James series – “The Litmus Test for life”

James 5:12

Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.

The second issue is:

• The implication of individual integrity

Look a little bit farther in verse 12, “never take an oath, by heaven or earth or anything else.” So, what exactly is James getting at here, is he saying that it is wrong for Christians to make oaths? Well, obviously that can’t be the case because it certainly isn’t wrong to take an oath when we testify in a court, or when get married. Likewise, the Bible doesn’t forbid oaths; in fact, it offers us many examples of those who took oaths. Abraham, David, Paul and many others made oaths. The purpose of an oath was to call upon someone, or something greater than yourself as a witness to the promise you were making. By calling on the name of God in an oath, you were saying that God was a witness to your promise and, therefore, you were seriously intending to keep that promise. So to understand what James is getting at here in verse 12 it is helpful to turn to Jesus words on the matter found in MATTHEW 5:33-37. In order to understand what kind of oaths Jesus and James are forbidding we have to understand the Jewish customs in Christs day. By the time of the New Testament, the Jews had developed an extremely complex system of swearing oaths. In many ways, it was similar to our legal system today. It was extremely complex and there was almost always a loophole. So, because of the complexity of the system, there were people who would find ways to get out of nearly everything. They would swear an oath to do something with the full intention of wriggling their way out of it. It was done the same way that some shady businesses use contracts today. The contract has all the good stuff in big, bold print. But all the loopholes and legal jargon is in super fine print that you need a magnifying glass to read. Developing a deceitful contract where you have no intention of following through is the kind of swearing Jesus and James are talking about. These are words we mouth instead of words we model. Some people enter marriage with that type of attitude, saying, “Well, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll just get a divorce.” Making solemn wedding vows before the Lord with that escape clause in mind is just the kind of swearing this passage is talking about. We need to think before we make a vow. The implication of this statement really has more to do with your individual integrity than it does with whatever promises you make. If you make a promise with the intention of breaking that promise, it doesn’t matter what kind of contract it’s on. Even if you intend to keep the promise, but intentionally leave yourself a loophole, it reveals that your word is worthless. And if your word is worthless, your integrity is worthless—above all things. There are implications to your individual integrity. The implications are that if you make promises with even the slightest intention of breaking them, you have no integrity. So why do so many people feel the need to lie?

1. Self-Protection—people lie because they’re motivated by fear and want to protect themselves. Afraid of getting in trouble. Or that they will be rejected. Or caught up in the middle of a confrontation. Or they will hurt someone’s feelings. Or we’ll lose our job.

2. Self-Centeredness—secondly, people lie because they benefit from their lies. They might get recognition, a promotion, a job, a date, a credit card, or sympathy. How many people lie on their income tax for that very reason? How many people call in sick when we really aren’t? 

3. Self-Importance—thirdly, people lie because of their pride. These are the lies that feed our flesh and puff us up with self-importance. Either we lie to save face, or to cover our mistakes, or to be liked, or to appear more important, or more successful than we really are.

We have all kinds of reason to lie, but the truth is, when it comes right down to it, we lie because it is the easiest thing to do. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the wrong thing is often the easiest thing. Satan is always tempting us with the easy way. The way of least resistance is usually a slippery slop to sin. Eventually our lies will catch up with us and our integrity will suffer. C. S. Lewis once said, “A little lie is like a little pregnancy it doesn’t take long before everyone knows.” God doesn’t call us to search out the easy way, He calls us to seek the right way, the way of truth and integrity. Our effectiveness as Christians demands that we be a people of integrity. Edward R. Murrow, an American journalist and television and radio figure in the 1950’s once said, “To be persuasive, we must be believable. To be believable, we must be credible. To be credible, we must be truthful.” You and I will only be a pervasive light for Christ if we are truthful.

James series – “The Litmus Test for life”

James 5:12

Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.

To help us pass the integrity test James points to four issues involving individual integrity. Today we will look at the first one:

1. The importance of individual integrity

Notice how James starts this verse by saying, “But most of all” or “but above all things.” This phrase has created trouble for theologians for years. Because it begs the question, “where does this verse fit?” “Above all WHAT things?” Is this verse a part of the verses that make up the patience test we talked about last week? If so, why is he saying that we need to be people of integrity over and above all the traits of being patient? It’s important to ask yourself those types of questions when you are studying the Bible. Because one of the most important keys to understanding passages in the Bible is understanding them in context. There is a phrase about studying Bible verses in context that has been a tremendous help to me over the years.  It says, “a TEXT without a CONTEXT is a PRETEXT.” In other words, you can make a verse say a whole lot of things it doesn’t say if you don’t keep it in the context it was written in. Many of us take scripture out of context because we fail to read it in context. So, when you do that and place this verse in its proper context, you see what the “all things” he’s talking about are. He’s saying that your personal integrity is above all the things he’s talked about so far in his letter. Of the 10 test of faith James has given us so far, this one is “above all.” That brings up the next question, what does he mean by above all? Is he saying that, of all those 10 tests: The identity test, The poverty and prosperity test, the Bible test, the preference test, the works test, the tongue test, the wisdom test, the pride test, the treasure test and the patience test, this is the most important? That if we take care of this one and slip up on some of the others it’s OK? No, by commanding us to “above all” be people of integrity, James is telling us that our personal integrity is preeminent. It is the king that rules over the other 10 areas. Your integrity will rule over how you view the Bible. A person with no integrity will see the Bible not as truth but as something to twist to suit self. Your integrity rules over whether you show preference to people or not. A person with no integrity will show favoritism and form cliques and hold themselves in judgment over others. Your integrity rules over how you perform good works. A person with no integrity will do good works for personal recognition and profit. Your integrity rules over how you use your tongue. A person with no integrity will use their tongue to control, consume and condemn people. Your integrity rules over your wisdom. A person with no integrity seeks worldly wisdom based on pleasure instead of pleasing the Lord.  Your integrity rules over your pride, someone with no integrity is selfish, presumptive and greedy. Integrity also rules over how you practice patience, those with no integrity cannot patiently endure because they have no rock to anchor to. Not only is our individual integrity preeminent over those 10 areas, it is pervasive. Passing the previous 10 tests will insure that we are people of integrity. But at the same time, we cannot pass those tests without “above all” being people of integrity. Individual integrity isn’t just the next thing to accomplish on your to-do list. If your individual integrity isn’t “above all”, you can’t pass any of these tests we’ve been talking about for the last few months. That’s how important individual integrity is.