find violence beyond our imagination: murder, genocide, human sacrifice, rape, terror, and slavery exist in all people’s history.  We find newborn babies smashed against the ground or a wall; women collected by the victors as part of the winning collateral of a battle or war; men slaughtered in the camps of the opposition; boys and girls dragged off as slaves of the victors.  This is humankind.  We do not want to accept the Cain nature within us; instead, we are the innocent Abel who is murdered.  We are the white hat people: the innocent, the good, not the black hat people: evil, corrupt; those who are so easily discernible in the old cowboy movies.  But mankind, every “good person,” needs a savior, a rescuer, from the sin intrinsic to us.  We need a way to be perfect, a way to be acceptable to a holy God.  Dad was talking to a young man the other day about needing a Savior, testifying about God and his salvation plan.  The young man wanted to know why Dad thought God wanted us to be perfect.  Of course in asking that, he knew he was not perfect.  Dad explained the idea that eternity is a forever existence and that no residue or smudge of sin can enter into heaven.  Sin is cancerous, intending to kill, to stop life.  Eternity will not accept that condition, for God is holy, eternity is holy.  The God who knows every hair on our heads, every leaf on the trees, every blade of grass on the land, that unimaginable God will not let sin contaminate his eternal existence.  Of course, Dad gave him the answer to his question: you need a perfect one to be your eternal substitute; you need his sacrifice for your unrighteousness.  This is the answer to the sin question so prevalent in the souls of men, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  (Romans 3:23)  People sometimes dismissed the ancients as if they did not know what is good or bad.  They were not ignorant; they knew what is good and that positive attitudes and actions are better that what is bad and negative.  They knew how to organize a cohesive society, a culture dependent on cooperation, not dissemblances and self-interest.  They knew laws such as the Ten Commandments were good and helpful in organizing society.  However, these restrictions on their behavior were never accepted completely by any society or culture.  For man’s basic nature is to do what he thinks is right.  As with the Jews, In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.  (Judges 17:6)  When collectively they knew their way of self-living was bringing violence and chaos, they often would attempt to start over.  In the Old Testament, no matter how many times they repented and said they would start over, to do good and not evil, often with tears, sackcloth and ashes in their repentance, their subsequent behavior betrayed their intentions and words.  Violence in men is why God intended to destroy all of mankind in the days of Noah; the same was true in his decision to destroy Nineveh.  But as Jonah said, he knew God was a God of mercy and grace.  This irritated Jonah, for he had the heart of mankind in him; he wanted God to destroy this city, for they were often an enemy to his own people.  For him, justice would be carried out with the destruction of Nineveh, but God had other plans for the wickedness of Nineveh or the world.  A Savior would be needed, even for the ancients: Jesus Christ.  

Many believe in personal goodness, not the sinful nature Paul talks about in Galatians 5.  The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.  I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.  (19-21)  Yes, maybe some of the people partaking of this breakfast might have some of these attitudes and actions in their lives, but for sure, not us.  We are the loving, the caring, the helpful; we are not the ungodly, the imperfect, not us.  But, if you do not understand the nature of man, accepting his condition as your condition, you will never understand the freedom God won for you through Jesus Christ.  You will never be free indeed, for your actions and attitudes will always be dependent on your work and not on God’s work.  You will always evaluate things as good or bad by the Tree of Knowledge, determining your status with God based on human understanding.  Salvation, perfection, and acceptance come by God’s plan.  All of this is the work of Jesus Christ.  He made you perfect.  He has presented himself in your hearts in the form of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this.  First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord.  I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”  Then he adds: Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”  And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.  (Hebrews 10:15-18)  Because of Christ, God forgets your sins and lawless acts.  Your violent nature that is sparked when someone disagrees with you, or when you are mistreated, or when someone detests you for what you believe will be remembered no more by God.  Instead, He identifies the works of the Holy Spirit inside you, your advocate before the throne of God.  WE ARE  PERFECT, for God through the SAVIOR has made us his own.  Nothing impure will ever enter it (Kingdom of God), nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.  (Revelation 21:27)  God gave mankind the Lamb, a once and for all sacrifice.  He writes ETERNITY on our lives as we take Jesus’ life for our own life.  Definitely, as Christians we do good, for we image God to the world.  But our goodness is not salvation goodness—only God holds that in his purview.  We are new creatures, designed in Christ’s image.  Our goodness is not innate but from Christ, his holiness.  The old law or every sermon that places light on us for efficacious reasons will never work.  Yes, we attempt to be better, but walking in the light of right and wrong never persuades the flesh completely.  The old nature of the flesh is very strong within us.  Consequently, we consider the old nature dead, unable to determine our eventual destination.  Our new nature that we live by is the nature of Jesus Christ, acquired by faith, sometimes not very evident in our lives, but always there, completely acceptable to a righteous God.  This light burns within us, not set upon us as the light of right or wrong or as the law did to the Israelites.  With this light IN US, we are no longer slaves to sin.  God sees the  light within us, freeing us from the nature of the flesh that leads to death.  The light in us expresses new life: Jesus Christ.  Violence and disruption are not the primal characteristics of our new lives.  No, the blood of Jesus has made us completely whole, transplanting our spirits to a new environment of love and caring.  Let us endure to the end, forsaking our nature of hurt and hate, rather loving God with our whole being, loving our neighbors as ourselves, succumbing to the light within us, not to a lifestyle of law, evaluating whether we are good or bad.  We had no power in the old life but in the new we enjoy eternal life and perfection, for Jesus is the carrier of perfection for us.  We are free from the bondage of sin; therefore, forget your sins, for God has forgotten them.  Amen!        

Matthew 5:33-37 Be Blessed!

Matthew 5:33-37  Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made."  But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.  And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black.  All you need to say is simply “Yes” or "No"; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.  

In the above focus, Jesus tells the people not to swear oaths, attempting to determine the future.  A man or a woman’s future activities or circumstances in life depend on God’s will and not the will of a man or a woman.  No matter how sincere a person might be to fulfill a vow to someone, only God can determine whether the promise will be fulfilled.  Our future is in the hands of God, not in our hands.  Sometimes in an attempt for others to know how sincere they are about their vows, people bring their solemn, sworn words before God as a witness to the truth of what they are swearing.  Jesus is telling his audience that oaths about the future have no validity unless God in his determination allows them to be fulfilled.  Oaths are not bad, neither are promises or covenants.  Swearing allegiance to something is not bad, but all such deeds come under the milieu of God’s absolute authority.  He alone determines the future of all things.  Do not say that you can through your own will and determination control the future.  What happens next is always in the hands of God.  But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.  Do not claim that God will back up your oath or affirm that you will carry it out.  The fact of your future existence is entirely in the purview of God, not under your control.  God does exist, and He alone is in control of the future, not you.  Jesus said, I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me.  (John 5:30)  When you say that you will perform a task just say, “Yes I will do it.”  If you say, “No, I will not do it.” be faithful to your word.  Do not make any statement of intent by swearing on heaven’s reality or the stability of the earth, or even on the great city of Jerusalem.   Heaven, Earth, Jerusalem are under the jurisdiction of God.  Just as God controls the future, He is in control of all things now, not you.  God validates and determines what He wants.  Outside of God, people have no authority to rule over the present world, and they cannot confirm, affirm, or determine anything in the future; consequently, let your intentions of what will happen in the future be expressed only by a yes or no.  For sure, you cannot even determine how you will progress biologically, whether the color of your hair in the future will be white or black or whether you will even have hair on your head.  So why swear an oath; why swear to someone before God or anything else that is not in your control.  God alone has the authority to determine all things in the future.  The assumption that we have the ability to control the future can be of the evil one: anything beyond this comes from the evil one.   Speculating on the future, building more barns to hold our future harvest, can be foolish for God alone knows whether we have a future or not.  In the Bible, Jesus tells of a rich man who had such a great harvest that he said he would build new barns and then eat, drink, and be merry at his leisure.  He had his future all planned.  Nowhere did he say as the Lord wills.  But God said to him, “You fool!  This night your life will be demanded from you.  Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”  (Luke 12:20) 

An oath is integral in the story of Abraham and his faith.  The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.  Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”  (Genesis 22:15-18)  God swore by himself, knowing the future, He could determine that his oath would be carried out, but man cannot determine whether his oaths and vows will be carried out in the future, so Jesus says, it is best to just say, “yes” or “no.”  Let God determine your future.  In ancient times, happenings such as electrical storms, rain, famine were signs of God’s interventions, maybe even markings on a newborn animal might be an indication that something different was going to happen.  Sometimes people’s future was determined by the drawing of lots; Canaan was divided up this way.  Each tribe was given certain lands by the casting of lots.  For them, their future was in the hands of chance.  Would they be farmers or shepherds: the nature of the land would determine their future lifestyles.  Of course, the Bible says that these were sacred lots or lots backed up by God’s authority and validation.  God’s oath to give the Israelites the land was fulfilled.  He fulfilled it; they carried it out by casting lots.  This process was all under God’s authority and according to his desire.  In the New Testament after Judas’ betrayal and death, we see the disciples determining who should be the twelfth apostle by casting lots.  This too was under God’s authority and direction, for we see the twelve mentioned in Revelation 21:14,  The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.  In all of this the future was in God’s hands, not man’s.  When we takes oaths as Jesus said, we are assuming future events or conditions are in our hands—that is wrong.  Jesus tells us how wrong that assumption is when He relates the following events to the people surrounding him.  Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.  Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?  I tell you, no!  But unless you repent, you too will all perish.  Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no!  But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”  (Luke 13:1-5)  Jesus uses this example to show them that lives can end quickly, and that a clean heart is necessary to escape eternal punishment.  An oath about the future can never be certain, for a life can end quickly and maybe without time for a repentant heart.  

In our day of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Christians rely on the voice of God.  Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would come to instruct us, But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all thing and will remind you of everything I have said to you.  (John 14:26)  Jesus had great confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit to guide and to direct his disciples.  He said, When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.  (Luke 12:11-12)  He told them to depend on the words of the Holy Spirit deep within them.  We do not live by oaths or vows of what we are going to do; no, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  Jesus said, those who have ears, let them hear what I am saying.  We are to have spiritual ears—ears that will pick up the voice of God.  We had an amazing example of hearing God’s voice when we were shopping for a van some years ago.  We were in a dealership, ready to sign the papers on a van when suddenly Mom said, “Wait a minute, something is not right about this contract.  Let me think about this.”  So the salesman left the room.  The jargon was confusing, but as we reread the paper, it seemed to us we were giving them our fairly new car as a trade-in with no value on the price of the van.  Almost immediately the salesman came back, and when we explained what we thought, he said, “Well, this is a really good price, so we have to make a profit somewhere.”  We could not leave fast enough.  Mom did not know what was wrong to begin with, but the Holy Spirit whispered in her ear that this was not a good situation.  Then Dad saw the problem.  We learned later, the dealership was investigated for fraud.  The apostles prayed often to know the perfect leading and direction of the Lord.  They waited upon the Lord to know what they should do next in their lives.  They prospered in winning souls as they journeyed throughout the Middle East.  But all of their journeys were under God’s authority and not based on their own ideas.  They waited for God’s direction.  We also need to heed God’s voice every day in the small things and in the large.  We should know that a journey is fixed for us today.  What does God want for our lives?  You might be making oaths of what you are going to do in the future, but drop the oaths, for you do not know the future.  Fulfill God’s plan for you today.  If you intend to visit someone in the future, do it today if possible.  If you want to give money to someone in the future, give it today while you are alive and have the ability to give.  Do God’s work now, for this is the only life you really have.  Tomorrow might disappear quickly.  An oath, a vow, no matter how sincere, might disappear just as quickly.  Seek God while He yet can be found.  Make his life secure in you today, sing his songs today, play his music today.  Do not let tomorrow be your hope; instead, live today for him and through him.  A wonderful Christian song offers sound advice:  This is the day that the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it!