Sincerity

Have you ever received a piece of mail that says, “Do not open until… Christmas, your birthday, something like that?”

If you do receive something like that and you’re the curious type, what do you do?

Let me let you in on a little secret about finding out what is inside an envelope.

All you have to do is hold it up to the light.

You do that, don’t you? The mail comes… and you’re out in the sun — if it’s a letter and you’re curious about it.

It’s a simple, effective technique for finding out what’s on the inside of a seemingly, unmarked or questionably marked envelope. You just hold it up to the light.

The word “sincerity” as it’s used in the passage we’ll be studying today literally means “to be found unstained when examined by sunlight.”

The word literally means “to have what’s on the inside show through” — to show what’s on the inside regardless of what’s on the outside.

When the writers of Scripture speak of sincerity, they talk about having the inside be consistent with the outside. That’s what they mean by sincerity.

In 2 Corinthians 1:12-22, the passage we’ll be studying today, Paul voluntarily holds his life up to the light in response to accusations and criticisms that have been made about him.

In essence throughout this passage, he’s saying, “I want you to see that I am a man of sincerity.”

We can discern from the passage that the Corinthian believers were upset at Paul, because they wanted Paul to visit them. Paul had visited them before, but they wanted him to visit again.

In fact, this would have been his third visit to them. Paul was planning on it. He was thinking about coming.

He’s going to tell them in this passage, “I was going to visit you on the way to Macedonia and visit you on the way back.” He was making those kinds of plans.

But it turns out Paul decided not to visit the Corinthians.

Instead, he sent them this letter.

This caused the Corinthian believers to get ticked at Paul.

You can imagine that kind of feeling. You’ve been planning on someone coming and they don’t show up.

They’re angry at him and accuse Paul of being a coward, a flake, and of making empty promises that he never intended to fulfill.

These accusations, criticisms and misunderstandings that were leveled against Paul motivate him to say:

“Time out! Here’s my life. I hold it up to the light voluntarily. I invite you to take a look that I’m a man of sincerity.”

We’re going to talk today about how we can become people of sincerity, and what it means to be sincere.

Let’s dig in.

Here’s what Paul starts out with. He says in 2 Corinthians 1:12

Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity.

“Now this is our boast.”

He is speaking for himself and Timothy, who was with him as he was authoring this letter.

He says, “Now this is our boast. Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity.”

“I am confident that you will not find any discrepancy between my character and my conduct. You’ll find sincerity.”

In light of that verse, I wonder how you would feel if your life was held up to the light today.

How would you feel?

Would you feel a little threatened?
Would you feel like, ”no problem, I don’t have anything to hide?”
Would you share the kind of confidence Paul has when he says, “I’ve conducted myself in the world and, especially in relations to you, with integrity and sincerity that comes from God?”

How would you feel if your life was being held up to the light, today?

In the research I’ve done, I found that, generally, every human being — every person sitting around you right now — at least from time to time has this sense of being a insincere or lacks integrity. They wouldn’t want to be held up to the light.

We all wear masks at times.
We all carry around the knowledge that we’ve pretended to know things that we really don’t know.
Or pretended to achieve things that we really haven’t achieved.
We all pretend sometimes that we’ve spoken out bravely, when in truth is we were timidly silent.
We all pretend that we were hard at work – when in fact, we were wasting time.
We all pretend to be smarter, happier, kinder, stronger, humbler, and better than we really are.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is how many opportunities there are in a day to conceal the truth — every phone call, every conversation, every interaction.

We have dozens and dozens of opportunities to be dishonest in a day.

Sociologists actually tell us that we either lie or hear someone lie to us over 300 times per day.

Actually it was 200, I just wanted to show you how easy it is to lie.

So what I would like to do is mention a couple ways in which people commonly lie.

Have you ever been watching TV and hear a car pull into the garage – it might have been your parents, your spouse, your roommate or someone – and you quickly turn off the TV and pretend you’ve been busy doing something productive?

A show of hands – has anyone ever done that? Alright, I’m not the only one.

How about this one? Have you ever had someone mention to you a person, a book title or something that you felt like you should have known? Even though you didn’t, you pretended like you did.

Anyone? I’ve done that one. I know how that feels.

Okay, have you ever been driving, and the person in the other lane is trying to catch your eye so that you’ll let him over? You have no intention of letting him in. You pretend like you don’t see him. Instead of looking like a jerk, you look like an unobservant nice guy.

Has anyone ever pulled that one?

You see, the choice to be inauthentic and wear a mask and pretend to be what we are not happens everywhere. It happens even in the church.

Some of us are already having these sinking feelings of shame.

I need you all to hear this — we’re all working on this.

It takes hard work to pursue the life of sincerity that Paul lays out for us here.
It takes a courageous level of self-examination.
It takes constant monitoring of what is going on between my inner and my outer world.

I think I know you well enough to know you have that kind of courage.
You have that kind of determination.
You have that kind of desire to be people after God’s heart — people with a pure heart.

I’m going to talk in this message about three things that sincerity requires, knowing that we’re grace-filled people and that we all struggle.

But we all want to shoot toward the target that God lays out for us.

Let me talk about the three things that sincerity requires. If you’re taking notes… I encourage you to write these down.

First of all:

Sincerity requires a clear conscience.

If you want to be people with sincerity, work on having a clear conscience.

A clear conscience is a sense that there is nothing hidden in my life that’s going to come to the surface and embarrass or discredit me.

Maintaining a clear conscience requires a number of things.

Paul demonstrates those in his own life.

First of all, it requires:

1. No hidden actions.

If you want to have a clear conscience, you need to do away with hidden actions.

Paul said his conscience testifies that his conduct — that is, his actions in the world and especially in relation to the Corinthians — was such that they reflected God’s own standard of integrity and sincerity.

That’s what he said in verse 12.

It’s one thing to examine the way we conduct ourselves in comparison to the world and say, “I’m a saint compared to the people I work with or live with.” It’s a whole other thing to compare yourself with God’s standard.

Paul says, “That’s what I’m aiming at. That’s what I’m shooting for. I want to have integrity like God has integrity. I want to be sincere like God is sincere. That means I need to do away with the kinds of actions that take place in the shadows. I want to conduct my life in the light.”

A clear conscience really requires that we’re actively working on having no hidden actions in our lives — doing nothing that would embarrass us later on.

A second thing that it requires is:

2. No hidden motives.

No secret agendas.

In the second part of verse 12, Paul says:

We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace.

”We’ve done so — we’ve conducted our lives — not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace.”

In other words, we didn’t pattern our lives after the way the world patterns itself. Our motives are not like the motives of the world.

Paul would say, “I’m not pretending to care for you so I can receive money, prestige or notoriety. My motivation is based on God’s grace. I’m motivated by what God has done for me, and I want to do the same for you. I want to live my life for an audience of one. I want to live my life for him. I’m motivated by pleasing him. That’s why I do the things I do. My motives are consistent with my message. There’s no secret agenda going on here. My conscience is clear.”

No hidden actions, nothing done in the shadows, no hidden motives, no secret agendas.

Third, if you want to have a clear conscience, it requires:

3. No hidden meanings.

None of the miscommunication where you’re saying one thing but meaning another thing.

Here’s what Paul says in verses 13 and 14.

For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Look at the first sentence again in verse 13:

“For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand.”

We’ve all read documents — legal documents, tax documents. We get into it and feel like, “My eyes are moving. I see the words, but I don’t have an idea of what I’m reading here.”

It’s that feeling of fear, like I should know something here, but I’m not sure if I’m ever going to figure it out.

Has that ever happened to you — where you’re reading something, and you get to the bottom of the page and realize you have no idea what you just read?

This is sometimes called mindlessness.

For some of us, it’s a problem that we have from time to time. For some of us, it’s a way of life.

We’re physically present, but our minds are floating off somewhere on auto pilot.

I’ll give you an example of this. I’ll ask you a question, and you answer out loud just right away, real quick. Some of you have done this before, but just play along:

The tree that grows from an acorn is called an? Oak.
The dark vapor that rises from fire is called? Smoke.
The sound a frog makes is called a? Croak.
The white of an egg is called the? White of an egg?

That’s mindlessness, and it affects all of us from time to time.

Mindlessness has to do with living without awareness… and we do it on a lot of different levels while going through the motions of stuff.

For example, how many of you, when I’m teaching, find yourself sitting there and at some point you realize you have no idea what I just said?

Anyone ever have that happen?

Anyone miss the question?

This is mindlessness.

Paul is saying I’m not trying to trick you here. I’m not writing something that causes you to go mindless when you’re reading it.

Paul was just saying, “I don’t communicate in a way that you can’t understand. I have no hidden meanings. I want to be as clear and accurate as I possibly can. I want you to hear my heart in what’s being said. I really want you to understand me. I did my best to communicate to you in that way.”

There’s no fine print.

Remember, this is Paul the incredible communicator who is saying these kinds of things. Surely, his message communicated that way would be clearly understood by the readers, right?

Well, they weren’t.

In verse 14 he says:

As you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully.

Even after he did his best to communicate as clearly as possible, the people still didn’t understand.

Have you ever had that experience?

You’ve attempted to communicate clearly and as honestly and tenderly as you can, in a situation in which there has been misunderstanding, but you still haven’t gotten through.

That person still hasn’t budged. They still don’t understand you.

Doesn’t it feel good to have done all that you can to be understood, to have a clear conscience in the matter, to know that before God you’ve done all that you can to communicate clearly?

Paul said, “I don’t know if you’ll ever understand me. Maybe one day, on the day of Christ Jesus, when we are all standing face to face with Christ, then we’ll understand. As far as now is concerned, I’ve done my best. I have a clear conscience.”

A clear conscience is a requirement for sincerity.

It provides confidence when you face those misunderstandings, where you don’t have to reel back and say, “What did I say to that person again to cover my tracks here or there?”

Just say, “Whatever I said, I know it was as accurate as I could have said it. Whatever I did, it was as truthful as it could have been. Whatever my motives were, I am as certain as I can be that my motivation was pure.”

A clear conscience keeps your life free from apprehension or fear of being found out or caught.

Do you have a clear conscience?

I experienced an example of what it means not to have a clear conscience recently. Maybe you can relate to this.

I was on my way to the office early in the morning. No one was on the road, so I was taking some liberties in my driving.

I came to this stop sign and sort of rolled through it.

As I was making that roll, out of the corner of my eye I saw a police officer driving toward me.

He turn right and drove behind me for the next several blocks.

Guess where my eyes were glued for those next several blocks?

On the rearview mirror.

I was praying. I’m not sure God answers these kinds of prayers, but I was praying.

I was saying, “God, give me a police officer who attends our church.”

It was one of those experiences. The police officer drove by me, and decided to cut me some slack that morning.

That morning, I developed a personal definition of what it means to have a clear conscience.

Having a clear conscience means not having to look in the rear-view mirror.

Do you find yourself doing that, sort of looking in life’s rear-view mirror a lot and hoping you don’t see someone or something coming your way from the past?

Some of us may have some work to do in light of this message and in terms of clearing up our conscience.

There might be some conversations we need to have, where we go back and come clean with someone.
We might have some letters that we need to write.
We may need to admit hidden motives, hidden actions and hidden meanings. Some of us here may need to do that.

Think of how free you’ll feel, if you don’t have to look in that rear-view mirror.

God wants you to have a clear conscience. He wants to help you work toward gaining a clear conscience.

But I know some of you are living looking in the rearview mirror. You don’t have a clear conscience.

And you know what… some of you may never get caught.

You may cover up your tracks to near perfection. And your life may fool everyone… but it won’t fool God.

Look what the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:13

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

I don’t know about you, but when I read that, it makes me think twice about what kind of life I live, because God knows. He knows everything about us.

Look what the writer of Scripture says in Isaiah 29:15-16

Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?”

You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”?

God knows. He sees. He knows everything.

And the reality is — we can lie and we can cheat and we can fake our way through life. And we can put on a mask and we can show up for church and we can praise God.

And then we can go out to the parking lot, get in our cars and take off the mask and put it in the glove box until next week and spend the rest of the week living far from God.

And we can quench the Holy Spirit who is in us trying to get us to be sincere.

Or we could just take off the mask and throw the stinking thing away — live with a clear conscience.

Just get honest with God and let him love us and let him change us.

That’s what he wants to do.

So why not just take off the mask and stop pretending? He understands the struggle. He already knows it anyway.

So why not just get real and cling to him and let him love you?

Some of us just need to come clean with God.

Look what 1 John 1:8-9 says:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We come to God and just get clean with him. And God in turn cleans us up.

And I just want you to get real honest today.

I’m just thinking that in our church, there might be some of you that are really, really struggling.

Maybe some of you are struggling with a drinking problem. And no one knows.

Your spouse doesn’t know.
Your parents don’t know.
Your friends don’t know.

But God knows. And he just wants you to come clean and let him love you and let him change you.

And I’m just guessing that there are a few of us who are living a lie. You’re lying to your parents or to your spouse about something very serious. And no one knows.

Your friends don’t know.
Your parents don’t know.
Your spouse doesn’t know.

But God knows. He just wants you to come clean. Just let him love you. Let him change you.

Some of you might struggle with lying at work — falsifying a little claim, a little report here and there. No one knows.

Your boss doesn’t know.
Clients don’t know.

But God knows. He wants you to come clean and let him love you and change you.

And there might be a few of us who have some web sites you visit or some other pornography things you watch. No one knows about it.

Your wife doesn’t know.
Your parents don’t know.
Your girlfriend doesn’t know.
Your friends don’t know.

God knows. He just wants you to come clean. Let him love. Let him change you.

So how about it? No more pretending, ok? It’s a good day when you take off the mask and you stop trying to fool God and you start to respect and love God with all sincerity.

I think it’s interesting that Jesus talks about who’s blessed in Matthew 5:8

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Who is blessed? The pure in heart. It’s the people that are being genuine, sincere, just honest and real.

Because they will do what? They will see God.

You know what I’ve learned? It’s really hard to see God when you’re wearing a mask.

It would be a remarkable thing today if God could hear all over this room just mask after mask hitting the floor.

“God, I just want to be sincere with you.”

Where do you need to have a clear conscience before God?

Own up to the truth about who you are before God.

Well, once you do that, the Holy Spirit is at work within us and he wants to help us maintain that clear conscience.

Once you have a clear conscience, you’re going to move that much closer to being a consistently sincere person.

I’m not saying you should live a life that’s faultless, because all of us are going to make mistakes.

I’m saying strive to make it your goal to lay your head on your pillow at night with the satisfaction of knowing that your conscience is clear and that your actions, motives and communications have been sincere.

Even if you slip into insincerity — like many or all of us can throughout the day — we pause and go back to that person or those persons and say, “What I just said really wasn’t accurate,” or “My motive in what I just did wasn’t really pure.”

Coming clean, so at the end of the day you can say, “I did my best. I’ve got a clear conscience.”

So how about it? Are you willing to do what it takes to live with a clear conscience?

This leads us into the second requirement of sincerity.

Sincerity requires honest communication.

Not only does it require a clear conscience, but it requires endeavoring to communicate honestly.

Look at verses 15-17. Paul says:

Because I was confident of this, I wanted to visit you first so that you might benefit twice. I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea. Was I fickle when I intended to do this? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say both “Yes, yes” and “No, no”?

You’ll recall I mentioned earlier that Paul had been accused of being dishonest in his communication.

The Corinthians were saying of him that he didn’t mean the things he said and he never intended to follow through on the things he said to them.

Paul once again holds his life up to the light and says, “You know me. Do I make my plans and communicate like the world does saying both yes and no in the same breath, thereby intentionally deceiving you?”

Paul could ask that kind of question, because his conscience was clear. He had that track record of honest communication.

You could bank on the fact that what Paul said truly reflected what Paul felt — what he meant and what he intended to do.

Again, I this is something God would have us strive for — letting our communication really reflect how we feel, what we mean and what we intend to do.

It’s hard work, isn’t it? All of us struggle with those alternatives to honest communication.

The alternatives come to us as naturally as breathing.

Let me give you three of the alternatives that I want us to avoid.

They’re not in the text. They actually come from my life, as I’ve reflected on how I struggle with honest communication. I think they may serve you well.

3 alternatives to honest communication that we need to avoid.

First of all, I want to encourage you to avoid

1. Self-protective communication.

That’s a real big alternative for me.

Self-protective communication is where I say whatever I can to keep myself from being hurt. Maybe you do the same.

It’s when I use defensive language, saying things like, “I did not.”

Maybe I slip into blaming, where I say, “Me, but what about this person? It was their fault.”

At times, it’s shaming, where I would say, “You’re one to talk.”

This kind of communication runs the gamut from lies all the way to forms of the truth that really hurt other people. I’m guilty of that at times.

It’s an alternative that comes all too easy to me. It’s something I’ve got to avoid, because I want to be an honest communicator.

Maybe you struggle with that alternative as well.

If not that, then maybe it’s the second one. We need to avoid

2. People-pleasing communication.

This is where we say whatever we can to keep others from being hurt.

At face value, that really sounds Christian, doesn’t it? In a sense, the writers of Scripture say we are to consider our communication and our actions to make sure we are not hurting people intentionally.

But this can be a destructive form of falsehood.

This kind of people-pleasing communication causes anger and pain to go beneath the surface, to never come out in the open but to go beneath the surface where they do so much damage.

Rather than coming clean with a person when that person has hurt us or treated us in a wrong way, rather than saying, ‘What you did hurt me’ or ‘What you did made me feel angry or disappointed’ and rather than honest communication, people-pleasing communication would say it’s no big deal. ‘Forget about it.’

Inside, honestly, we’re saying it’s a big deal.

Paul actually communicates and commands us in Ephesians 4:25:

Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to one another.

He gives us this picture that falsehood is like a coat that we put on. It’s like a protective layer that we wear.

He says put off that protective layer — I know it’s scary — put off falsehood. Speak truthfully to one another.

Self-protective communication as well as people-pleasing communication undermines the integrity and trust upon which healthy relationships are built.

If you want to be a sincere person, that’s a step that you may need to consider today if you slip into that alternative.

Let me give you a third alternative to honest communication. Again, these are three that surface from my life.

You may not be able to relate to them at all.

The third alternative you should avoid.

3. Manipulative communication.

This is where we say whatever we can to get what we want. We’ll put it whatever way we can to get what we want.

It is a good thing to express needs and desires and to be honest like that. The question is do you express them in a forthright and honest manner?

Here’s what I do. This is my subtle form of manipulation.

As we communicate, you can pick up on it and say, “You’re not being honest.” I give you that permission.

Ready, here’s what I say. Rather than saying, ‘That doesn’t look right to me,’ do you know how I put it? I’ll get next to a person and say, “Does that look right to you?”

See the little, subtle thing. I’m trying to get them to do something without coming out and asking for it.

How about this one? “Are you hungry?”

Here’s one not to do. I did this last week, as my wife and I were preparing for a date together. I walked in and said, “Are you going to wear that?”

There are more honest ways to say these kinds of things, don’t you think?

You see, you can clothe your communication in so many different forms of falsehood, but only honest communication does honor to God and characterizes a person of sincerity.

Avoid the alternatives.

Like Jesus said, let your yes mean yes, and let your no mean no.

Don’t get in that middle ground where you’re saying yes but feeling no, or you’re saying no but going to do yes. Be honest in your communication.

Sincerity requires a clear conscience.
Sincerity requires honest communication.

A third thing that it requires is:

Sincerity requires faithfulness to your commitments.

A person of sincerity is a person who follows through on what they said they would do.

Paul illustrates this characteristic by first of all talking about the model for our faithfulness, which is God’s faithfulness.

Our faithfulness should be modeled after God’s faithfulness.

Notice what he says in verse 18.

But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silas and Timothy—was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.”

Verse 20:

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.”

What is he saying?

He’s saying that our God is a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. He doesn’t make commitments and then later on say, “Just kidding.”

Nor does he say, “I felt like it when I said it, but now I don’t feel like it anymore. Now I’m too busy.”

Every promise God has made has been fulfilled or is in the process of being fulfilled.

It is his character to be faithful. From the opening pages of the Bible until now, God has been faithful. He’s faithfully working out his plan in history, striving to seek and save those who are lost.

In fact, Paul points out that Jesus Christ is the ultimate yes. He is the ultimate display of God’s faithfulness to his promises and to his commitments.

God’s faithfulness needs to be the model for our faithfulness.

Paul continues on and transitions into the motivation for our faithfulness.

What motivates us to be faithful and to stay faithful?

That’s God’s standard and his Spirit.

Let’s continue on in the passage. I’ll start at verse 20 again where Paul says:

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.”

Pause right there.

What does “amen” mean. Do you know?

“Let it be so.”

It’s an affirmation of something that is going to happen for sure.

Amen literally means “it’s as good as done.”

What Paul is saying here when he says, “Through Christ the amen is spoken by us,” is when we made a commitment, it was like an amen. It was as good as done.

You see, that should characterize us.

That’s God standard, and that’s what we should be aiming toward — being able to be people where we say it and it is as good as done.

We may as well say, “Amen” to it.

I’m going to be there. Amen.
I’ll finish that. Amen.
I’ll be there for you. Amen.

Let it be so… it’s as good as done. It’s God’s standard.

Continuing on in verse 21:

“Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ.”

That’s a great promise to hang on to — God is the one who is going to help us do this. He’s the one who is going to help us stand firm.

He’s not stepping back and saying, “Now you do all these things that my Word has said.” He’s saying, “I’m going to be there for you.”

Here’s the real kicker. Are you ready?

“He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”

I got to this verse and thought what is this verse doing here?

Paul’s talking about commitment and about faithfulness, and all of a sudden, he mentions the Holy Spirit — he gets into the theology of the Holy Spirit.

The spirit anoints us, sets his seal of ownership on us, put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come. What is that all about?

Then it dawned on me — where does the spirit of God live?

In the life of a follower of Jesus.

The Spirit of God resides within us.

The Spirit of our covenant-making, covenant-keeping God lives within us, working to mold our attitudes and our actions into conformity with God.

You see, in this context, what do you think happens to the Spirit of God who is working in our lives, trying to conform us to God’s image?

What happens to the Spirit of God, when we’re unfaithful to commitments that we make, when we break covenants that we’ve entered into? I think it’s just like a slap against the Spirit.

Again, the Spirit is trying to build out covenant-keeping traits within us.

We’ve put a huge hand in the Spirit’s face, so to speak. It grieves the Spirit.

Breaking commitments, especially if we do so in a thoughtless manner, does to the Spirit of God what a racist joke would do to someone like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr.

Can you imagine if someone told a racist joke within earshot of Nelson Mandela? It does to the Spirit of God what that would do to that person.

We might need to reconsider how we treat the commitments we’ve made.

There have been times when I’ve said yes and didn’t follow through completely. Even recently, that has happened.

There are times when I said yes even when it was convenient to do so, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to follow through.

Now I see in light of this passage how it grieved the Spirit within me.

You see, there are legitimate times to back out of commitments. Obviously, Paul did that. We’ll see what set that in motion next week.

But I want you to understand this today — sincerity is huge in God’s eyes.

Staying faithful to the commitments we’ve made is an important part of being sincere.

Maybe making things right if we’ve broken commitments is a step that you may need to take, today.

Pursuing honest communication is putting aside self-protective, people-pleasing, manipulative forms of communication. Putting those aside and saying, “With God’s help, I’m going to seek to be an honest communicator. If I’ve been dishonest, I need to go and make that right.”

Keeping a clear conscience, owning up to the things in the past that have haunted me, gaining that clear conscience and then maintaining its sincerity is what God wants from us.

He has given us his Holy Spirit to live within us and to help us attain that. It’s not just on your shoulders.

You just need to be willing to say, “God, help me be sincere.”

God says, “I will help, but you’ve got to say help.”

Now let’s pray. Maybe some of us want to say that today. Would you join me in prayer?