Living a Lie

Transcript

Week 1 of the series D.I.R.T.Y. Transcribed from the service recording and lightly edited for readability.

Welcome: A Series Called D.I.R.T.Y.

Good morning. Y'all doing alright? Alright. So we are in November, and this month we are going to talk about dirt. This series is looking at sins that don't always show up loud and obvious. Sometimes they seep in and live quietly in the background: things that mess with our attitude, our patterns, our behaviors. We just want to get to the nitty-gritty.

Breaking Down D.I.R.T.Y.

So dirt. D.I.R.T.Y. is going to break down like this.

D is deception. We're going to start where the enemy started in the garden: deception. This week exposes the lies we tell ourselves and others, and how they destroy trust, integrity, and our spiritual growth.

I is insecurity, which is going to be week two. It's the silent sabotager. R is resentment: when pain turns toxic. T is temptation: the battle before the fall.

But I ain't going to leave you there. In week five we're going to talk about yielding, because when we surrender to God's call and His cleanup plan, we can work all this out. So this morning, let's jump straight into it. We're going to look at deception: living a lie.

Deception: Living a Lie

If you would turn with me. We read some scriptures earlier, but I'm going to read John chapter 8, verse 44:

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Integrity Guides the Upright

And then Proverbs 11:3 in the NIV says it just a little bit differently:

The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.

Hmm.

Deception Destroys Our Direction

See, deception destroys our direction. Integrity guides, but deception leads to confusion. And when I think about that, you know, we don't like to think of ourselves as liars. But the reality is a lot of us learned to lie at a young age.

We Learned to Lie at a Young Age

It says Satan is the father of lies, but a lot of us learned to lie from our parents. Matter of fact, I was thinking about this, and most of our parents told us to lie. Y'all got cell phones now, but back in the day we had a home phone. And if your parent came home early from work and the phone rang: "Tell them I ain't here."

No, no, no, don't say that. A lot of us went to school with somebody else's address. See, it leads to confusion. Why? Because some of us don't even know where we really stay. You're giving people your address and they take you to your grandma's house. "This ain't where we stay." But that's what it is.

Lies lead to confusion. And a lot of times we lie to ourselves so much. You ever know somebody who lies to themselves so much they believe their own lies? You'll be talking to them like, "I was there with you. That ain't the way this happened." Why? Confusion.

So often these are what some people call little white lies: just telling a story. The worst part is when we lie and say we're just joking. It's confusion. And sometimes we wonder why we aren't getting where we think we should be. It's because we're living a lie, and so we can't go where God wants us to be. We look around like, "How did I get here?"

Your Shortcut Became a Setup

What happened was you thought you were going to take a shortcut, but your shortcut ended up being a setup. Anybody ever take a shortcut? You had the GPS on, telling you not to go this way. "Oh no, I know a shortcut." And you end up stuck in traffic, or stuck behind an accident. You had clear directions telling you to go one way, but "No, I got a better way."

It happens over and over in life. We think we're taking a shortcut, but it ends up setting us up for failure. It's like the butterfly we talked about a few weeks ago. If we try to help the butterfly break out of the cocoon, it won't be able to survive, because the struggle is part of what gets you ready for what God has for you.

Forty Years in the Desert

And we wonder why we walk around the desert for 40 years. Because we keep trying to take these shortcuts, and these shortcuts ain't working out. The Israelites were a couple of days away. They could have been in the promised land in no time. God said, "Just go." "Oh, but we got all these excuses."

When God recognizes you're not ready, you're going to have to go through the trials and tribulations of life until He gets you ready for what He has for you. Because the last thing He's going to do is give you something you're not ready for. You're single and looking for a mate, but you ain't all the way together yet, so you'd mess up two people. So God says, "I'm going to have to take you through some stuff to get you ready for the person I have in store for you."

A Dishonest Heart Drifts From the Truth

A dishonest heart will always drift further from the truth. We talked about a fruit check last week, and part of that is checking your heart. You've got to figure out where your heart is. If you do something sly and shady and it bothers you, that's a good thing. When it stops bothering you, you need to get worried.

Ananias and Sapphira

There's a story in the Bible about a couple, Ananias and Sapphira. This is the beginning of the New Testament church coming together, and people were selling their stuff and sharing alike. Ananias and Sapphira wanted to be part of the crowd. They wanted to feel good about themselves. So they said they were going to sell their land and give the money to the church. Then I think they realized how much money they were going to get for that land.

So they said, "We got more money than we thought. We're going to give the church this piece over here and keep a little for ourselves." No problem; it's yours. But they lied and said they gave the full amount to the church. And when they got called on it, they kept lying. "You sold your land?" "Yeah." "You gave all the money to the church?" "Yeah." "All of it?" "Yeah." Bam. He falls over dead, and they carry him out. His wife comes in, they ask her the same question, she keeps the same lie going, and she falls over dead.

Young People, Just Tell the Truth

Y'all hold on for one second. Let me talk to my young people. Young people, I'm going to educate y'all real quick. If your parents start asking you questions about something you did wrong, go ahead and tell the truth. The reality is they already know the answer. They're trying to see how long you're going to lie and play them for a fool. If they're asking questions with too much specific information, just go ahead and tell the truth.

That's how God is with us sometimes. He's like, "I know you did wrong." "Did I really, God? See, I was really just trying to..." No. Just confess and admit it.

The Hard Drive Swap

One time I was working with one of my clients, and I had to build a computer for him. He needed a new hard drive, so I went to the store and bought the best thing on the market. Then one of my workers called me and said, "Man, my computer just crashed. I need a new hard drive." Cool. I'll give you his hard drive, and I'll give him this other one. It was still a good hard drive, but it wasn't what he paid for. I swapped it, did the whole thing, and took it back to him.

About a week later, my spirit just wasn't sitting right. So I had to call him up, admit what I did, and give him his money back. I couldn't be at peace knowing I had swindled this dude, and he never would have known. He had more memory in that computer than he ever had before, but it wasn't what he purchased, and I couldn't sit with that.

God will always do that. If you're truly in tune with Him, He'll make you uncomfortable with it. But if we keep going where God doesn't want us to go, we're never going to get where He wants us to be.

Deceit Disconnects You From God's Presence

That's the other thing about deceit: deceit disconnects you from God's presence. First John 1:6 says:

If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.

That's the thing. We can't say we walk with God and walk in darkness. You can't do it. But since Satan is the father of lies, he tries to convince us that we can.

He is always trying to give you something that's already yours. The only things he can offer you are the gifts God already has for you, but he's going to make you think you've got to get them by hook or by crook. And it's always hard to carry God's word and your deception at the same time.

Living a Lie Keeps You From Living in Grace

It's hard, because living a lie keeps you from living in grace. It's hard to tell people everything is going to be okay when you don't believe it, because they can see it on your face.

Learning to Be Transparent

One of the things God has been working on with me is being more transparent. Living in America, we all want to seem like we've got it together. We always want to put on a happy face. But sometimes you just don't feel like smiling. Sometimes you don't feel like being nice. Sometimes you want to be ornery, because you're in one of those moods today.

But we have to be honest and acknowledge when we're in one of those moods, because once we're honest about where we are, God can begin to work with us where we are. If we lie to ourselves, and most of the time that's who we lie to, we can never get where God wants us to be.

"You alright?" "Yeah, I'm alright." "You good?" "Yeah, I'm good." It's so ingrained in us; it's trained behavior.

"I'm Fine" in a Hospital Bed

I watched my father in a hospital bed, knowing he wasn't good. But every time a nurse or a doctor came in, he told them he was just fine. One of us has got to be crazy, because you don't come to the hospital if you're just fine.

But we do it all the time. We come into this church building acting like we're just fine, when we have the power of prayer. We have the power of community. We have the power to unlock these things, but we don't have access to it because we're lying. And if we're lying, we cannot live in grace. God is saying, "I can forgive you of all that. I can heal you of all that. But first I need you to acknowledge that it exists. I need you to acknowledge where you are."

Your Test Becomes a Testimony

Why do I have to acknowledge it? Part of the reason God puts you through a test is so that you can have a testimony. Part of the reason He puts you through the pain is so that once you overcome it, you can be a physician to somebody else. God is taking you through stuff not just for your sake, but so you can help somebody else. And a lot of the ways we get out of the pain, out of the trials and turmoil, is by helping somebody else in their situation.

An Introvert Who Needs Help

Let me help you out with this. Personally, I'm an introvert. Y'all might not guess it, but I am. I can stand up here and do this, but naturally I like to be by myself. That's how I get my energy; that's how I rejuvenate. Part of the problem with being an introvert is that when I need help, I don't always seek it, because I think I can rejuvenate on my own. And I can get so self-focused that all I can do is concentrate on my problems and try to fix them myself.

The problem is, I can't fix and solve my problems. God can. And the only way I get out of myself is to focus on something else: I begin to help somebody else where they are. When I do that, I realize how small my situation is.

A Rough Week and My Baby, Baby

But you have to be aware, and God will tell you when you're not in a good place. This week was a rough week for me. I don't know why; I just had a sullenness on me. Maybe I'm grieving my daddy. Maybe I'm just tired of the church not growing as fast as I want it to. I've got all this stuff I want to do, business moving, trying to make things happen, and nothing's happening. You're trying to hold on to faith and proclaim that God is coming, "I can see it," but everything isn't happening the way you see it, and you start feeling down.

I knew I was in a bad place when I got good news on Friday and couldn't enjoy it. I couldn't figure it out. "I should be happy about this, but I just ain't."

So I realized I had to fix that. I left work early and went to hang out with my baby and my baby baby: that's my daughter and my granddaughter. Holding that infant, the only thing that existed was me and her. I'm looking at her, she's looking at me. She's got no language; she can't talk. Whatever I say doesn't matter, because she doesn't know what I'm talking about. We're just looking at each other. And as I sat there holding her, I looked up and my daughter was asleep. I think she slept about an hour or two. I was like, "You invited me over here so you could take a nap?" But she must have needed it. She needed a nap and somebody to occupy the baby's time, and I needed some peace to get my mind off what I was going through.

That's just how God works. But I had to admit something wasn't right. I could have played it off like I was doing just fine: "I'll see the baby some other time; she'll be over this weekend." But sometimes we have to move immediately on what God tells us to do, whether it makes sense or not.

God tells you, "Call so-and-so." "I ain't got time to call them. They'll be talking about nothing." Make the phone call. Stop and visit somebody and check on them. "But I've got all this other stuff I'm dealing with." Exactly. So go check on somebody else. Go do something over here so God can work over there. God can't work over there while your hand is in it. Satan is the father of lies, and we're believing his lies instead of allowing God to transform our situation.

Deceit Diminishes Our Witness

Lastly, as believers, we have to realize that deceit diminishes our witness. You are the light of the world, but deception dims your light. Your lifestyle should match your message, because people are looking at what we're doing more than what we're saying. And if what we're doing doesn't match what we're saying, that's even worse. People just want honest relationships.

But the father of lies has convinced us we've got to put on a show. We've got to fake it till we make it. We can't let people see us down. We can't let people see us struggling. That's why the God life is so different from the world's life. God says, "Let people see you struggling. Let them see Me deliver you, so they know what's possible."

And what I'm beginning to realize is that if people can't trust your words, they won't believe in your Jesus. They won't.

Peter's Denial and Restoration

Remember Peter. Peter denied Jesus three times, and every time he denied Him, he was even physically further and further away from Jesus. But once he acknowledged his deception and allowed Jesus to reinstate him, he did wonders. He wrote part of what we call the Bible. He preached the word. He transformed lives. And people got to see the transformation.

I wonder what the people he lied to said once he started preaching. I think I know what they said: "I knew that was you. I knew it was you the whole time." I've been in situations in my own life where people said, "That ain't you. You don't belong here. Matter of fact, we can't do the dirt we want to do until you leave."

Why? Because good and evil can't exist in the same spot. When the Holy Ghost fills your life, people aren't going to be able to do what they used to do, even around you. Some of y'all know you have that light in your life, you know people are looking at you, and you're still trying to act bad. Being called to this life is not easy. It's not going to be a cakewalk. But God is going to do something in your life that's not only going to transform your life; it's going to transform the world.

Time for the Church to Be the Church

I don't think Peter knew how transformational he would be in the history of the church. And it's you in here right now who is going to be transformational in this world. I know we're going through all this stuff politically, but it's time for the church to be the church.

It's time for the church to stop waiting on the government to do what it's doing, because it was the church's job in the first place. God charged us with taking care of the poor, the widows, and the orphans. Yet we come, have a little good church, feel good about ourselves, and then go back to our seats and back to our lives. We've got a lot of complaints about this world, but the reality is it lies within us to change it. That's part of the reason we're doing this series: to uncover some of this, so we can sweep it up and clean it out, and truly live the life God wants us to live.

From Fear Driven to Spirit Driven

We have to move from being fear-driven to being Spirit-driven. We have to move from being controlled by our hurt to being controlled by our faith: even though this world might be hurting us, we know God is going to do something so amazing we can't even fathom it. You might be in debt right now, but you can say, "I'm going to be a lender, not a borrower," because that's a promise God gave us.

God wants to do a transformational work in your life, but we have to be honest about where we are so He can begin to fix what's broken.

The Televangelist Who Went to Jail

Before I go to my seat, here's a story I heard a while back. There was a televangelist who preached the prosperity gospel. He was doing that thing. And he ended up going to jail for money laundering and fraud, trying to keep up the image he had. It was while he was in jail that he realized he couldn't fake the faith.

It was just a little bit here and a little bit there. He didn't realize how far he had gotten. God had to put him in jail for him to realize he was out of place and out of line. Once he did, he got back into the fold and began to proclaim the true gospel. It wasn't about money, or getting all this stuff. It was about a true relationship with God.

I don't think we need to go that far. We don't need to go to jail. But God is saying, "Wake up. Tell the truth. Be the authentic you, whatever it costs you. And I can deliver you. I can transform you."

Deceit Is the Dirt on Your Destiny

This is what we have to realize: deceit is the dirt on your destiny. God can't bless the you you're pretending to be. He only wants to bless the true you.

Weekly Challenge

So as I close, let's wrap it up with our weekly challenge.

Reflect: Where am I being dishonest with God, myself, or others?

Act: Tell the truth in one area you've been hiding this week.

Pray: "God, cleanse me from all deceit and help me walk in the truth."

Closing Prayer

Most gracious and heavenly Father, we come before You saying thank You. Lord, it's not always easy to acknowledge that we've been dishonest, that we've lied. But Father God, let us peel back the layers and be honest and true. Show us who we truly are, so that we can allow You to work through us and transform our lives. Father God, I love You and praise You for all that You're doing and going to do. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.