Biblical Integrity Par II
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Biblical Integrity Part II
Biblical Integrity Part II
This morning we are going to wrap up our weekend with some practical ideas and concepts for you to take home with you.
We have covered a lot and hopefully you are encouraged by what we have covered so far.
Remember we defined integrity in a couple of ways including
Google: “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles, moral uprightness”
John Piper, “our inner beings align with our outer beings”
Unknown (not mine) “Doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason; even when no one (except God) is watching”
The bibles standard is unchanging vs the world which is fluid, ever changing.
The idea of truth and light flowed into Saturday morning when we talked about old life vs new life.
We are called to put off the old life of deceit, falsehood and stealing.
A life of death is defined by those things.
While at the same time we are called to put on truth speaking and honesty in our work.
We are called to walk in the light and speak the truth, have honest in our work and be known for being honest.
We also looked at Jospeh and Paul and their life of character and truth.
This leads to us daily deny ourself, our dishonesty and lies and follow, or put on, Jesus which leads to a life known by truth and honesty
Last night we talked about salt and light.
And we discussed how these ideas have great implications at home, at school and at work.
Each person in this room live in at least one of those realms, most of you are in two of them and some are even in all three of them. And so every single one of us have areas in which we are called to live this out and be a the salt and light to the world around us.
Paul walked us through oaths (promises or deals)
One way we stand out from the world around us is to let our word mean something. Being known as the person that when they say something they mean it. It may not be convient or easy, but we speak truth and keep it.
There is a clear and stark contrast between those who are salt, light or truth tellers and those who are not.
This morning we are going to look at a handful of Proverbs and hopefully tie together this weekend.
Turn with me to Proverbs and specifically chapter 10.
Scripture makes it very clear there are some advantages of living with integrity.
Living with Integrity allows us to live guilt-free, pure lives free from destruction to ourselves and those around us
Living true to the biblical standards keeps us from having this cloud of guilt or fear of punishment following us around.
Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.
The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.
These two go together and the principle is clear. Those who walk in integrity walk securely, upright, strongly pressing on.
If you are walking in total darkness or through unknown and uneven terrain you walk slowly, uneasy, not knowing if you next step will be on solid ground or into a hole.
Living by biblical standard has a great freeing feeling.
Bob Beasley has written a very helpful book called “The Wisdom of Proverbs” in which he shares this,
“A mean or woman of integrity is one who has adopted certain moral principles in life and then walks according to them. For the man or wman of God, the Bible forms the basis of those principles. The Bible is the Christians only authority for faith and life. Only the Bible can bind his conscience. Therefore, if the Christian is to walk in integrity, he must walk in conformity to God’s Word. To do so is to walk securely, without fear of failure or shame. “
The first thing here is we have to be in the word, reading it, studying it, memorizing it, listening to it, hearing it preached. You cannot be a follower of Christ and not want to learn and grow in your understanding of Christ and you cannot do so if you are not in His word.
But secondly but living this way and following God’s commands it actually frees us and our conscience, we walk without fear of failure or shame.
Good biblical leaders have to be known by a life of integrity.
It’s no surprise that many of the qualifictions of an elder or deacon have to do with their reputation and holding fast to the truth. Think about what their standard is:
above reproach (no cause for others to think badly of them, their church or their faith), one wife (faithful), sober-minded (not enslaved), self-controlled (reasonable, good judgement), respectful, hospitable (cares about others), able to teach (elders only), not violent, gentle, not arrogant or quick-tempered, not a lover of money, manages his household well, well thought of by outsiders, lover of good, upright.
Think about this list and they are called to be known as being true to their standards and living a certain way. They have to live in alignment with what they are saying.
You may be saying I am not a pastor or deacon, why do I care. These are the standards of believers. It doesn’t say anywhere in the epistles that only leaders can meet this standards but rather that all leaders must meet this standard, implying that others could and should be meeting this standard as well.
But the bible is clear those in leadership can only be good leaders by (Gods help, I understand that) but by living a certain honorable and upright way.
Long story short the Israelites were in captivity in Babylon. Some return to Jersualm after over 50 years of captivity and they begin to rebuild the city. They have begun the work through three key men of rebuilding the temple, teaching the law and then rebuilding the wall. They rebuild the wall and then they need somebody to be in charge of the city now.
I gave my brother Hanani and Hananiah the governor of the castle charge over Jerusalem, for he was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many.
Why was he appointed the governor in charge? Because he was faithful and God-fearing, more than many others. He was appointed to leadership not because of his size or strength but because of his integrity.
To better understand Proverbs 11:3 we actually need to zoom out just a little bit and see the verses around it.
A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.
Most of the proverbs are stand alone wisdom statements but this one is accompanied by a couple others that are helpful to us.
A false balance and a just weight actually refers to the economy of biblical times. Their entire livelhood and finances were centered around weights and measures. They didn’t have banks or 401ks or mortages or interest rates, etc. They bartered and traded for everything. And to try and level the playing field they would determine the value of something because on how much something weighed. A scoop of something could mean one thing to one person and one thing to another (its like getting ice cream, not all scoops are the same)
But a pound of something should be a pound anywhere. The problem was there was some ways to get around the system.
First was dishonest scales. I go to the market and try and purchase something, I want to but 1 pound of rice, they pour rice onto the scale and it shows one pound, okay it costs this much here you go. Well people would adjust their scales to benefit them. 1 pound maybe was actually only 98% of a pound. Well make 100 sales a day and you just took that 2% you were stealing and turning it into 2% 100 times, plenty of extra profit for you.
The other thing they would do is using scales, they would be weights in one side and your produce in the other, and lets say I put a 5 pound weight on one side and then fill the other side until it is balanced, thats how you know you have 5 pounds. Well they would alter the weights so that a 5 pound weight actually was slightly less or slightly more depending on if I was buying or selling.
The point was they were being dishonest and cheating the system. and it was a disgrace, an abominiation to the Lord.
Heres a real life example from many years ago—there are thousands of examples but this one was the biggest in a long time.
“Throughout the mid-to-late 1990s, Enron Corporation was an apparent paragon of buisness excellence (the gold standard). Once a simple and stodgy natural-gas pipeline company, Enron had transformed itself into a high-tech powerhouse engaging in such trendy business as Internet bandwidth and electronic energy trading. As a result of this stunning transformation, Enron’s stock price soared, and the company soon became a darling of Wall Street.
Just one problem. Enron’s riches were built on a foundation of deceit. Essentially, the company’s top executives had begun keeping two sets of books. Through a variety of “creative” accounting strategies, they were able to defraud Enron’s workers, customers, and investors by making the company appear veastly more profitable than it really was. When the fraud was finally revealed it resulted in one of the largest bankruptcies in American history. Thousands of peoples lost their jobs and their life savings…Due to lack of business ethics, Enron had imploded…they build their house upon the sand and great was its fall. The exectuives were eventually divested of their ill-gotten wealth and convicted of criminal offences.”
Just one example their CEO Kenneth Lay was supposedly worth over $220 million in 2000 but is actual worthy with true numbers was negative $250,000. At one point the company had a net income of $1 billion a year (in the 90’s) and eventually declared bankruptcy—broke.
They were destroyed by their crookedness.
Here is the point, you will be found out. Living a life of deceit may help you for a time, you may get wealthy and you may live comfortably by the worlds standards. But you are always looking over your shoulder wondering when the wave is coming off the coast to wipe your wealth away.
Living with integrity frees you from this guilt and burden.
This ties directly to our next one; I could use this example for both of these points:
2) Integrity in the Workplace vs deception in the workplace
Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.
Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.
I won’t spend to much time because I think we covered it well already, but it would be better to not have money than to get it in foolish ways.
This is directly tied to living without this burden or cloud following you around but earning money in illegal or immoral ways is not only sinful but it ends up ruining you in the end.
Bob Beasley says this, “In business as in life, a person is often faced with dificult decisions. For instance, suppose you found out that the company you manage uses a particular software on 10 computers, but has only purchased licenses for four. The chances that you will be discovered for this copyright infringement are slim indeed, and ait will cost $2,100 to purchase the other six, which in turn will adversely affect the bottom line. What do you do? This proverb gives you the answer. Spend the money and let the bottom line suffer. Don’t forfeit principle for pragmatism. Wealth is honored more in our society than is the hidden heart of integrity. That’s one reason why BMWs and big homes are popular. There’s nothing wrong in owning BMWs or a big home, but in God’s economy, the heart of integrity is worth much more. What good is it for a person to be rich in the things of the world but poor in the things of God?”
Its easy to cut corners, especially on things you will never get in trouble for.
Its not easy, it means doing what you say your going to do. It means when you agree with your employer to work for 40 hours that you are actually giving 40 hours of good, hard work for the company. Yes, I realize no one else is doing it, and its just a couple minutes on your phone, and its just a quick conversation about the game last night. We’re called to be different and to keep a standard.
3) Righteous men and women walk in integrity.
Lets wrap up this weekend with a summarizing statement or truth.
The righteous who walks in his integrity— blessed are his children after him!
The reality of the matter is this—those who walk in the light, who are in Christ, will walk in integrity.
If you claim to be a follower of Christ, the pattern of your life better be telling the truth, holding fast to the biblical standard, doing the right thing for the right reasons at the right time.
Jesus warned against those who claimed to be followers of him but didn’t obey his commandments: he told them they never knew him, and one day he will tell them to depart from him forever.
Our only hope is the gospel of Jesus Christ. His death, burial and resurrection is the only hope we have both in this life and the life to come.
And the only way we can do any of these things we talked about this weekend is through the transformative power of the gospel and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you try to do these things on your own you will fail. If you try to do these things through Christ you can do them.
I would add that yes we do all things through Christ but, and don’t like freak out I added a but there, listen close—Jesus uses his church and his people to help us. It is still through Christ so don’t like get bent all out of shape.
The Father has put Godly men and women in our lives and has placed us in a church, a local body of believers, to help us. Parents, pastors, friends, spouses, mentors—they are there to encourage, edify, and push us in these areas.
These are the people who point out that our walk is not aligning with our talk. These are the people who the Holy Spirit uses to say he you said you were going to do this or that and your not doing it. You said you were going to be a caring husband and yet your putting your needs and desires before your spouse. You said you were going to be a devoted and strong worker and yet you are skipping out early each day.
Do not lose heart, through God’s grace we who are called can live this way and there is great freedom in living this way. In many ways we pushed and challenged everyone to live to this standard and it can feel overwhelming but don’t give up or be discouraged.
I will close with this
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.