Creatures of Habit | Lying | Drew Sherman

♪ You were ♪ ♪ To lend onto my feet ♪ ♪ Your way ♪ ♪ It's the only way for me ♪ ♪ It's a narrow road that leads to life ♪ ♪ But I wanna be on it ♪ ♪ It's a narrow road to mercy is white ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're gonna be promised ♪ ♪ I'll take you at your work ♪ ♪ And say that I'll be leaving ♪ ♪ You've seen how good it were ♪ ♪ You saw that you're complaining ♪ ♪ I'll take you at your work ♪ ♪ You spoke in the chaos fell in line ♪ ♪ But I know, 'cause I've seen it in my life ♪ ♪ It's a narrow road that leads to life ♪ ♪ But I wanna be on it ♪ ♪ It's a narrow road to mercy is white ♪ ♪ But you're part of the water ♪ ♪ I'll take you at your work ♪ ♪ And say that I'll be leaving ♪ ♪ I'll see how good it was ♪ ♪ You saw that you're complaining ♪ ♪ I'll take you at your work ♪ ♪ I'll take you at your work ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ You said your love will never give up ♪ ♪ You said your grace is always enough ♪ ♪ You said your heart will never forget or forsake me ♪ ♪ You said I'll say you'll call me yours ♪

♪ You said my futures above your hope ♪ ♪ You've never failed ♪ ♪ So I know that you'll never fail me ♪ ♪ I'll take you at your work ♪ ♪ You said it I'll be leaving ♪ ♪ I've seen how good it was ♪ ♪ You saw that you're complaining ♪ ♪ I'll take you at your work ♪ ♪ You said I'll be leaving ♪ ♪ I've seen how good it was ♪ ♪ You saw that you're complaining ♪ ♪ I'll take you at your work ♪ ♪ I'll take you at your work ♪ ♪ I'll take you at your work ♪ ♪ I'll deliver it in the bottom color ♪ ♪ Faithful promise it is ♪ ♪ Time and time again ♪ ♪ You left room ♪ ♪ You did just what you said ♪ ♪ You know the storms may come ♪ ♪ And the winds may go away ♪ ♪ 'Cause it has been my heart ♪ ♪ And when you sleep alone ♪ ♪ Two times ♪ ♪ Brave is your faithfulness ♪ ♪ To me ♪ ♪ Brave is your faithfulness ♪ ♪ To me ♪ ♪ From the rising sun to the setting ♪ ♪ Same how it breaks, you're leaving ♪

♪ If faith falls to me ♪ ♪ God finds one in the earth we pass away ♪ ♪ The world awaits us soon ♪ ♪ Lest I can prove there's nothing I can do ♪ ♪ It will win true ♪ ♪ The storms may open ♪ ♪ And the winds may go off ♪ ♪ They stand at us ♪ ♪ And then my heart will break away ♪ ♪ The power to rise ♪ ♪ Wait and pray for us to reign ♪ ♪ Wait and pray for us to reign ♪ ♪ The rising sun to the sea ♪ ♪ Say how great we are ♪ ♪ Wait and pray for us to reign ♪ ♪ There's so crazy God ♪ ♪ Is every person free the world ♪ ♪ We're not trusting God ♪ ♪ I put my faith in Jesus ♪ ♪ My anger to the ground ♪ ♪ My hope and for foundation ♪ ♪ You never let me down ♪ ♪ I put my faith in Jesus ♪ ♪ My anger to the ground ♪ ♪ My hope and for foundation ♪ ♪ You never let me down ♪ ♪ I put my faith in Jesus ♪ ♪ My anger to the ground ♪ ♪ My hope and for foundation ♪ ♪ You never let me down ♪

♪ You never let me down ♪ ♪ Wait and pray for us to reign ♪ ♪ Wait and pray for us to reign ♪ ♪ To be from the rising sun ♪ ♪ To the setting safe ♪ ♪ I'll pray to the earth ♪ ♪ Wait and pray for us to reign ♪ ♪ Wait and pray for us to reign ♪ ♪ Wait and pray for us to reign ♪ ♪ From the rising sun ♪ ♪ To the setting safe ♪ ♪ I'll pray for you to reign ♪ ♪ Wait and pray for us to reign ♪ (gentle music) - God, we worship you now, and we pray. (gentle music) ♪ I call you faithful ♪ ♪ For the promises you've kept ♪ ♪ And then you met ♪ ♪ Lord, I'm so grateful ♪ ♪ You were with me every step ♪ ♪ And I never forget ♪ ♪ When I think of how you bless me ♪ ♪ How you let us never let me go ♪ ♪ Never let me go ♪ ♪ You have been so good to me ♪ ♪ God, I can't believe how you love me ♪ ♪ What a friend you have been ♪ ♪ So good to me ♪ ♪ God, I can't believe how you love me ♪

I know you're a label, and my eyes don't have to see one more reason to believe when I think of how you bless me, how you'll end is never let me go, never let me go, you have been. So good to me, God I can't believe how you love me, what a friend you love me, so good to me, God I can't believe how you love me, what a friend you love me. What a friend you love me, for every morning, for every open door, I call you faithful, I just want to thank you Lord, for every mountain, for every time you brought me through. I call you faithful, I just want to thank you Lord, for your forgiveness, for I can never turn away, I call you faithful, I just want to thank you Lord, for your salvation. You paid the price I couldn't leave, I call you faithful, I just want to thank you Lord, I just want to thank you Lord, for your forgiveness. Lord, baby, so good to me, God I can't believe how you love me, what a friend you love me, so good to me, God I can't believe how you love me. So good to me, God I can't believe how you love me, what a friend you have been, so good to me, God I can't believe how you love me, what a friend you love me. Well hey everyone, welcome to Compass, our mission is navigating people to God. I'm so glad that you're with us today and we are in this series called Creatures of Habit and we are challenging you to renew your habits and rewrite your story because our lives are a culmination of habits, good or bad, and it's important to understand that those habits will become part of our identity and ultimately part of our reputation. And I'm out of the country for a couple of weeks preparing to meet 40 of our Compass friends in Greece for that amazing footsteps of Paul to her, but I really wanted to share today's message with you, which hopefully speaks to its level of importance today. And we're talking about something that unfortunately all of us can relate to lying, and I want to start with a question today, this is a tough question, especially to ask in church, right? For those of you that are online you get a little bit of a break, but how many of you show of hands would say that you've told a lie in the last 24 hours, just raise your hand, maybe even a little white lie, maybe just a fib, maybe even an exaggeration. didn't put their hands up, turn to them and say, "Adzar, you're probably lying. You're probably lying." Or if you didn't raise your hand, you can say, "Adzar, we're probably lying." I'm not saying for sure, I'm not calling you a liar, but studies show that the average person lies about four times a day, four times a day. In fact, according to a University of Massachusetts study, 60% of people cannot have a 10-minute conversation with a new person that they've just met without telling a lie, 60%. Pamela Myers, the author of Lie Spotting, she claims in her TED talk that we're facing a pandemic of deception. We are lied to between 10 and 200 times a day. Teachers expect to hear, "My dog ate my homework." A policeman expects to hear, "I think my speedometer is off." When the dentist asks you if you've been flossing, "What do you tell him or her?" Because they can tell by looking at your teeth, "Man, I'm telling you." They can tell if you're flossing, "Trust me." We lie on social media. I mean, we can take 100 picks before we get the right one, photoshopped, and filtered

up. Someone on social media says, "Hey, you look great." We say, "I know, and it only took me 27 minutes to get this picture right." I mean, if you don't believe me, here's a pick of me after a few filters and some creative photoshopping. Don't I look amazing in this great? All right? I mean, I don't care who you are, that's funny, right? But what isn't funny is how God feels about lying. And we learn about that early on in Scripture, Proverbs 12, verse 22, I think it says it all, "The Lord detests lying lips, the Lord he detests lying lips, but he delights in those who tell the truth." That word "detests" is one of the strongest words used in the Bible. The idea, when you look up that Hebrew word, it's so disgusting. It means it turns his stomach. And what that means is that lying literally makes God sick, and it's understandable. Some of the most terrific tragedies in human history have been played out through a lie. The slavery of men and women from Africa happened because masses of people believed a lie that these people created by God were somehow inferior, just an absolute lie of the enemy. The Holocaust was built on a lie that Jewish people were inferior to those in Germany. Millions were slaughtered because masses of people believed a lie. And when masses are deceived, normally good and well-meaning people can start living and behaving in the pattern of a lie. Think about the early stages of America. We flew the flag of freedom, but women were not allowed to vote because there was the lie that men were somehow more intelligent than women. I can tell you, never in human history has this ever been true. My wife on her dumbest day is absolutely smarter than I am, hands down. That premise was built on a lie, and we know how God feels about it. But look at how Jesus describes his character in John 14 verse 6.

He doesn't say I speak truth, he just says I am the way and I am the truth. In other words, he didn't conform to some standard of truth, he is the standard. And as children of God, we're called to exemplify Jesus by making truth a priority. On the other hand, when it comes to the devil, Jesus said this, and I want you to lock in here right now because I think this is so significant. John chapter 8 verse 44, it says this, he's talking about the enemy, our enemy, the devil. He says when he lies, he speaks his native language, his native tongue, for he is a liar and he is the father of lies. So essentially, Jesus is saying when we lie, we are never more like the devil. His native language is lying, and his purpose is to lure you and I away from the truth, which we just learned is Jesus himself. Pastor Craig Groschel says this, he says, the devil's three-fold plan is to, number one, get you to lie, number two, to get you to lie to yourself, and number three, to get you to live a lie. And I want to spend some time today breaking that down for us. As we think about this idea... It's a very dangerous habit in our life. So the first goal of the enemy is to get you to lie. He wants you to speak his native language, and his native language has many dialects. It takes on many forms. One form of lying is when we tell a partial truth or withhold the truth. You might remember, I don't know if you've seen the movie, something's got to give, and there's a scene where Diane Keaton catches the man that she loves who's played by Jack Nicholson out on a date with another woman. And she runs out of the restaurant,

she's so upset, and Jack Nicholson is chasing after her, and he finally catches up to her, and he says to her, "I've never lied to you. "I've always told you some version of the truth." And she says, "The truth doesn't have versions." She's right. There's no such thing as a version of the truth. If you want a current example of this, see any news source these days. It's just pathetic. Just listen to any of the major cable news networks, and you will hear partial truths or half truths all day and all night long on both sides. Makes no difference. On social media, we hear a half truth, or maybe we have no idea if it's even true, but we will repost it on Facebook, or we'll retweet it on Twitter, or Xs that's now called, or post it on Instagram, because it supports our political persuasion, or our passion. And often, we don't fact check the source, because it will serve us best if it's true. We don't really care if it's true, as long as it serves our passions. We don't care what Snoop says, because it supports my persuasion. And if we're involved in that friend, we're culpable. We're speaking his native language. We're lying.

What about slander or gossip? Proverbs 17, 4, covers both. It says this, "Wrong doers eagerly listen to gossip, liars pay close attention to slander." Man, I can't even tell you how much slander hurts a person. When you say something about someone that's completely untrue, and then they don't have a chance to defend themselves, today, we, and especially teenagers, have to deal with cyberbullying all the time. Someone posting mean, hurtful, false stuff for all the world to see. And the emotional wounds that those words can cause is unspeakable. I talked to a father just two weeks ago. He was sitting in my office, and he was recounting with tears, the story of his daughter when she was in high school. And there was a jealous peer that spread an untruth about her on social media. It was not true. And that was several years ago, and she still hasn't gotten over it. And it absolutely changed the trajectory of her life. So much so that she blames God for that incident and wants nothing to do with faith, all because of slander, all because of a lie. Proverbs 15-4 shows the end game.

A deceitful tongue crushes the spirit. And in our day, it's crazy. We have a chance to slander people more immediately and more effectively than ever in the history of the world because of technology. Communication is instant, global, and permanent, because even if you pull the tweet or the pic or the post, someone might have taken a screenshot and reposted it to a dozen different outlets. In an instant, you can get upset and fire off an unfair and unsubstantiated post that would destroy someone. And let's just talk for a moment about self-examination in that area. Think about all the text or the tweets or the emails or social media posts or blogs, whatever that you've put out there for the world to see. Now, I want you to lay on that on top of the words of Jesus in Matthew 12. Here's what Jesus said, listen to this. But I tell you the truth, that everyone will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words, you will be acquitted and by your words, you will be condemned. This is Jesus speaking, these are red letter words. How many of you just had a slight panic attack when you heard that? You must give an account for every careless word that you speak.

Believe me, as someone who speaks for a living, I'm certainly fearful of this verse. I have to be careful of what I say and what I teach. I need to have a healthy fear of what Jesus is saying here. Now, some of us are a little more crafty than that, and Christians are classic at this. We spread gossip packaged as a prayer request. We say, hey, I'm only telling you this so that you'll pray. I just hope you'll pray for my friend. I mean, here's the truth. And it hurts the heart of God. And I know it can be fun to be in the know. And you might feel tempted to just justify the gossip by saying, no, no, it's true. I know for a fact, it's true. Well, sometimes gossip says things that are untrue. And sometimes it says things that are true with a heart that is untrue. But either way, gossip is hurtful and it's damaging information with the intent to hurt someone's reputation. It's emotionally meant to wound. It might be true, but it is not loving. And remember this, friend, don't forget this. If someone will gossip to you, they will definitely gossip about you. If someone will gossip to you, they will definitely gossip about you. So think about that next time you dish some gossip out. What about cheating? When a student cheats on a test, he or she is lying to his teacher. When a salesperson writes down more expenses than they've incurred, they're lying to their employer. When someone falsifies expenses on their tax return, they're lying to the government. What about exaggerating?

This is when you overstate the truth to look good personally and you try to convince someone to do something that you want them to do. You're upset with a neighbor, so you say to them, "Hey, I think you need to know this. All the neighbors are upset about this." Really are they all upset about it or is it just you? Or you overstate your experience on your resume? Or you hyperbolize what someone has done to you to exaggerate, it takes the truth and turns it into a bit of an untruth? Flattery is a form of lying, flattery. That is when you tell someone what you think will make them feel good to gain an advantage for yourself, right? Most people are wise to it, but it's easy to fall for this type of deception, right? We say to someone, "Oh, you're amazing. You look incredible. You're so smart and talented. Have you lost weight? I think you've lost weight. I wish I could be like you, but we don't always mean it, and we're not always being truthful in our intent, and we're manipulating in order to get something that we want." Psalm 12 says, "Neighbors lie to each other speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts." It's a double-tongued person that does this. You're not loving the person you're using the person. You aren't helping. You're ultimately harming. Here's another one you might not have thought about. What about silence? What about silence? Maybe you hear something that you know is not true, but you remain silent. You argue, "I didn't lie to you.

I just didn't tell you." Well, while you may not have told them an outright lie, by purposely leaving out important information, you've misled them. To know the truth and not speak up is a form of lying. It's complicity by passivity. What about broken promises? We don't think about this as being a lie, but it is. Whether it's a promise to pay a dad or a promise to take your kids to the zoo or a promise to be faithful to your spouse, when you don't keep your word, it's a lie. I heard one person define integrity as simply doing what you say you're going to do. All of these things that we just looked at, they are all dialects of the devil's native language to get you to lie and to lure you away from the truth, which is Jesus. So he wants to get you to lie, and secondly, the second plan of the enemy is to get you to lie to yourself, to get you to lie to yourself. So you'll start rationalizing lies, and then you have to double down on lies, and you lie so often you start to believe your own lies. I read a story about a woman who introduced her 35-year-old daughter as being 24. Later the daughter asked her mother why she had lied about her age, and the mother said, "I realized I had been lying about my own age for so long that I would have to lie about your age for it all to make sense." Some people, they lie so often they've begun to fool themselves. This is exactly what happened to King David in the Old Testament, and you don't have to know this story, but it's a fascinating story. He thought he was the exception to the rule. As the king, he thought he was above accountability. So one night he's up on a rooftop, and he sees a woman bathing on a balcony below. And she is, the Bible says, a beautiful woman, and he has overcome with her. And he sins for her because he is the king, and the king in that day, the king gets what the king wants. And so he commits adultery with her, and it's a terrible sin.

And this sin begins. For every sin, another lie, for every sin, another lie, and another, and another. And it ultimately led him to commanding Bathsheba's husband, let's give him a name, his name was Uriah, to be on the front line of a fierce battle where David knew because he was the king. He was in charge. He was the commander in chief. He knew where the army was fighting. And he knew that all the front line guys would be killed. And so he puts Uriah on the front line of the hottest part of the battle so that he could take Bathsheba as his wife, just one lie after another. Now David had a prophet and an accountability partner named Nathan. And Nathan says to David one day, "David, I want to tell you a story." He said, "Once upon a time, there was a rich and powerful man, and he had a large number of sheep, and there was another man, a poor man who had nothing except one little lamb, and he raised that lamb, and it grew up with his children, and his children loved that lamb, and it became a family pet, and it shared his food, and even slept in his arms at night." And one day a traveler came along, and he was hungry, and the rich guy, instead of killing a lamb of his many flocks to feed this traveler, he took the poor guy's only lamb, the family pet, and he killed it to give to this traveler for food. And David is listening to this story intently, and he is livid, and he burns with anger. And he says, "Nathan, that's the worst story I've ever heard. That rich man should be put to death, because he had no pity on the poor man." And Nathan looked at David and said, "You are that man. David, you are the one who's lying to yourself. And brother, sister, some of you have been lying to yourself. You are the man. You are the woman who has been lying to yourself. You've deceived yourself, and you're living apart from God's truth. You're speaking the devil's native language, because he wants to get you to lie, and he

wants you to lie to yourself. And finally, he wants to get you to live a lie, to claim to be one thing but to live a life in which you are someone entirely different. And this gets played out in many different forms in every culture. Let me tell you a kind of a fun story. Michelle and I had the opportunity a few years ago for a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. It was our 20th anniversary here at Compass. It was our 35th wedding anniversary. And so we had saved some money, and we were so excited, and we flew to Italy. And Italy, if you've never been there, it's just a beautiful place. I hope you get to go there someday. It's incredible. And we flew into Milan, and when we looked at our itinerary, we realized we had an extra day, and we had never been to Venice. So we decided let's take a train to Venice. We didn't know anything about Venice, and I started to look up, you know, hotels, booking.com or whatever it is. And I'm trying to find a hotel, and man, they're really expensive. But I had points for this one particular chain, and it was one of their highest-in hotels. And so I booked one night for free with all these points. I was so excited. So we get to Venice. Beautiful. I get in there at the reception desk, and it was a Saturday night. And the guy says, "Hey, we revolted the number one brunch in the world, Sunday brunch. Number one in the world. You should come to the Sunday brunch tomorrow." And I said, "Well, how much is it?" He said, "It's a hundred euro per person." So it'd be about a hundred and ten American dollars per person.

I said, "Hey, man, that's a lot of money for eggs." And he's like, "Oh, this is insult. You know, we have so many different kinds of food." And I said, "I'm sure it's great. That's still a lot of money." And I said, "No, thank you, but I appreciate the offer." And he says to me, he says, "Listen, I cannot let you not be a part of this brunch." So he gives us two passes to the Sunday brunch, and I'm like, "Okay, I'll do that." So we get up the next morning, and this brunch is amazing. Every food you can even imagine, it's incredible. We've got a great table right by the water. But the premier table was kind of roped off, and it was kind of jutting out into the water, and it was beautiful. I mean, amazing. And there are these two young, I mean, post-collegiate girls, they were probably 20-something, early 20s, and they were decked out. Michelle was, you know, admiring how they were dressed, and they were fashionistas, I guess, or whatever. And so they start going to get food, and they bring the food back and forth, and they're putting all this food on their table. It's overlooking the ocean, it's unbelievable, it's incredible. And they start taking pictures of each other, and they're taking pictures, and they're posing. So they're going to post all this on Instagram, right? And so they're posting all these pictures, and you can see them, they're looking at the They must have taken 500 pictures. And I'm over here just soaking it all up. I'm eating my brunch, you know, food and everything. And I'm watching them and I'm thinking surely they're going to eat at some point. They're going to eat $200 breakfast

for the two of them, right? And so they're, again, they took so many pictures and then they snapped their fingers, they asked for the check, they fill it out and they left. They never ate one bit of food. They were only there to take pictures. I could not believe it. All that money that was spent and the time that was invested and the diligence that was required, all because they want to get likes and to be accepted on Instagram. So they created an illusion of how they wanted to be perceived but it wasn't an honest depiction of what they actually did. And there, listen, friend, there are people everywhere like this, they have an image to uphold but it's not at all who they really are and they're living a lie. Some of us, definitely not all of us but some of us, we're afraid if they know the truth about me, the real me, then they won't be interested. They won't accept me. They won't like me. We do this all the time in life. We wear the masks so that we'll be embraced. We compromise the truth so that we will be accepted and it's a very, very sad thing. We're deceiving ourselves. It's not real because it's a facade. It's the collegiate girl that leads an amazing life on Instagram but daily she fights depression and discouragement.

It's the husband who tells his wife he's working late but he's actually going to the bar with his buddies. It's the mom who has it all together. She's the Pinterest mom and everything matches and everything is perfect and everything looks amazing but in real time she's worn out, she's lonely, she's isolated. It's that couple that you think at church that's perfect. They have the perfect marriage on the outside but on the surface they live completely separate lives. They don't even sleep in the same bed. I talk to people all the time who have been crushed by lies and deceit. Well, he promised he would quit drinking. She promised she would be faithful. He said he would quit losing his temper. He promised he would be there for the game. They promised they would pay me back. They were all living the lie. Maybe you don't tell your spouse exactly how much you spend on a particular item or you hide your browsing history or you delete texts or conversations with members of the opposite sex that was really not an appropriate exchange. And all of this falls under the category of living a lie and playing out a secret and secrets will damage any road, the trust and health of any relationship. All of us, myself included, have done this at one time or another and it's all part of the devil's plan. It's his native language. It's his master plan.

And it's important that we talk about this. And let's not forget, friends, that his ultimate plan is to get people to believe that they are Christ followers when often the truth is there is no fruit, there is no evidence in their life that they are following Jesus. There's no obedience. When sins are committed, there's no confession. There's no repentance. John says this in 1 John 2. Whoever says, I know him, but does not do what he commands is a, what was it say? A liar and the truth is not in that person. And friend, I know that we are saved by grace, not works, but when we love God and we know Jesus, we are obedient to his word and we do our best to follow what he commands and there needs to be some fruit and there needs to be some evidence that we are following Jesus. And I just know that here in America, there are thousands, I don't know, perhaps millions of people who say they are Christian, but they're living a lie. They aren't at all following Jesus. There's no evidence in their life that they're a Christian. Pastor Craig Rochelle says, the root reason, look at this, the root reason most of us lie is because we don't completely trust God. We don't completely trust him.

We believe the lie that our lie works better than God's truth. We believe that lies will bring us security when in actuality they bring us fear. We believe that a lie will get me more, but in reality, I will have less of what matters. I believe that a lie will help you like me, but if that happens, what do we really have? We have a relationship based on lies. We might think if we tell a lie it will avoid conflict, but the truth is it will eventually escalate conflict. We think that our lives work better than God's truth because we ultimately don't trust God enough. And friends, our lies are so destructive and they will eventually lead to painful consequences. They will hinder your personal as well as your spiritual development So with the time that remains, I just wanna give you, these are gonna be quick. So you might wanna write them down, 'cause they're gonna come rapid fire. Five steps you can take to break the habit of lying in your life, and these are in that book, Creatures of Habit that many of you are going through. The first step, do damage control. Do damage control. Once you take responsibility for lying, then you need to confess it to God. After all, he's heard every lie you've ever told. And I would start each day by asking God to give you the strength to always tell the truth.

And then I would also ask God to show you if there has been someone that you've misled lately or some deception in your life that needs to be addressed. And if there is, then I would go to these people and I would make amends and I would reconcile. To decide from this day forward, if you ever tell a lie, that you will go back and admit it to the person that you've deceived. Just say, listen, I just need to restate something that I said to you earlier that was honestly not exactly truthful. I need you to know that I misspoke when I explained that to you earlier, and I'm so very sorry. I know this is hard and this is humbling, but making this commitment will cause you to think twice before you tell another lie. First John chapter one verse nine says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. So we confess our sins to both God and others and we receive forgiveness. And I think probably healing in that time of confession. Step two is simple, tame the tongue, tame the tongue. Scripture has a lot to say about our speech and most of it is about the need to control it, right? To be quick to listen and slow to speak. And if you genuinely want God's best in your life, honesty is not just the best policy, it's the only policy.

In first Peter chapter three, Peter says, if you want to enjoy life and see many happy days, keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies. As we pointed out, your tongue is a significant player in your walk with the Lord. Here's step three, speak the truth and love. While some people are very honest, they are also insensitive to people's feelings. Love has got to be our filter. Love for God and love for others. I hear a cute story about a fourth grade class that sent a card to a teacher who had been absent recovering from a surgery. And they said, dear Mrs. Fisher, your fourth grade class wishes you a speedy recovery by a vote of 15 to 14. Phew, the problem with children is that they're too honest, right? It's that they just have learned to speak the truth and love. Listen, at the end of the day, people may not remember what you said and they not remember what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. So speak the truth and love. Fourth, develop accountability. That's the fourth step. Do you have a Nathan like David did? Listen, if no one is holding you accountable, it's easy to fall back into that same old pattern

of deception. You see, accountability and execution are linked. Accountability provides you with guardrails to keep you on the road to recovery. So find a friend who is willing to hold you accountable, someone who's willing to ask you the tough questions. Like, have you lied to anyone this week? Have you misled anyone? Have you exaggerated? You will never ever regret having someone hold you accountable in life, but you might regret a life that has no boundaries. Let me give you one more. It's the most important step. This is the most important step, five. Practice truth. And I wanna close with advice from scripture, from the Bible, God's Holy Word. Here's what Paul says to the church in Philippi. And I love reading this 'cause it's possible that the day that you're gonna be hearing this, I'll actually be in Philippi, which is crazy. But here's what he said to those people in Philippi. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Practice what is true. Practice what is noble.

Practice what is right. Practice what is pure. Practice what is lovely. Practice what is admirable. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, practice it. Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. We learned over time that truth is a person, that truth has a name, and that his name is Jesus. If you're gonna break the habit of lying, you have to be truthful in each area of your life. Decide that you're gonna be a person of integrity, a person of truth, and one who speaks the truth in love, and make a decision today, friend, that this bad habit of lying stops right now. Lord Jesus, thank you for being the messenger of truth. Thank you for teaching us about truth and what it is and how it can set us free. And Lord, we don't want to speak the enemy's native language. We don't want to participate in the habit of lying. So help us to always be quick to listen and slow to speak. And Lord, I just pray that you would help us to understand some of the habits that we might be participating in that does not honor you. And lying is right up there at the top. Father, we want to honor you. So Jesus, we thank you for teaching us today. God, thank you that your word is full of incredible advice on how to tell the truth. Help us to be truth tellers, but help us to speak the truth and love. And we learn it all from you. We pray all this in Jesus' name. And I pray, amen. Hey, love you guys.