“Purge
out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.
For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the
feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness;
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth”. 1 Corinthians 5:7, 8
“Sincerity”
means pure, innocent, incorrupt, far from every kind of contamination, and
clean from soil or stain. So being sincere has to do with the intention/s of
the heart being free from hypocrisy and deceit. God also requires our service to
him to be done in “truth”, meaning
free from deceit, lies, or falsehood. “Truth”
will always have substance or reality whereas falsehood will be empty, void,
and darkened. The source of truth is found in three places according to the
scriptures:
·
The Son of God “Jesus saith unto
him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man
cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6
·
The Word of God “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy
word is truth.” John 17:17
·
The Spirit of God “…And it is the Spirit that
beareth witness, because the Spirit
is truth.” 1 John 5:6
We need to surrender our lives to all three sources of “truth” and sincerely purge out all
malice and wickedness because of what “Christ
our passover” has already done for us. But it doesn’t matter how sincere we
are if we don’t also have truth. In other words we can be sincerely wrong!
A prime example of being sincerely wrong is when King David attempted to bring
the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem
(1 Chronicles 13). David was doing the right thing but in the wrong manner. It
was good to desire to bring the ark into Jerusalem;
that is what God wanted too! The problem is that David was bringing it upon a
cart pulled by oxen (his own way, like the Philistines had done – 1 Samuel 6)
rather than being borne upon the shoulders of the priests as the Lord had
commanded (Exodus 25:14). Everything that sounds Christian and spiritual is
not necessarily scriptural and Biblical. Friend, God killed a man named
Uzzah, before he got David’s attention that he was doing things in the wrong
order, what will he have to do to get your attention?
So, practically speaking, what does serving God in “sincerity and truth” look like? How do I
stop doing things my way and start getting my house in order? Well, it may mean
changing what we believe if it doesn’t match what the Bible says. For me, it
initially meant renouncing what I was taught to believe as a child in regards
to salvation when shown the “truth”,
and getting saved. John 8:32
says, “the truth shall make you free”,
wouldn’t you like to be made free today? Simply repent of any sins and
hypocrisy and believe in the “truth”
of the Bible and ask the “truth” /
Jesus Christ to come into your heart and he will give you the Spirit of “truth”. If you are already a Christian, it
may mean giving up that special sin and putting away that false god that you
serve, in order to rightly “fear the
LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth”!
“Now
therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity
and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the
other side of the flood, and in Egypt;
and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve;
whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the
flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve
the LORD.” Joshua 24:14, 15
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