A wealthy businessman lay on his deathbed. His pastor came to visit and talked about Gods healing power and prayed for his parishioner.
When the pastor was done, the businessman said, "Preacher, if God heals me, I'l give the church a million dollars."
Miraculously, the businessman got better and within a few short weeks was out of the hospital.
Several months later, the pastor bumped into this businessman on the sidewalk and said,
You know, when you were in the hospital dying, you promised to give the church a million dollars if you got well. We have not received it as of yet.
The businessman replied, Did I say that? I guess that goes to show how sick I really was! (Pause)
Today we are going to explore a subject that touches each and every one of us.
Today as we get back with Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount, we are going to see what Jesus has to say about integrity.
In the our Gospel lesson Jesus Says: Let your Yes be Yes, and your No,be No; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Satan, is the evil one He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.
When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Who would like this $50 bill? [Then crumple it up, step on it, roll it around and then hold it up again and ask,] Who still wants this $50 bill?
The value remains no matter what the item looks like on the outside no matter how scarred, bruised or beaten, the value is still the same. That is integrity.
A person of integrity is validated by their words and their deeds.
If we are pure in heart we can be pure in action. Integrity is making my daily actions line up with my heart's values.
Mark Twain said: Speaking honestly is better. It takes a lot of stress out of our lives.
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything, but if you don' tell the truth you have to remember what you said.
Integrity provides me with Security with greater confidence. Proverbs 10:9 informs us ..... The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.
In a society without moral absolutes anything goes.
When people can choose what is right and wrong without having a standard, how do you decide which way to go?
A busload of politicians were headed to a convention but because of highway construction,
they had to take a detour down a rural road.
The driver was having problems with this windy, country lane and lost control of the bus.
It ran off the road and crashed into a tree in an old farmer's field.
The old farmer was driving to town when he noticed that that there was a gaping hole in his fence.
He went to investigate and saw what had happened.
He went back to his truck, got a shovel, and buried all the politicians.
Since the politicians never arrived at their destination, a state trooper was dispatched to locate them.
He backtracked their route, followed the country road, saw the wrecked bus in the field, and looked up the old farmer that owned the property.
The trooper asked the farmer where the politicians had gone. The farmer informed the trooper that he had buried all of them.
The trooper said, They were all dead? The old farmer replied, Well, some of them kept saying they weren't but you know how them politicians lie! (Pause)
Throughout the Scriptures you will find the words: honesty, purity, truth, upright and complete all translated from the same words meaning integrity they are all synonymous.
If we are going to live lives of integrity we must know what integrity looks like. That comes from spending time in the Scriptures with God.
Hear Paul's words to Timothy 2 Timothy 2:15 BIBLE Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth. END
If we take the time to read and study the Bible and apply the truths that we read to our lives, then we can live lives of integrity.
Why?
Because the Bible is the only standard for living that is true and unchanging.
The Bible truly is our manual it is the B I B L E Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.
Walking in integrity means integrating all of what God's Word says into our daily activities.
It means that I become a doer of the word.
Once there were two brothers who were very rich and very wicked.
Both of them lived lives of sinfulness and debauchery and used their wealth to cover up a lot of their wickedness.
Both were members of a local church and used their money to be in positions of influence.
The old preacher at this church had retired and a new preacher had been hired.
This preacher was a man who preached the gospel with zeal and courage and lived an exemplary life.
The congregation began to grow at such a rapid rate that they needed to build a new church building.
At this same time, one of the brothers got sick and died. The new preacher was asked to do the funeral.
The day before the funeral service, the surviving brother pulled the preacher aside and handed him an envelope.
He said, There is a check in this envelope that is large enough to pay off the new building.
All I want you to do is tell all the people at the funeral tomorrow that my brother was a saint.
Do you think you can handle that?
The preacher shook the brother's hand and said, I will do precisely what you have asked.
The preacher immediately took the check to the bank and deposited it to the church's account.
The next day, the preacher stood in front of the large group of people who had come to the funeral and said, This man in the coffin was an ungodly sinner and wicked to the core.
He was unfaithful to his wife and abusive to his children. He was ruthless in business and a hypocrite in the church.
But compared to his brother, he was a saint! (Pause)
The fact is that God's Word has pretty clear instructions for each of us.
If we do what God says and apply what we learn to our lives, we will be people of integrity.
We will have hope, guidance, security and protection.
If we do not apply the Scriptures to our lives we become shallow and empty.
We are called to have our Yes mean Yes and our No mean No!
The brilliant Christian scholar and writer C. S. Lewis took that truth seriously.
His biography tells of the suffering he endured because he kept a promise he had made to a buddy during World War I.
This friend was worried about the care of his wife and small daughter if he should be killed in battle, so Lewis assured him that if that were to happen he would look after them.
As the war dragged on, the man was killed.
True to his word, Lewis took care of his friend's family.
Yet no matter how helpful he tried to be, the woman was ungrateful, rude, arrogant, and domineering.
Through it all, Lewis kept forgiving her. He refused to let her actions become an excuse to renege on his promise. (Pause)
Shortly after Lee and I moved to Indiana PA I went to drop off some items to be Dry-Cleaned.
The clerk asked when I would like to pick them up. I asked if I could return in an hour to pick them up.
She replied, I can't get this back to you until Friday.
But there is a huge sign in the front that says One-Hour Downtown,I thought you did dry cleaning in an hour?
No, she replied, that's just the name of the store.
We must live up to what we say we are.
If we call ourselves Christians we must live as Christ did in accordance to the Word of God.
Many have proclaimed: that they have accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
If were honest we like the Savior part but at times struggle with allowing Jesus to be Lord over every aspect of our lives.
Have you ever heard the phrase, Everybody else is doing it?
This is one of those poor rationalizations that we use to justify our actions.
To be a person of integrity means that you are willing to go against the crowd if the crowd is wrong.
It means being willing to stand alone, if necessary, for what is right. It means peer-pressure is no pressure for you.
In the Dr. Seuss, book Horton Hatches an Egg, it tells the story of an elephant, named Horton, who promises to sit on an egg and hatch it for its mother, lazy Miss Mayzie.
As the days and weeks go by, Horton just keeps sitting there on that nest up in a tree.
All his friends encourage him to forget his promise and to come play with them.
Do you remember his response? I meant what I said, I said what I meant. An elephant is faithful 100% " (Pause)
What could God do with a believer with that had that type of a commitment?
That had that type of integrity?
Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 5 that whenever we make a promise we do so in the presence of God.
When we break a promise, we are not just lying to others or ourselves. We are also lying to God.
In first century Israel, the Pharisees had developed elaborate rules governing when a man was bound by his word and when he was not.
If I swear by Jerusalem, I am bound by my words
.
If I swear towards Jerusalem I'm not bound.
Any promise I make using God's name binds me, but if I can avoid using God's name when I make a promise, than I don't have to keep my word; or so they thought.
So they began to swear by anything that sounded like it might mean something.
In fact a whole Jewish book of their law-code dealt with making vows and promises which ones you had to keep, and which ones you didn't.
We have heard similar oaths when people are trying to convince others that they are telling the truth; that we have integrity:
Cross my heart and hope to die (stick a needle in my eye)--Oops, sorry. I had my fingers crossed.
I swear on a stack of Bibles
If I'm lying, I'm dying!
May lightening strike me if I'm not telling the truth
As God is my witness
We can do terrible damage to our witness and even the cause of Christ when we are not people of our word.
The World is looking for authenticity wherever they can find it.
Our own integrity and the integrity of the church demand nothing less.
Today more than ever, we have to let our Yes be yes and our No be no.
Jesus faced the gut-wrenching choice of keeping a costly promise.
God had been promising for thousands of years to send a Messiah, His Son to save the world through His death and resurrection.
But when the moment of truth came in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus felt the weight keeping this promise.
In fact, He asked His Father, Please let this cup pass from me.
Jesus knows what it is like to face the weight of a promise.
But in that moment of truth, when He realized there was no other way, Jesus became the ultimate promise-keeper.
Be men and women of integrity. Let Jesus be the Lord of every aspect of your life.
Yield to the Holy Spirit, Let the Holy Spirit transform you into the image of Jesus.
The image of the ultimate promise keeper.
The image of Christian Integrity.
I meant what I said, I said what I meant. A Christian is faithful, .........100%.
Amen and Amen!
This message is based on a Sermon by Michael Luke Titled "Keep Your Promises". I commend this Sermon to you.
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