The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth, II

Scripture Texts: Exodus 20:16; Colossians 3:9-10; Ephesians 4:15-16

Heidelberg Catechism: Lord’s Day 43

The Third Commandment, “you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain,” protects God’s name.  God desires to have a good name among His creatures and to protect His name from dishonor.

The Ninth Commandment protects our neighbor’s good name.  What God wants for Himself, He also wants for us.  God desires every person to have a good name and to be held in honor.

And the truth be told, what He wants for us we also want.  We want the truth.  We want it in our presidents, in our politicians, in our judges, in our businessmen, in our mechanic, in our newspapers, in our neighbors and in our pastor.

I have heard people who have had their home broken into and robbed describe it as a feeling of being violated.  It’s a serious infringement on our rights and our security.

We feel the same way with someone steals our honor or our reputation or our good name.  We are afraid of the same thing happening through identity theft.  We want to know the truth and be told the truth and have the truth told about us.

So that is what we want to focus on this evening, what you and I can do to uphold and further the truth in our little corner of the world.

Let me circle back to something I said at the end of my last sermon about gender pronouns and what a conversation could look like with such a person.

“I care about you as a person made in the image of God and I truly want to respect you, but I also need to honor my God. I believe God created people as either male or female, and that gender-specificity is part of the His good, created order. I will be as respectful of you as I can and am glad to call you by any name you want, but I’m asking you to also respect my religious beliefs and freedoms. I don’t believe I can refer to you with gender-neutral pronouns and be faithful to God. I would love to get to know you better and hear your story and share with you mine.”