The Church of Eleven22 - S02E14 - Do Not Lie to One Another

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

The most commanded one another is to love one another. You can't love one another if you lie to one another. There's plenty of reasons why we lie; maybe it's for the applause of man or maybe it's to keep parts of our lives in the dark. But Jesus died on the cross so we can live in light of the gospel and walk in the freedom Christ came to give us. ⁹ Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. - Colossians 3:9-10

Welcome to Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we're praying this message helps you deepen your relationship with him. Now let's dive in. Hey church family, welcome back to the Deep and Devo. We are coming off a weekend where we studied John chapter 8, really famous verse in here, politicians and people like that love to use this verse completely out of context. oftentimes. And so

it's about freedom, about the truth setting us free. So first of all, let's look at it in context, and then we'll jump over to our one another. John chapter 8, 31 in following, it says this. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. Don't miss that. You cannot say you love Jesus and not love His word. can't be close to Jesus and not be close to His Word. Jesus does not allow that.

So he says, if you abide in my Word, you were truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. That's a really famous verse most often quoted totally out of context. The truth that he is talking about is to know him through the truth of His Word. That's what he's talking about. And they answered him, oh, we are all spring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. how is it that you say you will become free? And a part of what Jesus is going to unpack here,

we talked about it, is that Jesus doesn't save last names. He saves first names. That today, you're not a Christian because of the church you grew up in. You're not a Christian because of who your parents are. Now, sociologically, that's how people use the word Christian, but in the Bible, that's not what it means. that the only way that you are saved is that you have to know Jesus yourself. And in John 8, they are saying, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, man, we're Jewish.

We're offspring of Abraham. So we've never been enslaved to anyone. How can you say that we need to be set free? And Jesus answers them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. And the slave does not remain in the house forever. The sun remains forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.

In other words, true freedom, freedom from self, freedom from sin, freedom from shame, comes only through the Son of God, our Savior. Got that? Not by practices, not by inheritance, but freedom is found in Christ alone. Which leads us, based on this verse, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And by the way, in John chapter 14, verse 6, Jesus says, he is the truth. think about that that truth is not a thing

that you can lean into out there truth is a person and his name is Jesus Christ and so based on that Colossians 3 9 here's where we found are one another by the way I don't know if you've noticed have you been paying attention to how many one another's are just in like the first

15 verses of Colossian chapter 3 there's a whole bunch of one another's jam right in there and in verse 9 of Colossion 3 we get this one another do not lie to other. Do not lie to one another. So again, Jesus says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And you know, the opposite of a truth is the lie. And so Paul says to the Colossian Church and says to all the church forever, do not lie to one another. So let's look at this

one another in context. We'll spend a little bit of time unpacking on what Paul's talking about here in Colossians 3. He says this, if then, if then you have been raised with Christ, in other words, if you're a Jesus follower, then seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Oftentimes, we talked about this a little bit last week. Oftentimes, as believers, we've got to get our heads up, quit enable gazing, quit looking at what everybody else is doing all the time, get your head up above the horizon, and get your eyes focused on Christ,

who is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are here on this earth. Look, there's a whole divo right there. Do you spend more time thinking about things that are above or things that are on this earth? Let me just go ahead and tell you, 99% of everything on your social media feed is things on this earth. And so he says, set your minds on things that are above, not on things of this earth. For you have died. Notice that's past tense.

You have died. And your life is hidden with Christ in God. so the old you's dead and the new you the saved you is hidden in Christ in God when Christ who is your life appears then you will also appear with him in glory so you got past you have dead you you are dead you have died you've got the present that you are hidden you are wrapped in Christ and you have the future you will appear with him in glory and then Paul gives some very practical advice. In verse 5 and following, he is going to give a list of sins that we need to put to death, that the old man in us, we need to put to death. Jonathan Edwards says, if you are not killing sin,

it will kill you. You don't tame sin, you don't pet sin, you bring out the 357 magnum, you put it to the head of sin, and you pull the trigger, and you put sin to death. And then when he gets finished with this list, we're not going to get into all of it, but then what he's going to do is he's saying, you take off the old you and you put on Christ. That's called vivification. Mortification is killing the sin that's trying to kill you, and vivification is doing the things that stir your affections for the Lord. So he says, verse 5, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you. And he's going to give a big list, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,

covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these, you two once walked. past tense. You don't have to do the things you used to do because you're not the person you used to be. In these, you two once walked when you were living in them,

but now you must put them all away. And he gives another list. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene, talk from your mouth. And then here's our one another. And do not lie to one another. Seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices,

Like, why would you lie to one another when you have put off that old self and you've put on Christ? So do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Here, there's not Greek or Jews, circumcised, uncircised by barbarians, scythian, slave, free. But Christ is all and in all. You see, Jesus came to set us free from sin. Jesus came, bled on the cross that whoever would believe in him, we would be set free from sin. And when I say set free from sin, here's what I mean. There's a past tense element, a present tense element, and a future tense element. That when we are free in Christ, because Christ is all and in all, then we have been saved.

We have been, past tense, once and for all, we have been saved from the penalty of sin. we are being saved from the power of sin in our lives, and one day we will be saved from the very presence of sin. We have been saved from the penalty of sin, that's called justification. We are being saved from the power of sin in our life. That's called sanctification. And one day, we will be saved from the very presence of sin. That's called glorification.

And yet, our old sin nature wars against us, presses us to lie to one another. And we know this is true because if it didn't, then the Bible wouldn't command us to not lie to one another. So let me ask you this. Why do you lie? Why do you lie? There's a bunch of superficial reasons. There's only one core reason because you're a liar. That's it, man.

At the core of who we are. That's apart from Christ, that is what we are. Now here's a couple of things that happen when you lie. This is why lying is so destructive. It's destructive to yourself. It's destructive to relationships that you have. And it's destructive within a church body. One of the things that happens when we lie to each other is this.

It feeds our craving for the applause of man. When we lie, it feeds our craving for the applause of man. Because I think there's a couple of applause of man reasons that we lie. One is because we want to build us up. We want people to think more highly of us than the truth. truth, which is a shame. Galatians 110, Paul says, am I still trying to win the approval of man? Another thing that happens, one of the reasons that we lie is because we don't want to let another person down. Like, sometimes you will lie because you care so much about what that person thinks

about you, that you withhold the truth because, again, you love the friendship more than you love the friend. Another thing that happens when we lie to one another is sin remains in the dark. Several weeks ago I said this, you fight the devil in the dark, you're going to get you tail kicked. And the enemy loves it when there's some believer just opening the door for you to share your sins, confess your sins with one another, which was one another's we talked about. And they just lovingly, somebody from your disciple groups looks right at you and says, how you doing? And you know, you're like, I'm fine. No, no, no. We're like, really, how are you doing? Are you struggling with anything right now? And in your own shame, listening to the lies of the enemy, what you do is instead

of taking that sin that you're struggling with and dragging it out to the light, you take that sin and you keep it there in the dark. And I'm just going to tell you, gross things grow in the dark. And you fight the enemy in the dark, you get your butt kicked. When we tell the truth, we drag it out into the light. And then Jesus, Jesus gets the victory. when we lie to one another we cannot be fully loved by one another the most commanded one another is to love one another and you cannot love one another if we're lying to one another

because to be fully known is to be fully loved you can't fully love somebody if you don't fully know them and when we are keeping things secret then we are not trusting the good news of the gospel enough to say it is Christ that defines me not your opinion and so the cross has outed me. I'm free to share all my deepest, deepest, darkest sins. Why?

Because Jesus knew them all, and he loved me anyway. Because he loves me anyway, so can you. And what happens when we lie to one another is this. Lying is antithetical to the gospel. It's opposed to the gospel. The gospel says that Jesus knew everything about you, that when Christ died on the cross for your sin, and for my sin, he died for them all.

He died for the past sins. He died for the sins that you struggle with right now. He died for the sins that one day we would struggle with and commit. And when Christ says it is finished, then we have been set free. So anytime, anytime we lie to one another to either try to puff ourselves up, not let somebody down, we're ashamed of something in our life. Every single time we lie to one another, essentially what we're doing is saying this. Here is an area that I don't believe the gospel.

When Jesus says it is finished in this area that I am choosing to lie about, it didn't count for me there. And when we do that, it is antithetical to the gospel. So church, can you see what a big deal this is? As God continues to sanctify you with His Word through the power of His Spirit, as you begin to put to death those sinful practices of your past because that's not who you are anymore and as you begin to put yourself in environments to stir your affection for the Lord may we not lie to one another why because we don't need to lie Christ is enough Christ knows every truth about us he knows

every struggle knows every insecurity knows all the ego we bring and he still gladly died on the for you and me. And when we trust that and when we believe that, then we don't have to go after the applause of man. We don't have to make ourselves look bigger. We don't have to hide away sin that we can live, not antithetical to the gospel in light of one another, but we can live in the light of the gospel and walk in the freedom that Christ has came to give us. So, church, speak truth. Speak truth in love. Believe. believe, believe that when Jesus says it is finished, accounted for all of you.

Let's pray. Our good and gracious, Heavenly Father God, we confess to you that at times we are very, very tempted to leave out the truth, to hide the truth. God, our egos and our insecurities, they all get in the way of us seeing us the way you see us. God, I pray that you would give us ears to hear, your voice over your children.

Lord, I pray that you will give us eyes to see us the way you see us. Lord, I pray that we would consistently preach the gospel to ourselves so that we would know that we have your approval at the cross. That you would look at us. And when you see us, you see the imputed righteousness of Christ, that you see us as co-hears with him already seated with you at the right hand. That all that is yours, you have given to us.

That's the Lord, we pray. We pray against the whispers of the enemy. God, we pray against that sin nature in us that wants to run away from the truth. But God, may we walk in the truth that you have set us free to walk in. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you for joining us for Deepen with Pastor Jobi Martin. If you're looking for additional resources to help you further deepen your relationship, with Jesus Christ, visit COE22.com slash resources. We're praying this message you heard today helps you experience God in a unique and fresh way. And as always, be free.