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Each week at The Shepherd’s Church, we preach short homilies on the law of God and have decided to share those here as a resource to the people of God. This week, the command to not to bear false witness.
When somebody sins against us, we can become so attached to what they did wrong that we actually can refuse to see what they are beginning to do right. We remember the offense. We remember how it hurt.
We probably have rehearsed the story in our head so many times that we could tell it in our sleep. But what happens when that person begins to repent? When he acknowledges what he did or she asked for forgiveness.
And over time, there's actual evidence that the Lord is beginning to work in their life. What happens then? That's where you and I can begin to discover something really ugly about ourselves. Because sometimes we don't actually want a person's repentance.
We don't want their restoration as much as we wanna be right. And we want them to admit how right we actually were. And then we weaponize their guilt because it's become useful to us. And oftentimes this can explain why we're bitter.
Because their past sins gives us something to bring up when we're losing an argument. And it allows us to talk about his sins or her sins whenever we would rather avoiding dealing with our sins. Now, the ninth commandment says, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
And according to the Westminster larger catechism, that also includes freely acknowledging their own gifts and graces. The catechism also forbids denying the gifts and graces of God in someone else's life.
Which means that when a person has sinned, but then God produces real genuine fruit of repentance in their life, we have an obligation biblically to acknowledge it. Even when we don't like the person, maybe especially then.
Even when that person has hurt us. Even when admitting that they have grown means that we have to stop telling the story about how they hurt us in the same old way we've been telling it. Consider what Paul says in Galatians 1.
The church has heard about this man who persecuted them and put people to death and actually oversaw the death of Stephen. The church hears about it and that's what Paul says. And they were glorifying God because of me.
These people had real reason to hate Paul, to fear Paul. He had persecuted Christians. He had approved of Stephen's death. He had left gaping wounds in the church of Jesus Christ. And yet when they heard what God had done inside of him, they glorified God.
They could acknowledge his dreadful past and still give thanks for his glorious conversion. The question is, can we do that? When your husband begins addressing the very thing that you've been talking about for years, do you acknowledge his progress?
Or do you keep saying that he never listens? When your child begins taking responsibility, do you encourage him? Or have you called him lazy so many times that you barely notice that he's working? When a sister receives correction and then begins putting her life in order, are you thankful for it?
Or do you immediately begin looking for reasons why it cannot possibly be sincere? You said, well, she just needs to apologize. Well, then she apologized. And you said, well, words are cheap. I need to see some fruit.
Well, then the fruit came. Ah, she's just putting on a show. I need to see consistency. And on and on and on, we move the goalpost. At some point, we need to ask ourself the question, what evidence would you actually accept?
Because if you've prejudged her sincerity beforehand, there's nothing that she, he, or they could do to ever convince you otherwise, to change the bitterness that you feel. And that is a serious problem for those of us who say that we love God and that we love truth.
John says, if you say that you love your brother, or if you say you love God and you hate your brother, the truth of God is not in you. Jesus said, they will know the reality of who I am based off how we love one another.
Now, none of that means that an apology fixes anything quickly. Repentance doesn't erase every consequence. And acknowledging someone's growth doesn't require us to give them back responsibilities that they have lost or that they're no longer qualified to hold.
But whatever is good, whatever is lovely, and whatever is true, and whatever is repentance in a brother or sister, we have a right and a responsibility to acknowledge it and to stop nursing our bitternesses because they're useful to us.
In whatever way that applies, in whatever way you have not forgiven someone, in whatever way that you've held something over someone, in whatever way that you have nursed your pain instead of releasing it and forgiving, let us repent.
Let us come to the throne of grace and lay those things down, those chains that encumber us, and let us rise together afterwards, free of all those things that weigh us down. Amen? Let's pray. Lord, there's so many ways for us to bear a false witness.
Can bear a false witness against someone and say that they did something that they didn't. We can also refuse to acknowledge the repentance, the spirit moving, even the small incremental progress that our brother and sister has made.
There's times, Lord, where we are just flat out wrong and sinful in the way that we hold things over people, especially, especially because you have not treated us that way. At the cross, you took our ugliest and you took it upon yourself and you healed us of the awful things that we have done.
Lord, may it not be that we would ever hold something over someone's head when you didn't hold ours over ours. Lord, may we have tender hearts. May we forgive where it needs to be forgiven. May we acknowledge progress where it needs to be acknowledged.
And Lord, may we have peace and unity in our homes and our relationships and in this church. Forgive us as we fall short of these things, Father, and by your spirit, help us to grow in these things. In Jesus' name, amen.
Thank you for listening to this homily on the law of God from our covenant renewal worship this past Lord's Day. We publish these messages each week because we believe that God loves his law and far from throwing it away, we believe that the death and resurrection of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit will actually help us learn to love and obey God's law.
And that's our prayer for you, that as you chew on these expositions each week, that you would both learn to love and come into alignment with the law of God. And we pray that you would do that by the spirit's power through the finished work of Christ and to the glory of God.
And with that, God bless you.