Your Integrity: Our World | Part 5 | The Win

[Music] [Applause] i don't think we're supposed to clap during that abigail gosh hey it's labor day weekend and you are in church way to go you everybody gets extra credit today those of you watching online no extra credit but we are so thrilled that you're watching today and welcome back everybody um i was just walking around looking at all the folks in your transit t-shirts and wombland t-shirts up the street t-shirts i didn't see any inside out so those of you who volunteer and make our family ministry environments amazing thank you thank you thank you for your investment the next generation and if you're looking for a way to meet some of the most maybe the most fabulous people in the church um you volunteer with one of our family ministry environments and you will make lifelong friends and make an investment the next generation anyway if this is your first time we would love to meet you right after the service if you'll head on out those doors and take a right you'll see a sign that says connections some of our staff will be out there that would love to answer any questions you have about the church and we've gotten pretty good at making a big church feel like your church if you'll give us a chance to do that those of you who are watching online and if it's your your first time we actually have something for you as well if you're in the city or outside the city and at the top of your browser it says i'm new if you'll just click that at some point the sermon gets boring just go ahead and click it during the message that's okay we'll uh you'll find out what we have for you and your family um as we've said for the last several weeks the best way to keep up with what's going on around here is our top three website northpoint.org top three and this changes all the time every week because there's so much going on and this week if you go there you can find out how to give directly to organizations that are supporting um what's going on the gulf coast with families and organizations down there who are suffering because of the hurricane and afghan refugees so um in the old days we would collect money and then find a place to send it but we have partnered with some amazing organizations that we have vetted and our hope is that you'll give directly to them maybe develop a relationship with some of those non-profits and that could be part of your ongoing um giving and speaking of this i didn't say this at the nine o'clock i should have thought about it um speaking of giving at north point we have not talked about giving to the church since march of 2020 and don't clap about that that's not what clap about you're supposed to say oh what a missed opportunity anyway and here's why i mean you remember when 2020 happens like oh the you know economy and people are losing jobs and you know so i thought we're not gosh we're just gonna we'll just get through and trust the folks who give since that time we have raised money for i mean we've done backpack bicycle drives couple of bee riches i mean all kinds of stuff and you have been so generous i have not one time had to get up here and say hey remember the church so even as we continue to give to all these emergency things um and then we got another opportunity coming up in a couple weeks i'll tell you about in a minute i just want to say thank you thank you thank you for those of you who just give consistently some of you've been coming for a while you're like how do you even give to this church there is no offering plate and no one ever talks about it um it's magic it's a secret and we can't tell you now most the folks you're around um give through our app you just download the north point community church app and you can go on there and you can give a one-time gift a recurring gift sandra and i have been giving to all of our churches through the apps for years it is the easiest way to give directly to the church but really i just wanted to say thank you we've been able to do a lot for a lot of people and not one time since you know you know early 2020 if i had to get up here and even talk about it it was i just didn't want to anyway so that you took pressure off of me and you have continued to support this fabulous church so speaking of money uh two weeks from today and when i would expect a little bit of energy for this next announcement two weeks from the day not next sunday but the next sunday september 19th is be rich sunday there we go and this is our opportunity to support all our local um charities around the community and a few global and the reason i'm bringing it up now it's in two weeks so you'll know but also i think be rich sunday is one of the best sundays in the year to invite someone to church especially if your friends who are skeptical of church especially big church mega church you know we you know that's the sunday to bring them i always look for kind of skeptical people to bring on be rich because it's to say hey look what we're doing for the community and this is your opportunity to um come several years ago like maybe seven eight nine years ago um a woman came i'm i didn't know her but a friend and i kind of tagged him to get her there kind of a well-known woman in the community we just wanted her to know what we're doing we knew she probably would never come back and afterwards i never met her and i met her and she pulled out her checkbook and she wrote check for 12 thousand dollars to be rich so one time just honestly it's the only time she's ever been to our church so so abigail i want to say no wasn't just kidding oh yeah anyway yeah so but you would have if you could have i know that's right i know you would okay anyway the point being it's really not about the money it's about our reputation in the community as you know and if you don't know what be rich is trust me you don't want to miss two sundays from today also last thing about be rich um after the service um if you go out these doors and take a left and go around to that side of the building or if you're in the west auditorium if you go directly out the back doors we're painting this giant gift serve love uh mural on the wall right on the brick wall and and so here's what we're gonna do we want you to help so we're gonna have a paint by number thing so if you wanna hang around you we have paint out there and you get to paint on the walls and here's why this is a big deal you can go get your kids your kids you're constantly saying don't touch the walls don't draw don't paint on the walls this is their big opportunity some of you still have um parent issues because your kids were so immature your parents were so meticulous they wouldn't let you touch anything this is your chance to get that out so we're inviting only people today sorry if you're not here this ends today just for this weekend you get to go out there and help us paint the mural on the wall after the service so we'll give you some stuff to paint with and it's going to be lots of fun even if this is your first time we'd love to have you participate anyway we're continuing our series today serious today on your integrity our world before we do that we're going to sing a little bit with tasia abigail and john this is tasia some of you haven't met asia yet but if you would stand say hey to somebody we will sing together [Music] come on let's see i was buried [Music] till i met [Music] [Applause] [Music] come [Music] out of the darkness [Music] me [Music] to your employees [Music] is [Music] jesus when i am [Music] [Applause] [Music] yes you call me [Music] day come on [Music] you sound amazing [Music] the darkness tries to roll over my bones [Music] it's all comes to steal [Music] the brokenness and pain is all i know oh i won't be ashamed no i won't be [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] a place to hide i'm not afraid to leave [Music] my fears [Music] [Music] that's good [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] when [Music] when i'm standing [Music] when i'm [Music] there's power that can break off every chain is power that can empty out [Music] that's good there's resurrection power [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] grace is here love has triumphed [Music] forever his mercy his is is not in question oh the son of god has spoken over me it is [Music] [Applause] forever [Music] resurrection power over every circumstance his word stands final and forever resurrection no it cannot be shaken is [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] amen let me pray for us god thank you that that's true you have triumphed over everything even death cannot separate us from your love we asked this morning god that you would bring us your peace that we would be aware of your closeness to us we thank you for loving us more than just a god who's far away but for being as close as a brother and a friend and i pray this morning father that we would remember that and hold on to that it's in the name of jesus that we pray and gather here today and sing amen thank you guys you can have a seat [Music] so [Music] so do we have any um no one's allowed to look in there folks today yes yes that's a few of you i i love being married to a neat freak i learned a long time ago though and sandra cleans out her closet which never needs to happen or when she straightens up the pantry or reorganizes the pantry i've learned she wants me to ask hey is it okay if i take a look because neat people love people to notice how neat they are so i've learned not wait to ask like can i check out the pantry what has happened here it's amazing and and i love that darling anyway so um you know this but once upon a time um if you wanted to dig up dirt on somebody um it was a little bit challenging if you want to like expose their secrets or their indiscretions or know what they were up to before they came to work for you or um before they wanted you to vote for them you know their unethical deals whatever it was it used to be kind of challenging but now it's not challenging at all we can all do this from the comfort of home right um so you know this if you ever think about running for office you better look back because it's going to come up right it's better to look back so you're not surprised um it doesn't take much these days and again we all know this to be canceled this is kind of the thing right you know the cancel culture um but um and of course this means that a little bit of bad can erase a whole lot of good which is not fair but it just it's real it's just the way things are but the thing is there's a little bit of hypocrisy built into this for all of us because we are not i'm all equal opportunity cancellers right i mean isn't this true we maximize we maximize all the bad things about the other per other parties person you know it's like oh clearly they're disqualified but then it was like we minimized it's not that big a deal right it was a long time ago everybody does it we minimize it right when it's when it's our candidate right but here's the real hypocrisy when it comes to our dirt and the skeletons in our closet we actually justify it you know it's like you know what we do and this isn't bad i mean this is really what we should do for everybody but we quickly do it for ourselves when it comes to our stuff you know our breach of ethics you know we you know kind of sacrificed our integrity didn't tell the whole truth didn't fool to do full disclosure you know whatever it might be um when we when it comes to our stuff we look at our indiscretions within the context of our entire lives and we say oh it was just this one season this one season of life one chapter of life one weekend it was the exception to the rule but the interesting thing is we rarely i mean don't raise your hand but we rarely extend that same courtesy to other people but we really love it when people extend that courtesy to us we'll come back to that just a minute we are in part five of our series your integrity our world your integrity our world it's your integrity but impact your entire world and it impacts ultimately the entire world when you take all of our integrity or our lack of integrity and you roll it all together um we said that you know in terms of a definition we have a working definition in this series for the term integrity so we just made this up but it's easy to remember integrity is doing what you ought to even if it costs you doing what you ought to even if it cost you because when we don't do what we ought to it always costs someone else the stress and the tension and the aftermath of our breach of integrity always gets transferred to some other people it doesn't just disappear our irresponsibility as we said last time our irresponsibility ultimately becomes other people's responsibility or you say this way that a personal lack of integrity always impacts some other persons this was maybe your story growing up you had an older brother or sister younger brother or sister and they just were constantly in trouble in their lack of integrity it stressed out the whole family in fact you didn't get the attention you deserved growing up you were the good kid but you know nobody could pay attention to all the good you did because of the little bit of bad that just created stress and you know heartbreak in your family or maybe your husband or wife or a father or a mother so a little bit of you know a breach of integrity it gets transferred the stress the pressure gets transferred to the people closest to us our personal lack of integrity always impacts some other person and then um week two i gave you kind of the theme verse so before i read this to you or maybe you can quote it out loud i've asked you to memorize it i'm going to ask you one last time to sit up really straight let's all get our good posture if you're watching from home sit up straight if you're driving you just stay put you're good so just i want you to sit up straight and the reason is because the key verse the theme verse about integrity is a it's a posture integrity is a posture here's what the writer of proverbs says the integrity and here it is of the upright the integrity of the upright integrity is looking out and looking as far as you can and looking down the road you know down the slope you know the faster you're going when you're skiing the further you know you have to look ahead same with life the integrity of the upright guides them the people of integrity are guided by their integrity that it's the the decision-making filter but the crookedness or the bentness of the treacherous will ultimately destroy them because they're looking right here when they make decisions as opposed to out there now previously on your integrity our world and i say previously because we're about to pick up where we left off last time and if you've not been tracking along with us on this series the best way to do that is on my youtube channel of course all this stuff is free um you can also access all these messages on our your local church website and the reason i say that specifically about last week and this week is um sandra and i were having dinner this week and a couple we've never met before who do not attend our church they watch actually from knoxville walked up and they talked about last week's message and this this gentleman a little bit older than me he said i sent the link to all nine of my grandchildren it was required listening required watching and i think when we think about the next generation students college students teenagers however older your kids are the story that we're the story line that we're tracing through the life of daniel is so applicable and it's so um it's so gritty that i think last week and this week these were two messages that if you ever pay your kids to watch or listen to things um we did that all the time sanders like here's twenty 20 after you watch dad's message from sunday because you were in upstreat and we're paying you know or you were in transit so we did that all the time so he this this guy walked up and said i i sent it to all my grandkids i said you've got to watch this so if you've not been keeping up we hope that you'll go back and keep up and catch up so previously on your integrity our world teenage daniel um gets taken from his city in jerusalem with some of his friends and he's basically a hostage to make sure that the folks back in jerusalem behave themselves this is what the kings did so nebuchadnezzar comes to jerusalem it comes to you know what we would call judea or what they called eventually called judea sort of the southern half of israel and he conquers this area they become a group of people that have to pay tribute to babylon and to keep them in line he takes the best and the brightest he takes them to babylon integrates them into his city and this is a kind of a sweet deal if you're going to be kidnapped this is the way to go daniel and his friends will live in the palace they'll serve in the palace there's a meal plan so they're going to eat and live indoors which was a big deal in ancient times like it is today and they would have essentially a three-year internship where they're trained to serve nebuchadnezzar and then they would be brought in and interviewed by nebuchadnezzar and as we discovered last time and if you grew up in church you're familiar with this story as soon as daniel arrives and hears about the meal plan the text says that daniel resolved or literally set his heart or made up his mind not to defile himself literally not to desecrate himself not to lower himself not to undignify himself not to play along with the charade with the royal food and the wine offered him from the king's table now last time we explained why not eating this food was a really really big deal to daniel in terms of integrity and the law of his god so here he is a teenager in a foreign land this is the he's gotten a real break and he's not gonna have to work in the salt mines or do dangerous construction projects or be battle fodder so here's this amazing opportunity considering everything else going on in the world and daniel's like can't do it just not gonna play along and this was really a drop the mic moment for daniel and his friends because daniel made up his mind as we talked about he made up his mind ahead of time daniel made up his mind before he knew how the story of daniel was going to play out he didn't get to read his story his story was happening real time and that's integrity integrity as you decide ahead of time i'm just going to do the right thing if you're if you believe in god and god has a personal will for your life is i'm going to do what god wants me to do regardless of the outcome if you're a christian i'm going to follow jesus regardless of the outcome i'm going to do the right thing just because it's the right thing now this decision that he made as a teenager he's like 15 16 17 years old set a pattern for his life and this integrity this commitment to yahweh was tested over and over and over but the most famous test would happen 55 years later so let that sink in 55 years later he's about 70 years old nebuchadnezzar has died and so has the babylonian empire now the persians are the big dog and it's the persian empire and daniel has made the transition from babylon to the persian empire and now he works for the new king darius the king of kings and as we talked about last time the king of kings darius decides to reorg the entire empire so he decides to establish 120 governors and then over those 120 governors there will be three administrators that oversee the 120 governors that way he can spend more time at the beach except there's no beach close to where he lives then he decides he's going to put daniel daniel is going to be one of these three administrators and he wants he decides he can allow daniel to even oversee the other two administrators well this is a real problem for the other governor's administrators daniel's not even from there i mean he was a hostage he was a kid he's hebrew he this is so odd and that's where the story begins to pick up a little steam daniel now daniel the text says so distinguished himself among the administrators and the governors by his exceptional qualities that the king darius planned to set him over the whole kingdom this does not sit well with them at this when they find out about this at this the administrators and the governors tried to find grounds for charges against daniel in his conduct of government affairs as we said last time he's been in government 55 years i mean surely there's some dirt right surely there's some skeletons in his closet i mean 55 years there's some things we could bring to king darius's attention to say i don't know about this guy not only is he like one of the oldest people we've ever seen in our lives okay but look at this he's got he's got some baggage but they were unable to do so couldn't find anything they could find no this is amazing they could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent and the reason he was that way at 70 is because he made up his mind when he was 7 teen finally these men they looked and looked and looked and these are the guys that have access to all the records okay and they can't find anything so finally these men said we're never going to find a basis we're never going to find a basis for charges against this man daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his god so they laid a trap here's what they did they all went to see king darius everybody except daniel and this is what they said they said oh king darius live forever we have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or human being during the next 30 days this is just for 30 days except to you your majesty shall be thrown into the lion's den so they appeal to his ego they basically say oh king darius live forever we want to have we want to sponsor 30 days of darius it's going to be fabulous there's going to be floats and music and bobble heads and t-shirts we might throw in a few public executions you know we're just this is going to be 30 days of darius we're going to reaffirm your authority and everybody has to hit pause on all their religions because the city was a very international city so everybody has to hit pause on their household gods the gods of their original and their ancestors the gods that they brought with them into the city as you've conquered nation after nation trump after trial so for 30 days just 30 days everybody is going to pray to and worship one person and it's going to be you because they knew there was no way no way daniel was going to pray to darius they knew him too well daniel was so predictable and then they said oh oh oh in there's just one other small thing um your majesty because this is such a big deal we want you to issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered or changed in accordance with the law of the medes and the persians which cannot be repealed we want this edict to have special status because you are a special guy isn't he guys you are so special we let this have special status we want you to make it irreversible and absolutely enforceable so king darius he's so flattered so king darius put the decree in writing now when daniel when daniel learned that the decree had been published now everybody knows it's kind of going out everywhere he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened and [Music] what would you do what would i do what would you do then what would i do i mean it's one thing to do what you ought to do when you think it might cost you what what do you do when you're certain doing the right thing will cost you it's like it's written right here there is no mystery this is what's going to happen to me if i do what i know i ought to do what do you do i'm going to give you the answer but just want you to think for a minute what do you do what do you do when doing when you're certain that doing the right thing is going to cost you here's the answer to the question it depends on what is most important to you it depends on what is most important to me in these moments and there may never be one in your life i don't know for many of us there are multiple moments like this i think we all have them they start so early we're not even aware of what's going on in these moments we discover what and who we are most committed too we discover whether or not our integrity and our faith is disposable it was working for me so i had hung on to it suddenly maintaining my faith maintaining my integrity it's threatening me and you know what it's not that big a deal and suddenly our integrity in some cases our faith is disposable it's just a means to an end and when it's no longer working when it's no longer taking me to that end that's the the end blessed is the man blessed is the woman blesses the teenager the college student whose integrity has been tested and you passed that test because you have learned something about yourself you can't learn any other way and you have peace with yourself and you have peace with god now when daniel learned that the decree had been published he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward jerusalem now before i tell you what happens next when when daniel decided not to eat the meat the meat and the wine from the king's table you remember what he did he didn't keep it a secret he didn't feed it to the dogs under the table then he just found something else to eat because he didn't want to violate his conscience no he's a person of integrity he went to the steward and said hey thank you but i just want you to know i want to be upfront i'm not eating that stuff i don't i'm not i'm not going to do that to my body and i'm not going to violate my conscience as it relates to my god so i just you know i just want to keep this out in the open i mean that's what he does he just doesn't keep secrets he's he's just out there so he does the same thing again so he goes to the window that opens toward jerusalem and three times a day not one time not standing there looking like he's doing something else muttering a prayer three times a day he gets on his knees and he prays giving thanks to his god just as he had done before and here's why because he's thinking why change now why change now who's who's in charge who determines outcomes and he thinks back when i was a teenager nebuchadnezzar thought he determined outcomes nebuchadnezzar is dead along with his empire darius my new boss thinks he determines outcomes we will see here's a question for you question for me who do you think determines outcomes who do you think determines outcomes your your boss your father or mother-in-law um luck you know your oldest brother because he's got you know all the stuff and you know it's been a conflict with the family and you're afraid if you do the right thing and don't be honest you know who who determines outcomes who do you think determines outcomes daniel's like well yahweh determines outcomes not the emperor not the king why why would i do anything different than i've always done see this is when we discover what and who is most important to us this is when we discover if we really have faith in god or we're just trying to play if it's just a good luck charm if it's just hey if you do the right thing i think things will always work out and if it doesn't look like they're going to work out well then i'll just do the wrong thing because at the end of the day my integrity my faith is disposable so the guys that came up with the 30 days of darius idea they had spies so they're looking they're just waiting until they can catch daniel praying and they do so they went before the king and they said o king may you live forever didn't you publish it seems to us didn't you publish a decree that during the next 30 days anyone who prays to any god or human being except to you your majesty would be thrown into the lion's den of course darius is like yes of course i remember this what's your point well we dropped by daniel's house to bring him his 30 days of darius swag bag we all just went by to take him the bag to make sure he knew what was going on um you you remember daniel right daniel is you know you remember daniel he's he's one of the exiles he's not even from here he's from judah you remember judah they pay you tribute you know and this is hard for us to say to you oh king live forever darius but he doesn't pay any attention to your majesty and he doesn't pay any attention to the decree that you put in writing this breaks our heart to tell you this but he still prays three times a day and not to you and we are we're so disappointed aren't we guys yeah we're just collective we were just so disappointed but we just thought you should know well darius is he is so distressed he i don't know if he loves daniel but he really likes daniel he again he had so much respect for him he has such such incredible integrity he has a reputation of integrity uh you know emperors kings they never know who they can trust and he finally has this one guy he can trust and now he has essentially signed his death warrant because daniel is just being daniel daniel isn't doing anything new or extraordinary he's just being the daniel that king darius had heard that he would be and has known him to be so he calls his attorneys and gets his lawyers and gets all the smart folks in the room and says okay there's got to be a way out of this what is there any way to get around something written and declared according to the laws of the medes and the persians but as it turns out even king of kings darius was stuck so the king gave the order and they put they brought daniel and they threw him into the lion's den actually they lowered him through a floor to another floor and before they lowered him to that rat-infested floor covered with human gore the king leans in and he says this the king said to daniel may your god whom you serve continually which by the way is why you're in trouble may your god whom you serve continually rests you you in other words may the god that you are more committed to than your own preservation rescue you and then a stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den the king this is such an interesting bit of detail the king returned to his palace and he spent the night without eating and without any entertainment being brought to him and he could not sleep and he's laying in bed going 30 days of darius 30 days of darius floats and music and bible who who came up with this right whose idea was this anyway then the text says that the first at the first light of dawn the king got up and hurried to the lion's den and when he came near he called to daniel he didn't want to look it's like don't remove this no no we're good we're good dan he's seen the aftermath of this before this was just the way of things and he calls loud enough that he hopes daniel can hear him if daniel is there to hear him has your god has your god whom you serve continually been able to rescue you from the lions now when we were kids if you grew up in church and they told you this story or like me i grew up hearing this story and you know there's pictures you know they went right to the next part of the story that's a mistake if you rush to the end of this story you miss the point of this story if you rush to the end of the story and some many of us in our minds can rush to the end but let's hit pause if you rush to the end of the story you actually miss the point of the story because the point is not what happens next the point is what has all ready happened the point isn't what happens next the point is is what already happened because the point is daniel's primary concern was not the outcome of his decision if daniel's primary concern was the outcome of his decision i think he would have made a different decision right his primary concern was doing the right thing his primary concern was not violating his conscience his primary concern is a god follower was being faithful to yahweh his god and doing the right thing for daniel was the win if the story ended here daniel won if we didn't even know what happened daniel won because the point of the story isn't what happens next the point of the story is what has already happened daniel won and he decided to leave the outcome the outcome to god daniel's primary concern was not the outcome of his decision his primary concern was doing what he knew god wanted him to do and then he would trust god with the outcome and here's the thing i want you to hear and i say this over and over and i don't know if it gets lost in the you know all the other stuff we talk about there was no guarantee for daniel and there's no guarantee for you either in fact if you go to a church and they tell you there are guaranteed outcomes because of your faithfulness to god and they're all good it all ends with a bow hopefully you're old enough to know that's not true because it's not true and i'll say this if you lost faith because you grew up in a church and they're like oh just trust god i believe in god and pray trust god i believe in god and pray and everything will work out if you marry a christian and you're a christian you're going to have a christian marriage you're going to live it's going to be happening if if you grew up with that and it didn't happen for you and you lost faith i just want you to know and i'm a pastor so i can say this somebody just lied to you so somebody did not present you with the actual version of christianity or faith they they came up with the thing that we all want to hear because the point of this story in fact the point of every miracle story isn't the miracle the point is the faithfulness or the unfaithfulness of the person for whom god chose to come through for and in some cases did not choose to come through for but that has nothing to do with the faithfulness of god in most cases it says more about the faithfulness of men and women students this is how daniel lived his life i'm just gonna do what i i'm i'm supposed to do and i trust god with the outcomes but there's no guarantee god doesn't owe me anything so here's here's the question what is your win daniel's win was i'm just going to do what i'm supposed to do and trust god with outcomes what's he'd already won regardless of outcome which what's your win what's your win why are you thinking about that let me help you a little bit do you know what the one thing is you can't lose you can't lose what you do no one can take that away from you no one can ever take away what you do now there's some things you wish they could take away that you did but in terms of what we're talking about the only thing that can't be taken away from you is what you do and here's why that's important daniel understood this everything we gain everything we gain by sacrificing our integrity everything you will ever gain when you sacrifice that's why we sacrifice our integrity there's something coming our way right well i you know i thought she did call me back i did get the job they didn't leave you know there's always something that we just we're bargaining everything you will gain by sacrificing your integrity or when you sacrifice your integrity everything you gain either can or will be taken away it's lose lose you lose your integrity and eventually you lose what you knew was coming or hoped was coming your way when you gave up or traded your integrity it's lose-lose daniel won before he knew the outcome because the win for him wasn't the outcome the win for him was doing what he knew god in heaven wanted him to do he he knew what we forget that you can't control outcomes in fact you're not even that good at predicting outcomes and i don't know you but you're not none of us are the only thing you can control the only thing i can control the only thing you can control is you the only thing i can control is me and when we start playing this game i'm going to sacrifice my integrity because i know he will she he will he won't they won't the world won't you know the economy you know whatever it might be we have stepped out of our realm into god's realm and daniel knew hey once upon a time there was a mighty king named nebuchadnezzar who thought he controlled outcomes anybody remember him now there's a new kid on the block darius thinks he controls outcomes one day he'll be forgotten as well why would i trade faithfulness to god trying to manipulate or predict what someone else will do so what's what's your when what's the win for you what's the win for me this is a big deal for me um for several reasons but one something happened when i was in the eighth grade my dad's pastor as some of you most of you know when i was in eighth grade my dad was an associate pastor at a large church and he faced a potentially for sure job threatening decision but it actually could have been a career threatening decision because the people who wanted him out said if you don't cooperate you know we're basically going to ruin your career we're just going to you know we're going to ruin your name and this was this was so emotional for us as a family and the right thing the thing he felt like he should do the thing with integrity and the thing he felt like god wanted him to do was potentially going to cost him um if he did what this other group wanted him to do that it was an easy way out and there was actually a payout and i remember as an 8th grader he would come home and we would gather around our little pecan coffee table the four of us my mom and dad and my sister and i and we would pray and we were praying god you know showed dad what to do and to his credit he involved us not so much in the decision because there were details at that point he couldn't share with us that i learned later but he did what he could do to involve us in the tension of we have a difficult decision to make and if i do what i think the right thing to do is it could cost us and it could cost the whole family and in the middle of all that one afternoon there was a lady in our church an older lady who kind of knew what was going on and she showed up at his office and she brought him this picture and she propped it up on a couch where he could see it and she said when he tells the story this is how he tells a story she said charles charles what do you notice about this picture charles what do you notice about this picture and he said well daniel isn't looking at the lions and for him this was a defining moment outcomes are not my responsibility outcomes are not my responsibility this is not an argument for irresponsibility we've talked about that outcomes are not my responsibility my responsibility my responsibility is to obey god and from this moment and from this picture he wrote down a statement he wrote down a statement that he raised me on in fact i've quoted it here many times if you've ever listened to him you've probably heard him say it and this is where the statement came from he wrote down my responsibility is to obey god leave all the consequences to him my responsibility is to obey god and leave all the consequences down you want to win you want to win well then you do what you ought to even when you're certain it's going to cost you that is the win and here's how i know that's the win and here's how i know that's the win for you because that's the world you want to live in that's the person you want to hire that's the person you want your daughter to marry that's the person you want your son to marry that's who you want for the teachers and your kids school that's who we want as governors and mayors that's who we want as police chiefs that's who we want as president and vice president in congress everywhere we look we want men and women who will do what they ought to do regardless of whether or not it costs them that's the world you want to live in that's the world i want to live in the question is why don't we step into that arena ourselves especially if you're a god follower or if you're a christian for sure that is the win i'm going to obey god i'm going to do what i ought to do and i'm not going to try to predict outcomes nebuchadnezzar he didn't control outcomes darius didn't control outcomes daniel would learn that cyrus would not control outcomes caesar augustus didn't control outcomes i love the fact that every year we mentioned caesar augustus but not in his story and the story of our savior so what's the win back to daniel's story has your god shouting to daniel has your god whom you serve continually been able to rescue from the lions i think daniel pauses for dramatic effect let that kind of hang there and he says yes he has oh king darius live forever my god sent his angels he shut the mouths of the lions they have not hurt me because i was found innocent in god's sight nor have i ever by the way nor have i ever done any wrong before you your majesty now here's the question okay if you haven't been paying attention listen look here's the question will god do this for you will god close the mouths of lions for you when you do the right thing will god intervene and rescue you does it matter does it matter does it matter if your integrity if i just poke at you a little bit if your integrity is simply a means to a happily ever after ending that's not integrity that's something else christians let me just narrow this for a minute christians if if the outcome of a decision matters more to you than doing the will of your heavenly father if the outcome of the decision matters more to you than doing the will of your heavenly father you're not a follower you're a user judas was a user they marched their way into jerusalem and he realizes uh oh this is not gonna go the way i thought it would i thought jesus is gonna be messiah and i'm part of the posse oh clearly that is not his intent so he switched sides and he sacrificed his integrity and he got paid for it he got 30 pieces of silver he lost his integrity and even if he had not experienced an untimely death eventually he would have spent the silver it is lose lose following jesus following means we stop bargaining because following requires us to following means you stop bargaining it's not about outcomes it's about devotion jesus don't go to jerusalem oh jesus come on you've been telling us the whole time you go to jerusalem they're going to you know take you and arrest you and try you and crucify you and kill you so jesus look i got an idea let's not go to jerusalem jesus if you go to jerusalem you're going to lose and jesus would have said i'm not going to lose i'm going to win the problem is you don't understand my definition of when let me tell you what it is says jesus i have come down from heaven not to do my will this isn't about me i've come to do the will of him who sent me that is the wind that is the wind i will obey god and i will trust him with the consequences then he said to his apostles so follow me and he says to you to you and you and he says to me follow me here's the here's the promise follow me and what you gain can never be taken away what's your win may i suggest the wind is going to bed every night with a clear conscience knowing you did the will of your father knowing that you did what you ought to do and as you go to bed saying and heavenly father i trust all the outcomes and the consequences to you i told the truth which means i probably am not going to pass that test i told the truth which means i don't know how they're going to respond when they found out find out i told the whole story rather than half the story i was only i was encouraged just tell half the story but i thought no i told the whole story the consequences father the outcome i'm trusting with you i think my dad was exactly right i saw him live it i saw him pay for it your responsibility is to obey god and trust him with the outcomes you obey god and leave all the consequences to him and then no matter what happens you have won that's the win but you have to decide ahead of time you have to decide ahead of time and if you do and you do what you ought to do then you are on the precipice of a perhaps a now god moment and even if god doesn't come through for you the way you would hope he would come through for you you still have a story worth telling you have a story worth repeating and you have a story to do for the next generation what my dad's story did for me to galvanize the importance to underscore the importance of doing the right thing even when you're certain it's going to cost you and again i know that's the win because that's the world we want to live in and we will pick it up right there next time as we wrap up our series your integrity our world before you go it's kind of quiet in here before you go i know it's intense isn't it i know yeah okay all right so before you go three questions to talk about at lunch or sometime during the weekend sorry to get so intense but i still anyway i'll tell you the whole story sometime have you ever done the wrong thing this is kind of fun to talk about have you ever done the wrong thing anticipating a positive outcome like i didn't tell the whole truth but you know and then it didn't the outcome didn't work you were disappointed you did the wrong thing and you were disappointed with the outcome second question have you ever done the right thing anticipating a negative outcome here it comes here it comes here comes and just never materialized these are important stories to remember and these are important stories to pass along and then number three i know i keep saying this have you memorized proverbs 11 3 yet have you memorized proverbs 11 3 i really hope you will and parents i hope you'll teach it to your kids and grandparents i hope you'll teach it to your grandkids and more than that i hope we'll model this for our children and our grandkids i hope we will model this for this generation because imagine and it takes a lot of imagining imagine a generation of kids who grow up and decide you know what i'm just gonna do what i ought to because it's the thought to thing to do i'm gonna do the right thing because it's the right thing to do imagine a generation of kids like that but imagine if we went first because it's our integrity but it's their world heavenly father thank you for preserving this extraordinary extraordinary account and father it's hard it's so hard for us not to want to be the and then we were rescued from the lion story we so want that we want to get the job anyway we want to get the girl anyway we want to keep our credibility anyway we just we want it we want to have a bow on the story but father would you please take us back a step and help us redefine the wind the wind as a clear conscience the wind is to know things are good with us and our god the wind is a peace that surpasses all human comprehension where you guard our hearts and our minds in christ jesus so give us eyes to see ears to hear courage to act father i i don't even know how to pray this big but oh that you would raise up and help us raise up a generation of children students who understand this daniels and danielle's who just decide god is worth it god is worth trusting kings governors presidents the kingdoms of this world do not determine outcomes so why would we lower ourselves to submit to them when we have been invited to follow the savior of the world i pray all of that in jesus name amen [Music] death could not hurt you the veil tore before you silenced the post of sin and grace the heavens are roaring the praise will be your glory before you are again is [Music] yours is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] what a powerful baby [Music] [Applause] thank you guys so much for being with us here this week you guys are dismissed have a great rest of your weekend [Music] you

Channel: North Point Community Church

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Id: jkd6m45YC5A

Length: 62min 33sec (3753 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 07 2021