Summary: Are you living a life of integrity? If not, you had better scrap your present value system, determine what is important, & change your lifestyle because your salvation depends upon it.

MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER

CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX

ILL. So fearful were the ancient Chinese of their enemies on the north that they built the Great Wall of China, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. It was so high they knew no one could climb over it, & so thick that nothing could break it down. Then they settled back to enjoy their security.

But during the first 100 years of the wall’s existence, China was invaded 3 times. Not once did the enemy break down the wall or climb over its top. Each time they bribed a gatekeeper & marched right through the gates. According to the historians, the Chinese were so busy relying upon the walls of stone that they forgot to teach integrity to their children.

ILL. Brux Austin, the editor of Texas Business magazine, has written rather despairingly: "What is going on in North America?. . .We have no built-in beliefs, no ethical boundaries. `Cheat on your taxes, just don’t get caught. Cheat on your wife, just don’t get AIDS.’ Our high-tech society," he writes, "has given us everything - everything but a conscience," & integrity is a mangled casualty of our times.

Is Brux Austin right? Have we lost all sense of decency in our nation today? Has our conscience been so damaged that we no longer recognize what is right & wrong? Is integrity simply an old﷓fashioned & out﷓of﷓favor virtue?

By the way, what is integrity? Simply put, integrity is more than just telling the truth. Integrity is doing what you said you would do. Integrity means keeping your promises. Integrity means that your words & your actions are the same. In other words, you practice what you preach. As someone has said, "Integrity is the foundation stone of eternal life."

PROP. So let’s look at ourselves this morning & ask this question, "Am I living a life of integrity?" If you’re not, then you had better scrap your present value system, determine what is important, & change your lifestyle because your salvation depends upon it.

Remember, it was Jesus who said, "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" [Matthew 16:26].

I. CHOOSE YOUR SOURCE

A. So our first question is, "What is the source of my values? I’m getting them from someplace. Where am I getting them?" Now that is an important question, because where I get my values determines how valuable they are.

ILL. Would you consider the National Inquirer a good place to get your values? Would you consider TV talk shows a good place to get your values? Yet, if you are an average American, you’ll spend 1,000 hours in 1997 watching television. Which means that by the time you’re 65 years old you will have spent 15 years, 12 hours a day, 365 days a year just watching the tube - 15 years of your life.

In contrast, if you go to church every Sunday of your life for 65 years you will have spent a total of 8 months receiving spiritual teaching - 8 months compared to 15 years. That’s a big difference, isn’t it?

As a nation, we’re largely being molded as to what morality is, what decency is, what integrity is by what we see on the TV set.

B. Listen to what it says in 1 John 2:15,16. One contemporary Bible phrases it this way, "Don’t love the world’s ways...The lust for physical pleasure. The ambition to buy everything that appeals to you & the pride that comes from wealth & importance. These are not from God but they are from the world."

It’s obvious, isn’t it, that the world’s value system has always remained the same. This verse tells us that there are 3 basic world values that are constantly being conveyed to us.

1. The first one is pleasure. John calls it "the lust for physical pleasure." We are a culture majoring in pleasure.

ILL. Do you realize that the #1 industry in the U.S. is entertainment? We spend billions of dollars every year just trying to entertain ourselves.

ILL. Later this winter, on a cold morning when you & I will find it just a little bit difficult getting up & going to a nice warm church building, there will be tens of thousands of people in Foxboro, Massachusetts & in Green Bay, Wisconsin who will have paid 50 to 100 dollars each for the privilege of sitting on a snow covered seat & watching 22 guys beat each other up as they fight over an oblong ball on a frozen field.

And in the name of entertainment these spectators will be saying, "Boy, am I having fun. This is really great. I’m freezing to death, but I’m having a wonderful time." All in the name of entertainment!

2. Here’s the second world value - possessions. John calls it "the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you." We are a culture obsessed with buying things, getting more & more things. And we love to show off our possessions, our cars, our homes, our clothing, our jewelry. We love to show those things off because that says we are someone important.

3. Here’s the third one - it’s prestige. John calls it "the pride that come from wealth & importance." We come up with little labels that brand us as successful people. "I’m a CEO," or "I’m an Executive Vice President. I am someone who is really, really important."

ILL. You have seen the commercials for Gray Poupon, haven’t you? They’re pretty snobbish, aren’t they? Here’s this guy sitting in the back seat of a Rolls Royce with a squeeze bottle of Gray Poupon, "Oh, pardon me."

Do you realize French’s mustard, the blue collar mustard, had a squeeze bottle long before Gray Poupon did? And honestly, how many people have you seen riding in the back seat of a Rolls Royce eating a bologna sandwich with Gray Poupon mustard on it? It’s not a real picture, you see.

But we look at those things. And the message that is communicated as we watch beautiful people dressed in designer clothing, driving prestigious automobiles, looking immaculate, is that if I eat this mustard, or buy this product, or drive this car, then that’s me, & I deserve to be that person.

That’s why Paul writes in Romans 12:2, "Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking."

SUM. So we begin here. We choose for ourselves. "Where am I going to get my values?" I have only two basic choices. I’m either going to get them from the Word of God or I’m going to get them from the world. Those are the choices that I have.

II. DETERMINE WHAT IS IMPORTANT

A. Secondly, we need to determine what is important. Job 34:4 says, "You should choose to follow what is right, but first you must define what is good."

I want to give you a homework assignment. When you go home, get out a piece of paper & pen, & write down the 10 most important things in your life. Prioritize them. What’s the most important? What’s the second most important? The third most important, & so on. Make a list of your values in life.

Now it is important for you to do that for a couple of reasons.

1. #1, most of your values you didn’t choose. You just assimilated them. You got them from your parents. You got them from what you read, or whatever. So it is important for you to firm them up. "I’m going to determine now what’s really important for me. I’m not going to let someone else decide that, but I am going to decide what’s really important for me."

2. Now the second reason is because most of us never think about what’s important in life until it is too late. As long as we are just cruising through life & everything is falling into place, we never stop & ask the tough questions.

We never really ask ourselves, "What are my values? What’s really important to me?" until we are bankrupt. Or until we go through a divorce. Or until a loved one dies. Then we stop & ask, "Am I living the way I ought to? Are the really important things the things that I consider important in my life?"

It’s often not until tragedy comes that we begin to ask those kinds of questions. So what I’m encouraging you to do, is to do that before the pain, & save yourself some pain, because the pain will come but you will be better prepared for it if you have already determined what’s really important to you.

So make a list. "Here are the things that are really important to me." Now how are you going to decide what is really important & what is not? The key here is perspective. Now by perspective I mean, look at it & ask, "How long is this going to last?"

If it is going to last for a long time, if it is going to last for eternity, then it is really important. If it is going to last 30 years it is kind of important. If it is going to last 10 years it’s kind of important, but not as important as 30 years. And if it is only going to last for a short time, then it is not very important at all.

B. Now when you use that standard & compare it to what the world says are values, then notice what you come up with. Here are the 3 valuable things according to the world:

1. The first is pleasure. Listen to Hebrews 11:25. It says that "the pleasures of sin last a short time." Did you know sin was fun? I thought so. Yes, sin is fun, & if it weren’t fun, no one would do it. Right?

The pleasures of sin are real. They’re described in Scripture. But how long does it last? A short time. Therefore it is not very valuable. The pleasures of sin last a short time. The pain of sin lasts a long, long time. So when you consider the first worldly value, it doesn’t last very long.

2. What about possessions? Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:7, "We brought nothing into the world, & we can take nothing out of it."

ILL. You have never seen a hearse pulling a U﷓Haul, have you? And when a millionaire dies & someone asks, "How much did he leave?" The answer is always, "He left it all." He didn’t take anything with him because what you accumulate in life is only going to be yours for the span of your lifetime.

You didn’t bring anything into this world. You’re not going to take anything out of this world. So how valuable are possessions? Not very valuable, because they’re not going to last very long.

3. What about prestige? In Mark 10:31, Jesus tells us that many people who seem to be important now will be the least important then. When? In eternity.

The King James version says, "The first shall be last, & the last shall be first." In other words, there is going to be a reversal in order. People who are in front of the line who really appear to be important now, are not going to be very important at all in eternity. And the people who don’t appear to be very important at all, are going to be extremely important in heaven.

APPL. So how important is power, position, & prestige in this life? Not very important because that is not going to last very long. In fact 1 John 2:17 sums it up saying, "The world & its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."

SUM. So what is really important to us? Doing the will of God in our lives.

III. CHANGE MY LIFESTYLE

A. Now here’s a third thing. I need to change my lifestyle. I’m going to look at the 10 things that I consider important & then ask myself, "Does my life match up? Am I living in accordance with my God﷓given values?"

Now that is an extremely important question, & we need to be honest with ourselves here because George Gallup in a poll says, "The #1 cause of stress in our lives today is not the lack of money, & it’s not the breaking down of relationships, it’s the incongruities in life. It’s saying one thing & doing something else. It’s constant conflict inside."

ILL. Someone says, "My family is really important to me." Almost everyone would say that. Yet, statistics reveal that the average father in the U.S. spends 5 minutes a day with his kids. So what’s he doing? He is saying one thing & he is doing something else.

You might say, "My health is really important to me." Really? Do you exercise? "No." Do you eat right? "No." Do you get lots of rest? "No." Do you take days off? "Sometimes, but my health is really important to me."

Are you a materialist? "Oh, no! Everybody else is but I’m not. I’m not a materialistic person at all." Really? Is your debt load getting deeper & deeper? Are you buying things that you can’t afford? Do you have credit card charges that you can’t pay? Are you saving money? "No, I spend it all," you say.

So you see, we’re not consistent. We don’t do what we say is really important. Is God important to you? "Yes!" Ninety-five percent of the people in the U.S. say, "God is important to me." Really? Then do you schedule time to be with God? "Well, no, I’m so busy, I can’t."

Do you give God’s work at least 10% of your income? "No, I need that for myself." Do you spend time in the Word? Do you spend time praying, talking to God, developing a relationship with Him? "No, I am much to busy to do any of that." You see, we say one thing but we do something else.

B. So if you’re really serious about changing your lifestyle there are 3 areas that you are going to have to consider.

1. Here’s the first one. You’re going to have to look at your schedule. Is your schedule consistent with what you say is important? Do you have the most time allotted for the things that you think are really important, or are you spending time on things that you say aren’t important? You’re going to have to reevaluate your schedule.

2. Secondly, you’re going to have to look at your budget. "Am I spending the most money on the things that are really important, or am I spending the most money on things that I think are not important, on things that only last for a brief period of time?"

3. The third area you’re going to have to look at is relationships. "Am I spending time with the people who are most important to me? Am I spending time with my family, my wife, my children, my grandchildren? Or am I spending all my time being involved with things that aren’t that important to me?"

Psalms 119:37 says, "Turn my eyes away from worthless things." That would be a good verse to put on your TV set.

Ephesians 4:17 tells us to "stop going along with the mindless crowd.... That’s no life for you...Get rid of it. Then take on an entirely new way of life - a God fashioned life renewed from the inside & working out into your conduct as God reproduces His character in you."

We’re talking about a new life here. And I can hear your wheels beginning to turn. Here’s what you’re thinking, "Preacher, I’d really like to do that. I’d like to rearrange my schedule. I’d like to rearrange my budget. I’d like to spend time with the people who are really important to me. But I’ve tried this before. I stay with it a week or two & then I miserably fail. I want to do this but I just can’t do it."

And you’re right. You can’t do it. You aren’t strong enough. That’s why you need God. And that’s why you need Jesus Christ. You can’t do this by yourself. That’s exactly why Paul wrote in Philippians 4:13, "I can do everything God asks me to do with the help of Christ who gives me strength & power." With the strength & power of Jesus Christ, you can.

CONCL. Now I want to close with a very important passage of scripture. Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:16 & tells him to "keep a close watch on all that you do & think. Stay true to what is right & God will bless you, & He will use you to help other people."

Now get rid of all the fluff, people. Get rid of all the hype, & it comes down to this, "Do you know God?" Some have missed the most important thing in life because they don’t know God. Do you know Him?

INVITATION: