Openly Commit Yourself to the Truth

Recently I got an invitation to a fall gathering. It sounds great and I hope we can go. On the bottom of the invitation it said RSVP. Now I have to tell you that we are living in a day where we do not like commitment. We avoid commitment at all costs. We like to keep all of our options open.

We don’t like marriage. If we are married, many a man slips his wedding ring off on Friday night. We don’t like to commit ourselves to spiritual decisions we have made in the past. We don’t like to let people know about those. We don’t like to have houses with yards. I don’t think there is anything wrong with apartments, but there is a huge proliferation of apartments in my area and I think one of the reasons this is so is because people don’t plan on sticking around. They want to keep all their options open and don’t want to commit to a place or even to a house.

In Nehemiah 9, we find people who did the exact opposite. They put their names to a commitment. We think about the Founding Fathers who famously pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor at great peril to their own selves. In Nehemiah, God’s people, who were back in Jerusalem from captivity, had heard the Word of God explained and read. This led to both sorrow and joy at the realization of who God is and what they had done.

Then in Nehemiah 9, we find over and again the contrast between who God is and how they had lived. Revival is closing the gap between who God is and how we live. Verse 33 sums it up when the people say to God, “Howbeit thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly.” Then, verse 38 says, “And because of all this we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, Levites, and priests, seal unto it.” Nehemiah 10:1 says, “Now those that sealed were…,” and it gives a list of the people who did this.

I would like you encourage you today to openly commit yourself to the truth, what is right, and to a person, the Lord Jesus. Nehemiah 10:28 says, “And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the porters, the singers, the Nethinims, and all they that separated themselves from the people of the lands unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, every one having knowledge, and having understanding: they clave to their brethren,” and they made an oath to walk in God’s law which was given by Moses the servant of God.

So, what they did is they said, “We are separating ourselves from what is wrong in our past. We are committing ourselves to what is right, both God’s law and God’s people.”  Today, we avoid that. On social media, we try to be vague. In our personal dealings, we try to be one thing with one group and another thing with another group. We try to keep all of our options open. Oddly enough, when we do that, we live very constrained lives. We think that if we don’t commit to anything, that we have all these options, but the fact is when we don’t commit to what is true, right, and a certain path, we are restraining ourselves from all kinds of power, guidance, and clarity that not only comes from choosing to do right, but declaring and pledging it so.

I think there is a danger of overstating something. I sometimes tell young preachers, “Prepare, don’t declare.”  In other words, before you tell everyone, “I am a preacher,” just start preparing. Just do it. I think there comes a time when you have to declare as well. So, openly declare yourself to the truth.

What will that do for you? It will give you accountability. Once these people had signed their names and said they were separating themselves from falsehood, joining themselves to God and His way and people, they were accountable. That is why we don’t like to sign up. We don’t like to sign our name to something because we don’t like that accountability, but accountability helps us in the desire to do the right thing and to live a life that makes a difference. Nobody that has changed the world for good, did so avoiding commitment. Again, the Founding Fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor by putting their signatures on the page.

Openly committing ourselves gives us clarity. We don’t have to wonder where we should walk because we know. Twice in chapter 10 it says, “As it is written in the law.” They had clarity.

They also had guidance. They had clarity about where they were going and they had guidance. The last verse of chapter 10 says, “And we will not forsake the house of our God.” In the previous chapter they had said that God had not forsaken them even though they had done wrong. God had been gracious and merciful.

Today, whether it is on social media, in your personal life, or in your public life, let me challenge you to openly commit yourself to the truth and to what is right. It will give you accountability, clarity, and guidance, and it is an act of choice. You are making a choice anyway. The worst way to make a choice is to not choose and passively end up doing something by default. Actively choose to do right and declare it so today.