“Integrity & Transparency”

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Integrity does not need to fear transparency. It’s true that a righteous person does not need to toot his own horn (cf. Mt. 6:1), but he will also never need to be afraid of people seeing behind the curtain of his life. That fear only comes when we try to foster some sort of secret sin.

We deceive ourselves when we think that sin may be secret or that we will be able to hide it in the long run. Several Bible passages remind us that God sees all things—our thoughts and our actions. In one such passage, Moses said to God, “our secret sins [are] in the light of your presence.” (Psa. 90:8) And it is not just God who will know about sins which we attempt to keep secret: other people will too. Paul told Timothy, “The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later. So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden.” (1 Tim. 5:24-25)

So what do we do about that? The answer is simple, even if it isn’t always easy: do the right thing all the time. If your life is truly pure and holy, there is no need to fear discovery of anything nefarious. For instance, a financially responsible business manager has no fear of an audit because his books are clean. An honest and diligent student has no fear of being caught plagiarizing. A faithful husband has no fear of being caught with pornography or in an affair. A fair judge has no concern about bribes being discovered, because he hasn’t taken them.

In all these areas and plenty more, the lesson is that if we want to live with peace of mind and without a fear of exposure, then we should simply determine that we will have nothing to hide from God or from man. Integrity does not need to fear transparency.

- Dan Lankford, minister

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