Matthew 5: Let Your Yes Be Yes Before Your Father

Introduction

“Yes, Daddy. No, Daddy.” Hugh Wessel opens his message with this picture: a small child answering his father in two words. He doesn't need to say, “Daddy, I swear it's true.” He doesn't need to call on heaven and earth to give his answer weight.

Preaching at Église Réformée Évangélique de Marseille Sud, in a series on the Sermon on the Mount, he pauses on Matthew 5:36-37: “Neither shall you swear by your head, for you can't make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’ Whatever is more than these is of the evil one.”

Jesus, he says, is not simply giving us a rule of good conduct. He is showing us what our speech becomes when we learn to live before God, like children before their father: “a simple word, a true word, a word that doesn't need to look elsewhere for its guarantee.”

Message Outline

1. The Sermon on the Mount Describes the Character of a Christian

Jesus begins his public ministry seated on the mountain, as Moses had gone up the mountain to receive the law. He opens his teaching with the Beatitudes.
For the preacher, the Beatitudes are “the definition of a Christian.” Many think it is enough to believe that Jesus died and rose again. “But the demons already believe that” (James 2:19), and their character is not transformed.
Jesus continues: “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). “He never said: try.” He defines us by who he is, the light that has come into a world that prefers darkness.
Then come the applications to daily life: anger, lust, marriage and divorce, and finally oaths. People swore by heaven, by earth, by Jerusalem, “on the heads of our children, on my mother's grave.” Jesus reminded them that heaven is God's throne, the earth his footstool, Jerusalem the city of the great King. In other words, wherever we speak, we speak before God.

2. You Cannot Make One Hair White or Black

After heaven, earth and Jerusalem, there apparently remains one last territory: myself. “At least I can dispose of my own person.” Jesus answers: even there, you are mistaken.
“Jesus here is not giving us a biology lesson. He is reminding us of our condition as creatures.” Our life, our body, our time: we have received everything. We are neither the authors of our existence nor the masters of our future.
Yet we sometimes speak as if tomorrow belonged to us: “I guarantee you, not me, never. You can count on me, whatever happens.”
The apostle James takes up this illusion: those who announce their plans with confidence don't even know what their life will be tomorrow. “You ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live, and do this or that’” (James 4:13-15).
James doesn't forbid planning, and Jesus doesn't forbid committing: marriage, friendship and faithfulness rest on people who keep their word. “But there is an essential difference between being faithful and pretending to be sovereign.”
You promise a friend you will come and help next Saturday. You are available, you truly intend to go, you can say: “Yes, I will come.” But you cannot guarantee that nothing will happen between now and then. If you fall ill, your yes was not a lie: you are simply a creature.
“We are responsible for our faithfulness, but we are not sovereign over circumstances.” Our word must therefore be both firm and humble.

3. Closing the Distance Between the Mouth and the Heart

Why do we sometimes find it so hard to speak simply? Because there is often a distance between what we say and what we really think.
Someone asks us for a favor. We already know we don't want to. Instead of saying “I can't” or “No,” we answer: “I'll see, maybe, we'll talk about it later.” Sometimes this is sincere, and we need time to think. But sometimes we have already decided and we don't dare say no. “Our mouth lets them hope for a yes, but the heart has already said no.” Jesus wants to close this distance.
The preacher tells an illustration from his own life: the installation of an air conditioner. A professional announces a complicated job, obstacles to work around, several days of work. You accept his quote. Then the technicians arrive: the pipes run straight through, the announced difficulties never appear, and the installation takes far less time. You wonder whether you paid much more than necessary, “and the answer was yes.”
The professional may not have said anything false. He may have misjudged the job. “But if he knew the simpler solution and deliberately kept silent about it, his word was misleading.”
Before condemning him, ask yourself: don't you sometimes do the same thing? We present the facts in a certain way to win someone's agreement, we stress what suits us, we move quickly past whatever might raise questions. Our word “can be technically accurate while lacking truth.”
The simplicity Jesus speaks of is therefore not a matter of the number of words. “It is a matter of integrity. A word without duplicity.”
The preacher asks these questions: in your family, can your children count on your promises? In your church, do you take seriously the responsibilities you accept? Can you simply say that you can't, without inventing excuses? Can you say: “Yes, it was me, I was wrong, forgive me”? That is sometimes harder than delivering a long speech to explain why we acted as we did.
Jesus is not asking us to suddenly become insensitive. We are called to speak with love, patience and gentleness. “But gentleness does not require duplicity. And love does not require that we say yes to everything. A no can be full of love.”
This simplicity ties in with the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit: those who acknowledge their poverty before God don't need to pretend to be more than they are. Blessed are the gentle: they don't need to constantly defend their own importance. Blessed are the pure in heart: they learn to live without duplicity (Matthew 5:3, 5, 8).

4. What Is Added Comes From Evil

Some translations say “comes from the evil one,” others “comes from evil.” The evil one is Satan; evil is evil in general in our own lives. “The Greek, unfortunately for me, allows both translations,” and it is the context that must decide.
Hugh Wessel doesn't want to dismiss either one too quickly. Satan is a tempter, and Jesus calls him “the father of lies” (John 8:44). But evil doesn't reach us only from outside: something remains within us that still resists God's plan.
We already belong to Jesus Christ, united to him by the Holy Spirit, but we are not yet fully like him. Our old nature remains: it wants to protect our reputation, avoid admitting a fault, present the facts to our advantage. And Satan knows how to exploit these tendencies.
Remember Adam after the fall. God asks him whether he ate the forbidden fruit. He could have answered: “Yes, Lord, yes, Daddy, I disobeyed.” But he answers: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree” (Genesis 3:12).
Isn't that sometimes our way of doing things? “Yes, I was wrong, but...” And that “but” introduces a whole series of explanations meant to justify us. Some circumstances deserve to be explained. But sometimes the most truthful answer is simply: “I was wrong. Forgive me.”
Why is it so hard? “Because our pride is always present in our lives.” We want to protect our image, to stay in control of the situation. Sin reaches even the way we speak.
Here is the good news: our old nature is no longer our master. Our old man was crucified with Christ, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin (Romans 6:6). Sin remains present, but its reign has been broken. And it is by the Spirit that we put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13).
“The fight is real, and it is not a fight between two equal forces.” By his Spirit who lives in us, we gradually learn to renounce duplicity, to acknowledge our wrongs and to speak with simplicity. Jesus does not simply seek to change our vocabulary: he wants to transform our hearts, not through new resolutions, but through the new life received in him.

5. Jesus Christ, God's Yes

The apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was not “Yes and no,” but that in him is “Yes”: as for all the promises of God, in him is the Yes (2 Corinthians 1:19-20). “Jesus Christ is God's Yes.”
God had promised a Savior, the blessing of the nations through Abraham's offspring, a king who would establish his reign, a servant who would bear the sins of his people. All these promises find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. God kept his word.
Jesus himself was faithful to the end. He had announced that he would give his life: he gave it. He had announced that he would rise again: he rose. In Gethsemane, when the price of his obedience stood before him, he prayed: “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).
“Where we sometimes try to escape the price of our word, Jesus remained faithful to the cross. Where we try to justify ourselves, he, the righteous one, bore our sins.”
On the cross he said: “It is finished” (John 19:30). “Not almost. Not finished on the condition that we succeed in doing the rest.” There is nothing to add.
Our salvation rests on the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, not on ours. He remains faithful even if we are faithless (2 Timothy 2:13), and nothing will separate us from his love (Romans 8:38-39). In Christ, we are already seated with him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). “It is an unshakable promise. This reality cannot change for those who are in Christ.”
Christ did not come to tell us, “look how faithful you are.” He came to save us and unite us to himself. That is why Paul can say: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
This changes the way we live. We no longer need to constantly defend our importance, to pretend to be sovereign, to justify ourselves in the eyes of others. Our word can become more humble and more faithful, not because we have become capable by our own strength, but because Christ lives in us. Faithfulness is a fruit of his Spirit.

6. Returning to the Simplicity of a Child

The preacher returns to the opening image: the small child before his father. “Yes, Daddy. No, Daddy.” He doesn't need to put heaven up as a guarantee, or swear by the earth, or promise on his own head. He simply answers.
Perhaps you promised something that you neglected to do: keep your word. Perhaps you need to acknowledge a fault to your spouse, your children, a brother or sister in the church, a neighbor, a colleague: acknowledge it simply. Perhaps you are in the habit of saying yes to everything for fear of disappointing: learn to say no with gentleness and truth.
“But above all, let us remember this: our hope does not rest on the perfection of our word. It rests on the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.” We may fail to keep our word, but God remains faithful.
To those who don't yet know Jesus Christ, the Gospel does not ask you to come with big promises: “Lord, this time I promise I will change.” No. Come to him in your weakness, with your sins and your unkept promises. Entrust yourself to the one who kept his word for you. “For God has spoken his yes in Jesus Christ.”
In the exhortation that closes the service, Hugh Wessel adds: “Do not be afraid to acknowledge your limits. Do not be afraid to say: I don't know. Do not be afraid to admit: I was wrong.” And when you give your word, give it humbly, “as a creature who depends on God's grace.”
“The evil one says: I will ascend” (Isaiah 14:13-14). “And the believer says: Christ lives in me.” You don't have to hold your life in your own hands: Christ holds you. And because his yes will never fail, you will become, by his Spirit, a man or a woman whose yes is yes and whose no is no.

Key Takeaways

Wherever we speak, we speak before God. A true word doesn't need to look elsewhere for its guarantee.
We are responsible for our faithfulness, but not sovereign over circumstances: our word must be both firm and humble.
A word can be technically accurate while lacking truth. Jesus calls for integrity, for a word without duplicity.
The “but” that follows our confessions often betrays our pride. Sometimes the most truthful answer is: “I was wrong, forgive me.”
Jesus Christ is God's Yes. Our salvation rests on his faithfulness, not ours, and it is by his Spirit that our word becomes simple.

Personal Application

Is there a promise you have neglected to fulfill toward your spouse, your children, your church or a friend? What can you do this week to keep your word?
Who have you recently answered “I'll see” when your heart had already said no?
In what situation do you present the facts to your advantage, stressing what suits you and moving quickly past the rest?
When you admit a wrong, is it followed by a “but”? Who is waiting for you to simply say “I was wrong, forgive me”?
In what area of your life do you still say “I decide, it belongs to me,” and how can you lay it down before the Lord?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “let your yes be yes and your no, no” mean?

For Hugh Wessel, Jesus is not just giving a rule of good conduct. He shows what our speech becomes when we live before God as children before their father: a simple and true word, one that doesn't need to look elsewhere for its guarantee, and that matches what is really in our heart.

Why does Jesus say not to swear by your head?

After heaven, earth and Jerusalem, one last territory remains: oneself. Jesus reminds you that you cannot make a single hair white or black. This is not a biology lesson: it is a reminder of our condition as creatures. We are responsible for our faithfulness, but we are not sovereign over circumstances.

“Whatever is added comes from evil” or “from the evil one”: which translation should you choose?

Hugh Wessel explains that the Greek allows both translations and that the context must decide. He does not want to dismiss either Satan, whom Jesus calls the father of lies, or the evil that remains within us: our old nature still seeks to protect our reputation and to present the facts to our advantage.