A Covenant Keeping Faith

Alright, good evening. Well, thank you for singing out really, really good. I tell you, we're getting closer to August, as Brother Chris was saying, and I'm not looking forward to ending this series. This has been a joy to me. It's been important for me just to try to let the Lord minister His Word to my heart before I preach, and that is the most important thing that we do when we teach the Word, preach the Word, is to let the Lord preach it to us first. But it's been a joy to be in this book. And so as we begin chapter 5 of James, we're actually in verse 12 tonight, just one verse if you want to go ahead and turn there.

Our series title, if you've been following, is "A Faith That Works Well." It's a terrible tragedy when someone has a faith that doesn't work. Have you ever known someone that has a faith that doesn't work? You know that the faith just didn't work for them in their family? It didn't work for them in their work life? Their faith is not working in their thought life, in their finances. What I've loved about this book is that James is challenging his readers, and he's challenging us to make sure that we have a faith that works well. Because saving faith works well, not perfectly. We're always going to sin, and we're going to fall.

And praise the Lord that He is sufficient and He keeps us. If you're taking notes tonight, we will look at covenant-keeping faith. A covenant-keeping faith. So as we see tonight, as we turn in the book of James, we will see that if we're going to have a faith that works well, we will have to, above all, look at how we hold our speech. Specifically, how we vow. Let's read the word.

"But above all, my brothers, did not swear, either by heaven or by earth, or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation." So as we conclude and get close to, or close to concluding, we will see that James is nearing the end of his letter. He's established two bookends. He talks about something at the very beginning. He talks about enduring trials with joy. And he talks about speech. And then he circles back, and at the end of the letter, he again dresses, concluding your life with a mind that the Lord is soon returning. And that we need to be people who guard our speech.

So he's talked about trials and speech, both in the first chapter and in the last chapter. In James 1, 26, he says this, "If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless." His message is, faith without works is dead. And so throughout this letter, we have seen there are several tests of saving faith. If you've been born again, you see these tests demonstrated in your life. This is a great book for self-examination. If someone is wrestling with their conversion, they come to us, and they don't know for sure if the Lord has saved them.

Historically, we bring them through 1 John, which is a great book. But you could also give them James. And you could take them through this book. And we see that there are several proofs of God's saving work in our life. And we have seen that throughout. If a person does not have a demonstrated faith, they have a demonic faith. James uses that language. It's a faith that's not fleshed out in several areas of their life. And so as we turn into James chapter 5, James says that a test of saving faith, as we saw two weeks ago, how do we use our money and our resources? How do we steward the blessings that God's given us?

He speaks to the believer. He exhorts them to endure patiently, as we saw last week. If you were here last week, you will remember that. And James reminds believers that Jesus is coming back soon. And as he's writing them, he admonishes them three times in the span of three verses. Verse 8, verse 9, and verse 12. And he says, "Jesus is coming back." The saints he was writing to were being exploited. Commentators believe that they were being, in some cases, killed and murdered. In some cases, exploited through very vicious and greedy means by wealthy merchants.

And so the context here is that James is telling them to endure and have joy when your life is at risk, much like the prophets. As I preached last week, how the prophets were treated. You can go to Hebrews chapter 11. It's very brutal and very graphic how God's own people treated their own prophets. And here we see James telling these exiled Hebrew believers that they need to endure these circumstances with joy. And so as he nears the end of this letter, he reminds them that Christ will return soon. This truth produces excitement. You get excited at the thought of Jesus returning.

The scripture says that there is a crown of righteousness that awaits those of us who long for His return. But Jesus' return also produces endurance. When you have tough days, do you think about Jesus coming back? And this could encourage us to continue. But this truth also produces a holy and terrifying, even a reverent fear, because He will judge the living and the dead. So in what is often overlooked, we have one verse. Most commentators will address chapter 5 verse 12 very quickly. Some commentators don't even address it. And I have felt led to spend an entire service here, an entire message. And I think you'll see why.

Because if we overlook this verse, then there's a danger that we might be a local church that does not take serious the covenant. We need to be a covenant-keeping local church. So I want us to see tonight the high priority of God's honor. So if you are taking notes, you'll see the first truth tonight, the high priority of God's honor. Let's go to verse 12 and read this again. "But above all my brothers do not swear." And let's stop right there.

If you feel inclined to write in your Bible, if you want to underline, "But above all my brothers." Comparatively speaking, swearing of oaths may not seem to be the worst sin that's addressed in the book of James. Now, if you look at just a few of the things that we have already covered. Murder, slander, sins of speech. We saw favoritism. We've seen exploitation of the poor. And you come across this "above all." There is a temptation. In fact, many scholars seem to think that maybe this is just a transition verse. Almost as if it doesn't fit.

But I think every word and every grammatical, every period, every exclamation point in Scripture needs to be there. Why would oath taking be worthy of condemnation? Furthermore, why would it be more damning than the other sins? Let's just go through a few, if you want to jot these down and go back and look at them. In chapter 4 verse 13, we have the sin of self-direction. These were the merchants who said, "Let us go where we want." In chapter 4, 17, we have sins of omission. We know what we should do, but we won't. In chapter 5 verse 2, we have the sin of the selfish hoarding of our wealth.

In chapter 5 verse 4, we have the sins of unjust gain. In chapter 5, we have self-indulgence. In chapter 5 verse 6, we have the murder of the righteous. And of all of these sins, why would James say "above all"? You'll notice about all of the sins that he mentions prior to this. They're all represented in commandments 5 through 10. These are known as the horizontal sins, the sins against humanity. But with this sin, above all, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath. James directs his readers upward. Taking the name of the Lord in vain is a sin against the character of God.

If I were to slander you, then essentially I would be slandering your name and your character. When we take the name of the Lord in vain, we are slandering the essence of who God is, even the totality of his being. To invoke a vow, calling into name the only name, is essentially saying that God's honor is at stake on this matter. Now, what we need to note, Matthew Henry says it's important that we realize this scripture is not saying it's ever a sin to use a vow, or even to invoke the Lord's name. We invoke the Lord's name when we take a vow of marriage.

We invoke the Lord's name when we put our hand on the Bible and swear it to tell the truth. We will look at this in greater detail momentarily, but the sin here is when we leverage God's high and holy awesomeness, his character. And we bring it down to something that is trivial, something that is meaningless, something that is unworthy of such an oath. And so James' admonition here brings the Jewish audience back to the first five commandments that focus on God's character. Now, to this group of Jewish believers, James is saying, at this point, I'm not concerned about the wealthy landowners and the merchants.

We could debate whether they were in the church or whether they were out of the church, but at this point he is talking to my brothers. He uses that phrase. He's saying, "Grace life, Brookhaven, this is a matter for you. This is a matter for Brother Keith and Brother Chris. All of us need to have the high priority of God's name." So the sin of dishonoring God's name is a sin against his honor, his authority, and it makes us enemies of God. I'd like you to write down this verse, Psalms 139, verse 20.

This verse, I'll read it, "Thy enemies take thy name in vain." If we ever invoke God's name to a matter that is unworthy of him, then we become his enemies. Yes, that's right. To use God's name in vain is worse than murder. To use God's name in vain is worse than exploiting your workers, even to the point of death. So we may not really see the seriousness of this. We don't use oaths and vows much like they did. In their day they didn't have a notary. They didn't have someone to notarize a document. We've all gotten things notarized. When you buy a home, you have got to certify that that document is legally binding.

If you don't fulfill your end of the bargain, there is something that is weighing on you. There is some penalty, and you're saying, "I agree to this penalty." But what would be our best example of a foolish vow in our context and in our day? I was teaching the youth this, and I just kind of came up with this, and it may not be the best illustration. Let's say you have a pastor. Say the pastor is married to his wife, they have a wonderful marriage, and his wife passes away. After some time, he becomes lonely, and he desires a life.

I'm telling the youth this, and I say, "What if he were to go online, Christian Mingel, eHarmony, and if he were to meet someone that he had never met in person, let's say we give it a month, what would happen if he and this new fiancée get engaged, and they go to Las Vegas, and they go into one of these drive-through wedding venues? And what if they decide that they're going to get married by an Elvis impersonator? Perhaps you have a family that has been married by an Elvis impersonator, not meant to judge. I'm just using this as illustration. So in this event, as I was telling the youth, they're sort of giggling.

What is being communicated through Elvis giving the marriage ceremony? Is that not a vow before God? Is that not a vow before man? Now, comical illustration, probably not the best, but essentially, that's what the pastor would be doing. He would be lying with his marriage ceremony. See, he's bringing something that is high and holy and even worshipful, and he's bringing it down to the common and the mundane. He's taking something that is of great reverence, something that is of great holiness, even a worshipful experience, and he's bringing it down to the commonplace.

Another example that might hit us a little closer to home in church culture. Could we lead people in our congregations to make foolish vows? Could we lead people in our congregation to make a rash oath or a vow, something that would be binding? We absolutely could. How do I think we could do this? Could we get an emotional appeal for people to come to Christ? It's not wrong to use emotions, but what are we doing when we lead people to make commitments and vows with serious matters about salvation and about life and death? See, salvation happens when the Holy Spirit convicts someone of their sin and of righteousness and judgment.

But if I say to the Holy Spirit, I don't need to depend on the Lord. If we're going to have a big evangelistic crusade and we're going to use lots of music and lots of emotions and even some manipulation, is this not a more serious breach, even then getting married by an Elvis impersonator? Think about it. We're talking about life and death, and we're leading people to make commitments.

I looked at the youth and I used this illustration and I said, "Some of you are graduating from high school and you've been coming to this youth Bible study with me for 10 years." From the time Annie Sheppard, for instance, from the time she was a sixth grader or seventh grader, I'd been teaching her every Wednesday night. And I looked at Annie and I used her as an example and I said, "You've never heard us make an appeal to your emotions to make a vow or a commitment." Now, are vows and commitments sinful? No.

I'm just making this state that if the Holy Spirit is not leading that person to make the vow or the commitment, then we are in danger of taking a high and holy, even a life, and eternity is in the balance. We know of big campaigns to let's recruit people to missions. And we're going to challenge people and encourage them. And we've seen young kids make vows and commitments to go on the mission field. If the Lord is leading them to go to the mission field, we need to get out of their way. And we need to disciple them and encourage them.

Where we sin, where we fall under condemnation as a church, is when we are trying to manipulate young children or teenagers or older people to do something that only God can do. So this is meant to give us great reverence. Why? Let's go back to the text and read this. Why should we have great reverence and fear? Above all. Brothers do not swear either by heaven or by oath or by any other oath, and let your yes be yes and your no be no so that you may not fall under condemnation.

If we're going to be a church that's faithful to the Gospel call, we need to let the Holy Spirit lead people to Christ and we need to be very diligent in our prayer that we would never lead people to do something that God's not leading them to do. So the high priority of God's honor. Secondly, tonight I want us to see the high priority of truthfulness. The high priority of truthfulness. So let's go back to the text. But above all, my brothers do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath. Some context here. John MacArthur says that the Jews had developed a complex system of oath taking.

These Jewish Christians have been brought into the church and they brought with them some baggage. In ancient world, because there was not a notary on every corner, your word was your bond. In many cases, that wasn't good enough to make a deal. So people would would invoke their local deity, the God they worshiped for Jews. They got very, very complex. They got very, very specific. They would make an oath to their national their national aspects of their religion. And Jesus recognized this as sin and he spoke against this. And James is echoing the Sermon on the Mount. Listen to Psalm 15 for in whose eyes a vile person is despised.

But who honors those who fear the Lord, who swears to his own hurt and does not change for the Hebrew, for the Jewish people, vowing and following through with that vow, even at your own hurt was something that was of extreme honor. We can't really grasp. I think the only thing that we I think we could possibly bring it into our day, not to contextualize. But if you had someone in the church who had a house foreclosed and perhaps they they do this multiple times.

If a person had had several properties foreclosed, if they had several things repossessed, and this was a long standing pattern, pretty soon it would become evident that they were not keeping their vows. I could see this would be a matter of church discipline for us. This would be something that perhaps elders from the church, a small group leader would address the person to say, hey, this is an issue that that's causing others in the community to stumble. So the vow was of extreme importance. And so as a church, do we fear the Lord and do we hate what he hates like the psalmist in Psalm 15 for husbands? You swore an oath to your wife.

Are you fulfilling that vow in all faithfulness? Even to your own hurt. That's what the psalmist says. What this means is on the hard days in your marriage, are you fulfilling the vows in the deep recesses of your thought life? Are you holding on to weaknesses, difficulties, wives? Are you greed by the wrongdoing of people in your community and in your family? Let me read the Psalm again. Who honors those who fear the Lord, who swears to his own hurt and does not change. So for the Jew, those who were oath takers and oath keepers, it was of absolute vitality and seriousness that they held to this oath. What can we learn from this?

God is the great truth teller. When one is not faithful, essentially they are implicitly calling into question the source of their vow. So if I swear by God that I will be faithful in my marriage and yet I am unfaithful, essentially that dishonors the Lord, that's taking the name of the Lord in vain. And I can do that as we're learning even without committing adultery. We can violate our vows in our hearts. Ultimately, James is calling his reader to see that God is the great promise keeper. God is omniscient. That means God is all knowing. When he makes a vow, it's in light of everything that has ever been and everything that will ever be.

When God makes a vow, he is omnipotent. He has power to fulfill that vow. God is faithful. When God makes a vow, he is faithful to fulfill it and God cannot lie. 2 Peter 1.4 says that God has given us very great and precious promises. I think the quickest way for us as a church to grow, to be a covenant keeping local church, is to have our eyes fixed on the covenant keeper. Do you meditate on the promises of God? Do you dwell on his truth? Is that what you're holding on to this evening? Listen to what Spurgeon says. "We are given these great and precious promises.

We must meditate upon them." Spurgeon goes on to say, "If I were dealing with a man's promise, I would carefully consider the ability and the character of the man who had covenanted with me." Have you ever known of someone to go into a bank and they're applying for a loan? What is a loan application process? The bank or the lender is essentially looking through your records to see if you are a good risk. They're looking to see are you trustworthy enough with your past history that I can entrust the sum necessary to purchase your home.

When we call into character of God, we're saying, "By God, I will fulfill this." On your wedding day, you stood before your community and the Lord, and you said with God's help, by God's grace, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer. Those who break these vows are under condemnation. I think this means that we need to be a covenant-keeping local church and a prayerful church. We need to pray for our marriages and our husbands and our wives. Can I ask if you're trustworthy? I'm not talking about whether a bank would lend you money. Are you trustworthy? You might say, "Brother Keith, I think I am.

I try to be faithful to do what I say." Let me ask it a little differently. Are you trustworthy like Jesus is trustworthy? I think the answer to that is no. None of us are. So is your character such that an oath is necessary? And this is where we need to really focus our attention. This is the crux of this message and the crux of this verse. "Let your yes be yes and your no mean no." Now, you shouldn't need a vow. That's what James is saying. Do we have to look at God when he makes a promise? I've got a list of some promises here. The Lord will guide you. Psalms 32.8. He says, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.

I will counsel you with my eye upon you." Would we look at God and say, "Now, how do I know you're going to do that?" Even to ask that is insulting to the Lord. We need to say, "Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief." So when you make a promise to someone, can they look at you and say, "How do I know you're going to do that?" If your yes is yes and your no is no, that means when you say you will do something, they know you'll do it. The high priority of truthfulness. God is the great truth-teller and God is the great promise-keeper. Now, ultimately, we can't keep our promises like God.

Step one, coming to Christ, we admit that we have no righteousness. We have no ability to keep our vows and our oaths, but by His grace. Third tonight, I want us to see the high priority of faithfulness. The high priority of faithfulness. Let's go back to the text in verse 12. "But above all, my brothers do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath. Let your yes be yes and your no be no." So why do humans not keep their promise? In times when you didn't follow through with something that you said you were going to do, what happened?

We're teaching our young people, the youth, so we taught the youth a little on this, but primarily my wife and I were teaching a small group last fall to our kids. We're going through a curriculum, Truth 78. It was all about the promise-keeping God. In Christmastime, Brother Chris went on a short sabbatical, and I preached a Christmas series on this same subject. Why do people not keep their promise? Humans lack certain knowledge. Let's say you have a parent who says to their child, "I'm going to take you to the park this Saturday." Now, what happens if there's a tremendous storm? It wasn't in the forecast.

It wasn't in the seven-day forecast. A storm comes. You now cannot keep your word to take your child to the park. We cannot keep our promises because we lack knowledge. We didn't know the storm was coming. We lack power. We can't do anything about the storm. We don't have the power to stop the storm. We lack goodness. I guess it's possible that some of us just changed our mind and just don't feel like going. We have a lot going on. And humans lack honesty. The root of the matter is, if we're going to be a covenant-keeping church, we've got to come to terms with who we are in our fallen nature. God has redeemed you.

It takes a daily focus on who God is and preaching the gospel to ourselves, acknowledging, that I am not the great covenant-keeping God, but you are. And by your grace, as you fill me with your spirit, I can keep my covenants. I can keep my vows. I can be honoring to you in my thought life, in my heart. We should be people of our word, and we should have the integrity so that no oath is necessary. I'm afraid that the wedding vows are losing their potency. I'm afraid they're losing the reverence. When a couple divorces, they have taken the name of the Lord in vain. And I think this is far too flippant today.

I can remember in my twenties, hearing a professor talk about the recent change and the no-fault divorce. The divorce became easier than the wedding. It literally did. We have made it extremely easy for people to break their vows. When invoking rash vows or rash oaths, it's important that we realize our word and our commitment to truth should be so important to us that we're not going to make a commitment that we can't follow through. Now, I think it's important to give yourself some grace. I think it's important to give each other grace. I think the Lord understands that sanctification is progressive.

We don't need to be harsh or legalistic here. But I think spiritual growth begins with honest self-appraisal about who we are, that man is the great lawbreaker. And that's why we needed a Savior. That's why we needed the great covenant-keeping God to send Jesus, who was the fulfillment of every promise. Well, fourth, the final truth tonight, the high priority of preparing for judgment. The high priority of preparing for judgment. We were talking in my house about some various health goals.

I was telling my son how much I love carbohydrates and sugary foods, and he looked at me and he said, "Dad, you just need a little motivation." And if you know Isaac, you can picture him saying that with his smile and his demeanor, very lighthearted, very encouraging. But what's our motivation to be a covenant-keeping local church? James gives his readers the motivation. It's the second coming of the Lord. Christ's return is our motivation to be a truthful people. If you look back in chapter 5, verse 8, you can just glance down at this. If you have your book, Bible turned to James 5. I'll read 8 and 9 and then back again to 12.

"You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door." That's three times there in two verses. If you look at verse 8, "We are to be patient, to strengthen, establish our hearts." Why? He is returning. In verse 9, "Do not grumble against one another. Brothers, you may not be judged." That's two.

The third time, "Behold, the judge is standing at the door." If we move on to verse 12, which is our verse tonight, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation." We are told to strengthen ourselves. The local church is the one place where you should be most reminded Jesus is coming back. If we had a rock under every rock of the local church, every song we sing, every prayer, every small group lesson, every time we gather for fellowship, every first Sunday fellowship, every short-term mission trip, everything needs to be glory of God-centered, saturated with the understanding Jesus is coming back.

Today, my only question is, are we ready for Him to return? If Jesus came back tonight, how would we fare as if He evaluated how we reverence His name? How we reverence His name with our lives, with our truthfulness, with our truth-telling? Now, praise the Lord that a faith that works well doesn't have to be a faith that works perfectly. We're going to mess up. We're going to have shortcomings. But that's why I need you. That's why you need the brother and sister to your right and left. That's why we need a healthy local church.

And you know, you encourage me, and we encourage each other, sometimes, simply, in ways that we had no idea, as we just have good, healthy body life. And as you are growing in the Lord, when you're convicted of something, and you just share this in a small group, you never know how those kind of real-life, body-life moments help prepare someone else for the second coming. You never know when you read a devotional and you think of someone, you shoot them a text message, hey, praying for you. I thought about you today when I read this devotional. You never know how that helps prepare them for the second coming.

Being ready for the Lord's return is essential for us. We can maintain truthful character as we lift our eyes to our Lord. Well, I wanted to give us some very practical help. Perhaps it would help if you had something in your hands. How might you cherish the Lord's name? How might you reverence the Lord's name? How might you prepare for the second coming? The man read my mind. Also, read your faith? Yes, yes. So this is something that, based on the curriculum that we were teaching our kids, it was so good, I wanted to meditate on the promises of God. So I just typed out Bible verses. This is not exhaustive.

This is something I want to challenge you just to look at in your quiet time, your devotional time in the morning. However you'd like to do this, what I have found is one or two jump out at me and I realize maybe there's an area that I've not been cherishing. I've not been honoring the Lord. So what I want to do is I would just want to take one or two that have meant a lot to me and feel free to highlight these, take these, these are yours. What about this one? Let's look at Lamentations chapter 3 verses 32. On the second page, God will not bring any unnecessary suffering into your life. Lamentations 3, 32 through 33.

But though he caused grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. For he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men. You know, because we have violated our vow, we are mistrusting of people because we know ourselves. And there is a propensity when you go through trial to project your doubt of humanity on the God. You know, there's a time even when you're going through a difficult time where you would even grumble against Providence, as I've said last week, where you would even complain in your prayers. When I came across this, I was extremely refreshed, a bit convicted.

But listen to this. The Lord will not inflict you from his heart. I've been able to counsel people going through a trial and use this verse and say, "The Lord is not a bully out to get you." That one thing that is so precious from you that it's being removed. He's not lashing out. He's not inflicting this from your heart. And that's a promise. And if you hide this word into your heart with the expectation, you go through difficulty. The Lord will keep you. And then when we understand that we're going to be judged for every idle word, we know that our covenant-keeping God will help us.

He'll help us preserve, persevere, and he will help us also to be people of the covenant, covenant-keeping people. Let me pray. We're going to have a short prayer time.