Keeping Your Word

Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:37

The context for this verse is where Jesus tells us not to swear by anything. He is not talking about cursing. He is talking about the promises/commitments we make to each other. Jesus is saying there is no need to back up your promise by swearing by something – by God, by heaven, by earth, etc. In essence He is saying that we need to let our word stand on its own. When we say yes, we need to mean yes. When we say, ‘No’, we need to mean no. We act in honesty and integrity when we do what we said we’d do.

Integrity is not a word we often hear in relationship to the Christian faith. Most often this term describes a character trait. A person with integrity is a person who tells the truth and acts in appropriate, moral ways. We don’t lie or steal or cheat.

All of us would like to be described as a person of integrity, and if we don’t lie, steal, cheat, then we might define ourselves as a person of integrity. But I think there is so much more to this concept then what we often consider. To be a follower of Jesus is to be a person of integrity. You are not following Jesus if you are not acting with integrity. But it means so much more than not lying, cheating or stealing. It means in every aspect of our lives we act in integrity. One helpful definition is, “Doing what we said we’d do when we said we’d do it.”

I say to John, “I’ll play with you in a couple of minutes.” After twenty minutes go by and I am still not playing with John, I have an integrity gap. I’ve said one thing and not done it.

When I say to Alisa, “I’ll be home at 5:00pm” and then show up at 5:27, I have an integrity gap.

When I say to Alisa, I am committed to honoring you and being faithful to you, but then let my eyes wander on other women or think unclean thoughts, I have an integrity gap.

When I promise to do something for someone, but don’t follow through, I have an integrity gap.

When I say to a friend in need, “I’ll pray for you” and don’t, I have an integrity gap.

Sadly, today, we often accept these small integrity gaps as normative. We’ve learned to really not count on each other’s word. We’ve just accepted the reality that keeping your word means less than keeping your word. If you do it most of the time, well, that’s great – better than most.

But here’s where it get interesting. When I lack integrity in my life – even though it’s in the “small” things, more than likely I lack integrity in the things that matter most – specifically my relationship with Jesus Christ.

To claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ implicitly means a commitment to full obedience to His Word. God has shown Himself to be completely trustworthy in keeping His Word and He asks us to do the same. When I say I am a follower, I have committed to loving my enemies, making disciples, proclaiming Christ crucified, denying myself, meeting the needs of the least of these, etc. These are not optional requests; they are mandates. When I choose not to do them, I lack integrity in my relationship with God. All of us have integrity gaps, but that is not an excuse to continue to live with gaps in our integrity.

There is hope and growth offered to us in the midst of these gaps. It doesn’t change the expectation that God has that we live in integrity in relationship to Him, but it gives us an opportunity to grow into integrity and not let guilt and shame keep us from His Way of life.

Another helpful definition of integrity involves 4 important steps: 1) I keep my Word. 2) When I fail to keep my Word, I honor my Word by seeking to clean up any messes I’ve made – apologize, ask for forgiveness, etc. 3) I become present to the consequences on myself and others when I fail to keep my Word. 4) I re-promise to keep my Word.

So often our integrity gaps are ignored. We fail to follow through and keep our promise and we do nothing about it. We begin to see that we can get away with this and it becomes a normative way of being. We think being a person of integrity really only matters in the big things. But if we look at integrity through the expectations of Jesus, everything we do matters. Every gap in our integrity has negative consequences on us and the people around us.

One of the most powerful ways we truly live into the integrity God desires is when we are willing to do the hard work of honoring our Word. We promised something and we didn’t follow-through. If we are willing to admit this gap to ourselves, to God, and to the people affected, we have an opportunity to grow and to encourage the importance of integrity.

For example, John is not fully aware of my integrity gap when I say I’ll play with him in a few minutes and either it’s 20+ minutes or I don’t play with him at all. But he is learning something about me that I don’t want him to learn. “Dad says some things that can’t be trusted.” I’m aware of this gap, and I need to do the hard work of honoring my Word. When I say to John, I’ll play in a couple of minutes I need to follow through on my word. I ask him to follow through on his word and I ought to expect this of myself. So here is how the conversation needs to go for me to honor my Word.

“John, I need to apologize. There have been numerous times I’ve told you I’ll play with you in a few minutes. More than a few minutes go by. I’m sorry I didn’t do what I said I’d do. I want you to know that when I say I’ll play in a few minutes that you can believe that. I need to work on that and I am asking for your help. I’m making a promise to you again that when I say a few minutes, I mean it. Can you tell me how you feel when I say I’ll play with you and don’t do what I say?”

That took all of a minute to say this to my son, but it is some of the most important work I do in his life.

You’ve said some things to significant people in your life and are not following through. You’ve made promises, commitments, vows, and more than likely there are some gaps in your integrity. Are you willing to do the hard work of cleaning up the mess you’ve made?

Remember the church in Philadelphia in Revelation 3:7-13. One of the significant ways that this church was affirmed was because they kept God’s Word. They did what they promised to God. They lived in obedience. They trusted God’s Word to them, and in return they sought to keep their word to Him.

I can’t emphasize enough the significant work that God desires to do in each one of us – not only through our obedience – but also through our willingness to do the hard work when we are disobedient.

Where are you failing to keep your Word? Will you honor it? Will you do the hard work that honoring your word entails? Growth, healing, the abundant life that God promises is greatly hindered without a willingness to do this work. It is the work of grace and forgiveness and love.

The Bible & Orphans

A father to the fatherless . . . is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families.
Psalm 68:5-6

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those who are perishing. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice.
Proverbs 31:8-9 (NLT)

The helpless put their trust in you. You are the defender of orphans. . . Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will listen to their cries and comfort them. You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so people can no longer terrify them.
Psalm 10:14, 17-18 (NLT)

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James 1:27 (NIV)

Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.
Isaiah 1:17 (NLT)

He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.
Deuteronomy 10:18 (NIV)

For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.
Matthew 25:35-36 (NLT)

Do not deprive . . . the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this.
Deuteronomy 24:17-18 (NIV)

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praises of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Ephesians 1:4-6 (NIV)

Once our eyes are opened we can’t pretend we don’t know what to do. God who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls knows that we know and holds us responsible to act.
Proverbs 24:12

The Global Orphan Crisis

This information comes from Dan Cruver’s sermon titled, “The Cosmic Significance of Adoption: What It Means for Us and for Orphans." For this sermon and many other helping resources on caring for orphans, go HERE (www.orphansunday.org).

The Global Orphan Crisis
There are 143 million orphaned and vulnerable children in our world. If all of these children were moved to the country of Mexico, Mexico’s population would more than double,growing from 108,700,000 to 251,700,000.

There are approximately 47.5 million orphaned and vulnerable children in Sub-Saharan
Africa.

There are approximately 5.9 million orphaned and vulnerable children in Middle East and North Africa.

There are approximately 37.4 million orphaned and vulnerable children in South Asia.
30.1 million orphaned and vulnerable children live in East Asia and Pacific.

9.4 million orphaned and vulnerable children live in Latin America and the Caribbean.

There are as many orphaned and vulnerable children living in Ethiopia as there are people in greater NYC.

Almost 1.5 million children live in public care in Central and Eastern Europe.

That’s our world.

What about the United States?
More than 800,000 children pass through our country’s foster care system each year. There are over 500,000 children in our foster care system right now. 129,000 of those children are waiting to be adopted right now. That’s how many people live in the capitol of South Carolina.

Approximately, 25,000 children age out of the foster care system each year, many with no support system and little to no life skills. There are currently over 5,400 children in South Carolina!s foster care system. Over 1,500 of them are waiting to be adopted. So far this year only a couple hundred of them have been permanently placed in homes.

This brings us to this question: How many total children are adopted each year? Between 118,000 and 127,000 children have been adopted every year since 1987. More than 50 percent of all adoptions are handled by public agencies or come from countries outside the United States. More than one-third of Americans have seriously considered adopting, but no more than 2 percent have actually adopted. Only 4 percent of families with children (1.7 million households) contain adopted children.

With this many orphans in the United States and in the world, the church has a monumental task before it if it is to practice true religion. "James 1:27 says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction." "The church has its work cut out for it.

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So here’s the big question: how is the hope of our glorious future as God’s sons through adoption even possible? How is it possible that God can take “children of wrath” and give them an unbelievable future on a renewed earth? What has God done to give us this hope that is laid out in Romans 8:23?

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

. . . Paul says, “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, (so that the eternal Son become the incarnate Son) born under the law.” The law under which the Son became incarnate meant condemnation for us. As Paul says earlier, this law ‘held us in bondage.’ It could not give us life. It could not quicken us. Rather, it puts us to death because of our sin.

But God sent His Son, His eternal Son, who became incarnate Son without ceasing to be the eternal Son, and he lived his life under the law in order to fulfill it. To paraphrase what Paul says in Galatians 3, “The curse of the law was placed upon his shoulders.”

At the cross the One who in the garden of Gethsemane cried out, “Abba, Father, remove this cup from me,” willingly submitted to the will of the Father on our behalf and went to the cross. At the cross this Son cried out, not ‘Abba, Father,’ but “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” He experienced at the cross what we sons of disobedience, children of wrath deserve.

Why did Jesus do that? Why did God send forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem us? Why did he do this? Paul tells us in verse 5: “that we might receive adoption as sons.” Jesus bore the curse of the law that we might be brought into the household of God to share in the love that has existed between the Father and the Son for all eternity. We who by nature are sons of disobedience, we who by nature are objects of wrath, are brought in to share in this amazing love which will one day fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.

. . . He accomplished redemption! He took the curse of the law upon his shoulders and was forsaken by the Father so that we might receive adoption as sons! And on the day of resurrection Jesus says to Mary, “Go to my brothers and tell them I’m ascending to my Father and YOUR Father.” YOUR FATHER! Mission accomplished! (my emphasis)