INTRODUCTION
Paul Harvey told a story of some young men who were late to class.
Four high school boys were late to their morning classes one-day. They entered the classroom and solemnly told their teacher they were detained due to a flat tire. The sympathetic teacher smiled and told them it was too bad they were late because they had missed a test that morning. But she was willing to let them make it up. She gave them each a piece of paper and a pencil and sent them to four corners of the room. Then she told them they would pass if they could answer just one question: Which tire was flat?
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.
The word “integrity” means: uprightness of character, honesty.
In our country today we have been suffering from a lack of integrity. It has gotten to the point where we expect the worst of people. It is like the traffic office who pulled a motorist over to the curb and demanded to see his driver’s license. The driver produced a license, which the officer studied suspiciously for several minutes before waving him on. The officer explained, "You were driving so carefully, I thought for sure you had an invalid license."
We just do not expect people to keep their word anymore. Politics has gotten to the point where we EXPECT our leaders to have a lack of integrity. If reminds me of the farmer who saw a busload of politicians crash.
A busload of politicians were driving down a country road when, all of a sudden, the bus ran off the road & crashed into a tree in an old farmer’s field.
The old farmer, after seeing what happened, went over to investigate. He then proceeded to dig a hole & bury the politicians. A few days later, the local sheriff came out, saw the crashed bus & asked the old farmer where all the politicians had gone. The old farmer said he had buried them. The sheriff asked the old farmer, "The coroner wasn’t here. Are you sure they were all dead?" The old farmer replied, "Well, some of them said they weren’t, but you know how them politicians lie."
You look around and you see the Enron situation where the leaders of the company were not truthful about the condition of the company and were encouraging people to buy stock in the failing company while they were dumping their own.
Looking for people of integrity in our generation perhaps could be compared to searching for a needle in a haystack. Indeed it may be easier to identify a grain of salt in a snowstorm.
True men and women of integrity or rare indeed. Are you one of them? Is your life characterized by integrity? The Bible clearly indicates that our lives should be. In this part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us that we should be as good as our word. Are you as good as your word? Do you readily back out of promises made?
Jesus says that if our righteousness is going to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, we must be people of integrity.
Today let us look at “Jesus on Integrity.”
SERMON
I. THE COMMON PRACTICE VERSES 33-36
READ MATTHEW 5:33-37
A. History of the Old Testament
In the Old Testament it was forbidden to make false vows. Here are a couple of the passages.
LEV 19:12 ’You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the Lord.
NUM 30:2 "If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.
DEU 23:23 "You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God, what you have promised.
God’s premise 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.
B. The Practice of Jesus’ day
The religious leaders being who they were found ways to “get around” the keeping of vows.
When you look at verses 34-36 that Jesus speaks of making vows or oaths heaven, earth, Jerusalem and your head (your life as the gentiles did).
What was happening was that whenever a person make 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.
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.
READ MATTHEW 23:16-22
C. Application
This all boiled down to a lack of integrity on the part of those who participated in this practice.
This mindset was being passed on from generation to generation.
Abraham Lincoln said that for a man to train up a child in the way he/she should go, he must walk that way himself.
Do we still do the same thing today? Do we make promises that we do not really intend to keep? Do we say yes to things just to get people off our backs, with no real intention of carrying out what we said?
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 our children to do something as simple as playing catch with them, only to let them down. We do this because we feel that breaking a promise to our children is not as important that the other activities we planned to do.
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?
How 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.
Now I will go from preaching to meddling. Here is another one a lot of us struggle with, when we tell someone we are going to be at a certain place at a certain time, are we there? What if we were going to get ten million dollars if we were on time for 30 days, do you think we would be on time?
Many of the people of Jesus day would find technicalities so that they could avoid keeping a promise or vow made. We must be careful not to do the same thing.
Now lets look at the Kingdom standard of righteousness. What does Jesus expect out of those who call themselves by His name?
II. THE NEW STANDARD OF PRACTICE VERSES 33-34, 37
A. Jesus teaching
Jesus tells us not to make an oath at all.
The people of Jesus day and even to day feel that they can separate God from certain areas of life.
According to William Barclay in his commentary on Matthew: Here is a great eternal truth. Life cannot be divided into compartments in some of which God is involved and in others of which he is not involved; there cannot be one kind of language in the Church and another kind of language in the shipyard or the factory or the office; there cannot be on e kind of standard of conduct in the Church and another kind of standard in the business world. The fact is that God does not need to be invited into certain departments of life, and kept out of others. He is everywhere, all through life and every activity of life. He hears not only the words which are spoken in his name; he hears all words; and there cannot be any such thing as a form of words which evades bringing God into a transaction. We will regard all promises as sacred, if we remember that all promises are made in the presence of God.
Jesus is saying that since God owns everything, if we swear by Jerusalem, the temple, the heaven, the earth, or what ever, that we are making an oath before God. The reason that we are not to swear is because there is nothing that we actually control or own, so there is nothing by which we can rightfully swear by.
This does not prohibit legal proceedings- Jesus did not protect when asked to swear by the living God as to who He was in Matthew 26:63
In verse 37 Jesus tells us to let our yes be yes and our no be no.
Christians should have the reputation of being truthful people- people whose “yes” always means “yes” and their “no” always means “no”. We should not be people who have to swear by some oath in order to be believed.
B. We are to show integrity by our words.
JAMES 5:12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.
1 TIMOTHY 4:12 Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.
Ted Engstrom gives a succinct definition of integrity: Simply put, integrity is doing what you said you would do. It means you keep your promises. When you promised to be faithful to your mate, integrity says you’ll stay with that person no matter what -- for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. If you promised the Lord that you would give Him the glory, integrity means you keep on doing that whether you’re reduced to nothing or exalted to the highest pinnacle on earth. If you promised a friend that you would return a call, integrity means you return it. If you promised your child that you would spend Saturday together, integrity means you keep that appointment. A promise is a holy thing, whether made to a chairman of the board -- or to a child.
C. We are to show integrity in our actions
Paul told Timothy in the passage we read in 1 Timothy 4:12 that we are to show ourselves as example in our conduct.
A rather pompous-looking Sunday School teacher was endeavoring to impress upon a class of boys the importance of living the Christian life. "Why do people call me a Christian?" the man asked. After a moment’s pause, one youngster said, "Maybe it’s because they don’t know you."
Our actions are what back up our words, it words are worthless without the actions.
You show what is important to you by what you do and what your priorities are. If you kids are important to you, your actions will back that up. Rachel is important to me and she knows it because I make her a priority.
Abraham Lincoln had was known for his integrity because of the way he lived.
At the age of twenty-four, Abraham Lincoln served as the postmaster of New Salem, Illinois, for which he was paid an annual salary of $55.70. Even then, twenty-four years before he entered the White House, the rail-splitter was showing the character that earned him the title of "Honest Abe." The New Salem post office was closed in 1836, but it was several years before an agent arrived from Shington to settle accounts with ex-postmaster Lincoln, who was a struggling lawyer not doing very well. The agent informed him that $17 was due the government. Lincoln crossed the room, opened an old trunk and took out a yellow cotton rag, bound with a string. Untying it, he spread out the cloth and there was the $17. He had been holding it untouched for all these years. "I never use any man’s money but my own," he said.
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.’
D. What can we do?
If we are going to be people of integrity, we have to take our position in Christ seriously first of all.
I realize at times there will be unforeseen circumstances that arise, but that should be the exception and not the rule of our lives
Here are just a few practical things, these ideas are not rocket science or some new revolutionary way to help.
Set your priorities. If God is important to you, make sure that you do not commit to things that will get in the way of you doing for God what you have promised. Keep the main thing the main thing in life. Do not let everything under the sun come before what you have promised to God or your family.
When you are getting married, you have made a VOW or taken an OATH before God, make sure you go into it realizing that and the importance of that. Make sure you do not do things that jeopardize that vow, like cheating or substance or spousal abuse.
If you are one who has trouble with being timely, get a watch, a Daytimer, or a PDA so that you can keep a schedule.
If you say that you will pray for someone, WRITE IT DOWN.
If you tell someone you will do something, write it down. If your answering machine says you will call people back, call them.
Integrity is an attitude and it takes commitment to maintain that.
Make sure when you commit to something, that you do what you say you will do and if you stumble, NO EXCUSES ask for FORGIVENESS!
CONCLUSION
People will judge our God by the way we act toward others. We must be people of integrity when we deal with all people. Jesus should affect how we conduct ourselves. When we say we are going to do something, it is as good as done! PROVERBS 20:7 A righteous man who walks in his integrity How blessed are his sons after him.
Jesus says that if you are going to be a part of His kingdom, that we MUST be people of our word!
Be a person who people can count on.
