Walking In Integrity Series

With success comes great responsibility. When the Lord begins tearing down the walls of opposition and using you to bring glory to Himself, and to see the lost come to Christ, then you need to be careful that you do not fall into sin. Lawrence O. Richards says, “Early [devotion to God] leads to success, prosperity, and greatness. But with success comes the temptation to rely on one’s own assets rather than on the Lord. It is when we have been most blessed that we’re most vulnerable.”(1) When you begin experiencing a measure of success in your calling, it is then that you need to be ever-mindful of how you stand, and be careful to walk in integrity.

When a lack of integrity results in sin then you risk losing everything the Lord has accomplished through you, including the ones you have led to Christ. Rick Warren says, “Integrity is the foundation of leadership. You only lead people if they trust you. If you lose people’s trust, you’ve lost it all.”(2) He continues to state, “I think the most damaging sin a leader can commit is to betray the trust of his people.”(3) If you forgo integrity and betray the trust of those who respect you and look up to you, then be prepared to watch your calling and everything you’ve worked for go down the drain.

We will see today how a lack of integrity can lead to God’s presence, provision, and protection departing from your ministry efforts, just as it departed from Joshua and the Israelites.

An Unexpected Defeat (vv. 2-5)

2 Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth Aven, on the east side of Bethel, and spoke to them, saying, “Go up and spy out the country.” So the men went up and spied out Ai. 3 And they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not let all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not weary all the people there, for the people of Ai are few.” 4 So about three thousand men went up there from the people, but they fled before the men of Ai. 5 And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six men, for they chased them from before the gate as far as Shebarim, and struck them down on the descent; therefore the hearts of the people melted and became like water.

Here, we see that Joshua had great confidence in the Lord, therefore he sent only a small number of people to do battle with Ai. Let me tell you, it takes confidence in the Lord in order to see victory in the conflict. However, I wish to caution that confidence in oneself can lead to failure and defeat. Pride is a sinful heart condition, and the Bible says that sin will lead to death and destruction (Romans 6:23). Pride will lead you to blazing your own trail, and Proverbs 16:26 warns that “there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death,” and Proverbs 16:18 admonishes that “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

But pride was not the problem in this particular scene, for Joshua placed all of his confidence entirely in the Lord; but because the people failed, it indicated that there was likely some kind of sin issue present. Let me ask you, “Have you ever set out confidently to claim new territory for the Lord, only to suffer an unexpected defeat?” Sometimes the defeat will come as a result of underestimating your enemy, the devil, as he is constantly working against your efforts. However, if you are not walking in integrity then you will sooner or later suffer a spiritual upset. As Moses once told Reuben and Gad, in reference to keeping a promise, “If you do not do so, then take note, you have sinned against the LORD; and be sure your sin will find you out.”

Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language defines “integrity” as, “moral soundness or purity, incorruptness, uprightness, honesty,” and a “genuine, unadulterated, unimpaired state.”(4) In Psalm 25:21, King David prayed to the Lord, “Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for You.” David’s prayer was answered, and we know this because, in 1 Kings 9:4, the Lord commanded his son Solomon to “walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you.” If you are being faithful to wait on the Lord, and to obey His commandments, then you are someone who is walking in integrity.

If you should suffer an upset, then perhaps you need to question whether or not you have been walking in integrity. You need to perform a thorough spiritual inventory of your heart and motives, and take a good look at how you are living your life. You will likely find that you have slipped in some small area of your devotion to Christ, and you will find that you have a sin issue that has been left unchecked. You might even discover that you have been placing your trust in something other than the Lord – maybe in yourself, in money, or even in the numbers of your army (your congregation).