Trustworthy

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon
Sunday, August 28, 2011

Trustworthiness. Respect. Responsibility. Fairness. Caring. Citizenship. Which of these qualities would you like to see less of?

That was the question that was asked of me when I was introduced to Character Counts. Which of these, trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, citizenship, which would you like to see less of you in your church and in the schools that your kids go to and in the workplace and in the community? So I ask you, which would you like to see less of?

To make the answer a little bit easier, I’d like to point out that long before Character Counts came up with the six pillars, Jesus Christ embodied them. He lived them out on a daily basis. So which of them would you like to see less of? The answer is simple: None of them.

And so I ask myself the question, if these qualities are deeply scripturally based, then why is it that we as the church are not leading the charge? Why is it that we, who have been called to faith by the Holy Spirit, we who look to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, are not leading the charge? After all, God says that we have been changed. We’re to put off the old, put on the new, have a renewing of our minds, the transforming of our attitudes. So if these qualities are in Jesus and we, as His followers, are to have the same attitudes, the same heart, the same character, then why are we not leading the charge?

Beyond that, I see an incredible opportunity, an opportunity because there’s a bridge between us and the community. Because who can argue with the qualities that are espoused? Who can argue with any of those six qualities? We have a common language. It’s being taught in our schools. It’s in our businesses. It’s around us in our community, which means we have a basis for conversation, a conversation that says, “We can add depth to what is being taught. We can show you where those qualities originated. We know the man who embodied them.” What an opportunity for us to start conversations and, beyond that, I believe that as we embody those qualities, as we respond to God and bring honor to Him in responding that way, we can make a difference. We can lead the way of building a community of character.

Today we begin with the quality of trustworthy. Not trusting. That doesn’t mean that we’re called upon to be gullible, to trust anything and everything that somebody says to us. God calls upon us to be discerning. This isn’t about others. This is about us. Are we a person who is worthy of trust?

Certainly, Jesus was. In fact, what I would say is Jesus is the embodiment of what it is to be a person who is worthy of trust. You see that by His reputation and the people who come to Him. Go through the gospel. People come to Jesus because they see Him as a person who they can trust.

Let’s look at Matthew 9. There are three stories. One of them is a story inside of the story. So the first one we have is we have a leader. Now others believe this was a synagogue leader who’s coming to Jesus because his daughter is dead, and he has two strikes against him of why he would ever go to Jesus. First of all, if he’s a synagogue leader, that means he’s a religious leader. Jesus was not popular with the religious leaders of the day. He would take a lot of grief from his peers if they knew he was going to this teacher of Nazareth.

Second of all, his daughter is dead. She’s not gravely ill. She’s not real sick. She’s dead and yet the leader says this, “My daughter’s just died but come. Put your hand on her and she will live.” Do you hear the confidence? “She will live.” This man believed that Jesus could bring his daughter back to life.

Second story, we have a woman who has been suffering from bleeding for twelve years. You look at the other gospels, we find out that she has spent her entire fortune on doctors trying to find a cure for this. It is a hopeless situation. What does she say? She says, “If only I touch His cloak, I will be healed.” Do you see the confidence? “I will be healed.” She believed that Jesus could heal her and Jesus responded. He says, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has healed you.”

Last story, we have two blind men who come to Jesus. “Have mercy on us.” Jesus says this, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” The answer, in the affirmative, “Yes, we believe.” Now there are two words that I have been emphasizing here and that is “faith” and “believe.” Both words have the same common root word in the original language. It is also the same common root word for trust. Trust, faith, believe all have the same common root word in the original language of the New Testament. What I’m saying is this: If you can trust someone, if they are worthy of trust, then you can believe that person. You can put your faith in that person. Jesus showed Himself to be a person who was worthy of trust and people believed in Him. They put their faith in Him.

So what does it mean then to be trustworthy? There are all different ways we could define it, all different attributes we could look at. I’m going to break it down to three: Honesty, integrity and loyalty. And I look at Jesus through the lenses of those three and is He a person who is worthy of trust?

Honesty means that you say what you mean and you mean what you say. Speaking the truth means you speak it all the time, whether it’s popular or unpopular. Speaking the truth means even if it’s going to not go over well or things are going to go south by you speaking the truth, you speak it anyway. Speaking the truth means you speak the whole truth. You don’t just speak part of the truth and leave some details out so, technically, what you said was correct but you’ve left other pieces of it out. No, honesty means you speak the whole truth.

So look at Jesus through the lens of honesty. Was He an honest person? Find anywhere in the recorded history where Jesus has ever lied, where He has ever deceived anyone. How about instances by telling the truth, things aren’t going to go well for Him. Think of the conversations He had with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the teachers of the law. Often times, He’s calling them to account. He’s saying things which are not very popular at the time. Things don’t go well for Him. Eventually, they conspire against Him, which leads to His trial and eventually, His crucifixion.

Did Jesus always tell the whole truth or did He split hairs? How about when He’s in front of Pontius Pilate? We know from the gospel writers that Pontius Pilate was looking for a way to let Jesus off. He knew He was innocent. He wanted to let Him go, so he comes up with all these ideas, these questions to ask Him. So finally he says this, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Easily, Jesus could have said, “Well, that’s silly. Who lives in the palace? I don’t live in the palace. Herod lives in the palace. Herod is the one who has the army. Herod is the one who has the servants. How could I be the king of the Jews?” What He is leaving out is that He is the king of all people. He’s the king of all creation. He is a heavenly king. So how does Jesus answer the question, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He says, “Yes.” And they crucified Him for it. Honest in all of His dealings.

How about integrity? Integrity is when your actions match your words, when your actions match your stated value. What is it that Jesus said about Himself? “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Jesus says, “I have come to seek and to save that which is lost.” Jesus says, “I have not come to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.” Look no further than the cross. Did His actions match His words? He came to seek and to save the lost. He gave His life as a ransom for many.

Loyalty. Loyalty is when you remain true and faithful to a person or to a cause. Even when the going gets rough or even when it’s uncomfortable or even when it gets difficult to stay faithful to that person, you still stay faithful. You still stay loyal to that person. Jesus says, “I and the Father are one. What the Father says, that’s what I do.” Even though He is equal with the Father in the Trinity, Scripture tells us that He willingly submitted Himself to the authority of the Father and whatever the Father asked Him to do, that’s what Jesus would do, whether it was easy or whether it was difficult. Never once did He bolt. Never once did He go rogue. Never once did He break rank and go off on His own. He remained loyal to His Father in heaven.

For me, the example that I always point to is in the Garden of Gethsemane because this is really when the rubber is hitting the road. He is staring at the cross. He knows what’s ahead of Him. He knows the physical pain. He knows the spiritual pain of having mankind’s sins put upon Him. He prays earnestly to the Father, “If there’s another way, Father, take this cup from me,” but how does He end the prayer? “But not my will, your will.”

As they’re nailing Him to the cross, what does He cry out? “Father, forgive them.” His dying breath, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Jesus throughout His earthly life, showed that He embodied what it means to be a person who is worthy of trust. That is of supreme importance. I can’t overstate how important that is, that He is a person worthy of trust. It means that we can have faith in Him. It means that we can believe in Him. It means that everything He said is true. We have someone who we can trust.

Maybe if I put it in the negative, that would help. Where would your faith be, where would our relationship with God be if Jesus lied just once? If just once, He was different in private than He was in public, if just once He decided to do His own thing instead of what the Father was asking Him to do, where would our relationship be, where would our confidence be in the words that He has spoken and the promises He has given to us? But never once did He. He is the only human being who is completely, wholly, fully worthy of our trust. We can believe in Him. We can have faith in Him. That means we can believe what He says.

When Jesus says, “I have not come to condemn the world but to save it,” you can take it to the bank. When Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd,” the Good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep. When Jesus says, “Don’t worry, don’t be upset. I’m going to prepare a place for you and if I go to prepare a place for you, I’m going to come back so you can be with me.” You can take it to the bank. You can believe it.

So when we’re wallowing in guilt because we’ve lied, because we’ve misrepresented, because we’ve reneged on our integrity, because we’ve done the one thing that we said we would never do and we hear the words of Jesus, we know they’re true. When Jesus tells us that through His blood and through His sacrifice, our sins our forgiven and they’ve been washed away, we know they’re true. We can believe it. Jesus has this quality. Jesus has this kind of character. He’s someone we can trust.

In response to what God has done for us, He’s also someone we can aspire to. Isn’t that what scripture teaches us, that we have a new life, we become a new person and this new person now is transformed. It’s changed. We have the same kind of mindset as that of Jesus. The writer of Ephesians puts it this way, “You need to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires to be made new in the attitude of your mind, to put on your new self, created to be like God in righteousness and holiness. Therefore, each of you must put off falsehoods and speak truthfully to your neighbor, that we who are believers in Jesus take on a new self, that we bring honor to God when we reflect His goodness in our own lives.” Can we be like Him? No, He is the only one who is perfectly trustworthy. Does that mean we should not aspire and try to be that way? Does that mean we should not be people who are worthy of trust? Absolutely not. We are to put off the old self and put on the new self, but He doesn’t abandon us in that. He empowers us to do that.

He said to His disciples in John 14, “But the counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things and remind you of everything that I have said to you.” God’s spirit is living in you, empowering you, encouraging you, emboldening you to live out the faith that is in you, to live out the new life that is there and I believe we can have an impact. I believe we can have an impact on our world and an impact on our community. I believe we can build a community of character.

There was a movie out, I don’t know if it was a couple of years ago, called the Invention of Lying. Anyone see it? Nah, I didn’t see it either. I did watch the trailer, though, and I really couldn’t get past the trailer. The voiceover comes on and he says, “So imagine a world where no one is able to lie.” Okay, that’s the premise of the movie but the thing I objected to is then it went on to these people “telling the truth” but the truth they were telling was, “Oh, you’re fat.” “You’re unattractive.” “Oh, I can’t stand you. I’ve loathed every day that I worked with you.” And this is supposed to be humorous, right? Well, I could get into the whole thing about speaking the truth in love but that’s a whole other message we won’t get to right now. The premise of the movie is this and the reason that it’s funny is it’s so preposterous, this world they paint because the world they paint is you can trust everyone. And, of course, we know you can trust no one. I think we need to turn that around. I think the saying should be “You can trust Christians.” Can you imagine the impact we would have in our world? Can you imagine the honor we would bring to God if it was known throughout the community that you can trust Christians? They are people of a noble character. They are people who are worthy of trust. I think it’s time that we turn things around.

And we do that one person at a time, one choice and one decision at a time. We answer the call to this new life that God has given to us, empowered by the Holy Spirit, one person at a time, one choice at a time. We ask ourselves, “Am I acting as a person who is worthy of trust? Am I being honest, completely honest, even if it isn’t going to go well for me? Am I telling the whole truth, not just the partial truth?” So when you’re selling your car and the person says, “So, have you ever had an accident with it,” and you confidently, truthfully say, “No, I have never had an accident with it,” and in the back of your mind, you’re saying, “My two kids have had four in the last two years.” Completely honest in what we do.

Are we going to be people with integrity? That is, the people we are in public are the same people we are in private. We follow the laws whether there’s a cop behind us or whether there’s a camera at the light or not. Are we going to be loyal, loyal to our family, loyal to our friends, loyal to our God? Are we going to be a person who is worthy of trust and develop a reputation and developing that reputation bringing honor to God when people say, “Christians, you can trust them. They’re different from the rest of the world. They’re different from the other people we encounter.”

It’s a bridge. It’s a bridge to our community, between the church and the community, between you and your friends, your neighbors and your coworkers. There’s a common language here. There’s a common goal. There’s a common value, but we can add so much more to it. “We know where the qualities originate. We know the person who embodies these qualities. His name is Jesus. He’s made a difference in my life. Can I tell you about the difference He’s made and the change He’s taken place in me?” There are natural conversations that can take place here. There’s a bridge that is just there for us to take advantage of.

Because, my friends, long before Character Counts identified six pillars, Jesus Christ embodied them. He lived them. I think it’s time now for the church to lead the charge, to bring honor to Him and to make a difference. Amen.