Do Not Bear False Witness

Do Not Bear False Witness

commandments. This is commandment number nine this morning. It will be addressing the topic of lying. Lying, lying. Ah this is good. That’s a good one. So let’s pray before we jump into this. This topic this morning just helped collect our thoughts. Lord, I thank you for the word of God and how it’s alive and active. Sharper than any double edged sword. Lord, I thank you that it’s able to do business in the heart of the believer and the unbeliever Lord, I pray that you would instruct you. Encourage you correct? I pray that you would do business in our hearts. God, I pray. The word of God would be alive in our lives and our hearts. Lord, I prayed people would hear from you in your word this morning and we’d seek to be changed and transformed by the bible. Today we commit our lives to you in jesus name. We pray Amen. Let’s read it together. Exodus 20 verse 16 it says this. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. So obviously this isn’t just allocated to your physical neighbors. You can lie to other people, but not your name. This is obviously everyone. Okay. And this is a legal understanding of this. But as we will see this morning, it’s way more compounded, multifaceted than just the legal context of lying in court. I was at Disney with a friend and they had a generous offer. They said they would pay for me and my wife and at the time our three kids to go to Disney with them. I was like, that’s very generous. And we were down there and we were checking into Disney and like your thumbprint. So they know what your thumb looks like, and then you’re doing all this stuff to check into Disney. And then he turns to me and he says, hey, that one son of yours, uh tell him to say he’s this age, I’m like, but he’s not that age, He’s like, come on, tell him to say he’s that age to save me some money. I’m like, I don’t remember how I said it or what I said, but I didn’t want to instruct my kid to lie. So he got mad. He said, fine, you paid for everyone if you’ve been to Disney before. That’s quite the swing on a budget line item on your some of your eyebrows went out, I get expensive. I know this was a while ago, but still lying. Has its a real world. It’s a real, it’s a real topic being addressed in all of our lives uh since youth, I don’t think there’s any parents here that had to teach their kids how to lie. But since youth we’ve been addressing lying among young people. Read it. Read an article that said, what are some uh you know what’s the worst song lyric nursery rhyme you remember listening to as a kid, What’s the worst lyric song nursery rhyme you remember listening to as a kid. So in the year 1841, there was this nursery Rhyme. It says liar liar pants on fire, sitting on a telephone wire. Yeah. You follow me here felt when you’re there, cut your hair, okay? And stick your head in boiling water. Okay, Okay. But listen, that’s nothing christians. We outdid this our christian nursery rhyme. This is dark. This is a christian nursery rhyme. I remember from my youth and the first service, only a handful recognized this. So maybe I was an interesting church, but I want you to kind of smile at me or raise your hand. If you remember this nursery rhyme from the christian version of the christian nursery revelations, revelations, 21-8, liars go to hell, liars. Go to hell. Burn, Burn burn. Mm. Are we judging us yet? Are you judging? So we’ve been addressing this from little kids to big kids. We’ve been addressing the topic of lying and I propose to you as we go through this, You know, do liars, go to hell. I propose you liars. Go to church. And as we go through this, you’ll see, uh it’s it’s like all the other Eight Commandments we’ve gone through. It’s not as simple as you thought, as you get into it, you’re like, You know, it applies to me and if you missed the last couple of weeks, we’ve been hitting some heavy topics, Shane kicked it off of murder, John went into adultery. I covered lying. I mean I covered stealing last week and it was, it’s been heavier and heavier. We’re going through God’s moral law. The 10 commandments. God’s giving the rules of the relationship rules of society, of morality, a moral God mandating a moral law to the moral fabric of a society and that’s occurring to the nation of Israel in the ninth. Commandment do not give false testimony. Yes revelations 21 8 is its parallel new testament passage, but there’s a lot in it. And so this multifaceted, complex spinning world of lies, liars, telling lies is all over the bible. Let’s define it. So you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. But before we define it, let’s let’s we do lie. I just need to say some obvious things. We do lie as a society. We lie. If you’re driving to church this morning in a car accident, you’re supposed to call the police, call insurance. They take photos, They take eyewitness testimony and statements. You might have to go to court maybe to explain who hit who because people lie. They must remember they really remember they rearrange things to defend themselves because because drivers lie. We have fact check and political fact checker on debates because politicians lie. We do background checks on people because people lie. If you have a new hire new hires lie. So you have to do a resume check, reference check degree checks. It’s to do drug tests. These people lie. You understand what I’m saying? Like credit checks. You have to have contracts, business contracts with people because people lie. Business people lie, politicians lie. Society as a whole has this reality that we do lie as people. It’s not just an american thing. This is a global thing. Other countries around the global corruption is just rancid in their, their political authority figures, their, their local government. They’re, they’re, they’re police officers, they’re military, they take bribes. There’s this fabric of societies of lying as part of our nature as people, people lie, we all agree. People lie, we’re gonna move on to we lie as people. We lie and I always pick on this and I’m gonna pick on it again. Social media. What is social media, social media is where I go to lie to each other about what really is happening in my life. I lie about what friends I really have and how close we are and how often we hang out. I lie about portraying a brand of me and every time I eat out because I eat out that often. No, we don’t know if I lie about how cool I am or how insightful I am or how smart I am. I lie about athletic, how smart, how kid kind and sweet my kids are all the time. I tricked. I portray an image of myself that looks better than it really is into the world. Well I as people, I mean if I can get a filter an app to make my nose and ears and eyes look like a puppy. I mean in like 30 seconds we portray a false reality into the world. Some is life hearted and funny others is more deeper than that. Were genuinely trying to portray a brand of who we hope to be into the world. Let’s look at how we lie. How we lie. It’s not always as straightforward as you think. To understand how you lie. We need to define lying, not your definition and my definition. We gotta look at some other definitions. Lying is when you present the truth, Which is in fact false. That’s when you break the 9th commandment, Whatever is presented as truth, when it when it injures another person, their character. That’s against the letter. And the spirit of the 9th commandment suppressing the truth on purpose is lying lying about someone’s good name is wrong, lying, lying is saying something that is not true or lying is saying something, but leaving out parts of the truth. Sin by omission or sin by rearrangement. And if your father’s here on you know Father’s day or any day, it doesn’t take a lot for your you know, you to realize, you know the first present their case to you and says Dad, Billy hit me and then you ask the next kid, you know, Billy did you hit him? He’s like, yeah, that’s cause he hit me first. I mean there’s, there’s rearrangement of the truth. Someone looks better. There’s a sin of omission by leaving things out. We lie. We don’t have to teach our kids about lying. They learn it from an early age. That’s a, that’s a diet definition of lying. Let’s try to look at how we lie using scripture as a context behind the different multifaceted ways that we lie as people. This is from the lens of a christian. I’m going to speak to you about christians and how we use how we are losing in this battle of truth against lies in our world. The number one thing we’re going through here is flattery psalms, 12 verses two and three. We lie by flattery as christians. Look at this passage with me, They lie to one another. They speak with flattering lips and deceptive hearts May the Lord cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaks boastfully. We live by Slattery as people. You’re not saying what is true, you’re saying what needs to be said to manipulate people. That’s flattery flattery is not trying to encourage someone in the truth, but to lie to manipulate them to get a desired outcome. I remember I was having coffee of a pastor in town a couple of years ago, two years ago. This past has been in town for like 39 years and I was a newer pastor at the time and he was talking about this musical chairs of Christians in the city of Lincoln that balance from church to church season this season. Uh, and how you’ll just get used to that in this big small town that were pastoring. And, and and I was listening to him and showing a lot of good stuff was encouraging. Um, and then a lady comes up to him and says, I thought I recognized that voice and she gave him a little side hug at a coffee shop, said some nice things, accolades to this older pastor and then left. I thought, yeah, that’s cool. No big deal. The only reason I remember this situation is this was on a monday on sunday the day before I preached a sermon. I was in the lobby and she came out and shook my hand said that was an amazing sermon. I can’t believe how do you do that? That’s what I was like, well just stick to the script, stick to the bible, you know, you know, and then she said nice things about me and then she left and I haven’t seen her since it was the same lady talking to that guy the next day. You know, flattery, we know the flatter as christians. Yeah, we do, let’s not lie about it. We know how to flatter as christians. Um, and I don’t want us to get this is important scholars, you know, help us out here cause we can, you know, there’s a gift of encouragement that many of you have and that’s important. But encouragement without and flattery, we can get those confused flattery is like all gas, no brakes. All sweet, no salt. Encouragement is when you have light and heat. Gas and brakes sweet and salt, you say encouraging things and hard things you say the hard truth that we need to look at and encouragement. So don’t feel discouraged encouraging people. You don’t be a Flatterer. Say the truth, the tough love and the love love. But flattery we all can struggle with flattery. The next one is deception. This is very straightforward Ephesians 5 6. It says do not let one deceive you with empty arguments for God’s wrath is coming on the disobedience because of these things. If someone is deceptive, if they look like a duck smell like a duck, talks like a duck, they’re deceptive. They’re deceptive. Duck, christians deceptive. People come into churches and take advantage of christians. A non christian state pen parole officer was asking me about like, how do you how do you do this mike? I’m like, what do you mean? He’s like, I I work at these ex cons and rehabilitating ex felons and there’s so many ex felons that get out of prison and go right to a church. I’m like, why is that? Because they take advantage of those people are gullible. They bleed the heart with no brain they get taken advantage of and they target and profile churches to go after people deceive them. We’re encouraged in the new testament to not be deceived by liars. I mean, we can pick on anything. Marketing, advertising is deceptive. Politics is deceptive, contractors is deceptive, salesman can be deceptive, deception is evil and communicates the truth, packaged in such a way that it’s dressed up in lies. A christian that represents God should not be deceptive. That is lying. This next one, Leviticus 1916 slander, rely by slandering. Do not go about spreading slander among your people. Slander is malicious and false information. Used to inflict harm on others. I mean, it’s a good thing. We can’t slander today. It’s a good thing. Like my thoughts, my mind, my my musings, my postings, my tweeting my what I post. I’m good thing that that’s not a problem today in our culture, that No one in our society struggles as Slander. Mhm. You guys aren’t paying attention. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding over there Slander. Look at this in Matthew 1236 and 37 says this. I tell you that on the day of judgment, God will have you. God will day of judgment. People will have to account for every careless they every careless they speak for. By your words, You will be acquitted and by your words. You will be condemned by a word. You’re acquitted by your words. You’re condemned. I had an excellent analogy from another man this week. Talking about how slander and an illustration for you. Talk about this old jewish story about old Rabbi who spent a whole life, a whole career ministering to this small town in Israel and in the town came in. This big business hot shot from another city and he was, he showed up, he met the old jewish rabbi and he he didn’t like him. So then he, after a couple interactions with him, he decided to start slandering him and he started telling stories about him that weren’t true false things about him that weren’t true all throughout that city society. And as time went on, the whole society was just like some believed him. Some didn’t believe him. There’s all kinds of turmoil in that city about that old jewish rabbi. A couple of years later life happens. And this young businessman felt convicted and challenged by life and you know, convicted by his sin of slander. And he went to the jewish rabbi and said, what could I do? What can I do to make things right. I’ve been saying horrible things about you privately and sometimes publicly for years. And the jewish rabbi said, Easy, go home to your house! Take a take a pillow, take it up to the hill on a windy day and rip it open and let all the feathers out of the pillow. So the businessman went and did that. It came back. He said, all right, I did that. Now, what could I do? He said, easy. Go to the go pick up every single feather all throughout the valley as the wind blew them all over the place. Slander goes a lot farther than we realize we lie. We misrepresent the truth. We represent the truth that makes us look good and someone else look bad. We slander people as a society and as a christian church. This is a tendency for us to fall into some of these more than others. Just learned. There’s proactive servants and reactive servants. I’m trying to be proactive here. Let’s not be a slandering church. So our church is a slandering church. Let’s not be a slandering church. And how we speak about people. Their image bearers of God. There are neighbors, there are brothers and sisters. We should speak correctly kindly or be quiet about them. We should not be a slandering church. My obituary as a pastor is going to be written by the most slanderous christians in town. I don’t think it’s happening yet, but it probably will Looking around at the society of our world. I’m fully expected to not be all hugs and roses at the end. You get what I’m saying. I understand that my occupation is not popular in our world. Slander. We live by Slander. We lie by false teaching. 2nd Peter 2 1 says this. There were indeed false prophets among the people. Just as there were, there will be false teachers among you. They will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who brought them and will bring swift destruction on themselves, false teachings is when the God who never lies is lied about this is slandering God. We in our discovery Solar Class, we talk about the five different tiers of what we are and what we’re not. And one of the first tears were a protestant christian church. And that defines as the cardinal doctrines of Christianity is how we define that and the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. So that’s when you change Christianity and you change the Gospel. That’s a first tier issue in our mind as a local church. We have to hold to the definition of Christianity, the definition of the Gospel. The first tier issue, high level quick summary of false teaching, false teachers. It under it it operates under the worldview that that we operate in the world view that people are wrong and they need to change people are wrong. God is right, and they need people need to change false teachers operate under the worldview that people are right. God is wrong. And God needs to change. We’re holding to the classical definition of Christianity of protestant Christianity. Were holding to ancient texts that’s super unpopular about what it says about a variety of topics in our society, from ginger and sexuality to the roles, to expectations, to finance, to everything. The bible is the countercultural book. It’s not popular with our culture, you know that the bible is a countercultural book. It’s not popular if your culture and when handled correctly, it’s aggressive and offensive to our culture. So how do we we false teaching. This is a major theme throughout the new testament, false teachers coming in and playing the text, manipulating people. Another way that we live through gossip. Another way that we lie is through gossip. First timothy first timothy 5 13 says this at the same time, they also learned to be idle going from house to house. They are not only idle, they’re also gossips and busybodies saying things that shouldn’t be said gossip is the way that we lie every once in a marriage counseling class session of a couple. I sat down across from a couple and I was like, it was like towards the end. So I was like, you know into my day into the thing. I said, all right, let’s dish. I was just having fun. And then the guy’s wife like, hold on, let me tell you. And she started telling me all these people in her family. I didn’t know at all. And I’m like, this is, oh, okay. Some of you smiling and some of you are smoking some of your frowning at me. But there’s gossip. This church is not your middle school, This church is not your high school, This church is not your small town Iowa small town Kansas small town Nebraska where you get to know and be known and be in the business of everyone else through gossip. That’s not a healthy church y’all. That’s not how healthy churches operate, y’all, how unhealthy churches operate. But we are not to be a gossipy church. Some christians, if they couldn’t gossip about what others were, what their thoughts about others, what was happening in other people’s lives, they wouldn’t have anything to say. I know that I’m very aware of self scouting and knowing what is an existing Christianity. Some christians gossip is like the whole definition of how they have relationships with other people within the church. I know that I’m not naive to Christianity, gossip is a sin. If it’s a, if it’s a leader that’s gossiping, it’s a leader leading others into sin again. This is a proactive servant in my mind, not a reactive server. I’m usually the first to know the last to know what’s going on in the church. So gossip is a sin And some churches have problems. People praying for each other and guys, ng up gossip sin using christian language. I don’t think we do that as a church, but gossip is a sin where you murder people’s reputation. That’s two weeks ago, murdering people’s reputation. I heard these two questions as a young believer when I was in college and they’ve been very helpful at identifying and determining if I am in a gossiping conversation and here they are. It’s, it’s, it’s Christian rocket science. 101. You can write this down in your bible if you need to, you probably need to. The two questions are am I the problem? Am I the solution? So there’s a problem that’s happening in your world and your community group and your ministry team at your work? There’s a problem that’s happening. Are you the problem? Are you the source of the problem? Are you part of the problem? Are you the problem was that problem have really nothing to do with you. If, like, you know the N B A finals, if someone files to go like this, you know, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t remember that in the finals. What was going on in the finals? But are you the problem? If someone calls out, you know, you’re like, hey, I’m not involved. I’m not the problem. It’s not me. If you’re not the problem, don’t be a part of the conversation, you’re engaging in gossip. Here’s the next level of that question. If you’re not the problem, are you the solution? Are you the solution? Are you the manager? Those your employees? Are you the parent? Those are your kids? Are you, are you in the community group and people are gossiping and talking trash about someone and you’re part of the solution? Are you the problem or the solution? If you’re not gonna deal fixing it and you’re not part of the real problem. You’re gossiping. The gossiping christian and gossip is a sin. It’s the way we lie about others. We murder their reputation. So to review our society lies, you lie in christian’s lie. We also feel deeply convicted. Yes, we should feel deeply convicted. This is the kind of sermon where it feels like a shotgun, but I know everyone’s gonna get hit with with with conviction as we go through this. All right. So why we lie? We lie for a variety of reasons. I love how some brothers in the Lord has written up these reasons for us one it’s an attempt to be God to control things. We have no business attempting to control. No two. It’s because of vanity. We lie to protect our brand, our image. We want to project a reality in the world when the real reality is we aren’t as godly as cool, as charming, as intelligent as we really want others to think. We are, we lie to get what we want. We lie to remain in control of a situation, reminded take justice in our own hands. We lie because of fear, peer pressure or fear of man are playing the political game. We lie because we’re chasing the joneses. There’s a weird rivalry, rivalry, rivalry with us and other people. A weird form of christian competition. We lie. I was watching a I was watching a Jurassic world park something with my kids the other day and that guy that guy said uh life will find a way, remember that line, Life will find a way, remember that Owen someone in the movie. Um, but the reality is lies will find a way into the life of a church. You need to be a watchdog, a godly christian in those settings. Am I the problem on that solution? What we’re gossiping and not in this community group were gossiping? Well, not in my church, other churches, but I don’t want our church to gossip. Don’t be complicit in this sin of allowing people to gossip. Lies will find a way into a christian church. They seem to do it everywhere. They find the lowest crack in the foundation of a church and they get in and they rocked the foundation out of this. This church is testimony to that city. What does God want? Well, don’t lie. Okay. What does God want Mike? Um what does God want? Well, tell the truth. Not your truth or a version of the truth that puts you in the best light possible. Not misrepresenting the truth or spinning the truth. What does God want? You gotta understand that nothing is gonna make it past the courtroom of God in heaven will be given account for every thought, every word and every deed we’ve ever done. So we should start living now with that reality. I had a sibling say some things of mine were talking and one of them said, hey, my ads and my phone changed the phone companies are listening to me. I mentioned this and they started showing me products of that that afternoon. And that’s so weird. You know, Big Brother’s watching, watch out marketing companies are watching. And then one of my sisters said it’s fine. God’s hearing everything I say, I don’t care. You know, searching and ai is listening to what I say and they’re sending me ads. God listen everything I say and I’m living that way. Now do you get there’s truth in there. There’s wisdom in there that we will give an account from a thought word. Indeed we do as people and to combat the lies that we’re experiencing the lives we’re thinking the lies were sharing. We need to be immersing ourselves in truth Because we worship a God who cannot lie. First Timothy 1 2 says this in the hope of eternal life. That God who cannot lie promised before time begin. It’s not the only place that it talks about God is all truth. This shares truth and he speaks God cannot lie. You see that throughout the entire bible that God is truth and we, the people of God. The reality is we do lie. We sin by omission. We send by rearranging. We send by a variety of sins. I just rattled off earlier. But the reality is the enemy of God does lie. It’s his native language. He knows multiple languages, but his main primary language is speaking when satan is talking, he is speaking lies. He’s sharing lies as a, as a parent. When you have kids, they’ll come along and they’ll say something and it’ll just be like, you know, normal kid talking normal kid talking about all kinds of stuff and then they’ll say things, you’re like, whoa, who told you that buddy? That’s you know, that’s a lie. That’s horrible. That’s wrong. Who told you that about yourself? Who told you about about someone else? That’s that’s that’s like that. So and so was it selling something? I go lie hunting through their friend registry because their friends are, you know, like a good dad. I’m just kidding. Anyway, so but but the thing is my kid hurt a lot and allies getting implanted in their mind about something big thing or a little thing. You’re not strong enough, you’re not this, you’re not that whatever the lie is as a little boy little girl and I’m seeing it identify and I care deeply about that little kid believing the truth about themselves and others and having a correct world view of truth about the world. That’s my job as a father. God, your heavenly father has that same radar go off when we’re thinking and saying things that aren’t true. There’s this cosmic battle playing out throughout the hearts and minds of mankind and the war is being raged and saying is firing spiritual bullets of lies into people. And God is combating those lives with truth. This is a big thing. This topic is close to God’s heart, Jesus said this in Luke six. He says a good person produces good out of the goods stored up in his heart and evil producer produces evil out of the evil store up in his heart. For from the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. When we speak with bubbles out is an offense to God. Is it lies? Is a gossip? Is it slanders the deceptive? Is that false teaching? Is that what bubbles out or is truth bubbling out when I speak, this matters and this is dear to God? Why does this matter to God? God loves his glory and God loves his image bears his glory. Image bears and you’re the image bearer of God. And this marriage to God, that also means the person sitting next to you, your neighbor is the image of God and glory bear of God. You’re made in the image of God you are and your neighbor is and God doesn’t just love you. He also loves your neighbor and allies. An offense on God’s glory and the image bearer and your neighbor is good. So what’s the gospel lens? We want to take over this this whole sermon. If you’re like me the last nine weeks have been like, Okay, I come in. The pastor shares something, I feel convicted and I keep talking 10 minutes later and I still even more convicted. It’s like, what are you, what are you doing? Pastors? This is really not the joke. Stop rolling. People stop laughing. This is heavy stuff. Pastors, what are you doing? You know? And as the time goes on, I get it feels like the tension and the heartless hopelessness of our situation. Go try harder. No, that’s pathetic. That’s lame theology. You can’t try harder. What do you do? Well you got to go to the root people, Everything has seeds and weeds have seeds and you gotta go to the roots. I remember this last week I filled the whole trash can with weeds that are in our flower beds. God hates lying. You see that in proverbs 6 16 through 19. God hates lying and satan is considered the father of lies. When he communicates, he’s sending ammunition of lies into our society, john 8 44 jesus called satan the father of the liar of all. The father of lies. And Satan is a skilled and gifted liar. And you’re gonna see brothers and sisters around you that have been shot by those lies and they’re struggling because they’re believing a lie. They have lies in their hearts and their minds and their believing non truths about God this world and others. What do you do? What does God require of you to do? There’s this catechism, the shorter catechism that says about answering the question, what do you do? It says the 9th commandment requires the maintaining and promotion of truth between man and man and of our own and our our neighbors. Good name, especially in witness bearing. But what do we do church? What do we do as a church? And what do you do? We were called sewer church. You can look at many of those different parables of the sewer mark 4 14 talks about mark 4 14 is a really concise sentence that says the sewer. So’s the word, the sewer. So is the word and our vision, our strategy, our mission as a church is to be sowing God’s word richly in our lives as people. That’s what we give you Children’s bible. So you can be sowing God’s word richly in your kid’s lives. That’s why we’ll give you any bible. You find here any bible you find in this building, you can have as long as someone doesn’t own it last week. You know, you can have any bible. You find as long as you’ll use it. The bible is given to us. We give out bibles too, y’all. But the point is that you would, so the truth of God’s word and the richest truth is truth. That’s out there in your life. Because listen, it’s not my job to sound like a politician. It’s not my job to sound like a political pundit. It’s not my job to sound like a comedian like we know, you know, it’s not my job to sound like an actor, your favorite actor. It’s not my job to sound like some conspiracy theorists online. It’s my job to sound like a pastor. And what is the pastor supposed to do? A pastor should sound like, what should the pastor sound like a pastor should sound like your bible pastor. Just don’t like the word of God. I should sound a lot like what you’re reading in that bible. We’re supposed to handle the truth of God and reject lies. Were supposed to do autopsy on ourself with replacing lies with the truth of God because only God’s truth can heal and cure that lie. We’re supposed to handle the truth of God handle God’s word. The truth of God correctly, boldly and accurately. We are not perfect people, we have false, we have mistakes and we will fail because that’s the way that, you know, we’re human as pastors, as people, as teachers of God’s word. We don’t always live up to everything we read. But Jesus said in John 1717, he says this, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. The word of God is the only truth that’s out there. Everything in this world is skilled at lying and manipulating and deceiving and conning everything. Everything on this planet is going to lead you astray slowly if you cannot become sanctified by God’s Truth. John 1717, You heard a 2020 vision. You need John 1717 Vision for your life, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. God’s word is the only truth that is on this planet, that can change you and save you and others, jesus never lied. And you cannot be like jesus, you lie. It doesn’t matter. If you try hard. You don’t try hard. You will lie. You will have lies as a part of who you are as a person. Our hope, our confidence does not come from us and our ability to keep the law or not keep the law. And I’m convinced the more and more you read the bible like me, the more and more conviction and gratefulness you’ll have for the work of jesus christ because jesus perfectly obeyed all the law. The law Just perfectly obey this 9th commandment. And the reality is no one ever makes it out alive. We all will die. We all will die. Hopefully not today, but someday we all will die And give an account to God. A holy and just God on judgment day, who knows more about you than your iphone. Who knows about your thoughts, your actions and you’ll give an account to God on judgment day. For every lie you’ve ever said. So, in a world filled with lies and liars, feed yourself the truth of God. Daily feed yourself the truth of God, john 8 32 says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. But the biggest lie many of you are holding onto or or I’ve heard in our society is that you can be a good person that you can slowly self help. You know, psychology fix yourself slowly. And the thing is there’s nothing we can do to fix ourselves were completely and totally saturated by sin. We’ve all gone our own way. We’ve all sinned. We’re making God of our own image trying to heal ourselves of how God and God the Rich father in heaven grandly gave his best jesus christ to come and die on the cross for your sins to take the punishment that you oh God and no one else can pay. But jesus christ that if you would agree with God that you’ve sent through lying and through a variety of other sins and you cannot clean up your sin or take away your sin. But only God can. The gospel of jesus christ is that jesus came he lived, he died and lived the perfect life that we never lived so that we might have a relationship with God. Amen. Let’s pray God, thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you for these men and women uh that are coming here to learn and sit under the word of God and study the word of God and see if what I’m saying is true. I thank you for the bible. But Lord I thank you for jesus Lord, the main actor in the bible. The main part of this story I said we all would slow down and think about what lies we’re believing, what lies we’ve been told what lies we’ve heard and what liars were prone to running to. We would never run to anyone else until we run to you first, jesus, we just commit this time to you that we would know your word better as a church in jesus name, we pray. Amen.

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