4th October 2024

4th October 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Matthew 5:33-37 focus v37)


Message (Alan Burke)


As the flowers of Jesus, as his disciples our words should be honest, our ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and our ‘No,’ ‘No’. It shouldn’t matter if we are in a situation that we make when we make an oath, a vow or a promise our words shall be truthful, they should be a testimony of the truth. When we say “I’ll meet you there” or “I’ll give you a call on Friday” we should be those whose words match with our actions, with our lives, of course there are time when circumstances prevent those things. But our yes being yes and our no being no manifests the reality of the truth within us for Jesus is the way the truth and the life, if we have come to know him then we will live righteously in this world, we will be people who are known that when we say yes it is yes, when we say no it is no, there will be a consistency that matches the truth within us. This is especially important today since we live in an age when people are taken in by all kinds of fake news, where there are many people who don’t keep their promises, people who make money out of falsehood. We as believers should be those who are known for the truth and it shows the one within us. Our words matter, our speech matters, we should be those who are truthful, honest, who keep our word. 


Look how Jesus concludes this, he says, anything beyond our yes being yes and our no being know comes from the evil one. Anything else comes from the evil one. Who is the evil one? The evil one is Satan. When we do not tell the truth, when our yes isn’t yes and our no is not no then we are doing the bidding of the evil one. We though are the children of God, we are to be those living with kingdom principles, we are to be those who do God’s will and not the devils. If our hearts are right with the Lord then our speech will be consistent with that, we will not bear false witness. There should never be a circumstance for the believer that we make an oath, vow or promise when we have no intention of keeping our word. There is so much mistrust today because people don’t keep their word.


We believe that the whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture (WCF 1.VI) and the outworking of this is that for the believer that we are those who should if we enter into a contract, an agreement that we are those who keep those things of course circumstances impact this, but in general if we can we should be those who pay our bills and the full amount, we should be those who enter into an agreement knowing what we have agreed to, if the commitment we have made is lawful then we must keep it and if there is something that you agreed to years ago then go sort it out. And we do this because we want to give glory to our heavenly Father, as we do this we show that we love our saviour and we show forth his light in our lives. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q107. What doth the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer teach us?
A. The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, which is, For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen,” teacheth us to take our encouragement in prayer from God only, and in our prayers to praise him, ascribing kingdom, power, and glory to him; and in testimony of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say, Amen.
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