Now, here are a few
thoughts or a few questions to kind of get our
head in the game today as we wrap up our series. It is possible, and this is kind of strange
to even think about, but it is possible to
stay out of trouble and do nothing for someone
who is having trouble. It's possible to be financially
responsible and selfish. It's possible to be
self-controlled and judgmental. It's even possible to be
careful personally and uncaring. It's possible to be
blameless and unsympathetic. It's possible to
keep your hands clean without offering
anyone else a hand. In summary, it's possible to
be good without doing any good. It's possible to
be a good person without doing good
for another person. At least the first century
Pharisees around the temple and in Judea thought so. And then Jesus came along
and changed the end game as it came, as it
related to generosity and specifically as it
related to integrity. Jesus came along and he
turned everything upside down because as we say all the time, Jesus was the king who came to
reverse the order of things. Over and over he would say, especially in the
Sermon on the Mount, "You have heard it
said, but I say, you have heard it
said, but I say, you have heard it
say, but I say, you are really not a good person if you are unwilling to do
good for another person." So today we're
wrapping up our series, Your Integrity, Our World,
Your Integrity, Our World. And if you've been with
us throughout this series, we have a working definition
for the term integrity. We said that integrity
is, essentially, doing what you ought to
do even if it costs you. Doing what you ought to
even if it costs you. And as we all know, we don't
always do what we ought to do, but we certainly
expect others to do what we think they ought to do. Again, our actions
may not be consistent, but our reactions
are very consistent. Which in fact point to, as we've
said throughout the series, our reactions point
to an ought to that we hold others
accountable to. An ought to that
we didn't create because we hold them
accountable to it. And an ought to that for some
reason we can't seem to shake. And then we've said this, that when you don't
do what you ought to, it always costs
somebody around you. That a lack of personal
integrity always impacts, negatively impacts,
some other persons. That the consequences or
the tension that's created when you have a
breach of integrity, the consequences are always
passed along to somebody else, that the consequences are
transferred, so to speak. And thus our title, Your
Integrity, Our World. My integrity, our world. My integrity impacts our world and your integrity
impacts our world as well. Then we had an anchor
verse from Proverbs. I've encouraged you to
memorize Proverbs 11:3. "The integrity of the
upright will guide them, but the crookedness or the
bentness of the treacherous will ultimately destroy them." That people of integrity are
guided by their integrity. And that's where we've kind
of left off in the series. But as we wrap this up, I wanna
take this one step further because for Jesus'
followers in particular, there is much more to this. And here's why I say that. Toward the end of
Jesus' earthly ministry, he was confronted
by his adversaries. And in this particular
conversation we're gonna look at today, they actually make a startling
observation about Jesus, an accurate observation
about Jesus. Now, they're not trying
to compliment him. In their case, they're
actually trying to set him up, but this is what real-world
integrity looks like. This is how real-world
integrity behaves. And for those of us who
claim to be Jesus followers, or who are seeking to
be Jesus followers, this is how we should behave, this is how we should respond, this is how we should
live our lives as well. A little context, Jesus has
just taught a series of parables and the Pharisees, the
Sadducees, teachers of the law, are listening and they realize
that they are the punchline of just about every single
one of these parables. And so they decide
they are done with him. He has to go and it's
time to arrest him and just get him
out of the city, but they have a problem,
and here's the problem. The text says, "But they
were afraid of the crowd because the people, the crowd, held Jesus, or considered
Jesus, a prophet. So they knew the only way to
separate Jesus from the crowd was to get him to say something that would cause the
crowd to abandon him. Once they isolate
him from the crowd, then they can arrest him. So three groups get together, they come up with three
series of questions and then they decide
they're gonna take turns trying to trap Jesus
with his own words, cause him to stumble and get
the crowd to turn on Jesus. So they draw straws or cast
lots, whatever they did. And the Pharisees are up first. And instead of the
Pharisees themselves going in to talk to Jesus,
because he knows who they are, and they're well-known
in the community, they get their minions, they
get some underlings to go in and try to trap Jesus
with a question. And it's this group of people who actually make
this extraordinary
statement about Jesus. This is their observation of
Jesus. Here's what they say. They say, "Teacher, we know," 'cause we've been
watching and listening. "We know that you are
a man of integrity." That literally you are a
man who loves the truth. You are a man who
loves what is true and you don't depart
from the truth. In fact, it was
his uncompromising
love and commitment to truth that exposed their love for the approval
of other people. This was the group of
people that would do bad in order to look good. This was the group of people
that would deceive you so that you would think or
consider them trustworthy. They continue.
"Teacher," they said, "we know that you're
a man of integrity, that you teach the way,"
I love this phrase. "You teach the way of God in
accordance with the truth." The way of God, the path
of God, the road of God, specifically, this
is the will of God. And the implication of the
statement which is so powerful is that the way of God is
actually the way of integrity. That the will of God,
we can say it this way, that the will of God for
us is the way of integrity. Now, there's a lot
packed into this and I don't wanna lose
track of where we're going with the conversation
with Jesus, but I do wanna stop it
and make this point. That for those of
you, for those of us who are interested in God's
personal will for our lives. Personal will, "Where do I go
to school? Should I call him? Should I take that
job?" Personal will. For those of you who
are interested in
God's personal will, this is important. God's personal will for
you will be most apparent, most obvious, most
easily discerned, when you are living
in accordance with God's general
will for your life. And God's general
will for our lives is the way or the
path of integrity, which means that to
the best of our ability we do what we ought to do and we trust God
with consequences, as we talked about last time. We do what we know
we ought to do, what we sense that
God wants us to do. And generally speaking, as
it relates to treating people and being honest and
being people of integrity. And then instead of trying
to manipulate outcomes, we trust God with the outcomes. And my experience is, and perhaps your
experience as well is this, that to the degree
that we are living that kind of life in
general, it is much easier to discern God's specific
personal will for our lives. Anyway, the conversation
continues, "Teacher," they said, "We know that you are
a man of integrity, that you teach the way,
the path, the road of God in accordance with the truth." And Jesus, this is
the setup, and Jesus, because the way of God
is what guides you, because integrity guides
you, you aren't... This is so powerful, you
aren't swayed by other people. Now they're setting him up but
this is an amazing statement. We've watched you. Clearly, you are not easily
swayed by other people. And again, there's
application for all of us. That to the degree that we
are attuned to an ought to that is connected to the divine, to the degree that we're
attuned to ought to rather than what
people think of us. When we're more attuned to
what God wants us to do, we automatically become
less sensitive to and less easily swayed by what
other people want us to do. That when integrity guides us, we're not easily swayed by
what others think of us. When integrity guides
us, we're free. We're free not just
from what others think. This is where this
whole story's going. We are actually free
to do for others regardless of what others think. We're not just free
from what others think. We're actually more
free to do for others regardless of what they think. If I'm overly concerned...
put it this way, if I'm overly concerned
about what you think of me, I may not do what's best
for the thee, right? Isn't that true? If I'm so concerned about
what you think about me and your perspective on me, and you do something that
you need to be confronted on, but I'm overly concerned
about what you think of me. I may not speak up,
I may not step up. I may not tell you
what you need to hear that's best for you because
I'm so concerned about me. I'm consumed with me. And Jesus was free of this. So this is why they
were constantly just, they were amazed at
how honest he was and how transparent he would
be with the teachers of the law and the elders
and the Pharisees. And later on, even with the
priest and the high priest. It's like, ""Don't you
realize who these people are? Don't you realize that
you're talking to?" Jesus is like, "Of course I do, but you see, my
integrity guides me and my integrity is anchored
in the divine and so I am free. Not that I don't care
what other people think, but I'm free from being swayed
by what other people think, which means I'm free to
do for other people." So back to the conversation. "Teacher," they said, "We know that you're
a man of integrity, that you teach the way
of God, the path of God, in accordance with what's true. And obviously you are
not swayed by others because you pay no attention
to," not what other people say. "You pay no attention
to who they are." Again, he just wasn't
easily manipulated or swayed by powerful people
because he did not live as if their favor
determined his destiny. This is what we talked about for the last two parts of
this series with Daniel. Daniel realized that outcomes are ultimately in
the hands of God. And when we finally get our
hearts and our minds around that we will be less easily
swayed by people, and we will be less easily
swayed by powerful people because we won't give
into the myth or the lie that powerful people determine
our destiny, they don't. And again, this is the
benefit of integrity anchored to the divine, that
we do what we ought to do, and we trust God
with the outcomes. And this kind of
leads us to the thing that was so irritating
to the Pharisees and teachers of the law and what really set
Jesus apart from them when it came to
personal righteousness because the moral of this story isn't that the
law doesn't matter or that being good
doesn't matter. The moral of the story is
the why behind the what, and this is what set Jesus
apart from the Pharisees. Again, his integrity was
so anchored to the divine and he was so confident
that God controlled outcomes that he wasn't swayed
by their influence. They were concerned, this group, and if you've read the
Gospels you know this, they were so consumed
with position and power. They were concerned by how
many followers they had, how many likes they got, and
Jesus is completely free. And they just could
not get past this. They couldn't get by the
fact that clearly Jesus wasn't simply good
for goodness' sake. In fact, Jesus wasn't
even good for his sake. He wasn't even
maintaining his integrity for his personal reputation. That as you move
through the Gospels, especially as you
get to the end, it becomes so apparent
that for Jesus, his integrity was a means
to an end that wasn't him. That the Pharisees and I
think all of us are tempted to fall into this trap, they were basically
good for goodness' sake. They were good for
God's blessing sake. They were good for
keeping the covenant and maintaining the blessings
of the covenants sake. And honestly, and I've
told you this before, I can so relate to this because
this is sort of the version of Christianity that
I was raised on. I was raised on the version, "Andy, you do all the right
things and you'll be blessable. You do all the right things
and you'll be blessable. Handle your money the right way, your morality the right way. You just be a really,
really good person and then you are in
the blessable zone. God can do more for you than
he can do for other people because you are in
the blessable zone. You are staying
within the guardrails. You're doing all
the right things. And ultimately, Andy, life
will go better for you." And I wasn't wrong about that
part, but I was so judgmental and I was not a very
compassionate person. And the dirty little secret was I was kind of jealous of sinners because I would
watch them and think, I would really like to do that, but then I won't be blessable, and I know that God would
eventually punish me. And I wish... this
is the awful part, don't tell anyone I
shared this with you. And I would think, I wish he
would go ahead and punish them because it looks like
they're getting away with it! (audience laughing) If you've ever had
those thoughts, welcome to the world
of the Pharisees. I'm gonna be a good person, but I'm being good
for goodness' sake. Now, if you wanna just be
a Christian, that's fine. You can be good
for goodness' sake, but not for Jesus followers,
not for Jesus followers. And again, Jesus
makes this very clear as this conversation continues. So here's what happened. Jesus, since you are not
easily swayed by this... So this is all a setup.
Remember, they're
just testing him. What they've said about
him is absolutely true, but it's all a setup. "Since you are not easily
swayed by others," wink, wink, here we go, "Is it right to pay the imperial
tax to Caesar or not?" To which Jesus could have said, "Oh, I thought you guys
were just complimenting me." Oh, there's a hook, there's
a catch, there's a trap. So Jesus smiles because
this is so elementary. So he says, "Look..." And he basically calls them
out on their hypocrisy, I won't go into the whole thing. There's a little coin trick,
you may be familiar with it, and sends them scurrying
back to their handlers. Meanwhile, the Sadducees are
on the edge of the crowd. They see what happens,
they hear this conversation and they decide,
okay, it's our turn. And as you may know,
Sadducees of course, did not believe
in a resurrection. Sadducees believe that God
created mankind and womankind for his pleasure and
then when people die, (snaps fingers)
it's over, that's just the end so they didn't believe
in a resurrection, and this divided them
from the Pharisees. So they knew Jesus
believed in a resurrection. One time he even said, "I am
the resurrection and the life." So they send this group
in, the Sadducees in, to give Jesus,
basically, a riddle, a sort of a hypothetical story, to demonstrate in their
minds the absurdity of the idea of a resurrection. And then when they finish,
Jesus kind of scolds them. And he ends his little lecture
to them with this statement, which was such a dig. I think, honestly, the
crowd just went wild. He said, "You are in error because you do not
know the Scriptures." All they did was
study the Scripture. You are in error, you
don't know the Scriptures. Again, the crowd goes wild. And then the third
group comes along. The Pharisees decide to send
one of their lawyers in. The text says, "Hearing that
Jesus silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got
together and they thought, "Okay, one more shot." "One of them, an expert in the
law, a lawyer, tested him." And it's important to
remember that this was a test. This was not a sincere question
even though on the surface, it seemed like a very
sincere question. He tested him with
this question. "Teacher, which is the greatest
commandment in the law?" Now, everybody in the audience knew the answer
to this question. They learned this
in Sunday school. This was just basic, Judaism
101, first century Judaism 101. Everybody knew the
answer to this question. And finally, Jesus may
have thought, "Oh good, now at least we have something
important to talk about." And so Jesus recites
the standard answer. And they probably all
said it along with him or maybe mouthed
it along with him. "Love the Lord your God. Love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart, with all your soul,
and with all your mind. This is the first and this
is the greatest commandment." Now, first century Judaism,
when they thought about this and when they quoted this,
here's what they thought. They thought, keep
the law, keep the law. The way you love God
is by obeying his law. He gave us a law to obey. We obey the law, that
shows that we love God. So be good and stay
out of trouble. This was a lot about being
good just for goodness' sake, for blessing's sake,
in their context, it was about being blessable within the covenant that
God had given Israel. Now, before the lawyer then
can ask his second question which was probably
the zinger question, Jesus holds up his hand
to stop him and says, "And," we're not done yet.
"And the second is like it. The second in sequence, but
not second in importance. In fact, these two
commands are equal and they are inseparable. Now, the lawyer may have said, "Wait, wait, I
just asked for one 'cause I've got a script
I'm following here and you're getting me off my
script, I just wanted one" To which Jesus would've said,
"Of course you just want one. You wanna know what to do
because this is all about you. You wanna justify yourself and
you wanna isolate yourself. You wanna keep
your hands clean." Jesus says, "And the
second one is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself." To which perhaps he responded,
I know I respond sometimes. I think I would just
rather just love God and stay out of trouble. Just, you know, me and God,
we got a thing going on. I read my Bible and
I'm a good person. I'm just gonna stay
out of trouble. Just good for goodness' sake. It's easier to be
good than available. And you can be good
and unavailable. But here was the point
Jesus was making. Here is the point Jesus made
throughout his ministry. This is the point he calls
us to as his followers. Ought to isn't just about you. It's about the folks around you. Ought to isn't just about me. It's about the folks around me. Again, it's my integrity, but it's my integrity
for my world. It's your integrity, but it's
your integrity for your world? The religious leaders
who were confronting and trying to trap Jesus, they
were technically blameless, but they were
practically worthless. In fact, in one other
passage, Jesus says, "You hypocrites, you load
people up." Here's what he said. "You load people up
with all your rules. In fact, you made up rules to keep people from
breaking the rules." It was like the fence
around the Torah. It's like, here's the Torah. And then we put some
more rules around it, just so you won't
break the Torah. He says, "You load people up with the burden
of all your rules and you don't lift a
finger to help them. And yet you feel like you
stand justified before God." It's possible to be good
without doing any good. The integrity of the
upright will guide them. But the integrity of the upright that our savior has called us
to will guide us beyond them, will guide us to them, will guide us to the
people around us, which again brings us back to... And if you've been
attending here for a while or listening for a
while, if you feel like, "Hey, it seems like you always
go back to the same place," I do, because it brings us back to where we always
seem to end up. To where you will always end up if you decide to follow Jesus. It brings us back to where
the apostle Paul ended up once he became a Jesus follower. Because once upon a time, Paul, who said he was
the greatest Pharisee
who ever lived, self-esteem was not
an issue for Paul. By his own words, he was like,
"I'm the Hebrew of Hebrews." According to the law, I am
blameless, I am faultless. And then when he
began following Jesus, there was a transition,
there was a turn, there was a heart change and
there was a behavior change. And here's what he said. He said, "Christians,
Jesus followers serve one another
humbly in love." And then here's the kicker. Here's the offensive part
for first century Judeans. "For the entire
law, all of Torah, is fulfilled in keeping
this one command, love your neighbor as yourself." To which the lawyer,
if he had read this, the lawyer that confronted Jesus and some of the people who'd
heard Jesus teach, they say, "Wait, wait, wait, wait,
Paul, you left out a part. You're supposed to say,
"No, the one commandment is, love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and
your neighbor as yourself." You left out the first part
to which Paul would say, "No, I didn't." Because this is how you know
you love the Lord, your God with all your heart,
soul and mind. It's not second in sequence. It is not second and importance. This is how you know
if you are loving God. It is not enough
to keep the law. It is not enough to
keep the commandments. It is not enough to
simply be a good person or to be blameless
in your own sight. Paul would say, and he
said it over and over. "You're not actually
actively loving God if you are not leveraging
your integrity beyond you." In fact, he said this, some of us had this
red at our wedding, or at least the part
that came before this, he would go as far
as to say this, "If you're not
good for somebody, if your goodness
just ends with you, if you're not good for somebody, you are a sounding clanging
gong, you are a clanging cymbal. You're basically a nuisance.
You're just noise." If you grew up in
church, you may remember this little piece of
narrative of Jesus as well. And the English Bible, sometimes the heading
is, The Rich Young Ruler, and he was young
and he was rich. And we're not sure what
kind of ruler he was, but basically he was a really
good rich boy, is what he was. He's a really,
really good rich boy. And he comes to Jesus and
kind of interrupts everybody. And he says, Jesus,
"What must I do?" And there's the keyword. "What must I do in order to
gain and maintain God's favor." The English texts says, what
must I do to gain eternal life? When we hear eternal life, we
think die and go to heaven. That's not what they
thought. He wanted to know how can I be sure that
I have God's favor? "Tell me what I can do to gain
and maintain God's favor." And if you remember this piece
of narrative, Jesus smiles, and goes along with the kid and Jesus rattles off
of a bunch of Torah. He rattles off some of the
most commonly known laws and the boys listening,
and he responds to Jesus. He said, "Okay, gotcha."
He said, "All these..." All these things you've just
mentioned, all these laws, "All of these I've kept
since I was a boy." I am a good boy, I am a good
person. So are we done here? And Jesus says, "Well,
you still lack one thing." So he turns to his servant,
Rufus, "Rufus, write this down. I'm about to get the one thing. And once I get this one thing,
I'll go do the one thing. And then I'll have God's
favor according to this rabbi. Anyway. So get your pen out." Jesus smiles and says, "Here's
the one thing you lack. I want you to sell
everything you have. And I want you to
give it to the poor." Now it's important when
you read this conversation to understand Jesus is
not talking to you, okay? Jesus was not talking to
Lazarus or his sisters because they did
not sell everything and give it to the poor, they
supported Jesus financially. Jesus is making a specific
point to a specific person, but the point, or the
principle, applies to all of us. "I want you to sell
everything you have. And I want you to
give everything you
have to the poor." This was his sort of
hyperbolic way of saying, "You are good, but your
goodness is all about you. You are good, all about you.
You are good for nobody. You are good for nothing." And I want you to understand
just how ungood you are within the context
of God's value system and the kingdom of God. So to demonstrate it for
you, I'm going to lead you. This is what Jesus was
doing. So brilliant. I'm going to lead you
to your selfishness. I'm gonna lead you, I'm gonna
confront you with the heart that's driving your behavior. That makes you good on the
outside just like the Pharisees, but filthy on the inside,
because it's all about you. So I want you to sell
everything you have, and I want you to
give it to the poor. Of course this kid's like,
"Wait, sell my stuff. Hey, sell my stuff and
give it to the poor? Why are we talking
about the poor? I mean, I wanna know how I can
know where I stand with God and now we're talking
about the poor. I think you changed the
subject, besides that, Jesus, if I sell everything I have
and give it to the poor, I won't lack one thing,
I will lack everything." To which Jesus, I think, would
pause and smile and think, "Now we're getting somewhere. Oh, and there's one other
thing I want you to do. I want you to come and I
want you to follow me." And the text says that this
young boy went away very sad, but not as sad as he was on
the day that he discovered or heard who Jesus was. Not as sad as he was on the day when he realized he traded
his temporary wealth for an opportunity to be one of Jesus' original
first century followers. He was good, but he
was good for nothing. And Jesus led him to that
tension and left him there. And he walked away sad. I think all of us
have that point. I think the teaching of Jesus,
if we take it seriously, you see following
through the gospels, brings us to that point. That point of conflict
where we realized, "Oh-oh, my selfishness
is being confronted by Jesus' invitation
to be generous. That my self centeredness
that I mask with my goodness, I'm a good parent, I'm a
good father, I pay my taxes, I drive the speed limit,
all the good things I do. I'm a fine upstanding citizen. And then you follow Jesus
through the gospels. And he leads us to
that point of tension where he confronts us, as I know he has confronted
me so many times, and one major, major
time so many years ago when I realized I'm
good for my sake, I'm good for goodness'
sake, It's all about me. I am blameless, I am faultless. But when it comes to
my benefit or my help in terms of what's
going on in the world, I'm pretty much worthless, because somehow my
Christianity is all about me. And then, again, if you
attend one of our churches or you've been following
us for a while, you know what
happens at the end. At the end, Jesus
gathers his apostles for that final Passover,
and he takes it up a notch. He says a new command
I'm giving you. A new command I'm giving you. You heard me talk about what's
the greatest commandment. I was just telling everybody
what they already knew, then I added the neighbor part. So now I'm gonna take that, and I'm gonna combine
those two ideas and I'm gonna add
another element. And this is what I
want you to remember, a new command I give you. A new command to replace
all the other commands. The apostle Paul would
come around later, as we've talked about, and
call it the law of Christ. And the law of Christ
was to give, to serve and to love others,
and each other, as he gave, served and loved us. That Jesus was not satisfied with being good for goodness
sake, or good for his sake. Jesus came to be good for
your sake and for my sake, and for the sake of the world,
for the sake of those who, well, in my case,
maybe your case, for the sake of those who
just aren't all that good. This was his end game. His end game wasn't simply
to keep the law of God. His end game wasn't to
simply keep the law of God. His end game was to
demonstrate the love of God and to demonstrate
it in such a way that we would embrace
that way of living. That that would become
our end game as well. So full circle, it's possible. It's possible to be good
without doing any good, but that is not a good idea. So if you're a Jesus follower,
if you're a Jesus follower, let it be said of us what
was said of our savior, that we would be known
for our integrity, that we would be known for
our love of what's true. That we would walk
in the way of God. And that we, as a
consequence of that, would not be easily
swayed by others. But instead we, like Jesus,
will be free to love others, because at the end of the
day, when you follow Jesus, your integrity will guide you, but it will guide
you beyond you. Your integrity will guide
you to the you, besides you, to the yous who are
nothing like you, to yous that may
not even like you. And if we get this right,
if we get this right, it won't be how well we behave
that gets people's attention, it will be how well we love, because our integrity
will guide us to beyond us into the lives of
the people around us. And then just as happened
in the first century that could perhaps happen
in the 21st century, then our integrity will most
certainly shape our world.
