Well, it is political season. Campaigns are in full swing, and TV ads are abounding. They come on, they make their promises, and every year we get more skeptical, right? Because every year they are the same promises. Were going to balance the budget. Were going to lower your taxes, etc., etc. Im going to finally keep my promises from the first campaign. This time I really mean it, and Im going to get it done. We just think, I dont want to hear it anymore, because if somebody promises you something time and time again and never delivers, basically its just lip service. It doesnt matter anymore. So sometimes we question the integrity of politicians when we see what they do once they get in office. We say, Where are the promises? and it speaks to their integrity; so thats what this verse is about this morning-Chapter 5:12. Its the only one were going to read. (Page 1199), James says, Above all, my brothers, do not swear-not by Heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your Yes be yes, and your No, no, or you will be condemned. I just want to pick this verse apart a little bit. Number one, he says above all [do not swear-not by Heaven or by earth or by anything else]. That means especially. Hes saying, In light of what I just said, its really important that you pay close heed to what Im about to say. He had just talked about the fact that there were people who were exploiting the poor, making promises they couldnt keep, not paying a fair wage-the wage they had promised to pay. I was at a missions conference all week at Elmbrook Church this week-the Cape Town Missions Conference-and spent hours and hours there listening to speaker after speaker. There were missionaries from all over the world. One session was about human trafficking and how they lure people through these promises. If you come, youll have this job. Theyll pay you this much money. When they actually get involved, they find out that they have been sold to a sweatshop or some other kind of labor. Theyre basically slaves. They made the point-which was astounding to me-there are more slaves in the world today than at any point in history. Its many, many times more human slaves in the world today than ever in the history of the world [because of] people who exploit, people who use people for their advantage. They misuse their power and authority, and this is what James is talking about. Hes saying, Listen, in light of the people that are around you, you should not resemble them. You should not be like them. You should be a people that when you say something, it sticks. When you make a promise, it counts. Your yes is yes; your no is no. He says, Dont swear not by Heaven or earth or anything else. When he says swear there, he doesnt mean a cuss word. Hes talking about making an oath. It was very common-if you really wanted to drive home a point emphatically, you would make a promise. You would say, I swear to you by Heavens that Im going to do such and such or do thus and so. That was a common practice. You swear by an authority or power thats greater than yourself. He says, You dont need to do that. You dont need to go through all that drama. Simply do what you say youre going to do. Make your yes be yes and your no be no. By the way, thats important. He says, We can say no too. This isnt a message on boundaries. This would be a good sermon for another time, but its okay sometimes to say no. You can say no. He didnt just say have yes be yes, but you can say no and let your no be no as well. Hes saying, Keep your promises. You dont have to do all this elaborate drama. Just do what you say youre going to do and follow through. Be consistent. He says, …or you will be condemned. Thats not a reference to salvation at all. Hes not saying if you break a promise, youre going to go to hell. What hes saying is you will be brought into judgment. You are going to be held accountable for what you say. If you made a promise-and nobody twisted your arm and make your promise-youre going to be held accountable for that promise, and youre going to be judged if you break that promise. Ananias and Sapphira-nobody put a gun to their head and said, Sell your land and give all the money to the church. They did so out of the kindness of their hearts; they made that promise, but when they didnt follow through with that promise and kept a portion and gave some to the church and said it was all, they were held accountable for that promise they made. Thats what James is simply saying. Youll be condemned because if you speak it out, you will be held accountable to that promise. What weve been trying to do in this series in James is go back and find a Biblical example of what James is talking about. This morning, were going to look at Peter. I want you to turn to Matthew 26:31 (page 985 of pew Bibles). This is the aftermath of the Last Supper. They had just received the news that one of them would betray them-who was Judas-and Jesus had explained further about the cross and what His death would signify, what it would mean. They sang a hymn, they left the upper room, and they went to the Mount of Olives. Verse 31 says Jesus is going to tell them some more rather distributing news. He said to them, This very night, you will all fall away on account of Me, for it is written… And He quotes Zechariah, …I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. This was something they could not believe. Youre telling us that every one of us is going to desert you? Every one of us is going to fall away tonight? It seemed unfathomable, especially after the gathering they just had, the meal, the closeness, the intimacy, the love they felt for their Lord. To think now that they were going to scatter and leave Him in the time that He needed them the most, it just did not seem like that would happen. Verse 32, But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee. You know, its amazing, were going to see some promises in this Passage, but the only promise thats going to be kept is that one. That's quite a promise. You may have made some bold, audacious promises in your life; but youve never said to somebody, You know, after I die, Im going to come back to life; and you and I, were going to get together. Were going to go over to this city here. Were going to get together, and were going to have some coffee. Were going to talk, me and you, after I rise from the dead. Youve never made a promise like that. If you would, you couldnt keep it. The only promise made is the one that after I rise from the dead, I will meet you in Galilee. That promise was kept. These other promises would not be kept. Peter replied, Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will. Thats promise number one. I never will. I dont care. What hes saying isnt so much, Jesus, Youre lying. Its, Jesus, Youre wrong, and Im going to correct You. This is not the first time that hes brought correction to Jesus. When Jesus first announced that He was going to the cross, Peter said, Oh, this will never happen to You. No way! Ill make sure that doesnt happen to you. So here he is a second time correcting Jesus. Now, Ive seen You walk on water. Ive seen You calm the sea. Ive seen You feed thousands with a few fish and a few loaves of bread. Ive even watched You raise a man who was four days dead from the grave, but Youre wrong on this one. Im going to correct You here. Jesus is going to correct him. Hes not only going to say emphatically that what He said is correct-He is going to give Peter explicit details about that event. He said, I tell you the truth, Jesus answered, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown Me three times. He lays out all the specifics-tonight, before morning, before you hear a rooster crow, Youre going to deny Me, and youre going to do that three times. Talk about specific detail. He said, All these things are going to happen, and theyre going to happen tonight. That will correct Peter, right? Peter will say, Okay, well, if Youre that sure about it-You know all those details, then I must be wrong, but we all know Peter. But Peter declared, Even if I have to die with You, I will never disown You. And all the other Disciples said the same. He made another promise. I will never disown You. I will die for You, and that promise he would keep. He would die for Christ, but not that night-not that time. All the Disciples, they mean well and their intentions are good, but they said the same thing. Yeah, were with Peter on this one. We will not do what You say. Do you realize that Peter just made a promise he couldnt keep? Every time you sin, you deny Jesus. Did you know that? Every time you and I make a decision to go contrary to the Will of God, we are disowning Christ. Were saying, For this moment, at this time, Im not living with You as my Lord. That's what sin does. Sin denies the Lordship of Christ. Every single person in this room has denied Christ many times by the things that weve done in our lives. You cannot make a promise that you will never sin again. If you try to make that promise, the only way thats going to get fulfilled is if you get killed right away when you leave the church because the longer you live, and sooner rather than later, that promise gets broken. Peter could not make this promise not to deny Christ because he was a fallen human being. Sin denies the Lordship of Christ. One of the key principles in keeping promises that I want to share with you today from Gods Word is not making promises we cant keep will help us to keep the promises that we make. Ill say it another time because it might take a second for that to really hit home. Not making promises we cannot keep will help us to keep the promises we make. Dont make promises you cant keep. Its foolish. Sometimes we overestimate our abilities. We give ourselves a little bit too much credit. We bite off more than we can chew. Those of you whove said youve broken promises, I guarantee you some of you have made promises-its not that you didnt have an intention to keep them. You fully well intended to keep it. You werent trying to deliberately deceive. You meant what you said, but your promise was too grandiose. It wasnt realistic, so the end result is the same. You broke the promise; it was a loss of integrity. Im not saying dont make promises. James isnt saying that. Hes saying make promises, but when you make promises, make sure you can follow through. If you are married today, you made a promise. If you are a Christian today, youve made a promise. At some point in time, you received Christ and said, I promise to live for You. We make promises all the time. Im not saying, Dont make a promise, but make promises that you can keep. Dont make grandiose promises that you have no chance of keeping. Thats somewhat similar to the next point. Peter is caught up in the emotion of the moment. This has been an up and down day. Were going to deny. Somebody is going to betray you. Were all going to leave and abandon you, so Peter was caught up in the moment when he made this emotional promise. Dont make promises based on your emotions. If you make promises based on emotion, theres a really good chance youre not going to be able to follow through. Usually those are spontaneous. Theyre passionate, but theyre spontaneous, and youve not thought it through. Youve not thought through the consequences. Somebody is weeping and crying. They come to you for help. Before you even hear what theyre crying about-youre caught up in the emotion-and they say, Promise you wont tell this to anybody. You say, Okay, I promise, because youre caught up in the emotion. Then they tell you something that you definitely need to tell somebody. If somebody has broken the law, you cant keep that a secret. I had a family member send me a text that said, I have to tell you something bad that happened. Do you promise you wont tell anybody? Its like, Oh, no. What happened? We didnt have the conversation on the text by the way. It was just trying to set up a time to call, and I said, Do you understand I cant make that promise until I know what it is that youre about to tell me? We get caught up in emotion. These are the Zacchaeus kinds of promises. The Lord comes to Zacchaeus house. Zacchaeus is a tax collector who rips people off. He comes to Christ. He has a change of heart. He stands up and announces to anybody, If I have wronged anybody of anything, I will pay back… It would have been enough to say everything Ive wronged them. That would have been sufficient or to say, I will pay them back twice as much. Everybody would have said, Wow, Zacchaeus, thats really generous, but Zacchaeus gets caught up in the emotion. He said, I will pay back four times what Ive taken. Nobody made him say that, but now that hes said it, he is accountable to that promise; and its in emotion. You and I have done that. Weve been caught up in emotion and made promises; so that our yes is not yes, and our no is not no because we made a promise in a moment of an emotional frenzy. It was my first day on the job when I was a youth pastor, and I was fresh out of school. The ink on my degree was still wet. I was giving my first official sermon to my youth group. I had given a lot of freebees, but this was the real deal. I was going to get paid for this one. I was on the clock. I was officially full-time at this church; and among other things, I had to be the pastor to this group of teenagers. It was my first official sermon, and I wanted to make it a good one. I was basically going to unload everything Id learned, or try to, in one session. These teenagers gathered down in the basement, and I dont remember exactly what my sermon was, but you were probably there, Im guessing. I stood up and I said to them in sincerity and genuineness while holding up a list of their names, I will pray for you guys by name every single day. That is how committed I am to this youth group. That is how committed I am to being your pastor. I am going to name you by name every single day. Im going to pray for you personally every day. They had to be thinking, Wow, this guy really loves us! Thats really something! It was a good thing nobody ever asked me about that promise because I think I kept it like one day. Its not that I didnt pray for our youth group; its not that I didnt pray for kids along the way, but getting out that list and going through every name… I just felt kinda guilty, Oh, I didnt do that today. I have to do that tomorrow because I said I would. I made that promise. Nobody made me. Nobody forced me to, but now I was accountable. Its amazing how many times the Lord-not in a condemning way-reminds me about that promise that I broke. Somebody will say, Pastor, would you pray for this? Oh, yeah. Ill pray for that. Anybody here ever had somebody say, Pray for this. Pray for that? You said yes, and you didnt [do it]. Okay. I have. I learned through that. Its like, I better pray now. If I say Im going to pray, lets pray now. So Ill either pray with them on the spot or try to pray as Im walking away. A friend of mine who lives out in New Jersey, we trash talk football all weekend-for college and pros. I just trash talk him a little bit and tease him, Why dont you come and be a Badger fan and like a real football team for a change? and things like that. He said, Seriously, now, I was at the Rutgers game. There was a young man who broke his neck or had a spinal injury and is paralyzed. Would you pray for him? Would you ask your congregation to pray for him? I said, Yeah, yeah, Tom. Ill do that. As soon as I sent that text, I stopped and I prayed. I prayed for him. I prayed for his family. I prayed for the one who had caused the injury, if it was another player. I didnt know, but I just prayed for that situation. He texted me back and said, His name is Eric LeGrand. Im going to donate to the fund set up in his name. I was able to say back, Yeah, Tom, thanks. I already prayed for him, and Ill mention that to the congregation tomorrow. So you can pray for Eric LeGrand, the young man who is now paralyzed from the football game. We have to follow through with what we say. Lets see what happens to Peter. He makes this grandiose promise. He is caught up in the emotion of the moment. What will happen? Of course we know whats going to happen. In Lukes Gospel 22:54 (page 1045 of pew Bibles), were going to read a couple more principles that will help our yes to be yes and our no to be no. It will help us to keep our promises. Then seizing Him… Jesus. …they led Him away and took Him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. When they kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. A servant girl saw him seated in the firelight. She looked closely at him, studied him and probably made him uncomfortable. She probably made him a little fidgety like, She looks like she recognizes me. She looks like she knows who I am. He was trying to look away. He was trying to avoid eye contact with her. She says, This man was with Him. Peter heard it. He denied it. Woman, I dont know Him, he said. A little later someone else saw him and said, You also are one of them. Man, I am not! Peter replied. About an hour later, another asserted, Certainly this fellow was with Him, for he is a Galilean. How did he know that? From his accent. Galileans had a strong accent. If youre with somebody from Boston, you know youre with somebody from Boston. If its New York, you know youre with somebody from New York. Chicago? Those hardliners that live downtown, they really do talk like that (Pastor Jeff is throwing some Chicago Bears words out with the Chicago accent here). They seriously talk like that. If youre with somebody from the South, Yall, yah. Good to see yall. Good to see ye. Yup, yup. So he picked up on Peters accent. He said, Hes a Galilean. Hes with Jesus. Peter replied, Man, I dont know what youre talking about! Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: Before the rooster crows today, you will disown Me three times. And he went outside and wept bitterly. I bet you the look Jesus gave was not an I told you so look. I bet it was not a condemning look. I think it was a look of hurt. I think it was similar to the look that Levi gave Pastor Jesse when he told that story about forgetting his blanket. Well get back to that in a minute. It was a how could you? These people around Me, theyre My enemies. They hate Me. They want to destroy Me, but you are My friend. Youve been the most vocal about partnering with Me in life and in death. How could you of all people? I bet it was a look of hurt. You and I have experienced that when we broke a promise to somebody we loved. Weve seen the pain in their eyes, the remorse that we feel, and the shame that we feel in that moment. Imagine if you did that to your Savior, to His face. Like I said, weve all done it-but to His face… Peter weeps. Theres an important principle here, and that is that we should regard our small promises as important as our big promises because there are no small promises. You ask what I mean by that. Im not connecting the dots between what you just said and the story we just read. I want you to hark back to what Peter said in Matthew. In Matthew, Peter said, I am willing to die for You right now. Whats he talking about? Hes talking about going to the high priest, testifying before the high priest, testifying before Herod, testifying before Pilot, and if necessary, he will die with Jesus. Hes saying, I will stand before governors, I will stand before kings, I will stand before high priests and testify to You. Though it cost me my life, if I have to stand before the big dogs, You can count on me. I will not disown You. He is prepared to stand up before the big dogs, but he stumbled when it came to the little servant girl. She didnt count; she was just a little servant girl. I dont have to keep my promise to her. See all three people that he denies Christ to-in Peters mind, they dont count. Hes probably not even thinking about what Jesus said. Hes not even thinking about disowning Christ because theyre nobody. We dont know their names. Theyre insignificant. She was either common labor-probably very young, probably a teenage girl. What does she matter? These other guys, we dont know who they are. Theyre not important people. Peter didnt have to keep his promise to them. All promises big and small reflect on your character. In fact if you break enough small promises, theres a greater chance you will break bigger promises. So guess what? There are no small promises. Pastor Jesse, you know his sons blanket-in the scheme of things, that's not that big of a deal, right? Its a little boy and his blanket. Lets all just scowl at Jesse right now. No, as parents weve all done that. Ive done my share of letting down my kids, and Ill continue doing that because were human beings. That was a small promise, but it wasnt small to him, right? There are no such things as small promises. He looked at them and said, Theyre insignificant. Ill stand before kings and testify, but in front of this little slave girl, it doesnt matter. It mattered to Jesus, didnt it? Jesus says, One, two, three. That counts. The rooster crows. Eye contact was made, and the message hit home. Be a people-if you name the name of Christ-to keep your integrity. Keep the small things too, and remember there are no small things. Number four, this is important: Be careful the company you keep because they influence your character. Be careful who you hang around with. Be careful who you spend time with. If you spend time with the wrong people, and they are not people of a high moral standard, its going to rub off on you. Who was Peter with at this time? Look at Verse 55, But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. Who is the they that kindled the fire? Who is the them that he sat down with? The enemies of Jesus. These are the people who were trying to destroy his Savior. Now you say, Well, you know, hes not agreeing with them. Hes not chiming in with them. Hes not siding with them, but he is cut off from Jesus. He is cut off from the other Disciples. Theyre not there. He is isolated from fellowship. Hes with people who are enemies of Christ, and it doesnt take long before his morals start to decline. In fact, Matthews Gospel tells us that when that third guy comes up to him and says, Youre one of them, Peter swears, and that time it did mean swear and cuss. Peter says, Oh, you think Im a follower of Jesus, ha? Would a follow of Jesus say this, I blankety blank dont know Him! So blankety blank, dont say I do, blankety blank! Well, you must not be him then. If youre going to cuss like that, then you must not be whom we think you are because we thought followers of Jesus were pretty squeaky clean; and, boy, with a mouth like that, we must have the wrong guy. So hes not apart from Jesus and the other Disciples for very long, and hes already compromising with the words that come out of his mouth, and hes already breaking the promises that he said to the Lord. Be careful who you spend time with. Now we have to balance that. We know were to reach out to people who dont know the Lord. We know were not to just be friends with people who are in the church. You understand that; this is common sense. What Im talking about is if you are spending much of your time with people who dont know the Lord, you have to be careful in what rubs off of you, the environment that you find yourself in. Make sure that you dont isolate yourself from your Christian brothers and sisters in Christ, that youre spending time with your brothers and sisters in Christ because theyre going to set an example for you. They can hold you accountable. I want to share a story about how sometimes this can cost us something. There was a young man who just had gotten out of college. Hed sent out his resumes but hadnt yet gotten a job. He finally found a job; it wasnt in his field, but he found a job in electronics. The job promised to pay well. There was a base salary, but then there was a commission. According to the boss, you could make a lot of money, so he took the job. He showed up for work and training began. The boss began telling him some of the tricks of the trade. He taught him about the bait and switch. Were advertising this; were going to sell them that. He talked about making promises that he couldnt keep. If we think were going to make a sale, and its not here, even if its going to come in a month-its on backorder for a month-tell them it will come in this week. Make the sale. He talked about even switching some components from time to time. What he was basically saying is your yes shouldnt be yes, and your no shouldnt be no. In other words, lie, deceive, or tell half truths. Do whatever you have to do to make the sale. He said, I have a problem with that. That's really hard for me to do. He said, Listen, thats how youre going to survive. Im not trying to cut down electronic salesman, Im sure youre a fine electronic salesperson; but this particular guy was corrupt. The company was corrupt. He said, Thats what everybody does. If you want to survive, you want to make the commission… Do you know what so-and-so made last week? He made this amount of money! Wow! You could make that amount of money too! Maybe youll even make more, but you know youre competing against not only the other electronic stores, but everybody in this room is a salesman too. If you dont do it, they will, and youre not going to make enough money to survive! You think about what Im saying to you! He said, Okay, I will. He goes home that night, and he thinks about it. He prays about it, and he says, No. No, Im a Christian, and I have to guard my integrity. Its not for sale. Im not going to tell people lies! If I say yes, if I say this is true, Im going to stand behind it. Im not going to let the dollar sign buy my integrity. Im going to be a truthful person. Im going to live consistently with my faith. So he told that to his boss. Do you know what the boss said? Get out of my store! Youre fired! Listen, I dont need choir boys working for me! Why dont you go be a preacher or something! Why dont you just leave here and go to seminary or something? Youre in the wrong business, pal! The bell went off, and he said, I might just do that, and so he did. He went to seminary in Minnesota. He got a job as a youth pastor in Rockford and became one of my best friends in youth ministry, Pastor Jeff from Temple Baptist Church. Ill never forget that story he shared with me. He said, Thats how I got in the ministry. I got fired from a job because I wouldnt lie. The guy said, You know, you should just be a preacher! Maybe I should! and he did. And he still is somewhere. We lost touch since I moved away. He is a senior pastor somewhere in America. But he had to be careful. He said, You know, if I start to hang around here… It cost him his job, but he said, My integrity is worth more. Normally when you and I see a skit with skit guys in it, its funny. We laugh. This time, were going to watch a skit from the skit guys, and its a serious one with a serious message about what weve talked about today. http://skitguys.com/videos/item/identity/ Lets take a listen to it. Father, all of us in this room have compromised our faith from time to time. Weve all done and said things that weve regretted. Weve broken promises. Weve had to make amends. Weve tried to. In tarnishing our reputation, weve tarnished Yours. We ask for Your forgiveness this morning. Were not here making some bold, outlandish promise that well never sin again. Father, help us to make a commitment to integrity, to make a commitment to prevention; and, Father, we strive to be a people whose yes is yes and whose no is no, who keep our promises-even the difficult ones, even when circumstances are hard. Even when circumstances change, we honor what weve said. We need Your strength and Your Holy Spirit to equip us, enable us and empower us to be people who keep promises. We thank You, Lord, that Youve kept Your promise to us, that You promised to never leave us nor forsake us. For those of us today who are racked with guilt, feeling sorry for or remorseful about what weve done, things in our past, God, Youre a God of restoration. You offer forgiveness, a new start, and a new life in Christ. By faith, I pray theyd receive that forgiveness today, that grace today to know that You love them just the same-just like You restored Peter, just like You gave him another opportunity to serve, and this time hed keep it. Peter finally would surrender his life. He would refuse to bow before Emperor Nero to deny his Lord and Master. History tells us he would be crucified upside down because he did not deem himself worthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. So, today, I pray for the one who may be struggling with guilt right now and saying they failed You. Lord, their story wont end that way. Youve give them another opportunity for redemption so Your grace will prevail in their lives. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.