Integrity: The Foundation of Trust and Holy Living

Integrity matters because it is the basis for trust and relationship. This is the basis for everything. If you think about our relationship with God and we said already our foundation is God and his word, right? Integrity is built on that. Why? Because God's word is true. And if we can't trust a piece of it, we can't trust any of it. It's an integrity thing, right? It's integral to our beliefs. So integrity is important. If you think about your relationships with friends and co-workers and even more importantly your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend, what is important? That they are who they say they are. Right? [00:02:36]

And I I will say this, we live in a day and age where anybody can grab a camera, anybody can record themselves, anybody can do a TikTok, anybody can do that and say that they're an expert, and then you very quickly find out that they're not right. There's a lot of fake there's a lot of uh of of, you know, misrepresentation of how things really are. So today, I feel like living with integrity has to be a core value that we own together because it's different than what's normal now, right? [00:01:41]

Integrity is important when we think about our relationships. It is so important when somebody repeatedly says they're going to do something and they don't do it. It creates distrust. It fractures a relationship. And I see this a lot. Uh, you know, I was a kids pastor for 17 years. You know how many times I I heard parents promise something and not deliver? And we kind of chuckle at that, right? Because you're like, "Oh, yeah. Well, I promised I'd take them to go do this thing." But guess what? That's starting to teach them that people don't do what they say they're going to do. [00:03:43]

Being a person that does what I say I'm going to do. To be the person that people recognize in and out of the church. To to be the same person at camp that I am up here on the stage. to be the same person in the foyers, you know, that I am up here. Like, it's important to me. But guess what? Integrity is hard. It costs us something. Paul said this, and he said in the most confusing way, but in Romans chapter 7, this is a very, you know, famous thing when it comes to integrity and and hypocrisy. [00:04:58]

This is why each and every day is an opportunity to live in integrity. It's also why each and every day is a struggle to live in integrity because it is so easy and so normal for us to brush aside little things and and be like, well, I'm going to just kind of, you know, make this little this little twist of the truth to make it look like I did what I was supposed to do. I'm going to just kind of skirt around the issue instead of addressing it. It's hard. But as Christians, we also have a bigger spotlight on us because we are not just representing ourselves personally. [00:06:45]

A lack of integrity will ruin perceptions of you and who you represent and can happen immediately. They say it takes a lifetime to build a reputation, to build character, to build integrity, but it takes seconds to lose. This is hard stuff. This is hard stuff because integrity is a high standard. And let me tell you, can I can I tell you a time that that I had a lack of integrity? I'm going to take you back to when I was in high school. Okay, so just a couple years ago. [00:08:13]

And I remember this. I to this day remember the feeling, the tension inside me because guess what? I knew what the right thing to do was, but I also knew how it could affect this kid. And then I started like justifying him in my head. And I did not write him down. I I I let him be present that day even though he wasn't present. And I I remember like I don't know, maybe it's because I was the good pastor's kid or whatever, but I remember those feelings of just like guilt and shame immediately after doing it. [00:10:53]

And he and and he said, "You know what?" He's like, "I I can't trust you." So, um, I'm going to take you off of taking attendance and for my sophomore brain that was just devastating and right now like as an adult I'm like big whoop I was you know I was taking attendance in choir but for me it was it was a position of leadership it was recognition that I was a person of integrity that he trusted me and to hear those words I trusted you but now you've broken my trust was just devastating and in one moment after years of being you know a young man of integrity I lost all my credibility with [00:12:24]

But living with integrity is very very difficult and we are often faced with it. And it takes a lifetime to earn and seconds to lose. And I could go on with more stories, but you can insert any celebrity, any celebrity pastor, any politician that we look at and you're like, "Oh man, that's a good person." And then all of a sudden you hear that one news report and it's over. and years of ministry are gone of ministry credibility. That's why integrity is important. We have to be people of integrity. [00:13:18]

The Lord was with Joseph. So he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. Potterer noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did. Can I just point out for a second? It wasn't just that Joseph was living with integrity. It's that potterer also noticed he lived integrity because of God. And he was blessed because of Joseph's God. This is a person who really has nothing to do with the God of the Israelites, the God we serve today. But instead, he's noticing who this God is because of Joseph. [00:15:43]

Joseph lived with integrity. He did what was right and he was proven that and he proved it to potterer and God was with him. And this integrity got him promoted to this position to the the chief man, the the right-hand man of Piper. But something happens and his integrity is challenged. Just a few later few verses later, Piper's wife begins to notice this handsome young man and begs him to come sleep with her. And it gets real sketchy. And Joseph kept pushing her off. And finally one day she cornered him and grabbed him. [00:17:32]

But Joseph was a man of integrity. And when he was cornered and all of those things were happening and after repeated attempts to push her away, he said no. And you know what the Bible says? It says he ran from her. Talk about integrity. I mean, let's be honest. When was the last time you ran away from temptation? Okay, if we're being real honest, right? Like we rarely run away from temptation. I'm not talking about physically even, right? I'm I'm talking about everything involved with that. But Joseph lived with integrity. And guess what? It cost him everything because after that, she frames him. [00:18:05]

Listen, church, having integrity will cost you. And we're going to talk about that in a little bit. It will cost you, but the the benefit is so great because little did Joseph know that in that prison he would meet Pharaoh's officials, that he would be a man of integrity in that prison to where actually I didn't put it in in my notes, but it says that the the warden of the prison didn't worry about anything in prison because Joseph took care of all of it. How about that? the the prison warden is trusting Joseph to just run the prison. [00:19:25]

Job's story is unique because Joseph was purposely tested by Satan with God's permission. How about them apples, right? How would you like to know someday that you know, you know, Satan came and he he asked me and I said, you know, how about Job? Job's a good good guy. Go mess with him. Because that's what it says would happen. Job 1:1 says this. There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Oz. He was blameless, a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. [00:21:56]

But guess what? There were opportunities for him to compromise his integrity. The Bible tells us that Satan got permission from God. It's a really interesting uh story and perspective that we see. But Satan goes and he rips everything away from Job. He rips away his wealth, his livestock, all of his earthly blessings, and allows for his children to die. So all of Job's children die. And this all happens as you read scripture. It was like while that person was still giving bad news, another person showed up. [00:22:08]

But Job replied, "You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad? So in all this, Job said nothing wrong. Man, if there's anybody that had opportunity to uh compromise their integrity and have full understanding from the rest of humanity, it would be somebody like Job, right? Everything was ripped from him. He was tested. He was oppressed. Actually, most of Job is when his friends show up and just tell him he's a bad guy. That this happened because he's a sinful man and he's screwed up. [00:22:56]

He says, "I will defend my integrity until I die. I will maintain my innocence without wavering. My conscience is clear for as long as I live." Because he knew he was doing the right thing. He wasn't just labeled a man of integrity. He was a man of integrity. And finally at the end in Job 42, we find out that Job is restored. God restores him and gives him back double what he had before. And it's a great story. He faced pressure to compromise not only from his friends, his best friends who showed up to be with him, but also from his wife, the closest person in his life, and from all the circumstance that anybody else would have said, "Well, we get it, Job. [00:23:17]

At the beginning of Daniel, starting in chapter 1, there's an opportunity. They are they are taken from Israel and they are taken away and put in the king's household to be his servants and advisers because they were intelligent and and uh strong young men. And one of the things they would do is that they wanted them to eat the king's food so that they could be on the same same level, so that they would be healthy, all of those things. And the food was extravagant and all of those things. And uh Daniel and his friends could have just eaten the food that was presented to them, but the food that was being presented to them was not acceptable for a Jew to eat at the time. [00:24:59]

So, Daniel is hanging out with his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedneo. Or if you're in a Veggie Tales generation, it's Rack, Shack, and Benny. Okay, any Veggie Tales fans out there? Okay, I grew up on Veggie Tales. Love them to this day. My kids still watch them as we drive around in our van. It's wonderful. But I just want to I just want to show you a few opportunities in their lives that they had opportunity to compromise their integrity. [00:24:31]

And they said, "Oh, great king, we will not do that." And he got real mad, turned up the heat on the furnace, seven times hotter, it said, and threw them in there. And uh you know, I don't know if you know this, but Jesus showed up. It was awesome. He's like, "Are they dead yet?" And they're like, "Actually, no. There's there's uh there's four people in the fire. We threw three in there, but there's four. They're walking around in there." You know? I I just wish sometimes that I could just watch Bible stories happen as they did because I would love to see people's reactions, right? [00:26:06]

But the reason in that story that that they were saved is because of their integrity and God showed up and saved them. They chose to live by integrity. Again, it would have been very easy and generally socially acceptable to pretend to bow to the the idol and worship it, but they chose not to. And then Daniel has his very famous encounter with some lions. all because uh he still prayed to his god even though it was banned and and the his his rivals said, "You know what? Guess what? He's still praying. We better do something about it." [00:27:52]

But he stood up for what he believed. He stood up for the God he believed in. And God met him where he was. But guess what? There's a common thread in all of these stories. Every single person in these stories had integrity and then was tested. Did you know we're tested each and every day? We may not be tested with a fiery furnace. We may not be tested by the loss of everything we own and hold dear. We may may not be tested uh by uh you know being threatened with jail and forgotten, but we can be tested each and every day. [00:29:23]

Integrity matters because God's word commands it. And God takes pleasure when we have it. You look at these stories and God is smiling happily at his servants during these times. They are faithful and true. And I've got just a few passages I wanted to read through here, just real short ones where they they highlight the importance of having integrity just so you know that God does command it and that he does take pleasure in it. Matthew 5:37, Jesus says just a simple yes, I will or no, I won't. Anything beyond this is from the evil one. [00:30:10]

But Jesus had an interesting interaction with those people in Matthew 23. He's interacting with the Pharisees who are the religious leaders of the day. They are supposed to be the standard for everybody else. And what does he say to them? He says, "What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law." Oh, cool. Not cool, hypocrites. For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisees, first wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too. [00:32:22]

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, but deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable. This is an older quote. This is one I've heard in songs before. This is, you know, like I I I've heard this quote a lot and I I sit and I think about it and I still think how true if we're representing the king, we should do the things that he commands us to do and be that example. [00:33:15]

Leadership rises and falls on integrity. And that applies to me just like it applies to you, but in a lot more ways. I'll just be honest with you, it applies to me even more because I am mere spiritual leader. This is the position God has put me in. So, this matters to me. I don't want to be one way in this pulpit and another out there in the foyer and another on my car ride home and another at my house. I want to be the godly man of God that I've been called to be. It is a daily struggle and we have to battle it. [00:34:57]

Living a life of integrity will cost you. It will cost you. It's possible it will cost you worldly advancement, promotions. It may cost you getting a bad grade at school because you didn't actually study. It will cost you. But the reward is so much greater. To live a life as a person of integrity matters. We may miss out on the fun that comes from the the thing that we could have been a part of, but we chose not to because that's not who we are. [00:35:36]

And as a church, I want to be known as a church where people act like Christ in and out of the church building. And my desire is that City Church will be a church of integrity. We will honor God with our hearts, our lips, and our actions. We will be people of God in and out of this church. I will be a man of God in and out of this church. And that means we're going to have opportunities to screw it up. And I want you to know a few things. One, we're going to work towards integrity together. [00:36:31]

We all screw up. We all mess up. But our pursuit is integrity. Amen. That is where we're going. So my vision is that we are the church all day, every day, inside the church, outside the church. When it's easy, when it's hard, when we feel like it, when we don't, we have to keep this central. It must be a non-negotiable for us. We will be people of integrity. We will be people of faith. We will be people of character. We will be. We have to be because we represent the eternal King Jesus. [00:37:22]

Character, integrity cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. Integrity can only be proven in difficult situations, church." So, I'm going to do something crazy. My wife was teasing me about this this morning in our pre-ervice huddle. I'm going to pray for you and I want you to pray with me that this week we would have opportunity to live in integrity. And I know full well what I am asking for for me and for you. [00:38:10]