CHRISTIAN INTEGRITY 01

A. 1 COR 11:22-31. We need to constantly examine our lives to see if you really are what you claim to be as Christian’s. 2 COR 13:5. You want a scripture that says, “It’s possible to fall from grace and be lost?” There it is.
1. It says you are to examine your heart, thoughts, beliefs and attitudes constantly to make sure you are still in the grace of God.
1. Here’s something some of us don’t do enough of. It’s called soul searching.
(1) Serious undertaking. Requires the assistance of the great physician and the Holy Spirit.
(1) Only need one Instrument. The error free scalpel of the Holy Scriptures. God’s Word.
(1) HEB 4:12. There’s nothing like soul searching with God’s Word to discover whether or not, you are a person of Genuine Integrity.
(2) Integrity will quickly reveal whether or not you are real or if you are a hypocrite.
(3) God asks you to open your soul. Look deep into your Innermost being and evaluate the integrity in your life. Is it real or is it just an outward mask?
(4) Christian INTEGRITY is the single most important Ingredient for success in life.
(5) Open Your soul, look deep, evaluate the condition and level of your integrity.
(2) There are two tests in life that tell all about ourselves. They are adversity and prosperity.
You quickly learn the depth of our stability. Your ability to stick with something.
(1) PROV 12:10.
(2) Nothing like adversity to show how strong or weak you really are.
(3) Floods in Fargo, North Dakota. Also burned the downtown business district.
(a) Destroyed 90% of businesses, 80% of crops. In 6 months restored down town
Fargo.
(b) Levies rebuilt. The next years crops already planted. They stood firm. They did not run.
(c) What’s happened here? Test of Adversity. People tested to limits of their Stability and endurance.
(d) Somebody remarked, “Add to that, All the uncertainties of the future, Then allow it
to prey on your mind and If you’re not schizophrenic you’re not thinking clearly.”
2. If adversity is the test of stability (Ability to Endure, Survive), then prosperity is the test of integrity.
a. Reveals the real truth about your most basic value system. It will bring out the real you.
b. Integrity is hammered out on the anvil of prosperity. It’s there that you pass or fail the test.
(A) PROV.27:1.
(B) Who do we praise, idolize, make into role-models? Those who are successful, prosperous. And prosperity is the true test of a person's integrity.
(1) If you have integrity, you have the most respected and needed virtue in all of life.
(2) The best example of Integrity is seen in the life of a man named Daniel.
B. What do you think of when you think of Daniel in the lions den. He’s a man of integrity.
1. He experienced the test of both adversity and prosperity. His integrity is the reason he’s in the
lion’s den.
a. Background for the story is found in DAN 6:1-16. Evil men hate his integrity and honesty.
b. This may come as a Shock. He’s not there because he did something wrong. He’s there because he did what was right.
(A) Sound Confusing? We think if we do wrong we’ll be punished, if we do right we’ll be

reward.
(B) That’s not always true! Life is not always fair! But who said life was always fair?
(C) Sometimes you do wrong and the world rewards you and when you do what’s rite in God
site the world will persecute you.
c. That’s what Jesus said would happen, JNO. 15:18-20. And It happened to Daniel.
2. Look at the events that led up to Daniel being thrown into the lions den. DAN.6:1-2.
a. De is 1 of 3 Commissioners. 3 most trusted in Medo-Persian Empire. Honored position of prestige and trust.
b. Daniel’s 80 years old. Had Seniority, Position of Trust, Honor, Responsibility. VS. 3.
(A) In Gods eyes, its not who you know Its what you are. And God moved the king’s heart to
favor Daniel.
(B) Excellent Qualities. Describes wisdom, insight, integrity that comes from righteous living.
c. The first sign of integrity is a belief in excellence. That’s where it always begins.
(A) Excellence will not cause you problems With God. It will with the world. They will be
envious, jealous.
(B) Only way you can come to salivation that’s in the Lord is to have a belief in excellence.
(C) Only thing that keeps you serving Lord with all your heart is your belief in excellence.
(1) People with Intellectual Honesty, Spiritual Sensitivity experience an absence of
arrogant pride that strives for Excellence in Integrity. Have you discovered that yet?
(2) Do you have the Absence of Pride, the intellectual honesty and courage to admit
that only God can take away your sin?
(a) Do you have the Integrity to always choose to do what’s right? If you do not, you
are in trouble.
(b) But, if you do, then you are the kind of person God is seeking and He is calling
you.
(3) ACTS 20:32.

Spur - 3/4/2001 pm