Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:07]
A
Welcome to Faith of Our Fathers. Today we feature Howard Hendricks, also known as the Prof. For over 50 years, he was a professor at the Dallas Theological Seminary. He mentored many Christian leaders, including Chuck Swindoll, Tony Evans, Joseph Stowell, and David Jeremiah. Today, how Howard Hendricks presents a sermon on integrity. The following material is copywritten by and provided courtesy of the Moody Bible Institute. Well, thank you and good morning. I'm doing a little research and I need your help. How many of you are night persons? Put your hands up. Hold them up. I thought so. How many of you are morning persons? Put your hands up and keep them up. Will the rest of you look around? These are the significant men of this generation. Have you ever discovered how many night owls marry mourning doves? God has a fantastic sense of humor. I think from in utero. I've been a morning person and I married a night owl. And we had some fascinating adjustments. Long around 10 o' clock in the morning. Jean's fourth cup of coffee, her second brain cell, would come on. 10 o' clock at night, when any normal person is turning into pumpkin. She, a creative writer, is banging away on a typewriter, pulling out a sheet of paper. Howie, listen to this. I would be zonked. Then I got four kids, and would you believe I only got one and a quarter morning persons out of the lot? Kind of depressing, isn't it? I asked my older daughter Barb some time ago, hey, Barb, how about getting up and watching the sunrise with me? She said, daddy, if God intended people to watch the sun rise, he would have scheduled it a lot later in the day. Well, you need another seminar like you need another hole in the head. But you desperately need to hear from heaven. And many of us have been much in prayer that the spirit of God will light some fires this Saturday that will never go out. Chuck Colson, in a recent book entitled against the Night, sounded a disquieting and realistic note about our society when he wrote, the sun is setting on Western civilization. Ominous shadows fall across politics, family life and education. We live with a growing sense that things are winding down, that somehow freedom, justice and order are slipping away. Scandals and scams are commonplace as men and women trade character for cash and sacrifice commitment on the altar of selfishness. Divorce, drugs and easy sex create an environment of abuse for much of our youth. We are living on the edge of chaos. We stand on the brink of a new dark age. If that's true, and I believe it is, then it forces a question. What kind of a man does it take to make an impact on that kind of society, I am convinced it demands a man of integrity. But what does that mean? Webster defines integrity as an unimpaired or unmarred condition, soundness, uncompromising adherence to a code of moral, artistic or other values, utter sincerity, honesty and candor, avoidance of deception, expediency, artificiality, or shallowness of any kind, complete and undivided. You see, integrity means much more than not getting into trouble. It's not simply negative, it's positive. Not passive, but active. You may remember in your introduction to mathematics in grammar school that you were introduced to an integer and learned that an integer is a whole number. Integrity has to do with wholeness, with holiness. We're talking about an integrated person, not a bionic believer, but an ordinary man who lives an extraordinary life, someone who is in the process of getting his life together. Not perfect, but progressing. And I believe integrity is best understood in light of two seminal passages. If you have a Bible or a New Testament, will you turn for just a moment to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4? 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4? I want to begin reading at verse 3. It is God's will that you should be holy, not happy. Happiness is a byproduct of holiness. That you should avoid sexual immorality. That each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lusts like the pagans who do not know God. And that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins as we've already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man, but God, who gives us the Holy Spirit. Turn over a few pages to the Epistle to Titus, chapter 1. The apostle is setting forth qualifications for leadership in the Church. And twice over, in verse six and verse seven, he says, a leader, an elder, must be blameless. And again, verse 7. Since an overseer or an elder is entrusted with God's work, he must be blameless. This hour I want to ask and answer one critical question. Why be concerned about integrity? I believe there are three reasons which conspired to build a convincing case. First of all, we ought to be concerned about integrity because of the carnage of our culture. You see, integrity does not take place in a vacuum. It takes place in a culture. And the culture is unraveling like a cheap sweater. The things that are nailed down are coming loose the things that people said could not happen are happening. And thoughtful, though unregenerate individuals are asking, where is the glue with which to reassemble the disintegrating and disarrayed parts? Eugene o' Neill makes one of his characters say it so graphically, you cannot build a marble temple out of a mixture of mud and manure. But we continue to try. Man is almost insanely committed to the proposition that he has the answers to his problem. He's forever building his little sandcastles only to discover the inundating tides of reality washing them out to sea. And then he seeks someone to blame. Saw an intriguing piece of graffiti in Philadelphia some years ago. Scratched across the wall were these words, Humpty Dumpty was pushed. Men, I am convinced the only option confronting the contemporary Christian man today is you either master the culture or the culture will master you. John Dean of Watergate fame and prominence, wrote a book entitled Blind Ambition, in which he hit the nail with his head in these. To make my way upward into a position of confidence and influence, I had to travel downward through factional power plays, corruption, and finally outright crimes. Slowly, steadily, I would climb toward the moral abyss of the President's inner circle, until I finally fell into it, thinking that I had made it to the top, just as I began to realize I had actually touched bottom. Gentlemen, Watergate was simply the tip of the iceberg. Our society is out of control. It's lost its way, and we're on the slippery slopes of a moral morass. Were producing endless celebrities, but very few of real achievement. And those who are more celebrated appear to be less effective. Eugene Peterson, in a book Run with the Horses, said, the puzzle is why so many people live so badly, not so wickedly, but so inanely, not so cruelly, but so stupidly. There's little to admire and less to imitate in the people who are prominent in our culture. We have celebrities, but not saints. Famous entertainers amuse a nation of bored insomniacs. Infamous criminals act out the aggressions of timid conformists. Petulant and spoiled athletes play games vicariously for lazy and apathetic spectators. People, aimless and bored, amuse themselves with trivia and trash. Neither the adventure of goodness nor the pursuit of righteousness gets headlines. In Mark, chapter three, you have the perfect model of a man of integrity living in the midst of of a cesspool society. Mark, chapter two. Beginning at verse 13, we read that fascinating story of Levi. You remember, our Lord called this man Secretary of the Treasury. Follow me. Drops his Cash register and takes off doubt of appreciation for his newfound faith. He has a dinner party. Verse 15 says, While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's homes, many collectors of taxes and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. Here's Jesus Christ, the one who knew no sin, the one who did no sin, the one in whom was no sin, sitting in the midst of publicans and sinners. And, my friend, if that's not an attractive picture to you, it's simply an indication of how far removed you are from the life of Jesus Christ. The only thing to spoil the picture is a collection of religionists. For when the teachers of the law, who were Pharisees, saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked, why does he eat with sinners and publicans, tax collectors? Their superficial conclusion was, he's with sinners. Therefore, ipso facto, he is a sinner. Jesus said, you missed it by 10,000 light years. On hearing this, Jesus said to them, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Where do doctors spend the bulk of their time? They spend the bulk of their time in the presence of the sick. Where do you spend the bulk of your time? I'm finding increasingly in the evangelical community. We're scared spitless of getting involved in contemporary society. Oh, we have our little evangelical forays out into enemy territory and we run out and we get shot at and we run back, get up in prayer meeting and say, beloved, I was persecuted for righteousness. Truth of the matter is it's probably for stupidity. You see, who Jesus was, determined where he was, and the same must be true of you and me. I don't know about you. This is how I got involved with the cowboys in the first place. I work in a cemetery. Don't look at me that way. You've never been in one, obviously. And I could dry up and blow away. I got to be around some hells and dams to be convinced this is alive. Led a man to Christ not too long ago. It's so exciting. I said, do you have a Bible? He said, no, I don't. I said, well, take this. This is a New Testament. Read it. So he comes back a week later. He said, I read it. Well, I said, I mean, read the whole thing. No, I said, I read the whole thing, including the palms in the back. I said, I understand there's another section to this. So I get him a whole Bible. Three weeks later, he came Back he'd read the whole Old and New Testament. I have elders in my church that have never done that. Now he doesn't have it all together. He's still getting it together. He's still the product of his society. So he comes over to my office. We have a Bible study. Some time ago, I looked at my watch, I said, good night. I got some students out here for an appointment. We're going to have to get together next week. So we're going out the door. Here are the five students, my secretary, and he turns to me and says, hendricks, this is so damn exciting. Now, my friends, it's a piece of cake to clean up his language. You know what the problem is? When I finally get it cleaned up, he'll be like the rest of us. Where do you spend the bulk of your time? That's why you guys up at the front, who are close can see the drool all down the front of my sweater. Every time I get around a group of laymen, I just froth at the mouth fairly need to be led away, realizing what an opportunity you have every day of the week. It's a problem for Joe and me. We're paid to be good. You guys are good for nothing. But you need to remember, that's why you need to be a man of integrity. You got to break with the herd. You got to go for broke. You need a lifestyle that's dramatically and divinely different because of the carnage of our culture. And by the way, the more like our culture you are, the less you will impact it and the more distinctive you are in the midst of a crooked and a perverse generation, the more you will shine as lights. You got a good marriage. Anybody here? I don't know the audience, you know. Well, my friend, if you've got a good marriage, you need to know you are fast becoming a phenomenon. My wife and I were on an American Airlines plane some time ago, sort of smooching as we are prone to do. Flight attendant came down the aisle, stopped dead. She said, hey, just married. I said, not exactly, lady. We've been married for 90 years. She said, 90 years. I said, that's right. I've been married to her 45. She's been married to me 45. She got on a public address system at the whole plane. Sing congratulations to us. You know, here they are, another freako sort of a pervert. It's what people think of those who have a Christ centered marriage. But there's a second reason. And if I get off on this, we're Going to be here all day, so pray for me. We need integrity because of the condition of the church. The church is plagued with a deadly disease of aids, Acquired integrity deficiency syndrome. And like the church at Corinth, instead of us making an impact on the the world, the world is making an impact on us. And we're developing a credibility gap. For 20 centuries, the church has been telling the world, believe our gospel. And now on the threshold of the 21st century, the world is telling us, behave your gospel. It's calling the church to account for its authority, for its right to be heard. It is saying, in effect, put up or shut up. The church is ignored at best and scorned at worse. I have never taken any guess from any pagan in my community concerning my lifestyle. They don't agree with it, but they respect me for it if I live it. But if you tell them you are a Christian, you are a born again believer, my friend, you better back it up or they are going to cram it right down the center of your throat. George Gallup conducted one of those polls for which he has become famous. The objective was to assess the climate of religion in America and superficially viewed as very impressive. For example, the number of people who believe the Bible is the word of God. The number of people who attend church on Sunday, for your information, far higher than during colonial days, which we tend to celebrate. The number of people who claim to have had a born again experience. Very, very impressive. Until you come to the last line of Gallup's study when he said, never before in the history of the United States has the Gospel of Jesus Christ made such inroads while at the same time making so little difference as to how people live. My friend, that ought to drain the blood right out of your spiritual system. That's the most damning indictment I have read in the last 10 years. Turn in your Bibles for just a moment. It was a problem in the early church. First Corinthians, chapter 5. Let me plug into verse nine. You'll remember. Chapter five. You will remember there is a double indictment by the apostle. This is the chapter that talks about the man of sin, the unheard of pattern of life not even embraced by the pagan community. And Paul not only scores the man for his sin in the church, he also scores the church for allowing that kind of a person to continue in the fellowship. So verse nine says, I've 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'm writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer or a drunkard or a swindler with such a man. Not even tui. And that's our greatest problem of integrity. I cannot believe what I am seeing in many of the churches across America today. Modes of behavior, attitudes, and values which are diametrically opposed to the Scripture. And that in many cases, I don't even find among my pagan friends. And that this should obtain in the church raises a lot of questions on the part of those people outside in the watching world. We need a larger core of people in our churches who are shot through with integrity. Not perfect people, but progressing ones. There is one final reason I believe integrity is essential because of the carnage of our culture, because of the condition of our churches, but also because of the communication of our content. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul says, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. You see, that teaches me that Christianity is dynamic. Every day I wake up to the realization there are areas of my life over which Jesus Christ does not have control. That's the whole thrust of the New Testament. We make a difference by being different. Do you remember in Matthew, chapter five, Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are salt to penetrate the society. You are light to illuminate the society. But remember, those two analogies are preceded by eight beatitudes. So that he is saying, character must precede conduct. Your attitudes come before your action. What you are determines ultimately what you do. Can I ask you this morning, as I ask myself, you making anyone thirsty for Jesus Christ? You've all heard of nowhere? Well, I was preaching in a church 20 miles beyond that. It was, of course, in Texas. And after I got through, a man came forward, an obvious Texan, who said, you were wrong. Well, I said, thank you, sir. I've been wrong before. Tell me how. Well, he said, in the course of your message, you made a moronic statement. I said, what was the statement? He said, you said, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And that ain't true. You can feed him salt. Major question. You are the salt of the earth. Anybody ask you recently down at the company? Hey, what makes you tick? Why are you so different? A number of years ago, my wife and I became deeply involved in the NFL. When we first started, there were only a few teams in the NFL that even had a Bible study. And we had players in the league who were born again, individuals who used to pray that God would trade them to another team where there was no Christian so that they could get started. For your information, all 28 teams have regular Bible studies and chapels. It wasn't that way to begin with. And I remember in those early days spending a lot of time with these guys saying, how do you maintain a witness? See, I used to travel with the Cowboys, and we would take over a room of a hotel. The Cowboys were required to put a whole force of security people on that floor to keep the women off the floor, because they throw themselves at the feet of these individuals. And I say, how in the world do you maintain a witness for Jesus in the midst of that kind of a society? And over and over again, the guys would say, you got to live clean. You got a break with the crowd. If you ever give in, you are dead in the water. We're going to hear from a man, and he's simply one, I assure you, of many who has earned the right to be a powerful witness, not only in the NFL, but wherever he goes, because he's willing to take that kind of a stand. Don't you see? Wherever I go and I talk to men's conferences, often a guy will come up afterwards, as one man did, and he said, brother Henry, what's the matter, man? He choked up. I said, well, spit it out, buddy. I'm the only Christian in our company. I said, you gotta be kidding. I said, do you mean to tell me that God Almighty entrusted that outfit to you? They said, stop feeling sorry for yourself that you're the only Christian in your company. You're the only Christian on your block. You're the only Christian in your tennis club. Just think of it. God sovereignly placed you there to reach that community for Jesus Christ. Os Guinness, an astute observer of the American scene, put his finger on it when he said, the main problem with North American Christians is not that they aren't where they should be, but they are not what they should be, right where they are as teachers, doctors, lawyers, businessmen, school principals. And that's what God is calling you and me to be in the midst of the society in which he has placed us. Remember, great men, men of integrity, are never dissolved by the stream in which they swim. They break with the crown. Without integrity, we slice our jugular. We are hemorrhaging from the heart. Many years ago, I ran across a statement that I love to give as a gift to some of my business and professional friends who have such an incredible witness for Christ in the marketplace. It was written by Gordon McLeod. He said, I simply argue that the cross should be raised at the center of the marketplace place as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves on the town's garbage heap at a crossroads so cosmopolitan they had the rightest title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek. At the kind of place where cynics talk smut and thieves curse and soldiers gamble. Because that's where he died, and that's what he died for. That's what he died about. That is where Christians ought to be and what Christians ought to be about. What a challenge God has given to you and to me to be his representatives in the midst of a carnage of culture, in the midst of a church that has forgotten its foundation, And in the midst of a society that has lost its moorings. Father, thank you. Thank you very much for every man who is here today willing to take a slice of his money and his time and his energy and invest it into a conference, because his heart beats for a life that is significant. Father, we're weary of the shallow plain on which many of us have been willing to live. And we pray that you will lift us to higher ground. We pray that you will give us a new vision of the strategic role and privilege you have given us to live in this century and many of us into the next. As your personal representatives, I thank you for every man and pray that you will do a permanent piece of work in his life today. Because we ask it expectantly through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. You've been listening to Howard Hendricks. Listen to Faith of Our Fathers each Saturday and Sunday to hear more great 20th century preachers.