Sheryl Brady - Moving From Image Into Integrity

I want you to go to First Samuel chapter 16, and we’re going to read the seventh verse. If you could put that up for us, we’re going to read the seventh verse of First Samuel chapter 16. If your neighbor doesn’t have it, tell them to just look at mine. I want to read it out of the King James Version if we have it today. Thank you, Jesus, for Your word. Hmm, I hope somebody’s hungry today! Are there any students in the room? Did anybody come to learn? Did you come to learn? I don’t care how old you are; you have to be a student. You have to come with a mindset that you are here to learn something because you’re not finished yet. You’ve got things to do, places to go, and worlds to speak to. You’ve got things to conquer and things to put under your feet, so you are not finished as yet. Thus, you come with a mind that says you are here to learn. Here’s what I want to say to you today: The Bible says that man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh upon the heart. Did I give you the wrong verse? Oh no, there we are: «For man looketh on the outward appearance, but God is the one that looks on the heart.» How many of you have ever been sized up by people? You know there’s nothing you can say and nothing you can do because they look at you and size you up. The reason we’re like that is that in America and even around the world, we’re so image conscious. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. Today I want to take just a few moments to teach about moving from image into integrity. Moving from image into integrity. Why am I preaching about that? Because God blesses people who have integrity. I said God blesses people who have integrity. There should have been a whole church that lives in integrity that shouted amen right there! I said God blesses people; you could have little, and God could turn around and bless that because you are a person of integrity. That blessing is everything! I said that blessing is everything! I had to have the blessing of the Lord, and I need that blessing in my life. But we’re going to talk about moving from image into integrity. Have Your way, Jesus. Bless this food that we are about to eat. Speak like You want to speak; You know what You’re getting us ready for, and You know what’s next for us. This is our year of great growth, and we’re determined to grow this year. So we ask God that you would just feed us the nutrients that we need to become what You want us to be, and we give You thanks for it in Jesus' name. Somebody shout amen! On your way down, touch somebody and tell them, «Get ready to move from image into integrity.» Those of you that are online, we welcome you into the house of the Lord, and we’re glad that you’re joining us today. I read a few articles this week on the subject of selfies. Has anybody in this room ever taken a selfie? Lift your hand. Well, that’s pretty much all of us! I was really surprised at some of the statistics that I read. One of the things I read said 1,000 selfies are posted to Instagram every second. 1,000 selfies are posted to Instagram every second! Ninety-three million selfies are taken every day. One in every three photos is a selfie. The average lifespan of a person is twenty-seven thousand three hundred and seventy-five days. Don’t waste any time trying to figure that out; just do that when you get home. That’s the average lifespan of a person. An average millennial will take twenty-five thousand seven hundred selfies in their lifetime, so that means just about every day, somebody is taking a selfie. Fifty-five percent of social media selfies come from millennials, by the way. Twenty-four percent come from Gen X, and nine percent come from baby boomers. In October of 2008, The Washington Post reported that selfie-related deaths have become a major public health problem. An eighteen-year-old hiker from Jerusalem died when he fell off of an 800-foot cliff in Yosemite National Park trying to get that perfect picture. The article said that worldwide, there are 259 reported deaths related to trying to take a selfie. One of the contributors to that article called it a man-made disaster. Selfies! Who would have ever thought? They seem so simple, and they seem safe, I guess. But they called it a man-made disaster because everywhere we turn, there’s somebody with a phone in their hand who’s trying to get that perfect angle. Selfies. One of the other contributors said it has become an epidemic, and the reason it has become an epidemic is that our culture is obsessed with image today more than it has ever been. People are obsessed with image, but God is not obsessed with image. God cares about the heart! I said God cares about the heart! He could care less about the outside; He could care less about the things that we magnify and the things that we can’t wait to pose. But God doesn’t care about what is going on on the outside; God cares about what is happening on the inside. For man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh upon the heart. Whenever God chooses to pick a person and bless a person, He…