Sermon Tone Analysis

! Introduction

            Who would like to have a drink from this juice?

Come and get it, sneeze into it.

Do you still want it?

It is amazing how a little contaminant makes this unacceptable to us.

Are we as discerning and fussy in the rest of our life?

Are we as careful in our spiritual life, in our moral life?

Do we live with such a strong sense of purity in our Christian walk?

In I Chronicles 29:17, David, who was near the end of his life, prayed, “I know that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity.”

If God was to test our hearts, would he be please to find integrity there?

!

I. Values

!! A. Values Formation

            We all live by values - those things we consider valuable or worth living by.

I don’t think that any of us have a list of values which we memorize or keep by our bed, but they are so much a part of us that they form who we are.

These values are formed by what we are taught and what we experience in life.

Last Sunday, I spoke about the values which we catch from our parents.

In my family, honesty was important.

We believed in telling the truth.

It is a value that I still hold very highly.

Other values we discover as we live.

At home when I grew up, we had a shelf in the basement where my father kept some of his tools.

One day, he needed to do a certain job and couldn’t find the pliers he needed to do it so he sent me to the store to get another pair.

A few weeks later, he asked me to clean up the shelf and I found about three pairs of pliers.

From that experience, I learned the value of keeping your tools where you can find them and have usually had some system of organizing my tools since then.

We learn these values and they begin to form how we live.

We make decisions by running our options and ideas through the grid of our values.

We rank our values and decide based on the ranking.

For example, dandelions are in the lawn and someone calls to invite us to go golfing.

We have only a limited amount of time and so we have to make a decision.

Which activity we do will depend on our values.

Likely several values will come into play.

It will depend whether a clean lawn, time spent with a friend or enjoyment of recreation are the highest value for us.

In a similar fashion, values are behind much of what we do and what we decide in all of life.

!! B. Awareness Of Values

            We are not always aware of all of our values.

Some of them are clear and obvious and we know that this is important to us and we live by this value.

Other times, we are not so clear on certain values.

Sometimes, something is very important to us, but we do not even realize it.

When a crisis or a stressful situation comes up, then our true values are usually revealed.

For example, I have seen values clearly revealed in the hockey arena.

Someone may say, “I like hockey, it is a great form of exercise” or, “I like hockey, it is a great way to meet people.”

When they are saying these things, they are declaring values.

They are saying that they value exercise or relationships.

But, when they start to play and when they start to get aggressive and hurt other people or don’t mind doing something against the rules to get an advantage, then you know that exercise or relationships are not the highest value to them.

Then you know that competition and winning are the highest value, even though they may not even be aware of it.

We need to know what our values are.

Sometimes, I have thought that I should write down a list of the things that are important to me.

Perhaps that would not be such a bad idea.

At the very least, we need to look at our lives, especially at times when we are confused or have a conflict or when we are frustrated and discover what our values are.

!! C. Values We Hold

            So what are some of the values which we hold?

There are some which we know about and which are great values.

Some of the values that I have reflected on are faithfulness to my wife and being honest.

We hold different values related to function and beauty.

Some of us put function above beauty, so an ugly car that runs well will be just fine with us.

Others of us hold the value of beauty above function and so we will do very inefficient things as long as it looks good.

We also hold certain values when it comes to relationships.

Some people want everyone to like them.

This is their highest value when it comes to relationships.

Others are more concerned to have honest and deep relationships and if that means that some people don’t like them, that is not so much of a concern to them.

One of the values that I hold is that I don’t like dirty hands.

If you ever watch me change oil in my vehicle, you will soon see that.

As soon as there is a little oil on my hands, the rag comes out quickly and I wipe them off.

What are the things you value?

!! D. Christian Values

            What I have said so far is true of every person on earth.

We all live like this and we all function by a set of values, sometimes very different sets of values from other people.

As Christians there is a whole other dynamic at work in our values.

Not only do we have a set of values that come to us through what we have learned from our parents or by experience, we also have a set of values that we receive from the Word of God.

In fact, as followers of Christ, the values we hold from the Bible are the values that we believe ought to fully and clearly form our life in all its different aspects.

The reason we come to church and attend Sunday School and Bible Studies is because we want to deliberately form a set of values that come from God.

We want to discover and develop a Biblical set of values.

Romans 14:22 talks about those values which are kind of in the gray area.

It warns us that we had better form a clear and consistent set of values that are God approved when it says, “Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves.”

So what are some of the key Biblical values?

Of course this is something that we discover throughout our whole life.

Let me point to two Scriptures which are interesting in regards to the matter of forming a Biblical set of values.

One day an expert in the law came to Jesus and asked him about values.

His question was, “which is the greatest commandment?”

but this is the same as asking, “what are the most important Biblical values?”

The answer of Jesus was what we have come to know as the great commandment, namely,  “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

This “great commandment” is probably the clearest, most concise statement of values for us as Christians.

The story of Job provides us with another interesting point of view.

Job is declared by God to be a man of integrity.

When all the terrible things happen to him, his friends begin to question his integrity.

They accuse him of sin, but Job can’t think of any reason why he should be suffering for sin.

As far as he knows, he has walked faithfully according to his values.

In defending his integrity before God, in Job 31, we discover a wonderful, Biblical set of values which Job lived by.

In verse 1 he declares that he values purity of heart when it comes to other women.

He has determined not to commit adultery in his heart.

In verse 5, he talks about the value of honest scales, in verse 13, he talks about the value of treating his employees with justice.

In verse 17, he mentions that he lives by the value of sharing with those in need, in verse 24, he mentions that he has valued trusting God more than trusting in his possessions and in verse 29, we find that he was a Mennonite, because he was concerned to love his enemy.

These and other values are solid Biblical values which Job tried to live by.

And so throughout the Bible, there is a lot of teaching which helps us come to an understanding of a set of values which God approves and which he wants us to live by.

!

II.

Integrity

!! A. Definition of Integrity

I started out talking about purity or integrity and have gone on a fairly long tangent on values.