Build With Integrity

Build With Integrity

Let's take our Bibles and turn to Proverbs 20, please. Proverbs 20, verse number 6. I'd like to read just a couple of verses from this passage this morning. Proverbs 20 for our Scripture reading. Verse number 6. Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness, but a faithful man who can find? The just man walketh in his integrity. His children are blessed after him. And then in Proverbs 10, if you turn over there, I want to read one other verse. In Proverbs 10, verse 9. This morning it says, He that walketh uprightly walketh surely, but he that perverteth his ways shall be known. We want to draw from these two portions of Scripture for the message this morning. If you'll mark your Bibles to the book of Proverbs and join me in asking God's blessing on the reading of his word.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day you've given us. Thank you for the help we have to be here. We do remember others that are not able to be with us, and we pray that you strengthen them. Lord, we ask for the Holy Spirit to minister to our hearts through the word today. We pray that it will have an effectual, effective work in our hearts as we receive it. We know that we can repel what you're trying to say to us, like the water off of a duck's back, so to speak. But at the same time, we know that the same sun that hardens the clay melts the wax. And we pray that our hearts will be like the wax today, that we would receive your word, and to have it. And we pray that it may have its effective work in us. Bless us as we prepare for this new year. We know that this past year has been full of its ups and downs, and we just pray that you'll guide us in the uncharted, unknown territory that's before us. May our steps be ordered in your word and by your Spirit. We pray that the things that we… here today will be helpful to us and instructive to us as we have that desire in our hearts. And we pray these things, asking that you'd bless us as we continue in this worship service. In Jesus' name we ask, amen.

There's a lot of things that we can't control. We can't control the weather. We can't control how long we live. I mean, we can, you know, hasten our death, I guess, if we do certain things, but we don't know. How long we are going to live. We don't really control that. We don't control a lot of things in life, but there's one thing that we do have control of, and that is our character. We have say in what kind of character we have. We can't control somebody else's character. We can't make them be what we want them to be. That becomes more and more evident. As you grow older, and even with your children, you can influence your children in a certain direction, but you can't make your child do something. Now, you can give them, you can direct them with discipline when they're in your home, but you can't say, what are you going to do when you leave home? Well, they're going to have to make their own choices, aren't they? They're going to have to take their own path, and we pray for them that they'll take, go in the way the Lord would have them to go, but we can't make that happen.

We hear a lot among, we might say, wealth and health coaches in daily life. Maybe on the radio you hear a financial show, or you have a financial advisor, you have a health coach, a fitness coach, and a lot of times you'll hear this phrase they use, something to the effect of, we want to learn the building blocks of success, right? We want to learn what the building blocks of, of success are. Well, when it comes to the area of finance, you need to have a budget, right? You need to have a budget. When it comes to the area of finance, you might say, well, you need to save. Your income needs to exceed your ALCO, and that might mean that you have to cut some things from expenditure so that you can, you can properly budget, right? You need to, you need to be managing your finances well. You need to invest. You know, invest in wise investments, right? Don't invest in something foolish, or if you want to do that, just use a little bit of your money, not all of your money in that basket. Well, these are building blocks, right? They're just fundamental things that you've got to follow if you want to have, find, you want to do well as a manage, a manager or a steward of your finances, right?

Your health. There's fundamental principles that you've got to follow. You can't just say, well, I'm a, I'm a very special person and I can just avoid all of those things and still come out with a great outcome health wise. Now you can do all the right things and still, you know, you could get cancer, unfortunately, or you could end up with certain things no matter how well you might take care of it. There's some things you could avoid by, let's see, let's say you need to get quality sleep, right? That's a building block of being healthy. If you go and you watch YouTube until three o'clock every night, you're going to be healthy. You're going to be healthy. You're going to be healthy. You're going to be healthy. If you wake up every morning and you get up at six 30, you're not going to have great health or Netflix or whatever, you know what you're watching television. I mean, whatever you watch, that's not good. That's not healthy habit, right? That's not a building block for success.

If in your health, we might say you need to regularly exercise. Maybe that's walking for some people that might mean walking five or 10 minutes. It might mean doing some light weight training. I don't know what it is for each person. It may be different, but if you talk to someone about your health, that's what they're going to tell you.

You need to have proper nutrition when you're 70 years old, proper nutrition might look different than it does when you're 10 years old, you know, the kinds of things I'm getting lots of looks out here. This is not a sermon about health, okay, but I'm just giving, and this is a bad time to even bring that up right after Christmas. Right? Okay. Just so you know, I didn't eat healthy for Christmas. I had lots of yummy tasting things, but the point is these are building blocks. If you talk to those people, they're going to tell you, this is what you need to do.

Well, spiritually speaking, I want to speak about integrity this morning. Integrity is one of the crucial things that we must have in our lives that must be a part of who we are. And who we are and how we live. If we are going to be successful, spiritually speaking, you know, spiritual success is a, is, is something that Joshua was told about, you know, take heed to this book of the law. Don't turn to the right hand, don't turn to the left. And if you take heed and observe to do what I've written in this book, then you will have good success, right? Not by the world's standards. Not by the. Not by those who know not Christ, they might look at you and say, you're foolish, right? But you will have good success in God's eyes. If you will follow God's plan and God's directives.

So in first Corinthians chapter three, we see there that there are literal building blocks that are mentioned. There are building materials at least that are mentioned there. And they're, they're, they're talking. In that passage, there's a foundation that is pointed out in that foundation is the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have no foundation, it is pointless to build, right? You don't, you can't build a house when you don't have a foundation to build it on, because we know that if you try to build on the foundation of shifting sand, then you're just wasting your time, right? You have to have a foundation for a house. You have to have something for that house to be built on if it's going to last, right? And so.

In that passage that first of all, the foundation is Jesus Christ's upon which our life is established. But if any man is in Christ and he's built on Christ is the foundation of his life, that in any individual man, woman, boy, girl, we see here that, that there are different building materials mentioned there. We can build our Christian lives with wood, hay and stubble. Okay. We can build with those materials, but what are the, what do you notice about those things? We, we raise chickens and rabbits and that kind of thing. And we noticed that if you build something cheaply, you know, if you build it out of just a scrap, sometimes we do this and then you have to rebuild it every few years because it composts, it becomes part of the soil eventually it breaks down, right? Especially if you build it out of a thin, you know, thin pallet wood or something like that. But if you do it just as a temporary structure, you knew it was going to be a temporary structure. It was not going to last if, if it doesn't break down or if, if it doesn't burn up, it's going to break down. Right?

And then we see in that passage in first Corinthians three, there's other building materials mentioned there, gold, silver, precious stones. Why do they cost so much? Why do we put them, put them in rings and on necklaces and they're pinned. Why? Because they last and they're beautiful and they're, they're not quite as abundant as pallet wood is, and they're not quite as readily available as things like straw, you know? And that is why they're valuable. When they call it, they cost money because they, they last in their, their rare, there's a rarity to them. And this is what we're exhorted to build. We're commanded here. We're commanded here to build with in first Corinthians chapter three, build with those things.

You know, we don't have control over what happens tomorrow. We don't even know if we have tomorrow, but we have today we have right now in our lives. And what are we to do? Well, we might say it's described in a lot of ways in the scripture. The way we live our Christian lives is, is a walk, isn't it? I walk, I put one foot in front of the other and I walk well, I'm not, it's describing something spiritual, isn't it? It's describing a journey, it's describing a way, a path that I'm walking in, but it can also be described and we are, we see in scripture that there is this idea of building. In fact, we're told that we are to edify one another. That language is talking about building up, right? We are building up in the things that we think that we say that we do on a daily basis. Right? On a daily basis.

We're either building up or we're, we're tearing down or we're putting up things that are going to be torn down. We're putting up things in our lives or with our words towards others that are going to be what the scripture calls it corrupts. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use or the purpose of edifying, right? Building up, building up. Sometimes when I look at God's word is always edifying, but sometimes, you know, it's, it reproves me, right? It tells me, Hey, you're wrong. But the ultimate purpose of telling me I'm wrong and the Holy Spirit moving upon that word to my heart to, to make me realize, yes, I was wrong in that attitude. I was wrong in that thought is ultimately don't build with the wrong materials, build with the right materials.

And that's the whole purpose of even the. Proof is not to condemn me because thankfully I'm in Christ, but to make me what the Lord wants me to be. And so that I can then be more of what I ought to be to other people. I can have a true integrity in my life. And that integrity will, will, will in turn make me a greater blessing to other people that I come in contact. With a good, we know the foundation, if, if, if we are in Christ, we know the foundation is strong, but how are we building on that foundation? How are we building, um, what kind of materials are we building with? We might say that we could build something that looks good, but it's undergirded by, or it's built with pride. It's built with envy. It's built in. I'm comparing myself with someone else. No, I'm, I'm, I'm saying I'm better than somebody else. My brother over here, look at me. That's all going to crumble. It's all going to fall down. It's all going to degrade. But if I build my life with integrity, what, what is integrity? I've talked about it. I've used the word a number of times, and I know I've explained this word in the past, but the idea of integrity we have, you can just think if you remember from math class, the integers in math, they're whole numbers, right?

One, two, three, four, five. We have fractions. I know Esther loves fractions, right? And uh, fractions are part of a number, but an integer is a whole number. So that is, carries over with the idea of integrity of being of wholeness of completeness, not missing something that we ought to have, right? Being, you know, it even, it even goes over into the realm. The realm of whether or not I'm hypocritical in what I say, do I say something to Esther and I say something different to Anna? You know, I, I say I'm, I'm one way towards one person, but I'm another way over here. The Bible says that the double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. He's unstable. You know, if, if, if a man is not faithful to his wife and he's running around with all these other people, or maybe he's, he, maybe let's just say a boyfriend. Girlfriend thing. And, and, and yet he's got multiple others. She's going to eventually find out, or he's going to eventually find out and say, wait, I thought you said you were all for me, but you're, you're for all of these others. That's not integrity. That's a, that's a good picture of not being you're, you're, you're, um, you're presenting yourself as one thing, but you're actually something else.

Well, the Lord wants us to be a hundred times more faithful. A hundred percent dedicated to him. You know, that's the only way we can be a blessing really to each other is if we're dedicated to him. In fact, he's jealous over us with Godly jealousy. That's what he tells us. He's jealous over us with Godly jealousy. He doesn't want us to have divided allegiance. Now it's not a divided allegiance for me to love my wife and love God because that's what he told me to do, right? He's told me to love her. He's told me to love her. And he's told me to bring up my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That's part of loving God is loving my neighbor. And in this case, in my family, my neighbor is my wife and my, my children. But it certainly, it certainly extends beyond my immediate family that extends to my brothers and sisters in Christ. It extends to people that I come in contact with as I just going about my daily life. I can't. I can't necessarily have a relationship with everybody on the planet, but I can have a relationship with the people that God's put in my path, so to speak. That's what, you know, just the example that was given there of the good Samaritan. Who is our, who is my neighbor?

Well, he's the man that's lying in the street when you walk right by him, you know, he's the one there that's been left for dead. It's not somebody overseas somewhere that you don't see or don't know about, but it's the person that's, you know, right in front of you. Well. Well, integrity affects how I am at home, how I am at church, how I am on the job, how I am wherever I am. You know, some people, we say it's so refreshing when you meet someone, you say, what you see is what you get. You see that person and you just, I mean, we could say that in a negative way, I guess, but, but they're just down to earth. They're what, when they say something, they mean it, you know, this is who they are. They're not. They don't maintain this multi-tiered understanding of their reality, of who they are. No, they're just who they are and, and, and, and that doesn't mean that they don't have room for improvement. None of us are perfect in that, but what I'm saying is being genuinely for the, for the Lord and, and, and loving him and, and loving one another as God would have us to, we cannot build with wood, hay, stubble and expect. God to be honored and our neighbors to be, um, blessed and edified through living in that way.

David was imperfect and yet he was, he had a heart after God's own heart. Isn't that amazing? He, he failed. He fell flat on his face and we went through that study not too long ago. We saw that he was not perfect. There's no doubt about it. He sinned. But what did he do? When he realized. He got a right and he, and he made amends where he needed to make amends and he, we've seen some Kings in Israel when they were confronted about stuff that they had done wrong. They said, kill that guy. I don't want to hear him talk. I don't want here. I don't want him to be a conscience to me about what I've done wrong. Get rid of him. Cut him off. No. He listened and said, I am the man. He listened. He listened. I am the one that's done this thing.

You know, sometimes it's far more refreshing, not, not just to have an appearance, see someone that has an appearance that everything is well, but, but to have a good response when they are confronted with something they've done wrong, just get it right and make it right. David says, David prayed. David prayed for integrity. If you will look with me in Psalm 139. Psalm 139. We'll come back to our texts here in a moment, but Psalm 139 to build the picture here of, of what we need, why we need integrity. Psalm 139 verse 23 says this prayer, search me, oh God, he says, search me. We can say, search my brother, search my father, search, you know, some high ranking official, search. Search this guy over here. No, search me. Search me. Oh God. This is the prayer. This is a humble prayer. Isn't it? This is a humble prayer for integrity. Search me. Oh God. He says, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

Lord. Take your search light and look in my heart and help and help me to see you. You find it. And if there's something in me, that's not like it ought to be, help me to see it. Help me to know it. Because what do we say? Integrity was as a whole number, right? But if there's this part in me that is inconsistent with what I'm saying from my mouth, help me to see it. And then give me the humility to let you change that in my life. To let you. Make me what I ought to be instead of just, what is the natural mode of operation? I mean, just as we look around us in the world, people just generally, they deflect from any need in their own life and say, well, it's so-and-so's problem. I'm the way I am because so-and-so over here. No, that's not what David said. I'm this way because so-and-so is this way and they treated me this way and they said that to me and I'm, I'm just a victim, right? Of circumstances. No. David says, search me. Search me. Try me. Try me. See if there be any wicked way in me. He didn't say he was completely wicked. No, he was a just, righteous man. He believed God, but there could be some bad, and there were, bad building materials in his life. Even when he numbered the people, he did it with the wrong motive and his conscience directed by God smote him. And he did that. And he says, I've sinned.

I've done the wrong, I, I, I'm not, I've not been consistent with the very things that I've said that, that are true and are right. And so I must make it right. I must make it right. Have you ever had to make something right that was wrong? Have you ever had to, you know, I mean, I know with my wife, you know, I've said things on a spirit that aren't right. You know, and, and you can just go on and act like everything's okay, but it's not okay. Right? You've got to make it right. And that's part of the daily building blocks for success. When it comes to our character, when I say success, it's not really about us. It's about our lives being proper pointers to Christ. And so people can see him instead of getting stumbling at us because we're stumbling blocks to them. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it's a little bit more of the ultimate truth of who we are. Right? Let's say the spiritual path of Christ was to become the Lord. So David, you know, we might say that humility, integrity, faith, love, all these things are building blocks to spiritual wellbeing and spiritual success. Dwight El Moody was said to have said the Christian on his knees sees more than the philosopher on tiptoe. He said a man can do great things if he is faithful. things if he is on his knees. It reminds me of another quote that I read, and I can't remember who said it, but something to the effect of, the church moves forward on its knees, so to speak.

The church moves forward on its knees. In other words, we're at our greatest when we realize how weak we are and humbly ask God to help us be men and women of integrity, men and women of character, because we don't have character, naturally speaking. We're not automatically good. No, we know that every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above, but we must humbly ask for God to strike out and help us to see and lay aside and put off and cast off anything in our lives. that would not be consistent with what is true and what is honest and what is good and what is of integrity. Our state motto, what is it? Esi quam videri. To be rather than to seem, right? To be rather than to seem. Well, that's a good motto for us as Christians, right? To be what God wants us to be rather than to merely keep up a facade of seeming to be something that we ought to be. Oh, you know, it's advantageous to appear to be righteous, but the Bible, God very clearly condemns the form of godliness while denying the power of godliness. To have a form of godliness. In fact, Paul told Timothy that in the last days, perilous times will come and that one of the marks of the power of godliness of those days was going to be, well, men will be lovers of their own selves, they'll be lovers of pleasures, but they'll have a form of godliness yet deny the power, the essence of that godliness.

They just like the form of it. It looks good on the outside, right? It helps me to be in this religious social circle for my own advantages, but it's not genuine. It's not real. It's not, it's not who I am before God. You know, we're going to stand before God one day. As Christians, we're going to stand before Christ and we're going to give an answer for the things we've done and the motives for which we did those things. Why did we do it? What spirit did we do it in? What manner did we do those things in? I was reading recently, Oswald Chambers said, my worth to God in public, is what I am in private. My worth to God in public is what I am in private. You know, that means even more to me than ever now that, that truth. The longer you, the longer you live, you, you realize, you find out who people are. You find out who they are, who you thought they were, and then you find out who they really are. And then some people that maybe you thought were not, what they ought to be, maybe, you know, they, they got it right. And they're actually, they actually made things right. Whereas the other that appeared right didn't make things right. And they, and they were really the hypocrites. And yet, we've got to make sure, once again, search me. Try me. See if there be any wicked way in me.

In our text, most men will proclaim every one. Most of them will proclaim, claim his, everyone his own goodness. Well, Paul said, I am the chief of sinners. Paul said, I am the chief of sinners. He said, I know that I have done everything possible to deserve God's wrath. But God, who is rich in mercy, has, has, has received me. And to himself, because of my faith in Christ. I'm paraphrasing. That's not what he, the words he said, but in so many words. For his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, he's made a way for us to be reconciled to him. And we see that it, he, he didn't proclaim his own goodness. He says, I have no confidence in the flesh. He says, I am what I am. I am by the grace of God. I am nobody. Even his name was changed, right? From Saul to Paul means little. From, from Saul to Paul. And, and we noticed that, that, uh, even, he, he was, he was much different from that before.

He took, he said in Philippians, didn't he? He said, uh, that if anyone has reason to boast, and I'm paraphrasing again, it's me. I have the pedigree. I had the religious pedigree to boast, but those things that were gained to me, I counted loss for Christ, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection. That I want, I want to know him and I want to make him known in my life. Think about Daniel with me. Daniel, when he was down in Babylon, it was said of Daniel in chapter 6, verse 1, it pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 princes which should be over the whole kingdom and over these three presidents of whom Daniel was first, that the princes might give accounts unto them and the king should have no damage. Then, this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes. Why? Because an excellent spirit was found in him, or was in him.

And the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they couldn't find none occasion nor fault. For as much as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him. Then said these men, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? He's a law-abiding citizen. He's a man of his word. He does what he says. I mean, he's just honest. He's a man of integrity. There's an excellent spirit in him. He came into this position because the king trusts him. He's well known for being consistent with his words and actions. We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. We're going to have to trip him up by creating a law. that would cause him a conflict between serving God and obeying the laws of the land, right?

That's the way we're going to trip him up. That's how we're going to catch him. But notice, they could not and they did not deny that he was a man of integrity. He was a man of his word. He would do what was right not only in the greatest of matters, but in the least of matters. They knew. They knew. He prays every day. We see him. We know he prays. He practices what he preaches. We might not agree with him, but I mean, he is who he says he is. Can the world say that of you and me? Can the world say that of us? Can they look at us and say, look, that's a man of integrity. I don't like him, but I don't agree with him. I may not want to serve his God, but you've got to say, you've got to give it to this person. They are who they say they are. That would be one of the greatest things that could be said of us. And if they're wrong, they admit it. And they get it right. That's integrity. That's integrity.

Well, in our text, it says, the just man walketh. In his integrity. He lives. He lives. Day by day, what he preaches, what he professes to believe, he lives it. And his children are blessed after him. You know, I notice that my children like to do what I do. And sometimes they say things I say, and I go, oh no, did I say that? You know, they're saying that after me. They like to imitate. They imitate their parents. They want to be like their parents. God has naturally put us in a position as parents, grandparents even, as role models for the children. They want, at least early in life, they think you're the greatest thing in the world. You're greater than the president or something. You know, you're greater than some great leader. No? No? Well? Anyway, the role that we have as parents is greater than any great leader in the world. It's a very important role that God has given to us. The just man walketh in his integrity. His children are blessed after him. And you know, a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. A good name is rather to be chosen. What is that talking about? It means when people think of your name, what do they think of?

When they think of Nathan, when they think of Nathan Reeves, when they think of George Jones, when they think of Ronnie Pede, Andrea Pede, Rebecca Ball, what do they think of those? Your name, that's an honest person. That's a person of integrity. You know, when I was a teenager, getting a job, and people would see me, oh, you're Ronnie Pede's son. You're so-and-so's son. He's a good guy, you know. And so they automatically have sort of an impression about me because they know who my dad is, right? You know, they know who your father, your mother, whatever it is. And it's because there is an integrity that they associate with that name. Or maybe we can say it the other way. Maybe you have the misfortune of being associated with a father or mother that is, they have a bad reputation. Well, that doesn't mean you'll always be stuck with that, but you might just start with it, right? You might just start with a bad reputation. Some of, maybe some of you today have had that, that you've had to work through, but thankfully God judges us individually based on our own character, doesn't he? He looks at us individually, not, and thankfully, but also, there's a word of warning. Maybe if you have a good father, don't just, or mother, don't just rest on the fact that you had a good father or mother.

You have, we saw it this morning in Sunday school, didn't we? Jehoiada. The counselor, the high priest, he was counselor of Joash. And Joash was just riding on the coattails. He was riding on the coattails of Jehoiada. But he had no character of his own. And it became very apparent as soon as Jehoiada died, he's a scoundrel. He's a scoundrel. He starts killing people and just doing terrible things. And the very things that it looked like he was doing, it was actually Jehoiada was doing the good thing. And then as soon as Jehoiada dies, he says, here Haziel, king of Syria, take all these vessels we just spent money to put into the temple. He had no character. He had no integrity. He was just riding on someone else's reputation. He was riding on someone else's name. Search me, try me. See if there be any wicked way in me. And then in Proverbs 10, verse 9, what do we read? He that walketh uprightly. We talked about the just man. He walks in his integrity. His children are blessed after him. But he that walketh uprightly, walketh surely. Sure, surely. What is that talking about? Habakkuk. The prophet Habakkuk talked about even though he was living in troublesome times and the Chaldeans were going to come, the Lord is coming.

The Lord is coming. The Lord is coming. The Lord said the Chaldeans are going to come. That bitter and hasty nation, they're going to take away into captivity. My people! Habakkuk said, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. He came to that conclusion. Even though he was trembling and fearful to begin with, he said, I will rejoice in the Lord. Even if things are not going well, he said, He will make my feet like hinds feet. Like one that would walk in the unstable, unsure places. He would walk sure-footedly. He would walk sure-footedly. Think about it. The mountain goats, how they walk on those cliffs, the edges of these cliffs, and they find little crags in the rocks and they walk up in these high places. That's what we see here. The man of integrity walks uprightly. He walks surely. But he that perverteth his ways shall be known. Just as true as it is that a man, what does it say? A good name is, is rather to be chosen than great riches. And the good name is rather to be chosen because like we saw with Daniel, what did we see? There was an excellent spirit in him. And the king knew it. Everybody knew it. Everybody knew.

The presidents and princes and counselors, all these people, they knew that is a man of integrity. But it's also true that someone who is perverse, someone who perverts the right way and they, they, they twist things to their own advantage, but they don't live in integrity. They, they turn the truth and they twist it and they make it what they want it to be, to serve themselves and to their own advantage. It's also true that his ways shall be known. In time, it will come out who that person is. When they're not living according to the right way, when they're, when they're not who they appear to be. No, it will be, it will be known. It will be, it will come out. You can't control the length of your life. You can't control what people say about you, but you can control where you walk and how you walk and how you build. You can control that and, and you, and you must. And you, when I say control it with God's help, you can. We wouldn't even be here today if it wasn't for God's grace. Paul said, I am what I am by the grace of God. But, but he, as God's grace was working in his life, he had to respond to what God wanted him to, wanted him to be. And, and say, yes, Lord. He had to humble himself and say, yes.

We told, told our children, you know, when they're very young, I think in Sunday school, you know, what do we do? We say yes to Jesus and no to the devil, right? Yes to Jesus. No to the devil. Let God have his way. That's the only way we can be people of integrity. That's the only way we can be. You first of all, I've got to acknowledge the basic fundamental truth that I'm a sinner. I need the Lord Jesus Christ to say, I can't save myself. I've got to have my house built on a rock, not on the sand. If I keep thinking that I can save myself, I'm going to be building on the sand. I'm going to be building on the sand and I can, I can make it look good. But when the wind blows, the wind comes, the floods rise, the storm beats against that house, it's going to fall down flat. Got to be on the Lord Jesus Christ. I've got to have my faith in him and having my faith in him and having been born again, having a new foundation, not, I'm not founded on myself and my good works. I'm founding, founded on the Lord Jesus Christ. Be careful how we build. Let's be careful. We don't bring shame to the name of Christ. Be careful that we are, we are going to edify and we're going to point people to Christ who is the man of integrity.

He is the true, the true man of integrity. There's no other one that has integrity like he has. He's the source of integrity. And as we look to him, he'll make us. What do we see in James? Come to the mirror. Look, come to the glass. We better not return to the same person we were, right? But if we look into the perfect law of liberty and continue walking therein, not being forgetful hearers, but doers of the work, the things we read, we say, yes, Lord. Oh, that's me. I need, I need to lay that aside. Yes. If we will not be forgetful hearers, but doers of what God tells us will be blessed in our life. In our deed. Isn't that what God says? Amen. May God help us to be men and women of integrity. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for those gathered here today. We pray for those not able to be here. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to, help us to make sure, first of all, that our lives are built upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And then as we build our lives day by day in the steps we take, in the building blocks we use, may we not build with pride, selfishness, envy, bitterness, the spirit of revenge. May we not, may we not build with desire for attention, but may we build with humility.

May we build with prayer and, and a true love to God and love for our neighbor. May we build lives step by step, day by day, in the discipleship of God. May we build lives step by step, day by day, in the discipleship of God. May we build lives step by step, day by day, in the discipleship of God. The mundane choices that we make in daily life are very important choices. Even if they don't seem to be on a large scale at the moment, they are being observed by the eye that sees all things. Our Heavenly Father, we know you see all things that we do. And you're with us. You're present with us. There's nowhere we can go that we're out of your presence. If we go to the very depths or go up to the heights, or go to the farthest extent we can go, still, you're there. And so may we, may we have that humility to pray and to seek you for daily for integrity and to search us, try us, see if there'd be any wicked way and lead us in the way that we ought to go. Bless now as we prepare our hearts to enter this new year. May we enter it with a burning desire for this integrity that we've seen in your word this morning. May we want to be a Daniel, may we want to be a David, may we want to be what you'd have us to be in our own lives. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.