Integrity Is…
Matthew 5:33-37
Introduction: 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’ll 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!
. A few years back two guys interviewed thousands of people, and they published
their findings in a book called The Day America Told the Truth.
. Of those surveyed, 91% said that they lie on a regular basis.
. 86% said they lie to their parents regularly,
. 75% said they lie to their friends,
. 69% said they lie to their spouses.
. said they regularly called in to work sick when they weren’t
. Doug Sherman and William Hendricks, compared the ethics of Christian and non-Christian adults.
. They found that almost as many Christians steal from work as non-Christians,
. Almost as many Christians use company phones for personal long distance. As non-Christians
. And they found that Christians are just as likely to falsify our income taxes, and commit plagiarism, and give bribes to obtain a building permit, and ignore construction specs, and illegally copy computer programs, and steal time from work, and exaggerate our products, and selectively obey the law.
. It seems that when it comes to Integrity, Christians aren’t much different from the lost.
. God calls us to be different, a peculiar people, called out and set aside.
. Different from the world.
. In our personal and business lives Christians are to be different from other people.
. `My boy,’ said the businessman to his son, `there are two things that are essential if you are to succeed in business.’
`What are they, Dad? Asked the boy.
`Integrity and sagacity.’
`What is integrity?’
`Always, no matter what, always keep your word.’
`And sagacity?’
`Never give your word!’
. Integrity, we hear a lot about this today don’t we.
. In this political season it seems that all the candidates want to attack the others integrity and espouse their own don’t they.
. They do that because in poll after poll they see that integrity matters to people when they are voting for an individual to represent them.
. It seems that integrity matters when we look at others but from the statistics that I just read it seems that our own integrity might need a little tweaking.
. In the sermon on the mount in chapter 5 verses 33-37 of the book of Matthew, Jesus addresses Integrity or truthfulness when we deal with other people.
. Mt 5:33-37, 33“You have also heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not break your vows; you must carry out the vows you make to the LORD.’34But I say, do not make any vows! Do not say, ‘By heaven!’ because heaven is God’s throne.35And do not say, ‘By the earth!’ because the earth is his footstool. And do not say, ‘By Jerusalem!’ for Jerusalem is the city of the great King.36Do not even say, ‘By my head!’ for you can’t turn one hair white or black.37Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.
. The first thing Jesus addresses here is the Culture and tradition that they were used to.
.Vs 33 says: You have also heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not break your vows; you must carry out the vows you make to the LORD.
. In the Old Testament it was forbidden to make false vows. Here are a couple of the passages.
. LEV 19:12 Do not bring shame on the name of your God by using it to swear falsely. I am the LORD.
. NUM 30:2 " A man who makes a vow to the LORD or makes a pledge under oath must never break it. He must do exactly what he said he would do
.
. DEU 23:23 " 23But once you have voluntarily made a vow, be careful to fulfill your promise to the LORD your God.
.God’s command in the Old Testament is if you made a vow before God, that you were obligated to keep that vow.
An oath or a vow is a serious statement or declaration, made with an appeal to God for truth of what is affirmed.
. You took a vow if you wanted to be taken seriously. God said if you make one, you keep it. If you invoke God’s name in a vow and do not keep it , you would bring dishonor upon God.
. It was much like the practice that we used in our court system.
. We used to have to place our hand on a Bible and raise our right hand and swear that what we were about to say was the truth.
. I believe that all the presidents up to this point in history have placed their hand on the Bible when they take their oath of office.
. Jesus was reminding them of their traditions and of the fact that this was part of what God had commanded them to do.
. If they would have done what they were supposed to be doing, there wouldn’t have been a problem .
. Jesus had just told them that He hadn’t come to abolish the law.
. He had come to fulfill it. To make it complete. The law had become a source of hardship for many though because of the additional requirements that had been placed on them.
. What had happened was that there had been some confusion when it came to taking oaths or swearing that you would do something or that you were telling the truth.
. There were many integrity issues and Jesus was taking this opportunity to correct the teaching about integrity.
. There seemed to be some Confusion about how a person was to act when it came to Integrity.
. Look at vs 34-36: ’34But I say, do not make any vows! Do not say, ‘By heaven!’ because heaven is God’s throne.35And do not say, ‘By the earth!’ because the earth is his footstool. And do not say, ‘By Jerusalem!’ for Jerusalem is the city of the great King.36Do not even say, ‘By my head!’ for you can’t turn one hair white or black.
. What was happening was that whenever a person made a vow they did not intend to keep, they would swear by one or more of the above to impress or convince the person they were making the vow to that they would keep it.
. You see making a vow toward heaven may have sounded good but the Jewish people had twisted the original meaning so much that:
. When an oath was made and it was broken, there was an elaborate system buy which the religious leaders would judge how close the oath came to God as to whether it was a valid oath that needed to be kept. There were whole sections of the Jewish teaching that dealt with which vows were valid and which ones were not.
. Swearing by heaven or earth was not binding, nor was swearing by Jerusalem, BUT swearing TOWARD Jerusalem was!
. The idea behind this was that, if God’s name was used, God became a partner in the transaction, whereas if God’s name was not used, God had nothing to do with the transaction.
. Listen to Matthew 23:16-22: Blind guides! What sorrow awaits you! For you say that it means nothing to swear ‘by God’s Temple,’ but that it is binding to swear ‘by the gold in the Temple.’17Blind fools! Which is more important—the gold or the Temple that makes the gold sacred?18And you say that to swear ‘by the altar’ is not binding, but to swear ‘by the gifts on the altar’ is binding.19How blind! For which is more important—the gift on the altar or the altar that makes the gift sacred?20When you swear ‘by the altar,’ you are swearing by it and by everything on it.21And when you swear ‘by the Temple,’ you are swearing by it and by God, who lives in it.22And when you swear ‘by heaven,’ you are swearing by the throne of God and by God, who sits on the throne.
. Jesus was saying you are confused about this integrity thing. You have gotten this wrong.
. We seem to be confused today about integrity also.
. -- 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’d buried all of them.
The trooper said, “Didn’t you call the coroner? After all, not all of them might have been
dead.” The old farmer replied, “Well, some of them kept saying’ they weren’t but you know how
them politicians lie!”
. We have come to expect people in our society to lie haven’t we.
. We expect our politicians to not tell us the whole truth.
. We can’t do anything without first getting a contract written that will bind people to their word.
. That’s the world today isn’t it.
. The sad part is that many who profess Christ are like this.
. If I had a $1 for every time I have been to told by a person that they swore they would be at church on a given day, I would be wealthy.
. How many times have we promised to do things for God’s kingdom, the church or in the name of Jesus, only to fall short because it was a bit inconvenient?
. Here is one most of us struggle with. How many times have we said we would pray for someone only not to have done it?
. Did you hear about the preacher that told everyone to read Joshua 25 for next weeks sermon. When Sunday came, the preacher asked the congregation how many of them read Joshua 25 to raise their hand. A bunch of hands went up. The preacher told all who did not raise their hand that they could go home because today’s sermon was about lying. He went on to inform the church that Joshua only had 24 CHAPTERS.
. There should be a difference in Christians.
. We should not be confused when it comes to being people of integrity.
. How can we share Jesus with someone if our reputation and actions do not show integrity.
. Jesus said that yes there was a culture of swearing by God to insure that the person you were talking to would believe you. That this swearing would give you some credibility but
The practice had been perverted and had caused confusion and now He had a Command for them.
.Look at vs 37: 37Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.
. Some translations say just let your yes be yes and your no be no.
. Jesus was saying you don’t have to swear by God to be a person of integrity.
. Just let your yes be yes and your no be no.
. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
. How many of you are familiar with the Dr. Seuss story Horton Hatches an Egg. We can learn much about integrity from Horton.
. The story is about an elephant, named Horton, who promises to sit on an egg and hatch it for it’s 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 play with them.
. Do you remember his response? “I meant what I said, I said what I meant. An elephant is faithful,
100%.”
. What could God do with a congregation that had that commitment?
. I want to close this sermon with a story this morning.
. In Chicago, 1929, a 26 year old government agent named Eliot Ness formed an elite team of 9 incorruptible men to bring down Al Capone’s 120 million dollar mob empire. At the time, Ness was making $2800 a year working for the government. One day a young man walked into his office and handed Ness an envelope with 2 one thousand dollar bills and promised this weekly if he would lay off Capone. Ness sent the money and the messenger back. Desiring to make a point, Ness called a press conference. Newspapers and newsreels from various agencies were in attendance. Ness told the story of Capone’s attempted bribe and Ness’ response to it. The next day, headlines read "Ness and his men are ’UNTOUCHABLE.’
. What God could do with Christians and a congregation that is Untouchable by the world that has no integrity.
. What a witness an individual or a church would be if they vowed to be people of integrity.
. Jesus said, let your yes be yes and your no be no.
. Christian is your witness one of integrity this morning?
. Invitation
*** To my Christian brothers and sisters, thank you for taking the time to read this sermon. I ask that you take another second and score this for me. I am always open to feedback so that I can continue to grow in the proclamation of God’s word.
May God bless you as you continue to strive to walk worthy of His calling.
Sources:
The Holy Bible, NLT
Jeffery Anselmi, Jesus On Integrity
Michael Luke, Keep Your Promises
Jeffrey Smead, Integrity/A Christian is Faithful/ 100%
