John 16.12-15 The Spirit will guide you into the truth

Ever tell a white lie? A lie that seems so small you think its insignificant? Maybe this morning you told someone you liked their shirt but you really don’t and now you’re questioning whether their judgment is sound enough to pick where you’re going to lunch today?

We often tell white lies because we want to spare someone’s feelings. Ironically this turns out to be a lie not just directed outward but inward too. That lie you just told them has a whole slew of other lies attached to it that you just told yourself. Those little white lies we say to make idle conversation are telling ourselves that neither we nor they are important enough to talk about things of actual meaning with one another.

We talk about the weather, sports teams, and when they ask how we’re doing we just smile and say we’re fine. What we don’t do is allow ourselves to be vulnerable. What we don’t do is share our lives with one another.

Lie number 1: You’re supposed to have it all together. A person who has their life together readily engages with others, makes small talk, compliments others and builds them up. A person who has it all together is fine.

Lie number 2: Everybody’s life is perfect except yours so keeps your messes and your wounds and your secrets safe with you behind closed doors. We lie telling ourselves that nobody cares about us, they don’t actually want to know what you think of them or how you’re feeling. Your life is such a mess you don’t want anyone else to have share carry that burden or worry about you in any way so you lock it up inside and expect them to do the same. After all, what would society be if we got all emotional with one another and actually shared our lives.

Men don’t cry. Women don’t get angry. Right? Wrong.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. When Jesus asks you how you’re doing every day, do you say you’re fine? Do you lie to Jesus? If we’re supposed to treat one another, love one another as you love God and yet, we lie to one another.

I’ve got news for you this world is not in our control. It is as out of your control as it can possibly ever get and we are wasting our tiny little shred of control by lying instead of embracing that which is in our control: the truth.

From the beginning of human time, we have lied and it has NEVER been productive. Adam and Eve hid their disobedience in the garden of Eden. Cain hid after he killed Abel. David tried to cover up his indiscretions with Bethsheba. Humans lie despite that being honest is the only way to fix anything. Being open about who we are is the only way to reduce the number of things we do that we are ashamed of.

If every moment of every day we live as if everything we do, say and think is being seen by another, it changes the way we behave. When we live an honest life, we behave better. The moment we realize we cannot hide our mistakes we have the opportunity to learn that if we confess our errors people are generally more lenient with us than if we try to hide what we have done or what we have left undone and once we get used to being honest, we make fewer mistakes because we are less anxious and more focused.

Lies, even white lies hurt people. Not telling someone something because you think you are protecting them is demeaning to the other person. You are telling them that you do not believe they have the strength or the capability to deal with adversity in this life. That’s insulting! You are telling them that you think they are weak, that they are a child who needs protecting and not just anyone’s protecting yours! Which means you are also telling them that you think you are better than they are, stronger than they are and more capable than they are.

I am telling you that not only should you not bear false witness against your neighbor but you shouldn’t bear false witness to your neighbor either! No one says you are supposed to have it all together but you. God doesn’t expect you to have it all together. Get expects you to be a train wreck of a human being, He created you. He knows you. God’s love for you is not going to change because you are who God created you to be. You’re a mess! It’s a messy world we live in.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears. The spirit knows the truth and wants us to live in the truth. But what is the Spirit hearing? How many lies do you think the Spirit hears every single day?

White lies manipulate people. A lie is a lie as a sin is a sin. The intention is to deceive someone else and to deceive yourself. They create distance between people and community. When they are discovered, they create rifts that destroy relationships because we hate when people lie to us, try to deceive us, or keep things from us because it demonstrates they do not trust us.

One of the worst things you can do to your children and they can do to you is not tell say when you are ill. We lie and tell ourselves, they’re better off not knowing. We lie and tell ourselves, we’ll tell them after everything is better. Wouldn’t want to burden anyone else in this world would we? Wouldn’t want to acknowledge that they love us, care about us, and want to know about us, would we? Let’s hide our problems from them and try to build a relationship on the weather and sports teams instead of who we really are because that’s a strong foundation right?

No wonder we feel so alone in this world! It’s no wonder we think others lives are so much better than ours! We don’t’ really know anything about their lives to know they are struggling just as much as we are but in different ways.

It’s absolutely no wonder that we suffer in this life. We make ourselves suffer. The things which bring us together, that strengthen relationships are the very things we hide from each other. Adversity builds strength when you go through it together. It creates bonds that cannot be broken.

Rather than building upon foundations of trust and reliance, we lie about ourselves and what is really going on in our lives and hearts. Then we have the audacity to wonder why there is no sense of community anymore, why we feel so lost and lonely, or why our worlds crumble so easily. The truth is so rarely told that we don’t even know how to have a conversation with one another about anything that really matters. And we tell each other “Hey, I’m fine.” But we’re not!

We can’t form long-term friendships. We can’t hold relationships together. We spend our days telling ourselves the same lies over and over again. Lie number one, you’re supposed to have it all together. And when they ask how you’re doin just smile and tell ‘em never better. Lie number 2: everybody’s life is perfect except yours. So, we keep our messes and our wounds and our secrets safe behind closed doors.  

I’m a mess! You’re a mess! We are wounded, we are scarred, we are battered, we are broken and being honest is the only way to fix any of it. All the perpetrator asks is for the bystander to do nothing. To look the other way. All the perpetrator needs is for the victim to stay silent and the bystander to do nothing. All evil needs in this world is for us to keep lying and saying we’re fine when we’re not.

All evil needs is for you to be ashamed, hide, and never speak the truth to the world. All you need to do to defeat evil is to speak the truth. To tell your story. To shed light into the darkness and create an environment that has no tolerance for lies.

Stand unafraid. When the Spirit comes, all your lies are going to come back to you anyway, each and every one will be revealed and you will see every opportunity you missed to better your life, your circumstances and strengthen your relationship in Jesus Christ and with the community he has so generously provided for you to live in.

Every time you kept silent or answered fine when you had the chance to build a relationship of love with another human being will be revealed to you. Every time the truth wasn’t told and the consequences of that lie will be revealed to you. There is no failure, no fall, no sin, that isn’t already known. So let the truth be told.

Matthew West – Truth Be Told (Official Music Video)