Text: Matthew 5:31-37

Topic: How to become a person of your word

Introduction:

• Just like today, it had become customary for people to carefully word their commitments in such a way that they could easily get out of them.

• Jesus taught you don't break your word that easily without consequence.

• Matthew 5:33-37

• Illustration: May makes reference to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, where Clinton narrowly defined words to evade being held accountable to the truth.

• Big Idea: Jesus challenges us to become people of our word.

• Illustration: May tells the story of a college student who considered himself to have grounds for divorce because his wife "committed adultery in her heart," illustrating the self-satisfying search for loopholes to biblical directives.

• If we try, we can find whatever excuse is necessary to get out of keeping a commitment.

• Illustration: May tells the story of a man who refused to pay a contractor for a swimming pool, because the pool was three feet further north than he had wanted.

• Illustration: May tells a joke about a man who backs out of a promise to pay a psychologist by insisting, "If I pay you that much it only proves two things: I must still be crazy and you haven't cured me."

• Ecclesiastes 5:4

• Illustration: Contrasting our tendency to seek more favorable conditions when circumstances change, May tells the story of Lou Holtz, a college football coach who had the integrity not to ask for more money even after he helped the team achieve great success.

• Psalm 15:4

• You can't back out of a promise just because it has become inconvenient or ceases to make you happy.

• Illustration: May holds up the example of a man who owed $400,000, but who refused to declare bankruptcy and instead worked to pay it back.

Avoid making careless promises

• Ecclesiastes 5:5

• Illustration: May tells the humorous story of a man who promised more in prayer than he intended to pay, then was relieved when he didn't have to fulfill the promise.

• Illustration: May quotes a portion of Bits and Pieces Magazine that encourages us to be among the few who promise less but deliver more.

Conclusion:

• Illustration: May tells the brief story of his boss offering his word then declaring, "I said I would do it; what stronger word can I give?"

• Matthew 5:37

• Back up your words with actions.

• Ultimately, you answer to God.