Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

This is the third week of our Decibels series. In this series, we’re exploring how to live with a loud faith. How to pump up the decibels of God in our lives so that that everyone can hear.

So far in our series, we’ve explored how to shout with our friendships and with our priorities.

This week God’s message to us is to shout with our integrity. We’ll be in 1 Peter 2 today.

Alan Simpson said, “If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.” Everything in our lives hinges on our integrity…especially for those of us who claim to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Our world is listening, and if we’re not shouting through our integrity, our faith dwindles down to a whisper.

Let’s check out God’s Word for us this morning. Starting in verse 11 of 1 Peter 2, God says, “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:11-12, NIV)

The focus of these verses is the quality of our lives. The Apostle Peter writes that we are to “live such good lives among the pagans.” In other words, among people who don’t know God. When it comes to our relationship with people outside of Christ, everything hinges on the quality of our lives. In other words, it all comes down to our integrity. Do the words we speak match up with the lives that we live? Is the person that we are at church the same person that we are at work? Peter’s answer is unequivocally “yes.” His call to live good lives among those who don’t know Christ is a call to live our lives completely above board, completely above reproach. To live with complete integrity.

In these two verses, God is challenging us to live out loud through three different types of integrity. Let’s spend some time unpacking these three kinds of integrity.

The first type of integrity for the Christ-follower is a weird integrity. An integrity that seems foreign, even a little crazy, to our culture.

In our text, Peter said, “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” (1 Peter 2:11, NIV)

The call to “abstain from sinful desires” is a call of integrity. But look at the words Peter uses to describe us at God’s people. We are “aliens and strangers.” We are citizens of another land and our trip here is temporary. We’re foreigners.

When I was in high school, my dad went to Japan for his job. While he was there, he was supposed to give a speech to about 5,000 people in the city of Hofu. Even though his audience knew English very well, he thought it would be a nice gesture if he gave the first few sentences of his speech in Japanese. So he studied and practiced very hard, preparing the Japanese portion of his speech.

The day of his presentation arrived, and he confidently walked onstage, and in Japanese, thanked the man who had introduced him. At least that’s what he thought he did. It wasn’t long until everyone there was roaring with laughter, including the man who had introduced my dad. Dad knew that something was getting lost in translation here, so he leaned over to his Japanese counterpart and asked, “What did I just say?”

In between big belly laughs, the man said, “You asked me if my mother washes herself properly.”

At that moment, it was very clear that dad didn’t belong there. He was a foreigner. He was a citizen of another land.

That’s Peter’s message to us. Ultimately, we don’t belong here.

In another verse from the New Testament, we’re reminded that “our citizenship is in heaven.” (Philippians 3:20a, NIV)

We are aliens and strangers. Citizens of another land. And because of that, we answer to a different king than our world does. We live by a different set of standards than our culture. And that means that there are times when people are going to think we’re just flat weird.

Integrity is a foreign language to our culture. Think about what has become the norm in our culture. It’s the antithesis of integrity.

In the world of sports, you’ve got Michael Vick who has pled guilty to federal dog fighting charges. He’s been indefinitely suspended from the NFL and is facing a possible prison sentence.

You’ve got Barry Bonds who has hit more homeruns than anyone else in the history of Major League Baseball. But that record will probably be forever tainted because of steroid allegations.

You’ve got Tim Donaghy, a longtime referee for the NBA who has pled guilty to betting on games that he officiated. He made thousands of dollars through his mob connections by providing information to professional gamblers about referee assignments, relationships between referees and certain players, the health of certain players, etc. It’s the sports world equivalent of insider trading.

In the world of politics, we’ve recently learned about a major fundraiser for Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Norman Hsu was recently arrested for bilking investors out of over a million dollars. At the same time, Republican senator Larry Craig is embroiled in a scandal for propositioning an undercover cop in a men’s restroom.

And even in the church, we’ve recently seen some spectacular falls. None more so than that of Ted Haggard. Ted was the pastor of a Colorado megachurch, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and was also deeply involved in politics. In particular, he constantly spoke out against gay rights. Later it was revealed that Ted Haggard had been buying drugs and paying a male prostitute for sexual favors.

Integrity is a foreign language to our culture because our culture rarely experiences it. And as aliens and strangers in this culture, we are called to live out that foreign, even weird, integrity.

Which means that we have some tough questions to ask ourselves. Is there something in your life that, if it ever came out, would damage your witness for Christ? Is there something you do in the shadows that, if it ever came to light, would bring you down?

Being in ministry, this is a question that I have to ask myself often. Is there anything secret in my life that, if it ever went public, would disqualify me from the ministry? The answer is “no.”

I’m not surfing porn. You can check the history on my computer. You can talk to my wife, who gets an email that lists any questionable websites that I have visited.

I’m not pilfering church money. Our offering is stored in a safe until it is deposited at the bank. I purposely do not know the combination to the lock.

I don’t spend time alone with women that I’m not married to. If a woman wants to talk with me, we’ll do it here at the church. Nowhere else. My office door will remain open the entire time and we’ll only meet when there are other people in the building.

I’m not saying I’m perfect. I’m so far from it. But I know that it only takes one accusation to bring down my ministry. And the only protection I have is my integrity. But I’m definitely not arrogant about this. The only way I can live with integrity is if I remain close to God. If I allow myself to drift away from him, I can fall as easily as anybody else.

Let me ask this again: Is there something you do in the shadows that, if it ever came to light, would bring you down?

Jesus said, “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” (John 3:20, NIV)

Are you living in constant fear of being found out? Are you constantly looking over your shoulder, making sure that nobody sees what you’re doing?

Now, couple those words of Jesus with these words from Proverbs. “The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.” (Proverbs 10:9, NIV)

Jesus said that a lot of people live in fear of being found out. Proverbs says that we should be afraid because we will be found out. Who we are behind the scenes will eventually surface…always.

So are you living with nothing to hide? Are the public you and the private you the same person, or do you transform depending on where you are or who’s around? Are you living with the integrity of someone who knows God?

Integrity is such a foreign concept to our culture that it’s seen as strange or weird. It’s weird when a Christian employee refuses to kiss up to their boss’ face and then run them down behind their back. It’s weird when a Christian student won’t cheat on a test. It’s weird when the boys are passing around a porn magazine and a Christian guy refuses to look at it. It’s weird when the girls are badmouthing their husbands and a Christian lady won’t participate. It’s weird when God’s people live out their integrity. But let me tell you something else…it’s weird, but it’s also loud. Living like an alien and a stranger in this world, living with a weird integrity amps up the decibels of our faith. So go on. Be weird.

There is a second type of integrity that Peter calls us to: a tough integrity. Living with integrity is not an easy proposition. It’s tough.

Let’s go back to our focus text again. “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:11-12, NIV)

The reason we have to have a tough integrity is because there’s always something fighting against us. It may come from the outside.

Peter talks about those people who will accuse us of doing wrong. There’s always going to be somebody who wants to bring us down. If they can find a chink in our integrity armor, they’ll be quick to pounce on it. If they can’t find one, they’ll invent one.

The book of 1 Peter that we’re using today was originally a letter written to believers in Asia Minor, which is the same general area as the modern day country of Turkey. He wrote the letter to encourage these believers to stand strong in the face of opposition and persecution.

Listen to some of the lies that were spread about these early Christians. Pliny, a Roman governor, wrote to Emperor Trajan about the growing number of Christians in his area. He described Christianity as “a perverse and extravagant superstition.”

Tacitus wrote that Christianity was “a deadly superstition…hideous and shameful.” He called Christ-followers, “a class hated for their abominations.”

Christians have always been accused of doing wrong, as Peter talks about in our verses. Same is true today. This is why integrity is such a linchpin in our lives. Because all Christian people get lumped in together.

Back to the Ted Haggard scandal. When his sin was revealed, our world didn’t just say, “Can you believe what Ted Haggard did?” Our culture said, “Can you believe what Christians are actually like? I knew they were a bunch of hypocrites.”

People in our culture don’t see differentiations. When they see one individual Christian who lacks integrity, then they use that as a blanket application to describe every Christian on the planet.

And you’re thinking, “That’s not fair.” We’re not talking about what’s fair. We’re talking about what’s real. And the reality is that every believer takes a hit when one has a lack of integrity.

Your integrity is directly connected to the integrity of believers and churches worldwide. But it also hits a lot closer to home than that. Your integrity is directly connected to the integrity of the Amelia Church of Christ. What you do impacts how our community views our entire church. No one here is an island. We are all representatives of our church family. The question every one of us has to ask is, “Do I represent well?”

People will always look for an opportunity to level accusations against Christ-followers. It’s always been that way. It will always be that way. Sometimes assaults on our integrity come from the outside.

But sometimes they come from the inside. Peter warns us to “abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” He’s warning us about an attack on our integrity that is an inside job.

In 1999, the pop-punk band Lit released a song that topped the charts for 11 straight weeks. The song was called, “My Own Worst Enemy.”

In the song, this guy remembers all the stupid stuff that he has said and did. And then he sums it up by saying, “It’s no surprise to me, I am my own worst enemy.”

Isn’t that the truth sometimes? That’s why Peter goes out of his way to warn us about these sinful desires which war against our souls. These attacks on our integrity from the inside.

The thing is that these inside attacks on our integrity are a lot more subtle than attacks that come from the outside. And they’re a lot more frequent, too.

It’s the man who tells himself, “Hey, I’m just looking. It’s not like I’m actually cheating on my wife. I’m just looking.”

It’s the woman who convinces herself that her flirting with another man is completely innocent. No big deal. We’re just friends. It’s just friendly flirting.

It’s the employee who is constantly taking stuff from the office. “But hey, it’s not like I’m stealing money or anything. It’s no big deal.”

It’s the church member who is engaged in gossip, but they’ve convinced themselves that it’s all good because they do it under the guise of passing along prayer requests.

It’s the friend who knows a secret about a person. That person said, “Please don’t tell anyone.” Ok, but I know they didn’t mean that I couldn’t tell him. I’m sure they didn’t mean that I couldn’t tell her. It’s ok to tell just this one person.

See what is happening? We’re rationalizing. Selling ourselves the lie that everything is still ok. We’re attacking our own integrity from the inside.

And listen to these words of Jesus. “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45, NIV)

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. In other words, who you are on the inside will eventually show itself on the outside. If you are attacking your own integrity from the inside, don’t be surprised when you’re found out. And then the domino effect begins.

This is why Peter calls us to have a tough integrity. Your character will come under attack. Your integrity will be assaulted. The attacks may come from the outside or from the inside. For your integrity to stand, it’s got to be tough.

But we have to understand where this toughness comes from. You don’t have enough strength to make your integrity stand. Neither do I. If it were only up to us, we’d fall like a house of cards.

But it’s not up to us. The strength to maintain our integrity doesn’t just come from us.

The Bible tells us to, “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” (Ephesians 6:10, NIV)

An integrity that is tough is directly tied to a God that is strong.

In other words, the key to integrity is proximity. For me to live with an integrity that is tough, I’ve got to be close to my God who is strong. I’ve got to be in his Word. I’ve got to be in worship. I’ve got to stay plugged in through prayer. If I’m not in close proximity to God, then my integrity isn’t going to be strong. It’s not going to be tough enough to withstand the assaults from without and from within. Proximity is key to integrity. It’s how we live with an integrity that is tough.

There is one more kind of integrity that Peter challenges us to have in our a lives: a reflective integrity. Your integrity can be one of the most powerful tools you have as you witness for Christ. Your integrity reflects the work that God is doing in your life and other people will be drawn to that.

Look at what Peter writes to us. “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:12, NIV)

Your integrity has as purpose. The purpose is to reflect God to people who need him in their lives. Peter promises that people will see the good in our lives and that they will come to glorify God with us. In other words, people without Jesus will see the quality of your life as a Christ-follower. They’ll notice that you’re different. They’ll see your integrity. And some people who see this will want what you have, and your integrity will open the door for you to share the gospel with them. Integrity cranks up the decibels in our lives.

But for us to have this kind of reflective integrity, we’ve got to go at this with the right mindset. The goal is to reflect God and bring people to him. This is where some Christians make a fatal error. They think that the way to do it is to showcase how good they are by pointing out how bad everybody else is. The standard for holiness becomes themselves. The people around them get a steady diet of criticism and judgment. That is not Peter’s idea in our text at all.

The point is for people to see the goodness in our lives and then be drawn to that. It’s hard to be drawn to somebody who believes they are good, you are bad, and you’ll never, ever be as good as them. Do you see the difference in the mindset here?

For us to have an integrity that draws people to God, that integrity has to be coupled with a good dose of grace. And really, isn’t that the only way to have true integrity?

A person of integrity admits their imperfections. They own up to the fact that there is sin in their lives. They understand that without God’s grace, they’d have nothing. They’d be nothing. That’s honesty. That’s integrity.

The hypocrite is the one who is always passing judgment and condemning other people. It’s hypocrisy because there’s no admission of their own shortcomings and guilt. That’s not integrity. It’s hypocrisy.

God’s plan is for the integrity of our lives to build bridges so he can touch other lives. His plan is to do an amazing work in your life, and then have his work reflected to others by the way you live your life. The question we all have to ask is, “Am I reflecting well?”

Do people look at me and see something different. Do they see me as a person of integrity, even to the point of being a little weird?

Is my integrity tough? Am I hanging close to God so that he can keep me strong in the midst of temptation and in the midst of attacks on my integrity?

And am I reflecting Jesus to others by the way I live my life? Are the words I say, the choices I make, and the attitude I carry reflective of the work that God is doing in me?

Mike Edmisten

Tags: 1 Peter 2, character, decibels, evangelism, integrity