A Word about Integrity

 

Today I want to share a word about integrity, as I comment on Luke 16:1-12. This passage reads:

And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.  I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?  And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?

As I said in our last devotional, we all have done and said cringe-worthy things in the past. I remember another occasion in my childhood in which I embarrassed myself, but this time it was in front of my father.

My father was a heavy truck mechanic who was the vehicle maintenance shop foreman at a local business. At that time my mom was training to be a nurse, and money was tight. We always had food on our table, but I often heard my mom and dad debating about making purchases which, in today’s world, few would even give a second thought. I specifically remember them sitting up late one night deciding whether they could afford to buy an electronic calculator so that they could do their tax returns more quickly. 

One day my dad had splurged a little, and he brought home a device that tested car batteries. We always had used cars, and as a mechanic, my dad would keep them going longer than he probably should have. In any case, after he checked the battery on our car (note the singular “car” not “cars), I asked to see the device, which was largely made of glass.

When my dad handed me the battery tester, I, of course, dropped it on the concrete of our carport. And, of course, part of it broke. My dad was dismayed, and I was chagrined, but then I made matters worse:

I burst out, “Put it back in the box, and take it back to the auto parts store. You can tell them it was broken when you opened it at home.”

My dad looked at me with a heart-rending expression of disappointment and rebuke. “I can’t do that. First, I opened it in front of the store clerk to make sure it wasn’t broken. Besides that, it wouldn’t be right.” My dad wasn’t perfect, but he was certainly a man of integrity, and he taught me the same lesson that day that Jesus taught in our passage for today.

DECEIT:

Jesus knew the ways of people. His father, Joseph, was a carpenter, and as such, he must have done business with people. No doubt, Joseph came across people, like my younger self above, who found ways to cheat him. Maybe it was someone who supplied him wood or rope, or maybe it was a customer, but as we can see elsewhere in the Bible, people have known how to deceive and cheat each other for centuries.

Of course, being God, Jesus did not need human experience to know that the unregenerate human heart is deceitful. God sees into our lives and although we can hide our motives from others, we cannot hide them from God. For example, Proverbs 21:2 says,

Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts.

Jeremiah 17:10 also says,

I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

What people did in First Century Judea they also continue to do today, just with better technology. Identity theft, fishing attacks, and internet scams abound today. The “Nigerian attorney” email, which was once the height of sophistication, now appears childish and trite. Fraudsters today are much cleverer than such a primitive flim-flam and they have even learned how to spoof security alert messages from vendors to their customers to steal money or personal information from them. This level of avarice isn’t new, but it is wrong.

BETRAYAL:

In our focal passage for today, we see a story of deceit and theft, but it is also a story of betrayal and treachery. Not only did the steward waste his employer’s money, but he also conspired with his boss’s customers to steal from him. 

In Biblical times, a steward often had total control of his employer’s business affairs. This could happen even on a national level, like with Joseph in Egypt or with Daniel in Babylon. It certainly took place at the family level, and a good steward was a blessing to his master. On the other hand, a poor steward, not to mention an evil one, could be a stumbling block, or even a curse.

Jesus, in telling this story, did express a level of admiration for the steward’s intelligence and guile. You must admit, it was a neat solution to the problem of the steward’s imminent unemployment. But that being said, even the most ingenious fraud is wrong and sinful. We must not confuse the recognition of the steward’s low cunning and chicanery with approval of his motives and action.

INTEGRITY:

Jesus made three important points as He explained this parable. The first was that when we place our trust in earthly wealth, position, power, or fame, then the only blessings that we can receive are temporal ones. This is consistent with what He taught in Matthew 6:19-21 during the Sermon on the Mount:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

The steward in this story sold his soul for a chance at future employment, the same way that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. Having integrity, therefore, includes not becoming a sell-out.

Jesus went on to teach that a good steward, one who has integrity, is faithful in the smaller issues of life as well as in the bigger ones. From His perspective, financial issues are not nearly as important as spiritual ones and are not nearly as difficult to solve. 

Historically, a high level of illiteracy has been common in the world; universal, free, public education is a relatively recent development. In fact, it is probably not a stretch to say that most people who have lived during the long history of the world could not read, but almost all of them could count money! If we can’t exercise integrity in such a basic life issue as money, how can we be trusted with something so powerful as the Gifts of the Holy Spirit?

Finally, when Jesus walked the earth, he would have never heard the saying, “Drive it like you stole it,” but He clearly would have understood what it means. In this passage, however, He turned that saying on its head. Here He teaches us that if we can’t take care of the property owned by another, then we can never be entrusted with our own property. 

Integrity means doing the right thing, all of the time, whether in a big issue of life or a small one, and whether it involves something we own or something that belongs to someone else. In fact, Jesus would say that it is more important to care properly for another’s property than for your own.

CONCLUSION:

Consider today how we should exercise our integrity for the glory of God:

• Should we cut corners and take the easy way out, or should we do our best work possible under the circumstances?
• Should we figure out ways to look busy at work while surfing the internet, or should we return to our employers diligent work for an agreed upon wage?
• Should we lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead, or should we trust in God and in His plan for our lives?
• Should we treat others as we would have them treat ourselves? 

I hope the answers to these questions are apparent in our text for today. 

I have never forgotten the lesson my dad taught me in our carport that day so long ago. It is always better to do the right thing and face those temporal consequences than to cheat, lie, and steal and face the eternal consequences of those with no integrity. Let’s remember what Jesus said in John 10:10 when He contrasted Himself with the thief:

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

To whom would you like to be compared? Again, I think the answer is obvious!

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt