In Matthew 5:33-37, Jesus is preaching to a crowd of Jewish people, about 2000 years ago. He says, “You’ve heard it said to the people long ago, don’t break your oath…” When Jesus says this, He’s referring to the pages of the Old Testament. There are several verses that explicitly state the severity of not fulfilling an oath made before God.

Jesus says, you’ve heard that… but I say this… “Don’t swear an oath at all…”

Jesus then points out the destructive cycle that religious people had developed. In short, people started adding layers to truth. They started swearing on different objects and then placing different levels of importance on each object. That way, if they didn’t fulfill their vows, they could explain their reasoning. They created systems of truth, where truth had layers that could be manipulated for personal gain.

Since people had manipulated the beauty of truth, Jesus says, “Just say ‘Yes’, or ‘No’, anything else comes from the evil one…” Anything else comes from Satan.

What does this look like in our lives? Do we allow Satan to speak through us?

Sure we do:

1) When we say things like “I swear…” or, “To be honest with you…”
2) When we use round about ways to communicate with people, instead of just telling it like we see it. When we say one thing, but really mean another. When we try and give subtle nonverbal cues, which can often be misleading and confusing.
3) When we say things just to be polite, but don’t really mean them.
4) When we exaggerate.
5) When we wear masks, and try to act like we’re someone we’re not.

In this passage, Jesus invites us into a new way of living. He invites us into the Kingdom. Remember, Heaven isn’t just some place way out there. Jesus says, “The Kingdom is among us.” Jesus brought Heaven to earth. It’s here, but not-yet-fully here. Heaven is a way of life, lived under the King.

Jesus invites us to this way of living, in the Kingdom. The Kingdom consists of those who live and breathe truth.

What are some areas of truth that you struggle in?

4 weeks ago I preached a sermon called “False Beliefs Among Us” (http://www.youtube.com/EkklesiaDetroit). First we went deep into Acts chapter 10. We learned about Peter, and how he and the rest of the Jesus worshiping Jews had this really big problem: they had a long list of false religious beliefs that were causing them to not reach out to non-Jews. They had all kinds of wrong beliefs about what it takes to follow Jesus. They consciously and subconsciously assumed, “Hey, the non-Jews don’t follow these rules, so of course they can’t follow Jesus!” Their false beliefs caused them to be judgmental. They were so blinded by their religiosity that they didn’t even realize they were flagrantly rejecting the mission God commanded they live out.

In chapter 10, God metaphorically smacks Peter in the face 3 times with a 2 by 4 and says something to the effect of, “Peter you’re wrong, and I want you to change immediately.” Eventually Peter gets it, goes to the house of one of those people the Jews considered “wicked sinners,” and bam, the Gospel begins to spread like a virus. Tens, thousands, and eventually millions of people, from all kinds of messed-up backgrounds find Jesus, and are radically transformed!

Next we looked at our situation in America: millions of modern-day disciples dangerously infected with false teachings propagated by men and women infatuated with religion. Many of these people are appallingly judgmental, and the great tragedy is that they are keeping people out of the Kingdom of God. Of course many of these people who call themselves Christians aren’t really Christians, but that’s a whole nother story.

Anyway, we examined 5 of the most common lies and what the Bible really has to say, which brings me to the topic of this post After this service, there was this one guy in our church who got into a conversation with another guy (not part of ekklesia). Our guy says something like, “You know, the concept of wearing fancy ‘church clothes’ on Sundays is a false religious teaching invented by people. It’s not in the Bible. In fact, many people who wear ‘church clothes’ are judging other people who don’t. This judgmentalism needs to stop because these judgmental people are keeping people out of the Kingdom of God.” Well, this other guy does not agree and they start to argue. The argument gets so heated that their screaming reaches the peak of their vocal cord capacity.

All this over “church clothes”? Now I’ll say, he’s not the only one from ekklesia who had an experience like this after that sermon. In fact, I personally had several experiences like this a few years back. So last week we dove into Romans 14. We learned that we shouldn’t argue over nonessentials. Those who understand the freedom we have in Christ (those whose consciouses are strong) shouldn’t judge those who misunderstand it (those whose consciouses are weak), and the weak must stop judging the strong. In fact, if the weak think something is a sin (even if it really isn’t), and then they do that thing, they’re actually sinning. So, the responsibility of the strong is to be willing to sacrifice our freedoms in order to love the weak. The big idea of the passage is “Loving the weak is more important than using our freedoms.”

Here’s a few questions for you:

1. Can you relate to this?

2. Does this mean that the strong must always compromise their freedoms for the weak, in every situation? Why or why not? Can you give any examples?

3. What do you think are some common false religious beliefs among Christians?