LAW HOMILY: A People Of The Truth

The Ninth Commandment and the Call to Truth

Week, we go through the law of God because we want to understand what He has to say to us as people. We want to know what the law says because we don't cut the law out of our Bible and say that it doesn't apply to us.

We say that, yes, we could never fulfill the law. Christ fulfilled the law. Now, in the Spirit, He's leading us to grow in obedience to the law. Well, today, we're going to be in the 9th Commandment. And the reason we're in the 9th Commandment is because last week we were in the 8th Commandment.

That's how that works, just so you know. Exodus 20, verse 16. I'm also going to read Ephesians 4, 25. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And then Ephesians 4, 25. Therefore, having put away all falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

False Witness in the Courtroom and Everyday Speech

Now, if you will, for a moment, stand at the gate with me. Go back in time to an ancient Israelite city where the elders were seated. And a man's land and his livelihood and his very life and all of it was hanging on the word of a single witness.

And into the silence of that moment, God spoke the 9th word. And you shall not answer against your neighbor as a lying witness. That's the courtroom scene in the Hebrew mind. The verb is a verb of testimony.

The answer a man gives under oath when a community is gathered to discover what is true and an empty witness borrowing the very word that the 3rd Commandment uses for taking God's name in vain is all present there so that truth must be present in a courtroom.

Witnesses must be present in a courtroom. We must bear the truth in front of our neighbor for the good of our neighbor, for the blessing of our neighbor, for the blessing of society. And yet how often is it that we forget the veracity of what it means to speak truth?

Whether it be in the positive sense that we tell lies or whether it be in the negative sense that we withhold what is true and good and beautiful. Whether it be in the overarching sense of telling a bald-faced lie.

Or it be in the sense of, in this social situation, I need to say this thing so that this outcome doesn't happen because I don't want to create tension. Or I say the thing that will get me the least amount of conflict in the moment.

Speaking Truth Instead of Pleasing People

Or perhaps on Mother's Day, do I look good in this dress? And you say, absolutely. And maybe you didn't agree with that. You just broke the 9th Commandment. It's an example. Honey, do I look masculine today?

Well, yeah, if I hadn't been working out for three weeks, maybe she just lied to me. My point is we have a very tenuous relationship with the truth. We have a very situational approach to ethics, don't we?

We say things to get along. We say things not to cause conflict. We say things because we value the opinion of man over the opinion of God. And all of that is a 9th Commandment violation. May we, the church of Jesus Christ, the one who follows the very God, who is truth incarnate, be a people of the truth.

May we be a people who speak truth and love, but truth still. May we be a people who have such a commitment to the truth that in a world of lies, we would become an apologetic for the glory of God. And when we fall short, which we do, may we be the kind of people who through godly sorrow repent, and through godly joy celebrate what Christ has done.

Amen? Let us ask the Lord to forgive us of our sin. Individually, where you're sitting, and then corporately together.