Honesty Is Always The Best Policy

• Some pocket the money.

• Others use the honest to pay old debts.

• Still others mismanage the funds trying to keep several projects going at once.

But how did the Joash's building superintendents handle the money?

Look at 2 Kings 12:15 Moreover they reckoned not with the men, into whose hand they delivered the money to be bestowed on workmen: for they dealt faithfully.

No accounting was required from the men who received the money to pay those doing the work, since they worked with integrity

That's the kind of people I want around me in all of my dealings? Don't you?

We have looked at:

I. The importance of honesty

II. An example of honesty

But now let us look at…

III. Some observations about honesty

Let me make some observations about honesty, from this story.

A. Honesty is always the best policy

Illus: Coming home from work, a woman stopped at the corner deli to buy a chicken for supper. The butcher reached into a barrel, grabbed the last chicken he had, flung it on the scales behind the counter, and told the woman its weight.

She thought for a moment. "I really need a bit more chicken than that," she said. "Do you have any larger ones?"

Without a word, the butcher put the chicken back into the barrel, groped around as though finding another, pulled the same chicken out, and placed it on the scales. "This chicken weighs one pound more," he announced.

The woman pondered her options and then said, "Okay. I'll take them both."

Honesty is always the best policy.

Illus: Four students arrived late to take a test. "And what is your excuse?" inquired the teacher.”

"We had a flat tire," they all said in unison.

Without getting upset, the teacher asked the students to take their seats. "The test is but one question," said the teacher. "Which tire went flat?"

Honesty is still, and will always be, the best policy.

That is why the writer of Proverbs wrote, "Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue, only a moment" (Proverbs 12:19).

Honesty is the best policy.

B. Honesty makes you complete

To be honest is to be real, genuine, authentic, and bona fide.Honesty expresses a disposition to live in the light. Dishonesty is a disposition to live partly in the dark.

Notice again what the text says of these building superintendents, "They worked with integrity" (2 Kings 12:15) or "They acted in complete honesty".

The building superintendents of Joash were completely honest and that made them complete.

We all want to be whole, complete, men and women of integrity.

The words complete, whole, integrity all share a common value.

Integrity comes from the word integer. And we use it in reference to numbers. An integer is a whole number. Likewise, a person of integrity is a whole person, or a complete person.

And in the end that is what we want.

For in the end they don't say at your funeral or write on your tombstone how much money you made or your title at work, but what kind of person you were.