Living a life of Integrity

Sunday evening, November 12, 2017

4 years ago, in 2013, Joey Prusak was on duty at the Dairy Queen in Hopkins,
MN, when a blind man came in and placed an order. As he struggled to get out
his cash, a $20 bill fell to the ground. The 19-year-old Prusak told the Hopkins
Daily News the woman, in her 50s or 60s, swept in behind the man as he
fumbled with his wallet, and, “Before I could say anything, she picked it,"
Prusak said. He thought she'd give the money back, but she stuffed it in her
purse instead.
"I was kind of in shock," Prusak said. "I was appalled by the situation."
Prusak told her to return the money, but she boldly pretended she had just
dropped it. Prusak said, "She looked at me and said, 'That's my money.'" He
explained he'd seen everything, but she only argued louder.
"I finally told her, 'Ma'am, I'm going to ask you one more time to return the
money or leave the store,'" he said. Unbelievably, she still refused.
"Then I'm going to have to ask you to leave, because I'm not going to serve
someone as disrespectful as you," Prusak said. She left, but not before
unleashing a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse on the teen.
"She had some choice words to say the least," he said.
Prusak watched her go, and then went to sit down with the blind man. He
explained everything and handed him $20 from his own pocket. The customer
thanked him over and over before Prusak returned to work.
His staggering kindness came to light after another customer who watched the
incident as it occurred wrote to the store to praise his actions. The email was
printed out and stuck up on the store's wall before being photographed by
another customer who posted it online where it eventually went viral.
"I was in shock by the generosity that your employee had," read the note.
"Taking his own money out of his own wallet to give to the customer because
some other lady decided to steal something that wasn't hers," it added. "I
would proudly like to say that Joey has forever sealed my fate as a lifelong
customer of the Mainstreet Dairy Queen."

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A couple of days after the email was sent to Dairy Queen, Joey received a call
from the billionaire Warren Buffet, a big investor in DQ. He thanked Joey for
showing such integrity and asked him to come to the next Dairy Queen
investors' meeting. As Joey was an employee and representative of Dairy
Queen, Buffet wanted him to be there as an integral part of the fabric of the
organization.
Why did the email about Joey become such a big sensation? Because we live in
a world where “The end justifies the means” is the motto of the day.
A facial cream ad claims it will make women look as good as Photoshop can,
but the woman’s face in the ad is actually Photoshopped. So-called
“educators” rewrite history to meet modern objectives. Who hasn’t heard
about the Civil War statues being taken down because they are offensive? One
of the buzzwords of the past year is Fake News, deliberate misinformation
written or shared to mislead or damage someone.
The end justifies the means. Our culture is lacking integrity, and very little is
being said about it. We may point fingers at each other and accuse each other
of not being brought up right or not understanding how life really is, but the
point is, we are sorely lacking in integrity these days.
The Oxford dictionary defines integrity as “The quality of being honest and
having strong moral principles.”
1. The Rock of Integrity is Faithfulness
a. Faithfulness is a biblical synonym for integrity
b. Faithfulness is one of the key attributes of God
i. Open the Bible and look in the Old Testament and you will
find God’s faithfulness written about right near the
beginning, when Moses was told by God to tell Pharaoh to
let the Israelites go. Moses asked God “What is your name”
ii. Exodus 3:14 - God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is
what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to
you.’”
1. That may seem strange to us as an answer, but God
was saying, “I am the God who has no past, and no
future. I am the God of the eternal present. I am the
faithful God and what I say is true.” For the God, the

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 promise and the fulfillment all happen in the present
tense.
2. God does not look to BE faithful because God IS
faithful. He is always faithful.
c. Deuteronomy 32:4 tells us that, “He is the Rock, his works are
perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no
wrong, upright and just is he.”
i. If we build our lives on the rock that is God, the integrity
and faithfulness of God will begin to flow into your life. And
the better you know Him, the more integrity that you will
have.
2. The Record of Integrity
a. Integrity appears in the Bible 21 times
b. Proverbs 20:6 – a faithful man, who can find? Who can find a man
of integrity
c. Not many people in Bible are listed as being faithful. Here are 13
men and women have faithful listed with their name in the same
verse.
i. OT – Daniel (Dan 6:4), Hanani (the brother of Nehemiah)
(Neh 7:2), Moses (Num 12:7), Job (Job 2:3), and Abraham
(Heb 11:8)
ii. NT – Lydia (Acts 16:14), Timothy (1 Cor. 4:17), Paul (1 Tim
1:12), Epaphras (Col 1:7), Tychicus (Col. 4:7), Onesimus (Col.
4:9), Silvanus– also known as Silas (1 Pt. 5:12), and Antipas
(Rev. 2:13)
1. All are honored for their integrity
3. The Road to integrity
a. Be Honest with Yourself
i. Before you start on a journey to integrity, you have to
figure out where you are in relation
ii. Ted Williams story – in 1959 he was 40 yrs old and closing
out career with the Boston Red Sox – he failed to hit .300
for the only time in his career, having played most the
season with a pinched nerve in his neck and finished at
.254. Refusing to believe he was washed up at age 41, he
decided to play one more season but insisted on taking a 30
percent pay cut from $125,000 to $90,000. He cut his own
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 pay because he didn’t want to take more than he felt he
was worth. I don’t think it has happened since and I
wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it to happen with
today’s superstar athletes. In that moment he was a man
who was brutally honest about himself.
iii. The lies we tell ourselves are the most deadly.
1. Question your motives
2. Stop justifying what you know to be wrong
3. Stop making excuses
iv. If you find out where you are, don’t ask God to show you
because He will
b. Tell the Truth
i. Almost too basic to need to be mentioned
ii. Proverbs 11:3 – “The integrity of the upright guides them,
but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.” Another
translation says, “Honesty guides good people; dishonesty
destroys treacherous people.”
iii. God never lies and neither should we
1. We never have to figure out what we told to who
c. Keep Your Word
i. If you make a promise, you should have no alternative but
to keep it.
ii. Do your best to keep your promise or your integrity and
sincerity are at stake
iii. Howard Rutledge was a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war
who was shot down and spent 7-1/2 years in the Hanoi
Hilton. He was a Baptist and the other POW’s considered
him their chaplain. His memoirs are entitled “In the
Presence of Mine Enemies; 1965-1973; A Prisoner of War”
iv. Commander Rutledge defined integrity this way: Integrity is
keeping a commitment after the circumstances under
which you made the commitment have changed or gone
away.
1. Would be fewer troubled marriages today
d. Be Who You Are
i. When we put tile in our house, we got tile with color that
went all the way through – not tile that was just painted.
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 ii. Be who you are on Sunday and Monday, and Tuesday, etc.
Be the same color all the way through.
iii. Be what you is, not what you ain’t, because if you ain’t
what you is then you is what you ain’t.
iv. Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing
you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and
acceptable and perfect.”
v. John Wesley was asked the question what would you do if
you knew you were going to die at midnight the next night.
He thought about it a moment and then said he wouldn’t
do anything different than he had already planned. He said
he would preach at Gloucester that evening, get up at 5am
the next morning and ride to Tewksberry, preach there the
next evening and meet with the church leaders and go to
Martin’s to have supper. He said, “Then I would go to bed
at 10 o’clock, commit myself to the Holy Father, lie down to
rest and wake up in Glory. He was committed to doing what
God wanted him to do, so if his end was in sight, he
wouldn’t NEED to do anything different.
vi. Philippians 1:10 “For I want you to understand what really
matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until
the day of Christ’s return.”
e. Avoid Bad Company
i. 1 Cor. 15:33 – (“Don’t be fooled by those who say such
things, for) “bad company corrupts good character.”
ii. Mom always told her five boys that we would be painted
with the same paint brush as was used to color the opinions
about our friends. So choose your friends wisely, because
people will think you are just like them
iii. My younger brother always encouraged me – and his many
high school golf teams – to play with people who are better
than you because you will rise to try and play at their level.
iv. If you put on white cotton gloves and sit down and splash
around in a mud puddle, the puddle does not become
glovey, the gloves become muddy.

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 v. Someone who is dishonest with little things will be
dishonest with big things.
1. Avoid people who want to carry you in the wrong
direction
f. Be Found Faithful
i. 1 Cor. 4:2 it is required in stewards that one be found
faithful
ii. How does God determine whether someone is faithful?
1. It’s a discovery that is made after careful observation.
2. It’s not made on a one-time event
iii. God carefully watches to see how our actions and reactions
play out
1. How do we treat people even when we think no one
is watching
2. Wherever you are, whatever the situation, be FOUND
faithful.
g. Be strong under fire
i. If you have integrity, you WILL be tested by fire
1. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego would not bow to
the king’s statue and worship it
a. Nebuchadnezzar said he would throw them in
the furnace if they didn’t bow down to his
statue
b. They said they trusted in their God
i. Daniel 3:17-18 “If we are thrown into
the blazing furnace, the God whom we
serve is able to save us. He will rescue us
from your power, Your Majesty. 18 But
even if he doesn’t, we want to make it
clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will
never serve your gods or worship the
gold statue you have set up.”
2. Their integrity was more important than their lives
3. Joseph was a slave who had risen to be the head
steward of Potiphar.
a. Joseph chose to be faithful to his master and
his God
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 b. In prison for three years before he was
released and became prime minister of Egypt
c. Joseph was tried, tested, and rewarded by
being a part of God’s plan to save many people
from perishing.
i. Genesis 50:20 Joseph told his brothers,
“You intended to harm me, but God
intended it all for good. He brought me
to this position so I could save the lives
of many people.”
h. Be accountable to Somebody
i. Hebrews 10:23-24 tells us, “Let us hold tightly without
wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to
keep his promise. 24 Let us think of ways to motivate one
another to acts of love and good works.”
ii. Some translations say to provoke one another to good
works.
1. We are taught that we need each other
2. We need people who will tell us the truth about
ourselves
iii. Leaders are not to be the exception to rules; leaders are
supposed to be examples
1. Be careful how you live your life because your
children will be watching and learning
Joey Prusak's act of generosity with the blind man at the Dairy Queen inspired
thousands of people to believe that they, too, could do something small and
still impact the world for good. It was a small act—with a huge impact. And so
it is with God. He takes our small acts of obedience or kindness or goodness
and multiplies them for his good, and ours. So don't wait until you can do big
things; start small. Be honest with yourself, tell the truth, keep your word, be
who you are, avoid bad company, be found faithful, be strong under fire, be
accountable to somebody. Let’s do our best to be people of integrity and be
the real deal, the genuine article, people who don’t just talk the talk, but
people who walk the talk.