Integrity

This is the final week we will be spending on Psalm 15. We have been going through it for nine weeks now, and it has been a challenging, and hopefully encouraging, piece of scripture to study. I know it has been for me! And from the responses I’ve heard from some of you, God has been working on your heart too. And for that I’m glad.

Let’s open up to Psalm 15 together, and let’s read it one more time from beginning to end.

“O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and
does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord;
who swears to his own hurt and does not change;
who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved.” (ESV)

Our Foundation

Throughout the series, we’ve been using the illustration of a house that God is building our spiritual house (our lives) into. If you remember, each part of the psalm speaks about a different column that holds up the roof, which is our Integrity. All of this is built on the foundation of our relationship with Jesus Christ.

If we are going to have Christian Integrity, then these 5 characteristics will describe your life: You will Speak the Truth, Love Your Neighbour, Honour the Faithful (which included Rejecting Hypocrites (Part 2)), Be Trustworthy and Generous (which means we Use Wealth Well).

The Psalm says that “He who does these things shall never be moved.” In order for this house to be secure, all of these parts have to be there holding up the walls. You cannot build your life on another foundation other than Jesus Christ because all other foundations we build our life on, no matter how strong we believe them to be, will falter and fail when the storms come.

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, which is the longest recording of a sermon Jesus preached to His followers, He tells this story:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27, ESV)

There are so many foundations out there that people will build their lives on – where they will seek to find hope, strength, security, and peace: Their Government, The Economy, Themselves, Other Religions. But all of these things are insecure. The only solid foundation is Jesus Christ. He is the only immovable, unchangeable, all powerful One who can weather all storms. Therefore, before all else, we must make sure that we have a strong relationship with Jesus Christ.

Wobbly Pillars

But to have a strong spiritual house, the pillars must be there too. Jesus doesn’t move – He will never leave you, forsake you, and you can be sure in your salvation – but our pillars can shift. We call this sin.

A person of Christian Integrity wants to be a fully functioning, healthy disciple of Jesus. And God works in them to build them into a strong spiritual house. But when we lie, act in an unloving way, embrace hypocrites, ignore fellow Christians, don’t keep our word, hold onto our money like Scrooge, or waste it on frivolous things, we are willfully making our spiritual house insecure. We are shaking our pillars, shrinking them, and chipping away at them.

What this series has been about is causing us to evaluating our relationship with Jesus (are we built on the right foundation) and then to test strength of our pillars. If we want to people who “stand firm”, “never be shaken”, and “never moved”, then it means we must be diligent about keeping our Christian Integrity.

I hope you understand this. We talked about it in the first sermon and referenced 1 Corinthians 3:11-17:

“If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light [that is the day where we all stand before the judgment seat of Christ]. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”

God will test our spiritual house. He will judge our eternal destination – heaven or hell – based on our foundation, our relationship with Jesus. Then He will judge Christians based on their obedience to His word – he will judge the columns.

When you sin, it doesn’t mean that you have lost your faith, or lost your salvation. No, the biggest difference between someone who is a follower of Jesus is that when they fail in these areas, they are convicted of their sin, come to God for forgiveness, and then ask Him to change that part of their life to be more like Jesus. A non-believer doesn’t see their sin… and if they do, they don’t hate it. They excuse it or blame someone else.

Testing the Columns

So I want to do something a little different today. What I want to do is go through some of the questions we’ve been asking for the past number of weeks, and give you a chance to talk about them together during the week. My hope is that over the next week or so you will gather together with a Christian friend, your spouse, or your small group, and go through these questions together. To reflect on them and test the strength of your spiritual house.

But before we do that I want to tell you why this is important.

Not Be Shaken

The reason I want to do this today is because of that last line in the Psalm. “He who does these things will never be shaken.” I don’t want you to be shaken. I want you to be able to stand firm no matter what happens. I want this church to be able to stand firm, and I believe the secret of the strength in your life as an individual, in your relationships, in your work life, in your home life, and in this church, is found in Psalm 15. If you get just this psalm right, you will be a huge step closer to living a life without regrets, without fear, without doubts, and without worries. This is the formula. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good. “He who does these things shall never be moved.” That sounds like a promise from God to you and me.

It reminds me of another favourite passage of scripture of mine and many others: Ephesians 6:10-19. Would you turn there with me and listen to what it takes in order to be able to “never be moved”.

Listen closely because this isn’t about gritting your teeth and trying to do your best. This isn’t about showing God how holy you are by how miserable you can make your life. It’s not about thanking Jesus for saving you and then saying, “Ok, I’ll take it from here.” This is about depending on Jesus every day, living by His strength and not yours. It’s about putting down your own ideas about how life should go, and picking up His plan and putting Him in charge of how to build your house. It’s about not doing things in your own strength, but asking God to use His strength through you. There’s a huge difference between doing things for God, doing things with God, and letting God do things through, for, in and around you.

Fight the Right Battle

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” (vs 10-11)

Do you see that? The strength comes from “the Lord”. The “might” comes through a closer relationship with Him. The “armour” comes from God and is given to every person in His kingdom who asks for it. And your primary enemy is not you, or the world – the enemy is spiritual, it’s Satan.

That’s critical to realize or you will spend your life running from column to column, trying to hold up your own house, and feel like a complete failure when your life ultimately collapses. And if you think this is a battle against yourself, or against your enemies in the world, then you won’t even be on the right battlefield! However, if you realize that this is a spiritual battle, and your strength comes from a spiritual source, then you will come to God for the weapons you need to build, rebuild and defend your house.

Fight the Right Opponent

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (vs 12)

That’s important to know. When it comes to your Christian Integrity: being truthful, loving people that are different, knowing the difference between right and wrong, keeping your vows even when it’s hard, living generously… we have to realize that the enemy hates that, and He will fight tooth and nail, pulling out every trick in his book to stop you. And you don’t have the power to withstand him. All of the decisions you make to be truthful, loving and the rest are all made in your spirit, way before they happen in the real world. The battle doesn’t happen when you are faced with something that tests your integrity. The battle is fought before you ever get there – in your spirit – as you contest with pride, jealousy, covetousness, idols, and the temptation to put yourself in the place of God.

If you have the chance to lie, that’s not the first strike – it’s the final blow of the battle. That question has already been answered. Did you come to God and commit yourself to Him? Are you living in His spiritual strength? Are you feeling weak and entitled and selfish? Have you asked for the strength to be truthful, and told the devil that you are not one of his people – you are not a liar! Either way, you already know how you will answer the question.

The battle whether or not you will keep your vows has more to do with your view of God then it does with the circumstances that happen to you or the person you made promises too. The decision to break your word isn’t just a human decision, it is one that is fought in your heart. The spiritual forces of evil are seeking to corrupt you, through temptation and fear, to break your vows, and they are giving you every excuse in the book. And when you break them, they know it has ripple effects that will harm many people, mar the image of God, and hurt the reputation of Jesus and His church. It’s a spiritual battle that happens way before the bad days come.

It’s the same with the decision to be generous, or loving. It’s not based on whether or not the person is worth our time, worth helping, worth our money… it is about whether we are seeing through God’s eyes. Do we recognize the generosity and grace that has come from His hand? Satan doesn’t want you to see that, so he will do everything he can to distract you from it. He will fill your mind with reasons why you don’t have enough, why you deserve more, why you’ve already loved enough and it’s someone else’s turn. He’ll tell you that people aren’t worth the trouble, that it won’t make any difference, that you’re too busy, and that you don’t need to love them if they don’t love you back. I know you’ve felt this spiritual battle.

And so Paul says this in verse 13. Since it’s a spiritual battle…

Suit Up

“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.” (vs 13)

The only way you will be able to stand against all of these schemes, to see straight, and to have the sensitivity to know what’s really going on, is to have the full armour of God on. When the day of evil, the day of temptation, when that spiritual battle rages in your heart about who you are, who God is, whether to be obedient, selfish, generous, loving, honest… if you are not wearing the full armour of God, you will not be able to stand.

Be careful to see how it is written. Who puts on the armor? Does God put it on you? No, you put on the armour. The day of evil is coming – the day of temptation, of fear, of anxiety, of death – and you stand your ground because you chose to put on God’s armour. He’s willing to suit you up, make sure the armor is strong, and give you the power to fight, and when it’s all over, to “stand firm”. But He wants you to come to Him to put on the armour. It’s called dependence.

What’s the difference between the one standing, and the one who is lying dead on the battle field? It’s not who was carrying the sharpest sword, or biggest gun. It is who had the best armour. The one who could take what the enemy dished out, and then turn the battle around. Satan is a coward and a bully and fights like a terrorist or a sniper. You don’t often get to see the battle coming before he’s on you. You won’t have a chance to take a swing with your weapon – you’d better have your armor on.

There’s an old sports quote that says: “Offence sells tickets, but defense wins championships” Our spiritual armour is the difference between having a strong spiritual house, or a weak one. It’s the difference between being “moved” or standing firm.

Testing the Pillars

9 Psalm 15 - Stand Firm - PDF for BLOG — Click here if you would like to download a PDF of all the questions.

Let’s talk about these pillars.

For a long time my father worked as a pipefitter at the mill in the town where I grew up. It was his job to fix the pipes that were broken. Then they gave him a different job: he was in charge of maintenance and safety. Instead of fixing things, his job was to make sure things didn’t break and no one got hurt. He would inspect machines, check the fire suppression system, order parts in advance, make sure things were up to code, shut things down that weren’t working properly, and schedule time to fix little problems before they become big problems.

That’s what I want to do for the rest of our time here. Let’s do a maintenance and safety walk around our spiritual house – using Psalm 15 as our guide. Let’s inspect these five pillars that hold up Integrity and see what we need to work on, what we need to pray about, and what areas of our life God is going to be challenging us in over the next while. Maybe some parts need a little fix, and maybe some need an overhaul.

What I’ll do is give you a quick intro, some questions for you to discuss, and then a little time to consider your answer – maybe even write it down.

Are You Truthful?

The first pillar of Christian Integrity is to be Truthful: “Who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue.” Here we talked about how people really don’t like “right and wrong”, but instead like to talk about “differences” and how nothing is ever anyone’s fault. In contrast, Christians should realize the importance of truth, and be able to speak the truth in love to one another.

We said that truth is under attack from Relativism, Scepticism and Pluralism… and that people who tell the truth are probably going to get into trouble at some point. Jesus told nothing but the truth, and he was hurt, rejected, slandered and murdered.

So, here are the questions:

Do Christians have the right to enforce the standards of scripture on one another? How have you handled this responsibility?
Which attack on the truth do you encounter most? Relativism – there is no absolute truth. Scepticism – we will never really know the truth. Pluralism – all truths are equally valid? Which do you struggle with?
Do you struggle with always telling the truth? In what ways have you been hurt by lying or being lied to? How have you been because you or someone else told the truth?

Are You Loving?

The second pillar of Christian Integrity is to Love people. “Who does his neighbour no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman.” Here we learned we need to love everyone! We believe that all people are created in the image of God, that they are objects of divine love, and there are no divisions between us based on race, nationality, culture or social status. We have no reason to hate anyone simply because of how they look, where they are from, or what their customs are. Specifically, we are to do no wrong (no evil) to anyone, or slur (meaning despise or dishonour) someone. Especially other believers!

This is where we looked at Bikers, Goths, Emos, Rappers, Hip Hop Culture, Body Builders, and Metal Heads, and said that in Jesus’ eyes, these people are also objects of grace, and can be Christian ministers within their own culture – and even went as far as to say that we are missing out when we have so much division in the church.

So here’s some questions:

What does it mean to love every member of the human race? Is that even possible? Do you?
Have you, or someone you know, ever been discriminated against because of your race, nationality, culture, or social status? Has it ever happened among Christians? Did you respond in a godly way?
Do you think you could go to a worship service at a biker church, a goth church, a hip-hop church? Which would be hardest / easiest for you? Why?

Are You Honouring?

Next we took a couple of weeks to look at the third pillar which was based on the part that says a Christian “despises a vile man but honours those who fear the LORD”.

Here we spent some time looking at what it means to reject the person who claims to be a believer but has clearly rejected what God is saying in His word – and to give weight and respect those who obey God and treat Him as Lord of every area of their life. On one hand we give VIP status to other Christians. Love them, serve them, forgive them, speak kindly to them, and do all the other “one another” verses to them.

We said, based on 1 Corinthians 5, that there are 3 ways we get this wrong. First are those who are claiming to be Christians, but who are openly sinning and don’t care. Second is the group that is enabling, or even encouraging that person to sin. And third are those who know about it, know it’s wrong, but who avoid dealing with it because they don’t want to get involved.

This is where we brought in Matthew 18:15-17 where we learned that Jesus commands us to get into the business of other Christians who are sinning. And if they don’t listen to us, to take some friends along and try again. And if they still don’t listen, to get the pastor and elders involved. And then if they still are unrepentant, to turn them over to Satan and treat them like a hypocrite and an unbeliever.

So here’s the questions:

Are you an Unrepentant Sinner, Enabler, or Avoider? What do you need to do about it?
Have you ever gone through the Matthew 18 process? What was it like? If not, is it because you’ve avoided doing it?
Why would God command us to treat a hypocritical Christian like a non-believer? What benefit could come from being “handed over to Satan?” How do you deal with hypocrites?

Are You Trustworthy?

The fourth pillar of Christian Integrity is to be Trustworthy. “Who keeps his oath even when it hurts.” The concept here is simple to grasp, but sometimes hard to practice. Jesus said that we need to take what we say very seriously – and follow through, even when it hurts. He said we should let our “yes be yes and our no be no” and that “anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” We should have the kind of reputations that when we say something we don’t have to add disclaimers for why might not do be trustworthy.

So here are the questions:

Can people trust you? Do you struggle with trusting others?
Do you ever add a bunch of disclaimers, explanations and excuses to things you say because you’re not sure if you’ll follow through? Why?
What vows have you broken, and what are you going to do to make it right?

Are You Generous?

The final pillar of Christian Integrity is Generosity, or Using our Wealth Well. “Who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.” Here we talked quite a lot about the Amazing Grace of God, and how His grace and generosity should be the driving force for us to be gracious and generous with others.

We said that this has two sides. Those who have more should not take advantage of the people who have less by being selfish or using their resources to harm those who are poorer than them. And those who have less should not try to get money in a way that harms someone else. We then talked about some ways we can be selfish like: not tipping, valuing a possession over a person, or trading physical, psychological or emotional health for worldly wealth.

So here’s the questions:

In what ways have you acknowledged the Amazing Grace of God this week?
Have you ever taken advantage of someone by being selfish or using your wealth to cause harm?
Have you ever done something wrong in order to get (or keep) more money or stuff?

Conclusion

That concludes our walk around our spiritual home. It is my deep hope that you were helped, and that this week you will draw closer to God, depend more on Jesus, and have a new understanding of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. For the areas that you have done well, thank God and give Him praise for helping you. In the areas that you have sinned, talk to God about that this week, ask forgiveness, receive forgiveness, and then spend more time putting on your spiritual armour so you will be able to stand firm.

This entry was posted in Discipleship, Podcasts, Sermon and tagged Armor of God, Christian Integrity, Generosity, Integrity, Jesus, Love, Psalm 15, Spiritual Warfare, Trust.

Christian Integrity: Honouring The Faithful

Posted on February 22, 2014 Updated on February 25, 2014

Here’s the audio for the sermon:

You may have noticed that I changed the title of this series. Instead of being “Being People of Integrity”, I’ve simply called it “Christian Integrity”, and that’s because I believe that it’s important to distinguish the fact that we are specifically talking about the characteristics of a person and church of faith. These things don’t universally apply to everyone in the world.

Worldly Vs Christian Integrity

If “integrity” is simply taken as being honest and consistent, then there is a worldly kind of integrity. The non-Christian mechanic or plumber who doesn’t overcharge can have integrity. The school teacher who loves their students and sticks to the textbook has a form of integrity – even though they could be teaching falsehoods. The soldier who is sold out to their country and willing to die could be said to have high integrity by their superiors – even though they represent an evil nation.

Christian Integrity is a higher form of integrity. It is a supernatural thing, beyond simple honesty and consistency. Christian Integrity requires being a person who has God as their Father, Jesus as their Lord, and the Holy Spirit guiding their thoughts and deeds.

In this series, we are taking apart Psalm 15 which begins with the question, “LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?” What do the people who dwell with God look like? When people join the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, what are the expectations? What can they expect when Jesus rules the hearts of people?

What we see in Psalm 15 are six descriptors of a functioning, obedient, growing Christian. This is obviously not an exhaustive description, but it is a good place to start. The first was Integrity, and we said that it is the roof of the house, which is built on the foundation of our salvation through Jesus Christ.

Our Integrity is held up by the other five traits of being Truthful, Loving, Honouring, Trustworthy and Generous. We’ve already looked at being Truthful and Loving, and for the last couple weeks we’ve been in verse 4 as we’ve discussed the flip side “Honouring the Faithful”, which is “Rejecting the Vile”. This week we are looking at the second part of verse 4 where it talks about Honouring the Faithful. A Christian “despises a vile man but honours those who fear the LORD”.

Finding an Honourable Person

Remember that the word “honour” is a word that means “to be heavy or great”. It is a word that means that when you a certain person, their presence has great meaning to you, and their words have a special weight and significance to them. You honour them, respect them, treasure them, and highly esteem them. In your life and heart, they are given VIP treatment.

Most of us don’t have a lot of people like this in our lives. Especially with the advent of the internet, social media, the 24 hour news cycle, and other technologies, it’s hard to find someone who has strong Christian integrity. It’s hard to trust anyone these days. Who do we look for to find a strong marriage with statistics that say most are unhappy and over half of them ending in divorce? Who do we look to for Christian leadership when so many preachers and pastors have crashed and burned in their ministry? Who do we look to be an example to us in the godly use of money when most people are up to their eyeballs in debt? It’s really hard to find an “honourable” person these days.

Which makes it so much sweeter when you find one. When you find that teacher who has been consistently loving God, defending the faith, and strong in their convictions for the long-haul. RC Sproul is one of those men for me. He celebrated his 75^th birthday this week and is still going strong. If you type the words “RC Sproul Controversy” into Google, nothing comes up! Yes, there are people who disagree with him, but all in all, he has a stellar reputation and a great Christian man and strong Gospel teacher.

Personally speaking, there are only a few people in my life who I would consider to have Christian Integrity, and they are a great blessing to me. My wife is one of them. When they speak, I listen. When I get an e-mail from them, the world stops and I read it. When they recommend a book, I read it. When they correct me, I listen and try to change my behaviour.

I hope you have someone like this in our life, because they are a great blessing! I do hope that you are able to honour these people in your life because they are a great gift from God.

Elevating Fellow Believers

But I want to be clear that Psalm 15:4 is not only talking about the kinds of believers who have earned the right to be given special treatment. RC Sproul has spent years developing his reputation, and he deserves to be listened to. This verse is talking about something a little different. God is not saying “Honour those who deserve it…” but “Honour those who are believers…” It says, “…honours those who fear the Lord.” That’s all beleivers, no matter what stage of maturity they are in. It’s talking about elevating the view of Christians in our life.

This is hard for us because we have so many of our priorities messed up. Matthew Henry, in his commentary on the Bible says that a Christian

“…values men by their virtue and piety, and not by the figure they make in the world.”

Let me give you an example of how I came face to face with this in the past week.

As you know, the Olympics are on, and of course I’m cheering for Canada, but I love watching these men and women do their best in their events and am in awe of their skill. I cheer for them as they compete and am happy for them when they win. I was honouring them.

However, this week I read something about the Olympic village that makes me remove my honour from them. It was an article entitled “Olympic Village brimming with love for Valentine’s Day” that changed my mind.

I don’t want to get into the graphic details, but it begins like this,

“… love is in the Sochi air this Valentine’s Day. What do you expect when you ram beautiful, young and fit athletes into a confined space, and allow their emotional highs and lows to be released in a fit of competition. Oh yes, the athlete’s village is a physical place —if you catch my drift.”

The rest of the article goes on to describe the unbridled lust (not love) the alcohol fuelled parties, nudity, and general lasciviousness that is part and parcel of living in the Olympic Village. It gives me a new view on these athletes. I don’t want to paint them all with the same brush, but this is being described as the norm.

This is what Matthew Henry and Psalm 15 are describing. Don’t misplace your honour. Don’t honour the dishonourable. The true value of a person is in their character, their piety, and their virtue when they are in front of people and when they are not. We should not be fooled by people who look good on the outside – but give honour to people who are in relationship with Jesus Christ and are seeking to be more godly every day.

Again, not perfect people, or only great preachers and missionaries, but the average believer who is walking in daily obedience, struggling with temptation, maybe inconsistent in their walk, but growing in God more and more as the days go by.

I would rather honour a junkie who has turned their heart over to Jesus and is in a daily spiritual battle with addiction and their old life-style, than a gold medal athlete who competes for their own glory, gives their body over to lust, and doesn’t give Jesus a second thought.

We Don’t Do This Well

God is very serious about how Christians treat one another. If there is one place, one group, on family that should know how to love one another… it’s the family of God. And yet, our track-record of getting along as believers is quite terrible.

We have sects, and divisions, and denominations. We even have a term for what happens when people in a church can’t get along and then start two separate church – we call it a church splits. I’d love to know the statistic comparing church plants (on purpose, missional, evangelistic minded, celebrations) to church splits. Even within the church we have cliques, gossip sessions, and back-room meetings. We smile at someone on Sunday, and then slander them on Monday.

The Christian church has a history of killing one another in the name of Jesus Christ! Instead of embracing new ideas, different ways of thinking, and uniquely gifted people, more often then not the Christian church freaks out, ostracises them and then attacks. Like Martin Luther who was chased down, exiled and nearly killed because he dared to challenge the church authorities to defend some of their practices. Or William Tyndale was burned at the stake because he wanted to print the bible in English.

Those are extreme examples, but lesser crimes happen all the time, in many churches around the world, in our city, and even within these walls. And God takes this very seriously.

God’s Kids Fighting

Parent’s understand why God feels this way. I often go to the park with my kids. Sometimes I play with them, other times I stand back and watch. And almost every time we go, there’s some kind of disagreement. And those problems come in three different forms.

First is when two kids I don’t know start to fight. How do I feel about that? Well, I don’t like it, but I’m not really emotionally invested in the kids, and I’m not their parent, and unless they start to really hurt each other, I don’t really get involved. It doesn’t grip my heart.

Second is when some strange kid starts a fighting with one of my kids. What happens then? Then I step in! I find out what happened, I tell my kid to apologize if it was their fault, and if it wasn’t [which it usually isn’t because my kids are awesome] then I protect my kid, maybe get the other parent involved, or tell my kid they need to be gracious and kind and let it go. If my kid gets into some kind of conflict, then I get emotionally invested and I jump in to protect my kid, teach my kid, and parent my kid.

The third scenario is when my kids fight each other. This happens more often. My kids start to fight, one isn’t being fair or hurts another – on purpose or accidentally – and now I react a much different way. I jump in. I grab them both and pull them aside. There might be discipline involved where one has to apologize, ask forgiveness and sit on the side for a while. Sometimes, it’s serious enough that we have a long talk about it. And if it’s a big enough deal, we leave the park, talk about it in the car, and then maybe even carry though some disciplined at home.

It’s a bigger deal when it’s two of my kids! I don’t want my kids fighting! They are a family. They’re supposed to love each other and work together. I have a totally different reaction to when my kids are fighting with each other, then when strangers are involved. Why? They’re mine! I love them! They know what I’ve said about how to act. They know the standards of our home. And I hate it when my kids fight! Not just because it’s noisy… but because it shows me there is something wrong with their heart.

I think God feels the same way when His kids aren’t getting along. When two people outside the church are sinning against each other… that’s to be expected. They are sinners, who love to sin, and who don’t know God. When a non-Christian is in conflict with a Christian, God gets more involved and will protect the Christian, or might discipline the Christian.

But when two of His kids are sinning against each other, I believe, because of my reading of scripture, He takes it very seriously, and it hurts him very deeply. Why? Because it shows how far His children’s hearts are from Him!

What’s Behind Christian Conflict?

Let’s Look at what James 4:1-4 says is going on behind the scenes when Christians fight. When God looks at a family of believers who is not honouring one another, He doesn’t just see the surface issues we see like arguing over what song to sing, who should be doing what, or what color the carpet is in the sanctuary. He sees something much deeper.

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (vs 1)

In other words, when Christians argue, it’s almost never for a good, holy, righteous reason. Rarely is the fight over bad doctrine, disregard for scripture, or unholy living. It’s because one of them, or probably both, is being selfish. It’s a heart problem. Passions and desires out of control.

I want a certain style of music or type of ministry because they like it best. IO feel like I should have some kind of leadership position and not someone else. I want to be heard because I think I’m important and me opinion counts for more. I want it done my way, because I’m always right.

“You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.” (vs 2)

That’s the root of most problems between believers. They aren’t arguing over core theologies or anything truly important to the kingdom. Most of these issues have nothing to do with what is on God’s heart. It’s just two people being selfish. They want something and aren’t getting it, so they fight.

Often, God’s not even involved, because they know as soon as they go to God, He’s going to show them how petty it is, and how prideful they are being, and how they need to submit to one another in love… but they don’t want to hear that.

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” (Vs 3)

This selfish mindset affects our prayer life. We ask God for things that are not good for us, that are wrongly motivated, that will elevate us instead of him, that will bring shame to others or harm others who we feel deserve it. We “ask wrongly” for these things because they are not motivated by our love for God or to Honour the Faithful Christians in the church… but to spend on our passions. We want to feel good, look good, have more, gain more power or prestige. And God doesn’t answer those prayers.

“You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (Vs 4)

When Christians fight, argue, quarrel, gossip, slander, hurt or sin against one another, they show themselves to be people who act like the world – not children of God. Christians that fight with other Christians about non-essential issues are called “adulterous” – which means they have left their first love, God, and are now embracing a new love – themselves. In fact, when Christians fight, divide and sin against one another, they are not only acting like the world… but are, in fact, acting like the enemies of God.

It is the enemies of God who fight against Christians, who make church a difficult place to be, who gossip and slander against believers, and hurt and abuse Christians. It is the enemies of God who make Christians stressed out and miserable. That’s Satan’s job! Christians shouldn’t be doing that to each other! It is literally satanic for Christian’s to fighting against one another over non-essential issues.

Dealing with Problems Among Christians

So what do we do when problems come up? Do we burry them in the sand, sweep them under the rug, and just pretend to get along for 2 hours each week. Everyone smiling fake smiles, no one arguing or getting close to one another, no one changing anything, no one saying anything that could be a criticism for fear we learn we have an argument? No, of course not. What God wants us to work through our issues (which we talked about last week) and “honour” one another.

If something between two believers, they should treat each other with “honour”. The fact that this person is a brother or sister in Christ should have great meaning, because this person has great meaning to Jesus. Jesus gave His life for that person. Their tears and frustrations, their complaints, their encouragements should have a special weight and significance to them, because it’s possible that the Holy Spirit is speaking through them. They are worthy of respect because they are a man or woman of God. They should be treasured because God treasures them. They should be highly esteemed because they are children of the Most High God, adopted into the Creator’s family, are co-heirs with Christ, and will one day judge angels! Ask yourself, “in your life and heart do you honour other believers?”

The “One Anothers”

I want to show you what that looks like. Consider what would happen if your favourite celebrity, or a famous teacher, or someone you respect were to offend you. Your love and admiration makes it a little easier to give them grace, be patient, give them a chance, forgive them. But it doesn’t come so naturally within the average Christian relationship.

We’ve talked about this before. Do you remember the “One Another” verses. There are at least 54 “one another’s” in scripture. They are wonderful descriptors of how Christians are to honour one another, and they all flow out of what Jesus said to His disciples in John 13:34-35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.””

How? How do we do that? How do we “love one another”? The bible spells it out in great, great detail through the “one anothers”. Most simply say “love one another”, but others are very specific. Listen to some of these:

Romans 12:16, “Live in harmony with one another.”
Romans 15:7, “Accept one another,”
Romans 16:16, “Greet one another”
1 Corinthians 1:10, “…agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you…”,
Galatians 5:13, “…serve one another”,
Ephesians 4:2, “…be patient, bearing with one another in love.”,
Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”,
Ephesians 5:21, “Submit to one another.”,
Colossians 3:16, “…teach and admonish one another …”,
1 Thessalonians 5:11, “…encourage one another…” ,
Hebrews 10:24, “…spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”,
James 4:11, “do not slander one another.”,
1 Peter 4:9, “Offer hospitality to one another”,
1 Peter 5:5, “clothe yourselves with humility toward one another”,

These “one anothers” are all talking about how we relate to other believers. How we live out Psalm 15, “honour those who fear the Lord.” That’s what it looks like. That’s how we are to act towards each other. This is the heart we are to have when something comes up between us, or when we are serving with one another. It’s our default position when in relationship with other Christians.

Let me pause and ask, as you look at this list, and how you have conducted yourself over the past while – have you been doing this? How have you been treating the favoured ones of God? How have you been treating God’s kids, your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Bear With One Another

Let’s read Colossians 3:12-17. I want to focus in on something that I think is important to us, and will give us a key phrase to grab onto when dealing with people in the church. Start in verse 12,

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

The Bible says, God says, that we are to “Bear with each other”. It’s the same word used in 2 Thessalonians 1:4 which talks about enduring persecution for the faith. Same word. Sometimes being part of a church is going to be difficult. When those times come, we are to “bear with each other.”

What that means is that when conflict happens, you go through it together. We don’t take off, pretend it didn’t happen, reject the person, or find a new church. It means we stick together through thick and thin, work it out even when it’s hard, figure it out even though it’s confusing, make it work even when it seems impossible, and let God take over the situation to make the impossible possible.

“…as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Do you see that? What kind of forgiveness did Jesus give you? Did He forgive some of your sins… but couldn’t get over certain things, so He still holds them against you? Did He forgive you… but then keeps bringing them up and making you feel guilty all the time? Did He forgive you… but then go behind your back and tell a bunch of people? Did He forgive you… and then never speak to you again, refusing to sit with you or acknowledge you? No! Our model for forgiving one another is the forgiveness we received through Jesus Christ!

“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.” [Other translations say, “… since as members of one body you were called in one body.”] (vs 14)

What that means is that we are supposed to think of our church in the same way we think of our body. It is strange to think of our body at war with itself. When a person’s body fights with itself, we call it an auto-immune disease. It’s an allergy, it’s cancer, it’s Chrohn’s, it’s eczema, it’s Lou Gehrig’s Disease, it’s MS. When the body starts to attack itself, something is very wrong. We don’t want some parts of our body to fight against other parts of the body. We want our body bound together in “perfect harmony”, and at “peace”.

When Dr. God looks at a group of Christians who can’t get along… it’s not a small deal… it’s a major disease in the body. Jesus wants his church to be a healthy body that works together to build up the rest of the parts, not a sick body that harms itself.

4 Practical Steps to Christian Harmony

Let’s close by looking at verses 16-17 which gives a bit more practical advice and helps us to know what we need to work on so that we can be a united body, honouring each other, living out the “one anothers”, and growing in love with the believers around us: (Start with the last part of verse 15):

“And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

If you are struggling with loving other believers, here’s how to pray and what to do.

1. “Be thankful” for them. This is the first step in changing your heart. Pray, “Thank you, God, for this person. They are different from me, but that’s ok. I don’t understand them, but you do. You built them, created them, chose them, equipped them, and are working in their heart. They irritate me, but they love you and you are working on them. They are my brother or sister who I will spend eternity with. Make me thankful for them, who you made them to be, and help me treat them with honour.”

2.Let the Bible guide you. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teaching and admonishing one another with all wisdom…” (3:16a) Not guided by your heart. Not your own wisdom. Not your friends. If you are struggling to love someone, go to the Word. If you’ve got a problem with what another Christian is doing, check out what God has to say about it first. Use the Bible as your guideline (not your hammer, your guideline) for your attitude and behaviour. You might be surprised to find that it’s not them that needs the attitude adjustment, but you! And if the person is going against scripture, then you bring them the word of God, not your own opinion.

Kid’s do this naturally! They invoke my name as the authority. One comes to me and says “Daaaaad! So-and-so is doing this!” Then I say, “That’s ok, I asked them to do that. I’ve got something different planned for them that you don’t understand right now.” Or I say, “Thank you for telling me, you’re right, they shouldn’t be doing that. Tell them that Dad says to quit it or they’re in trouble.” It is not my kid who has the authority… I do. I’m the Dad.

3. Be Gentle and Persistent. In this passage it says we should be able to be “…singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

This tells us two things. First, a loving church is full of people who can sing and worship together. They sing the same song. People who don’t get along can’t worship God together very well. The animosity creates a barrier between us and them, and us and God. This also tells us that we need to be persistent in working through our problems, so when we are on the other side, we can be singing the same song.

If you say, “I can’t worship with that person in the room”, and you are not working towards a solution to whatever is harming the relationship, then you are not obeying God’s will to reconcile with your brother. If the presence of that person is causing you to not be able to worship God, the fault is not with them… it’s with you. Something is wrong with you. Nothing should stop you from worshipping God. And if that person is a believer, and has demonstrated themselves to be a person of faith, then you should be working through Matthew 18 so you can, if at all possible, sing the same song. We talked about how to do that last week.

Consider the words of Jesus when he said in Matthew 5:23-24,

“So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

God desires we be reconciled, before He desires our worship.

4. And finally, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

All of our actions should be able to be done “in the name of the Lord Jesus” Christ. When dealing with our brothers or sisters, in our minds we can think, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ… I…”

forgive you…
love you…
serve you…
ask your forgiveness…
will put myself second to you…
will love your family…
will walk with you…
will help you…
will do it your way…
will keep at you until you repent…
won’t stop loving you…

You can’t say, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ… I…”

gossip about you…
hate you…
will never speak to you again…
will sin against you…
will slander you…
will ignore you…
will give you a dirty look when I pass by.

That’s not Jesus.

I know this is hard for some people, but we are called to so much more. Let me end by reading Ephesians 4:1-6 which is Paul’s urgent appeal from his prison cell to a group of Christians who had some relationship issues, and needed to put Jesus back at the centre:

“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

This entry was posted in Fellowship, Podcasts, Sermon and tagged Christianity, fellowship, Forgiveness, Integrity, Jesus, Olympics, Sochi 2014.

Integrity: Reject the Vile – Dealing with Unrepentant Sin in the Church (Part 2)

Posted on February 13, 2014 Updated on February 13, 2014

Last week I presented a problem: What do we do with hypocritical people who call themselves Christians, but continue to love their sin? This week I want to look at a biblical solution.

This is all part of a series on Psalm 15 which talks about what it looks like to be a person of Christian Integrity. We can probably all easily agree that a person of integrity has the core traits that Psalm 15 describes. They are Truthful, Loving, Honouring, Trustworthy and Generous. But in verse 4, right before it talks about honouring “those who fear the Lord”, it says that a person of Christian integrity is someone “… in whose eyes a vile person is despised.”

That’s what we talked about last week. How do we understand what “a vile person” is? And we came up with a simple definition that said a vile person is someone who “claims to be a believer, but has clearly rejected God’s word.” That’s the biblical understanding of “a vile person.”

This week we are going to look at what we are supposed to do with a person who does that. How do we as a church respond, and how do we as individual believers respond.

We are looking at this through the lens of 1 Corinthians 5. We already went through verses 1-6 last week, and we are picking it up in verse 7 this week.

Cut Out Infectious Sin

So what are we supposed to do with an unrepentant person, who says they are a Christian, but who won’t let go of their sin? If a church is working properly, and helping one another to honour God, grow in faith, love Jesus, serve people… and avoid sin, then what are they supposed to do with a believer who won’t stop sinning? What do we do with the person who claims to be a Christian, but clearly lacks integrity?

Paul says that the church must protect its integrity and the people of the church by removing the bad influence – what he calls “yeast”. We are to cut out the infectious sin. Read from verse 7.

“Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.”

Notice again that we are not talking about non-Christians, or believers who have stumbled and sinned one or two times. We are not talking about conducting witch-hunts and tribunals where we go door to door nit-picking everything that we don’t like and judging people who aren’t like us. And we are certainly not talking about only allowing perfect people who never sin into the church. What we are talking about dealing with are Christians who have a rebellious and unrepentant heart – one who has heard the words of God and has rejected them.

Paul tells us to separate the bad apple from the bunch. Reject them. Remove them. Don’t let it take any more effect. Remove their voice from the group and don’t listen to them. Remove them from fellowship and don’t have close associations with them as you would a believer. Cut the yeast out of the church before it infects the whole loaf. And it will. If you let a person who is committed to sin free to roam the church, they will infect others.

Let’s use gossip as an example. If not confronted and dealt with through Church Discipline, gossip will affect the whole church and damage a lot of people. We all know the damage gossip can cause.

Laziness, or busyness for that matter, are also sinister and damaging if left unchallenged. If lazy people are allowed to be lazy, and too busy people are allowed to be too busy, then people within the group will use them as an excuse for them to live the same way.

Unforgiveness can spread as well. If we do not practice forgiveness with each other, unforgivness will become the norm. Avoiding the hard work of reconciliation will become standard procedure. Then the bitter root will grow in our midst and we will have a bitter church.

The same with cheapskates. If we admire and allow people to be sinfully frugal misers and skinflints who pride themselves for being a scrooge, then will help others become to become scrooges too. We need to confront them and tell them they are sinning.

“I don’t have to deal with that… just look at so-and-so… they’re getting away with it.”
“It’s ok for me to do it, so-and-so does it all the time.”
“I don’t have to do that because so-and-so doesn’t have to.”

It’s infectious.

Keeping Our Integrity

Keep reading in verse 9, but let me note that sometimes people sometimes take this scripture to mean that they have to avoid everyone outside the church too. The thinking goes like this: “If we are supposed to avoid sinners inside the walls, then how much more should we avoid everyone outside!” It’s important to know that’s not what he’s saying. This is specifically talking about judging and dealing with people within the church. Listen here:

“I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. ‘Expel the wicked man from among you.’”

Do you see that this is not about avoiding the world? Just as I said before, Christianity is not a cult that tells you to leave the world and only hang around like-minded believers. No, this is about dealing with problems among believers.

And his solution requires three things. Rejecting, Protecting and Restoring.

Rejecting, Protecting, Restoring

The first response that a church makes to an unrepentant Christian who is in sin is to reject them. The believers within the church keep their integrity intact by doing what Psalm 15 says – “despising the vile person”. In other words, reject the one who has rejected God. When someone calls themselves a believer and is in flagrant, unrepentant sin – we don’t associate with them. We make the believer feel badly about themselves and their sin, by giving them a taste of life as an unrepentant sinner again. When we hang around with them and pretend nothing is wrong, ignore their sin, we are in some ways saying that we agree with their sin. We become complicit with their sin. And we are also in danger of being tempted to sin with them!

Now, we don’t arrive there all at once, and it’s not the first response, so we’re going to talk more about how we get to that point in a minute.

The second response is to protect the integrity of the church and the person who is in sin. We protect our church’s integrity by showing the world that this person doesn’t represent us, and by removing the object of temptation from within our midst. And we protect the person by isolating them from feeling like their sin is ok. As we talked about last week. Removing them from the church is a way to stop enabling and avoiding the sin. It’s harsh, but it’s a measure of protection.

What they need to see is that their behaviour is not acceptable to anyone who calls themselves a Christian, and they are not allowed to be a part of the church – but are now part of the world – it should cause them to grieve. It gives them a chance to look at their life, to realize that if they are going to claim that Jesus is the Lord of their life, but not act like it, then they are a hypocrite. You could also say that this is a way to protect them from self-delusion.

This also protects us, the church, and even that person – to some extent. When we step away, we cannot enable them to sin. Think of it this way: If a fellow believer is going out of town so they can sin, and you say that you are happy to pick them up, babysit, watch their house, or whatever – you are enabling their sin.

If they give you something to hang on to for a while, so they don’t get in trouble, you’re helping them sin. If they want to borrow some money because they have spent all of theirs on sin – no, they can’t have any, even if that means they can’t pay their rent or their bills, because you will not enable them to sin. We protect our integrity, our church’s integrity, and even show love to the sinner by refusing to be part of their sin.

The third response is to setting up the conditions by which we will be able to restore this person who is caught in sin back to the fellowship. By God’s grace, when they get a taste of life outside the will of God, outside the people of God, and live for a while in the arms of Satan, they will see their sin and want to be restored.

We’ll talk about that in a moment too.

Other Scriptures About Despising the Vile

Now, in case you think I’m prooftexting here, I want you to know that despising and rejecting the person who has rejected God is all over the scriptures.

“In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.” (Thessalonians 3:6)
“If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.” (2 Thessalonians 3:14)
“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.” (Romans 16:17)
“As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him…” (Titus 3:10)

Difficult Points

I realize that this is hard! Even the practical working out of this teaching is hard. Are we allowed to pick up the phone if they call? What if we see them in the grocery store? How long do we do this for? If this is all about lovingly restoring them to the fellowship, and to the faith, then how do we do it?

Unfortunately, there are no way to answer every question. Some people will lean towards “we have to keep showing them love” and talk to them in a friendly way – and still remain firm on their need for repentance. Other people will lean towards, “I need to avoid this person because they will suck me into their sin” – and will avoid them altogether. Still other people will be more confrontational and only talk to the person when they are willing to talk about repentance, reconciliation and fixing their issue. I don’t think any one of those is wrong, and each can be supported biblically. What is needed is a spiritual sensitivity and an abiding desire to do the will of God. If we are listening to the Holy Spirit, reading His word, and seeking His glory, then I believe God can use us to help.

This is something that very few churches do well, and it’s one reason why there are so many problems among groups of believers. They refuse to practice church discipline, they allow sin to fester, and they will not reject those who have rejected God. This is something we have to get right because it is commanded by God, and lets us be a healthy, Christ honouring church.

The Matthew 18 Model

So, understanding that we need God’s love, discipline and presence to get this right, let’s go to the practical model for how to do this as taught by Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17. This is a scripture where Jesus teaches us how to deal with sin among His people.

This isn’t the only place where we can learn about this, but I believe it’s the clearest for most situations we will find ourselves in.

Step One: One on One (Confront & Support)

Let’s start in verse 15:

“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.”

When we confront sin, it is to be confronted one on one first. The only exception is when you are confronting a Pastor or Elder in the church – in that case you skip to the step two where you bring in witnesses. 1 Timothy 5:19-20 says, “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.”

This isn’t about special treatment – far from it considering the major impact it would have. It is about giving some protection from capricious accusations based on how people feel about them, rather than actual sins.

But when it comes to personal confrontation, it’s always one on one first. Now, some people look for the loophole here and say, “Well, if the sin isn’t directly against me, then I don’t have to deal with it.” I’m sure you’ve thought that, right? To you I reference Galatians 6:1-2:

“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

In other words, another Christian’s sin is your business. The big idea here is that we are members of the family and we have the right and the responsibility to pull each other away from harm, and to take care of each other. Go to the person privately, quietly, gently, lovingly, patiently, and say, “I’ve been noticing something in your life that is sin. I heard from this person that you have been struggling with this sin. I have heard that you are angry with this person, that you are harbouring unforgiveness, that you are addicted to this, that there’s something that is separating you from God. I’m here to confront you about it, but I’m also here to help.”

See, we don’t just jump strait to handing them over to Satan. This goes two ways – confrontation and support. Confront the sin gently, and then say, “How can I help you carry your burden?” Confront, then support. Supporting them could be as simple as telling them how to make it right, and then they go do it, and you make sure they went and did it. “You took that thing and shouldn’t have. Go give it back. I’ll wait here until you have given it back.”

Or, if it’s something that could take a while, like if they struggle with lust, anger, unforgiveness, addiction, foul language, it could mean meeting with them until they get right with it. Whatever it is, we are to lovingly and gently confront sin in our brothers and sisters, support them as they try to get it right, and win them back to God because we love them – and for their own sake.

Step Two: Bring Friends

What if that doesn’t work? Verse 16,

“But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’”

If that person doesn’t listen, they blow you off, they deny it, they tell you to get lost, that it’s none of your business, that they can handle it, that you can’t judge them… you don’t get to just walk away and say, “Oh well, I tried.” Instead, you get one or two other believers who love them, and want the best for them, who have witnessed and understand the problem, and ask them to get involved. This isn’t to embarrass them or bully them, but to show them how serious this is. This also shows them that their sin isn’t a secret – people know about it.

This isn’t the pastor, or the elder – these are friends. Get some Christian friends together and invite them over, or invite yourself over. This isn’t your posse, but theirs! It’s a group of people that they will listen to. And when they are together, the group will try again.

If you are asked to be part of this group, after praying about it, I recommend that you do so. If you know about this situation, the person’s struggle, and you haven’t had the courage to confront them – but someone else has, and they invite you to come and help – go and help!

Step Three: Call the Elders

Ok, what if that doesn’t work? Get the elders and the church involved. Verse 17,

“If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.”

Even when they’ve told you to get lost, and then told some of their friends to get lost, we still don’t let it go. We still haven’t “handed them over to Satan”. We are still working together, as a church, to combat this sin, to break the hold it has on our brother or sister, and the next step is to go to the pastor or the elders.

God takes sin very seriously, and we want to show this person just how serious. Bring yourself and the witnesses to the pastor and the elders of the church. If you come by yourself, and the pastor (or elder) doesn’t know about the problem, then chances are he’s is going to ask for some witnesses anyway! Once you are together, we can come up with a plan on how to lovingly confront this person. Sometimes that means the pastor and elders take care of it themselves, other times they need to enlist your help. Be open, be humble, and be ready to help.

Step 4: Lovingly Avoid

And then comes the last step,

“…and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

This is where you “turn them over to Satan.” In other words, if this person is still unrepentant after all of this, then they are not acting like a believer, so don’t treat them like one. In fact, if they keep claiming to be a believer, and yet stay in their sin after all of this, don’t associate with them. They need to go through the process of “Reject, Protect and Restore”. We love them by showing them how serious their sin is and that they are slipping away from a right relationship with God! “Hand them over to Satan” because that’s what team they’ve decided to play for now.

We keep praying for them – all the time. We pray that their hearts would soften and they would come back. When they are before us, just like any other person in the world that is bound to Satan, we share the gospel and try to win them to Christ. We try to convince them to listen to Jesus, give up their sin, come to Christ, ask forgiveness, get right with God… but we do not allow them to believe their sin is ok.

Conclusion

I know this is tough. And I know we are not good at it. We’ve all made mistakes. We’ve done it wrong, or too harshly, or have avoided it, or been too soft. But we have to try to get this right. If it’s not done well, under the power of God and the instruction of the Word, then the church will be in danger of being overcome by sin. The loaf will be ruined with the yeast of sin. This might sound harsh, and if done with pride, or arrogance, it can be very damaging. But if it is done out of love, and a desire to see the person restored to the fellowship and to the faith, then it is an act of love and worship.

One of my favourite preachers likes to say “hard words produce soft hearts, and soft words produce hard hearts.” We want soft hearts towards God, repentant hearts, and sometimes that requires hard words and strong actions. If this is a brother or sister, and we want them back at our church, back in prayer, back serving God, back in worship, back in a loving relationship with Jesus – then we always leave the door open for reconciliation, and we make sure we do it with firmness and love.

This entry was posted in Fellowship, Sermon and tagged Church Discipline, Integrity, Protection, Psalm 15, Repentance, Restoration, Sin.

Integrity: Speaking the Truth

Posted on January 21, 2014

I asked you last week to start meditating on Psalm 15 and Colossians 3:1-17. The more I considered these passages, the more I realized that this is where we needed to go for the next while. We’re going to put our Mark Study on hold for a little while and park on Psalm 15. We’ve talked about it before, a couple years ago, but I want to revisit it – partly because of the response to last week’s sermon on Integrity, but mostly because I feel this is where God wants us to be. I think God wants us to learn about what He wants to see from us as individuals, families, and us as a church. It’s very practical, very simple to understand, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. What we will be studying requires a divine movement of God, a complete selling out of ourselves to Him, a commitment to Him as our Lord, Master and God.

I don’t know what lies ahead for you, for your family, or for our church. But I know this – God does. And I believe He has led me to concentrate on these three scriptures because to understand and obey them will prepare us for whatever is to come.

If we are living a life dependant on God, praying to Jesus, reading His word, and obeying Him in all areas of our life – if we have integrity – then no matter what comes at us, we will be ready – because He will be faithfully preparing us. But if we lack integrity – if we are only Christians on the surface, if we are lacking in prayer and Bible study, and if we are not obeying Him in all areas of our life – then we will live a weak life, unprepared for trouble, open to spiritual attack, falling to temptation, and full of sin and doubt.

Not Moralism

If you recall last week, I’ve already said that this is not a list of ways to earn God’s love – I’m not preaching moralism here. It’s impossible to earn God’s love through right living. Ephesians 2:8 says,

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

Martin Luther, when talking about the importance of having faith in salvation through the grace of God, and not in our own morality said this:

“All those who do not at all times trust God and . . . trust in his favor, grace and good-will, but seek his favor in other things or in themselves, do not keep the [First] Commandment, and practice real idolatry, even if they were to do the works of all the other Commandments . . . combined.” (Martin Luther from “A Treaties on Good Works”)

Pastor and Teacher Tim Keller commented on Martin Luther’s statement this way:

“Luther says that if we obey God’s law without a belief that we are already accepted and loved in Christ, then in all our good deeds we are really looking to something more than Jesus to be the real source of our meaning and happiness. We may be trusting in our good parenting or moral uprightness or spiritual performance or acts of service to be our real and functional ‘saviors.’ If we aren’t already sure God loves us in Christ, we will be looking to something else for our foundational significance and self-worth. This is why Luther says we are committing idolatry if we don’t trust in Christ alone for our approval.”

For this whole series, we have to keep this in the forefront of our minds. God loves you and will save you because of your faith in His freely given grace. What we are looking at in Psalm 15 is a picture of what a life looks like after it has been turned over to God, what a family looks like when they are following Jesus, and what a church looks like when the people within it are obeying Him.

No More Right and Wrong

Psalm 15 is about the standards we hold as believers. I think we all want to know what God wants and expects of us. Whether you are a long-time believer, a new believer, a seeker, or someone on the outside, we all want to know what the expectations of being a Christian are. What does God want? What does the church want? What should I hold my Christian brothers and sisters accountable to?

There are a lot of churches today who refuse to talk about the standards of the Christian, and of the church. It’s a sensitive subject, and in this world today, it seems that anything that divides people into groups where one is doing something right, and the other is wrong, is somehow evil. People don’t like to talk about “right and wrong”, they like to talk about “differences.” I’m not wrong, I’m just different.”

Nothing is ever anyone’s fault, and therefore we cannot be expected to hold to any kind of standard! “It was my upbringing, my environment, peer pressure, or the anxiety, or the devil made me do it. I was drunk, I was angry, I was depressed, I was misled, I was just joking… it’s not my fault!”

Whatever wrong is done in the world today is explained away. We don’t even know how to apologize anymore. Now the “non-apology apology” is used. We saying things like “Mistakes were made.” In other words, “I admit there is a problem, but I’m not accepting responsibility for it. Anything bad that happened wasn’t anyone’s fault, these things just happen.”

Or how about, “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Or the ever-popular, “I apologize if I offended anyone.” We take the problem and we blame-shift to the person we offended! It’s not my fault what I said offended you – it was your fault for being so sensitive!

Truth Under Attack

Even the concept of truth is under attack today. In the same way that people don’t like to be held accountable for their actions, so they also don’t like the idea of absolute truth. Canadians especially love to say things like “Well, that’s true for you, but it’s not true for me. I have a different truth” We are allowed to say “This is true!”… but we are not allowed to say “Therefore that is false!”

Let me share with you some current philosophies that are challenging the concept of truth that you will definitely come up against, and which we must not fall into.

The first is Relativism, which says there is no such thing as absolute truth. They say, “all truth is relative” – it changes from person to person, situation to situation – which is a strange thing to say because saying “truth is relative” is an absolute statement and therefore wrong.

Relativists can look at people who have committed terrible acts of evil… like Nazis, terrorists, murderers… and instead of saying, “what they did was wrong”, we say, “Well… we don’t know what it was like to be them — it wasn’t their fault they were raised in that environment. It might have been right for them. And even if they did do wrong, they didn’t have a choice. And if they did have a choice, they only chose wrong because of difficult circumstances and outside influences. And even if they weren’t affected by outside influences, then they must have some kind of genetic predisposition to doing that bad thing – so really, they didn’t do anything wrong. They just have a different truth.”

Relativists look at people who believe in absolute truth and say that we are wrong to believe that… but if truth is relative, then aren’t we also right to believe it? So that’s just goofy.

The next is Scepticism. They doubt all truth. They may say that “the truth is out there”, but no one has found it yet. And they are suspicious of anyone who claims to know the truth. Agnostics are generally sceptics who say “you can’t know the truth”. But even that is a self-defeating statement because they essentially are saying that “the only truth you can know is the fact that you can’t know the truth.” Be careful of becoming a sceptic in regards to all truth. Skepticism quickly becomes an excuse to sin.

Yes, be wise in your view of life, check things out, and obey 1 Thessalonians 5:21 which says, “Test everything. Hold on to the good.” But we must still believe that there is absolute truth.

The third philosophy that attacks truth is Pluralism, which we love in Canada. This isn’t the same as relativism, where truth changes from person to person, but that everyone is right all the time. All truths are equally valid. It sounds so wonderful. We don’t have to fight because no one is ever wrong! You’re right, I’m right, everyone is right. Everyone’s beliefs are equally true and therefore should be encouraged and defended. That’s ridiculous.

There is not a God and no god at the same time. That person is not both guilty and innocent. A woman is not pregnant and also not pregnant. The coin cannot be both heads and tails. These people usually use this in a religious sense saying that everyone is right… but they can’t bring themselves to use it in a personal sense.

They will absolutely agree that you people who believe God, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, or nothing at all are all right – but all you have to do is steal their car, shoot their dog, and steal their money and they become an absolutist pretty quick. Just tell them that what you did was right because you believe it was right, and therefore it was ok. You believed that their car was really your car, and so it was ok. And that if they really believed that they had a new car, and their dog was alive, and had more money, then that would be true for them and it wouldn’t be a problem.

Christian Standards

How I long for a place and a time where you can say categorically, “What you are doing is wrong! You chose to do wrong and you are going to be held accountable for your actions. You need to change your behaviour because what you are saying, doing, and thinking is wrong!” Not just so I can say it, but so that others can say it to me! “Allan, you’re wrong! And here’s why! This isn’t my opinion, this is what God says, and it’s His standard! It’s there to protect you and you need to change your path.”

That place is supposed to be the Church of Jesus Christ. That’s what scripture says! There is right and wrong. We are free to make choices, but God will hold us accountable to what they are. When we stand before Him, all of our excuses will melt away like wax, and we will be left alone with our choices.

The Judgment on Believers

2 Corinthians 5:10 says,

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”

Christians and non-Christians will all be held accountable for their actions (Matt 25:31-32; Rom 4:10). For the believers who know the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, there will be reward for the obedience they have given to Jesus out of love for Him (Matt. 6:20; Luke 19:17, 19; 1 Cor. 3:12–15; 1 Tim. 6:19; 2 Jn 1:8; Rev. 22:12). For those who do not know Jesus, there will be eternal punishment.

Our Life-House

1 Corinthians 3:10-17 is a passage which talks about standards of judgement that will come on believers. I want to read this because I want to make the point of why this is so important for each of us. Listen to what he says,

“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light [that is the day where we all stand before the judgment seat of Christ]. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”

Christians will be judged. Paul uses the picture of someone building their life just as someone builds a house. It starts with the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ, it is then framed by our obedience, and then it is decorated by our good works. And this sermon series asks the questions, “What is our house supposed to look like? What is it supposed to be made of?”

What I want to do is tie 1 Corinthians 3 to Psalm 15. I believe that Psalm 15 gives us a picture of what the blueprints of a believer’s life, and by extension a church, looks like. I’m a simple, straightforward guy, and this is a simple, straightforward psalm. It asks a question, and then answers it clearly.

Psalm 15

Please open up to Psalm 15 and let’s read it together. I’ll put it up on the screen and you’ll see that I’ve probably broken it down a little differently then you will see in your bible. Look at how David the Psalmist answers the question. He uses poetic couplets.

“1 LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?

2 He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous,

who speaks the truth from his heart 3 and has no slander on his tongue,

who does his neighbour no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman,

4 who despises a vile man but honours those who fear the LORD,

who keeps his oath even when it hurts,

5 who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things will never be shaken.”

And so, what we’re going to do is use Psalm 15 as our outline, and then see how the same themes are found throughout scripture.

First, let’s look at the six areas that the psalm points out. Who may dwell on God’s holy hill? What is the house that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 3 made of? What are the core characteristics of a Christian and Church? They are Having Integrity, Speaking the Truth, Loving our Neighbours, Honouring other Believers, Keeping our Oaths, and Using our Money Well. In short, a Christian has Integrity – and shows that Integrity by being Truthful, Loving, Honouring, Trustworthy and Generous.

The first trait is, “He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous…” We’ve already talked about this one in the first sermon. We called it “integrity”. You can also call it a “good reputation”. It is the result of having all the others. It is the evidence, and the fruit of all the other traits. You can’t have a good reputation, or be a person of integrity, if you are not doing these other things.

So if salvation through faith in Jesus Christ is the foundation of the house we are building, then Integrity would be the Roof. You can’t hold up the roof without the walls, and if the walls start to crack, then the roof won’t stay up. The roof is what everyone sees, it takes the most beating, protecting the rest. It is what is hit hardest by the elements. It if the roof starts to leak, then the whole house is in trouble. Protect your reputation. Protect your integrity. And we do that by being obedient to God in the next five areas.

Speak the Truth

So the first column that holds up our roof of integrity is “Speak the Truth”. “Who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue,” We understand the words “speak the truth”, but added to that is the phrase “has no slander”. How is that included in truthfulness?

The word “slander” here is the Hebrew word RAGAL and it means “to spy, to move your feet, to tread upon.” The word is a picture of someone who is sneaking around and stepping on people’s reputation by speaking about them maliciously behind their back.

This shows us the positive and negative sides, of truth. In a positive sense, you do speak the truth. And on the other hand, you don’t spread lies.

Both were laws in Israel. Speaking the Truth is commanded by the 9^th Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness.” And the other is in Leviticus 19:16, “Do not go about spreading slander among your people.”

This is also all over the scriptures and they give reasons that are rooted in our faith. Look at Ephesians 4:25,

“Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbour, for we are all members of one body.”

Again, both are seen. Don’t lie, be truthful. Why? Because we are all connected. Lying doesn’t just harm your reputation, but the reputation of the whole church. It doesn’t just effect the one being slandered, it effects the entire body of believers.

In Colossians 3:9-10 Paul roots our reason for not lying in the fact that we are now being made into the image of God, and God is not a liar.

“Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

God doesn’t lie, so those who have His indwelling Spirit don’t lie. God doesn’t lie, so His kids don’t lie. God doesn’t lie, so the people who live by His word don’t lie. Jesus doesn’t lie, so His people don’t lie.

God Hates Lies and Slander

Listen to Proverbs 6:16-19 and see how serious this is to God,

“There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil, A false witness who utters lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers.”

God literally hates a lying tongue, false witnesses, and people who slander and spread strife. He hates it in the world, and He hates it even more among His people. Why? Because lies are the language of Satan.

When we lie to each other – whether that’s spreading lies on purpose or in ignorance, we are speaking the native language of the Devil.

The first thing Satan does in scripture is slander God and lie to Eve.

“But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die, For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

In John 8:44 Jesus confronts a group of religious people and tells them that their lying and slander against Him is demonic and evil.

“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

When you lie, according to the words of Jesus, you speak like the devil. In Revelation 12:9 a Satan is called “The Deceiver”. Lying is literally satanic and it deeply offends God, and therefore should offend us.

Lying is a Demonic Act

If you lie you are not just committing a human act, but a spiritual one. When Jesus spoke of honesty, He was very serious about it. It’s a heart issue, a spiritual issue. In Matthew 15:18-20 Jesus teaches that whatever comes out of our mouth shows the condition of our heart. He says,

“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.”

Listen to the group that Liars are put into in Revelation 21:8, and what happens to them.

“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.”

Liars are condemned, and lying has no place among those who are saved.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 says that when the Antichrist comes one of the main things he will do is deceive people with tricks and lies.

“The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing.”

Lying is hugely serious! There are no “white lies”. A liar cannot have a good reputation, and cannot be a person of integrity. Everything they say is tainted, and they cannot spread the good news. They cannot be a good witness. They damage the reputation of every person they speak of and represent. They work with Satan to accomplish evil. God hates liars.

God Loves Truth

Proverbs 12:22 says,

“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.” Proverbs 16:13 says, “Righteous lips are the delight of a king, and he loves him who speaks what is right.”

A Christian is someone who speaks the truth, all the time. Who never spreads stories about someone else. It is a hallmark of the Christian faith, a keystone of our reputation, a pillar holding up our integrity, and a way we worship and show love to God! In 1 Corinthians 13, which is called the “Love Chapter”, one descriptor of love is that it “rejoices with the truth.” We worship Jesus who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” To be truthful is to be loving. To be truthful is to be like Jesus.

When the Apostle John is writing to a church he founded he says,

“For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (1 John 1:3-4)

He says, “I told you the truth, you are keeping the truth, and it brings me joy to know that you are truthful people.”

Hebrews 6:17-18 says,

“So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.”

We can count on our salvation being assured because we know that God isn’t a liar.

What is Truth?

I hope I’ve made the case that lying and truth is a very big deal, and so I want to leave you with a few points to consider.

First, let’s answer the question, “What is Truth?”. I found a wonderful article on a wonderful website called “GotQuestions.org” that talked about truth, and I’m going to borrow some from it. It started with what truth is not.

Truth is not simply whatever works. Just because it works doesn’t mean it’s the truth.
Truth is not simply what is understandable. A group of people can get together and agree on a set of falsehoods and all tell the same false story.
Truth is not what makes people feel good. Good news is not always true. Bad news can be true too.
Truth is not what the majority says is true. Fifty one percent of a group can be wrong.
Truth is not what is comprehensive. A lengthy, detailed presentation, can still have a false conclusion.
Truth is not defined by what is intended. A good intention can still be wrong.
Truth is not simply what is believed. A lie, even if believed by many people, is still a lie.

And then the article gives these three simple ways to define the truth.

Truth is that which corresponds to reality. In other words, truth is what is “really real”.
Truth is that which matches its object. For example, it might be absolutely true that one person needs 100 milligrams of medication to be helped, but someone else needs more or less. This is not the same as relative truth, but an example of how truth must match its object. It would be wrong and even dangerous for someone to say “I want 100 milligrams because my father had these symptoms and was cured by 100 milligrams of this medicine. If you don’t prescribe me 100 milligrams of the exact same thing, you are lying about the treatment of this disease.” Truth must match the object.
Truth is simply telling it like it is. This is the simplest definition. It is the way things are, and any other viewpoint is wrong. Your opinion does not make it truth. Your perspective does not make it truth. Ask 10 people to describe the same event and you’ll get 10 different descriptions. Truth is what it is.

Truth Will Get You Intro Trouble

Finally, and let me close with this. Being truthful is critical, but telling the truth isn’t always easy and will sometimes get you into trouble. The most truthful person ever to live was Jesus Christ and He was hurt, rejected, slandered and murdered. If you blow the whistle because of a foul, you are going to get yelled at. If you answer honestly, some people will dislike you. You must stand for truth in obedience to God, in respect for Christ, in love for your fellow man, and because it is the right thing to do. God is intensely concerned that His people be truth tellers, at all times, and in all things.

So if you have lied, make it right. If you are in the habit of lying, get some help and some accountability. As Jesus said in John 8:31-32,

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

This entry was posted in Discipleship, Sermon and tagged Integrity, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Liars, Lying, Martin Luther, Truth.

The Importance of Integrity

Posted on January 14, 2014

As we set out into 2014, a word that I want us each to ponder, to reflect on, and to think about is the word “Integrity.” It’s a big, important word, and has been significant in my devotional life for a long while. It comes up all the time.

I’m reading through the Bible right now and am in the book of 1 Kings, which talks about the integrity – or more often the lack of integrity of the various kings of Judah and Israel. As I’m reading through the Psalms, many of David’s requests of God are framed by speaking of his faithfulness, his integrity, in comparison to his enemies. I’m also reading through the Gospels and Paul’s letters, and in every chapter there has been something to challenge my desires, actions, intentions and faithfulness.

On Friday I read Luke 5:15-16 which says about Jesus,

“But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.”

It challenged me about my prayer life. Jesus was in incredibly high demand, surrounded by physical, emotional and spiritual needs, with every excuse to skip His prayer time to help more people – but he “would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” How can I make excuses about my own prayer life? The challenge was to the integrity of my prayer life – which came up lacking.

Integrity is Important

I’ve been really challenged to think about how hugely important this concept is in every part of our lives.

What does a Faithful Christian, and by extension a Faithful Church, look like? What does the world expect of Christians? What should we expect of each other? What should you expect in a pastor, an elder, a teacher or leader, and what should they expect of the Christians they serve? What should we hold each other accountable to? To have integrity.

I believe everyone wants to be trusted. Everyone wants to have the reputation of having integrity. We want to attend a church or a school which has high integrity. We want to buy from a company with the reputation of taking care of its customers. We want our bank to have a good track-record. Target is having a hard time right now because their computers have had their integrity compromised and hackers have stolen a bunch of their customer’s private information.

First Sermon of Year - Integrity - LACK

Sports certainly gives us some of the best examples. All I have to do is say that names “Lance Armstrong” and “Ben Johnson” and you know what lack of integrity looks like. Think of the riots in Vancouver. The same city that hosted one of the most successful (and beautiful) Olympics in history, became a warzone. If you say “hand of God” to any soccer fan, they immediately remember one of the most famous goals in World Cup history.

I tried to find some positive examples of sportsmanlike behaviour, but they apparently don’t make list of people who have the most integrity – just the least. Which is a great point to remember – it’s lack of integrity that people remember most.

I hadn’t realized it before, but this is a huge concept in scripture. God is extremely concerned about the integrity of His people.

Hebrew Word Study

Let’s do a word study for a little bit to see what God says about it. There are two key Hebrew words in the Old Testament that refer to integrity. One talks about our insides, the other our outsides.

The first word is TAM (or TOM), which is the most frequent. This refers to the Integrity of the Heart, innocence, blamelessness, or what we might call a “Clear Conscience.” When Abimelech had taken Sarah into his house, thinking she was Abraham’s sister, God came to Him with a warning to give her back. He responded by saying to God, “In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this!” (Gen 20:5). “I’m clean! I had honest motives!” And God let him go. It is a word that describes fullness, completeness, innocence and simplicity. When something is whole, without a blemish, not hollow or deceptive, not a façade put up to fool others – like a whitewashed tomb, we can say it has Integrity.

The second is YOSHER. This is Integrity of Actions or doing the right thing. It is a word that describes straightness, evenness, things that are right. When a weigh scale is in balance it has integrity. When a road goes straight, has no bumps, or hidden corners, it has integrity. Proverbs 4:11 uses this word, “I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of integrity [uprightness]” This is the person you can trust to do what they say, and not meander around. This is the messenger who you give the letter to and you know for sure they will not deviate in their path, share the message with anyone, or stop until they have delivered it to the right person.

When Job is described in chapter 1 verse 1, it says,

“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” He was “blameless and upright”.

He was “TAM and YOSHER” He was integrity upon integrity. Pure in heart, blameless in deed. A straight talker, and a straight walker. A trustworthy, level headed guy. He was a man of integrity.

Greek Word Study

In the New Testament it’s found in Paul’s charge to Titus in 2:7-8. Paul was talking directly to Titus, who was a younger man than him, and didn’t yet have a reputation among the churches he was serving. So Paul says to him,

“Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.”

The Greek word is APHTHORIA which is the opposite of the core word PHTHEIRŌ which means “to corrupt or destroy”. So, the word “integrity” here literally means “incorruptible” or “indestructible”. In your life and works and teaching… show yourself to be incorruptible, indestructible.

Why? Because once you’ve lost your integrity, it doesn’t matter what you do, what you teach, what you say, how much good you have, or how good your message or product is. Once you are known to be corrupted… once you’ve lost your reputation… once you lose your integrity… it’s GONE and is almost impossible to get back. So Paul says to Titus… “Whatever you do, don’t lose your integrity!”

In the Proverbs

The word Integrity shows up most in the book of Proverbs which, over and over, warns us how critically important this is. Proverbs 10:9,

“Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.”

This is TOM… walking innocently in your heart and your motives. If you are this man, or woman, then you can walk around without looking around corners, never having to worry about who is listening to what you are saying, not having to regret sending that e-mail or facebook post. You don’t have to backtrack and remember what lies you told, and who you told them to. You don’t have to wonder if that bit of gossip you shared is going to get back around to you, or if anyone is going to find out that it was you who sent that anonymous message.

To have integrity is to have peace in your heart. If you have integrity, can walk securely in this world! People can blame you, accuse you, or mistreat you… but you will have nothing to fear, and God will defend you. But if you are corrupted… if your integrity is compromised… then you will always live in fear of being found out!

Proverbs 16:17 uses the other word, YOSHER,

“The highway of the upright turns aside from evil; whoever guards his way preserves his life.”

In other words, commitment to a life of integrity is a guard against future problems. Living with integrity is like walking on a highway: a well lit, a raised up, easily marked, well-graded road, where you can see what’s coming, and can travel well. This is the person who is caring for their road, keeping their integrity, and making sure they stay on the highway. When you compromise your integrity, it’s like getting off of the main road, and going down a dirt forest path… suddenly the journey is much darker, scarier, with more pitfalls, blind corners, and bandits in the woods. So God says, “Guard your way… preserve your life by protecting your integrity!”

A Picture of Christian Integrity

One scripture that truly hit me between the eyes was Psalm 15. I’ve read it over and over and over because it is so thick with meaning.

It begins with two questions,

“O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?”

In other words, for us today, “What kind of person is the man or woman of God?” “What kind of reputation should a person have who is known as one who dwells with God, who lives in His tent, who is in His Kingdom?” “What do they look like?”

This is the description of one of God’s people,

“He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbour, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honours those who fear the LORD; who swears to his own hurt and does not change; who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.”

That last line there, “He who does these things shall never be moved” reminds me of Ephesians 6:13,

“Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”

The one who dwells with God, who is one of His people, who is wearing their whole, spiritual armour, will be the one left standing. The one who lives with integrity, with truth, in faith, in righteousness, ready with the gospel, the knowledge of salvation, and equipped with the word of God, praying at all times… “shall never be moved.” What a wonderful promise. I believe we all desire this kind of strength.

Jesus said it this way in Luke 6:43-45,

“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

What He’s saying is that whatever is inside of you is going to come out. If you lack character, lack kindness, lack self-control… it’s going to come out for all to see. You can’t live a life without integrity and expect to get the benefits of having integrity. You will be found out. Out of the overflow of the heart… that which is bubbling up inside… his mouth speaks.

This Is Not About Salvation

Let me pause for a moment here. Christians, and Christian preachers, always have to be careful when talking about what Christianity looks like because it’s so easy to slip into moralism. It’s very easy to take the Christian faith and turn it into a list of things to do – which completely denies the truth of the gospel. In fact, right after Jesus speaks of the fruit of our hearts he talks about the foundations of our lives with the parable of the House built on the Rock. Before anyone can think that they are capable in and of themselves to be that “good person”, He reminds us that the only way to purify ourselves so we can live a life of integrity is to build on the foundation of faith and obedience to Him.

Psalm 15 is a great example of this. It says that the man or woman of faith will speak the truth, love their neighbour, reject vile things, honour other believers, keep their vows, use their wealth well, and stand firm in the face of corruption. This psalm isn’t telling us that those actions are what saves us, or what get us access to God’s presence. No, this is describing the life of the believe who already has access to God. We do those good things because we are saved – not to get saved.

Scripture provides us lists of characteristics of the man and woman of faith – not a list of ways to get saved. You do not need to do these things to impress God or clean up your act before coming to God. God knows you are corrupted, that you lack in character, that you are sinful and in need of cleansing. We cannot clean ourselves up enough to make us presentable to God. We can never come before Him and say “Here I am… I fixed myself… now I’m worthy of your presence, your grace, your heaven.”

No, in fact when we come to God for salvation through Jesus Christ we are saying, “Here I am… I cannot fix myself… I am not worthy… I am only coming because I have heard that you are a God of amazing grace, that is still willing to save a wretch like me. I’m lost and need to be found. I’m blind and want to see. I see my sin, my need, my lack, and my need for a saviour.”

And God comes in grace, through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, resurrects our dead souls, cleans up our depraved minds, redresses us from our worldly corruption, forgives us from all our sin, adopts us as one of His children, and gives us His Holy Spirit to live within us. He makes us new, and gives us a new nature. Once we loved sin and made excuses as to why sin made sense, now we don’t! We were once selfish, believing the world revolved around us, now we believe it revolves around Jesus! We now know the love, grace, mercy and forgiveness of God… and we are more than willing to pass it along to others.

What scripture is describing in these lists is someone who is already being changed by the Holy Spirit within them. It’s describing a journey and a destination. None of us will be perfect in these traits, but they are what we strive for, and what the Holy Spirit is trying to change us into. They help us understand why that twinge of guilt hits how, and how we need to listen to it. They are a description of Jesus as the model by which we live, and the one in whose image we are being made into day by day.

Living the New Life

To close this morning, and to kick off 2014, I want to read from a letter that God wrote to His Church through the Apostle Paul in Colossians 3:1-17. Here Paul roots our ability to live as one of God’s people, including our integrity, with in our relationship with Jesus. He tells us of the high standard to which we have been called. He reminds us that the old person inside us has been killed, and we now have access to a new life – he calls it a “new nature” — in Jesus. Then He describes what that new life looks like. This is written to believers who have been given that new nature, that new self, but are still fighting with that old self.

Open your minds and hearts to what God wants to say to you this morning though His word. Don’t fight any conviction that may come, but ask forgiveness and strength to do better.

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Take that passage and Psalm 15, and meditate on them over the next couple weeks. Use them to kick off your journaling time. Pray through them every day. Live in Psalm 15 and Colossians 3:1-17. Park your spirit here for a period of time. Look and see where God is asking you to grow… and also where He has brought you from.

This list should bring a measure of conviction for everyone, because no one is going to be perfect in this. But it should also give you a reason to praise God because you can look and see how far you have come.

Maybe you were once a thief, but you no longer steal – or a manipulator who used people, but now you love them. In fact, God has taken away that urge altogether! Praise God!

Maybe you were once a bitter person, who carried the weight of unforgiveness around with them all the time, but God has shown you how to forgive, and you are free! Praise God!

Maybe you were captive to lust, and couldn’t go 5 minutes without a filthy thought, and felt shame all the time, and could hardly sing a song on Sunday, but today, because of Jesus, you are free and clean, and you can sing all you want! Praise God!

Maybe you once struggled with rage and anger, and no one wanted to be around you because you were uncontrollable, but now you have given control over to Jesus and You don’t explode anymore, and you now know peace! Praise God!

Let’s look through these scriptures together over the next while and see what God can do, and what He has done, for, with and through His people.

This entry was posted in Sermon and tagged Bible, Christian Integrity, Christianity, Integrity, Jesus, Lance Armstrong.

Integrity

Christian Integrity: “Stand Firm: Evaluating our Spiritual House”

Our Foundation

Wobbly Pillars

Testing the Columns

Not Be Shaken

Fight the Right Battle

Fight the Right Opponent

Suit Up

Testing the Pillars

Are You Truthful?

Are You Loving?

Are You Honouring?

Are You Trustworthy?

Are You Generous?

Conclusion

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Christian Integrity: Honouring The Faithful

Worldly Vs Christian Integrity

Finding an Honourable Person

Elevating Fellow Believers

We Don’t Do This Well

God’s Kids Fighting

What’s Behind Christian Conflict?

Dealing with Problems Among Christians

The “One Anothers”

Bear With One Another

4 Practical Steps to Christian Harmony

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Integrity: Reject the Vile – Dealing with Unrepentant Sin in the Church (Part 2)

Cut Out Infectious Sin

Keeping Our Integrity

Rejecting, Protecting, Restoring

Other Scriptures About Despising the Vile

Difficult Points

The Matthew 18 Model

Conclusion

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Integrity: Speaking the Truth

Not Moralism

No More Right and Wrong

Truth Under Attack

Christian Standards

The Judgment on Believers

Our Life-House

Psalm 15

Speak the Truth

God Hates Lies and Slander

Lying is a Demonic Act

God Loves Truth

What is Truth?

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The Importance of Integrity

Integrity is Important

Hebrew Word Study

In the Proverbs

A Picture of Christian Integrity

This Is Not About Salvation

Living the New Life

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