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Thank you, Mary Beth.

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Would you open your Bible with me please to Genesis the 39th chapter?

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So you think it's been hot here?

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Let me tell you, it's been really hot in Washington this summer.

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Some commentators in the media as well as professional politicians are telling us that

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it does not matter what a president does in his personal life so long as he governs well.

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They argue that private morality has nothing to do with one's public responsibility.

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That is absurd.

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I really believe that only half wits could believe such silliness as that.

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And since I don't think most of these people are half wits, I conclude that political bias

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has clouded their thinking.

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What credibility does any leader have who himself is immoral and who cannot be honest?

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How do citizens know that he governs well if a political leader is duplicitous and deceitful

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about his own personal affairs?

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What confidence can people place in any of his decisions if he is dishonest about some

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of them?

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And the bottom line in one sense is this, would you send your son or your daughter to

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fight a war under a commander who does not have personal integrity?

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I wouldn't.

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And yet we hear this silly mantra that character doesn't matter.

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Well I'm here to say today and I think most of you would join me in declaring that in

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fact character does matter.

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And we see how important it is from our study in the life of Joseph.

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And Joseph became a man of significance because he was a man of principle.

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Here in Genesis 39 I'm going to begin reading in verse 1.

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Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh,

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the captain of the bodyguard, brought him from the, bought him rather from the Ishmaelites

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who had taken him down there.

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And the Lord was with Joseph and so he became a successful man.

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And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.

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Now his master saw that the Lord was with him and how the Lord caused all that he did

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to prosper in his hand.

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So Joseph found favor in his sight and became his personal servant.

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And he made him overseer over his house and all that he owned he put in his charge.

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And it came about that from that time he made him overseer in his house and over all that

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he owned the Lord blessed the Egyptians house on account of Joseph.

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Thus the Lord's blessing was upon all that he owned in the house and in the field.

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So he left everything he owned in Joseph's charge.

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And with him there he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate.

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Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.

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The thing I want to write on your heart this morning is this, that personal integrity is

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essential to achieve positive significance.

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Will you just think about that for a moment with me?

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Personal integrity is essential to achieve positive significance.

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Now that's not only true for a president, it's true for a husband or a wife, for a father

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or mother.

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This statement is true of an employee or an employer, an executive or a blue collar worker.

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It is true of a student, it is true of a teacher, it is true of a sales clerk, it is true of

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a preacher.

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Character matters.

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Personal integrity is essential to achieve positive significance.

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Why does character matter?

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What difference does it make?

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Well I want you to notice with me first from Joseph's life we learn that character promises

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promotion.

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Character promises promotion.

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That's why it's important.

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What you say that you know of instances where people without integrity have been successful.

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Well we all know of cases like that.

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You see character does not guarantee promotion, nor does the lack of it necessarily prevent

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it.

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You see a fallen world like we live in does not always value character, but God does.

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And He will promote the man or the woman who is concerned about integrity.

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God has created a moral universe for us to live in and those who choose to live within

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His moral laws tend to succeed.

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In 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 6, well let me just back up into verse 5 from where He says,

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all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to

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the proud but gives grace to the humble.

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You see humility is a character quality that God is very concerned about in us.

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And so Peter says be humble.

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Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God.

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He says you don't have to be afraid about adding this character quality of humility

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to your life.

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You are under the mighty hand of God and He goes on to say He may exalt you at the proper

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time.

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Humble yourselves that He may exalt you at the proper time.

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Jesus said whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall

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be exalted.

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That is a moral principle in God's universe that when you and I are concerned about character

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in our lives God will take care of our promotion and our success in His own way and His own

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time.

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I want you to look at the success that came to Joseph.

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You see Joseph was a man of positive significance in Egypt.

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Joseph was a blessing to Potiphar and ultimately to all of Egypt.

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Now I want to quickly say regarding his success that the word makes clear that it came because

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God was with him three times.

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It says that in the text that we've already read and it will say it again before the end

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of the chapter.

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God was with Joseph and blessed him and made him a blessing.

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But the reason that God was with him and blessed him was this.

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Joseph was blessable.

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His life was in such a position before God that he was blessable.

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He is a man of sterling character as we saw last week in our study about life being unfair.

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Joseph did not complain about what had happened to him.

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We don't find him resisting the shackles of servanthood here.

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He responds positively.

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He responds with diligence and dependability and so God entrusted him with success.

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God knew that he could handle it.

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His character and his success became a testimony as we read to Potiphar.

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This Egyptian official who undoubtedly worshiped the gods of Egypt, which often included the

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Pharaoh himself, nonetheless had respect for the God of the Hebrews because of what he

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saw in Joseph.

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And so he gave Joseph even more responsibility.

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As a result of all of this, Potiphar's household was blessed because of Joseph's presence

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there.

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This is just a sliver of a fulfillment of Genesis 12-3 where God says to Abraham that

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through his descendants he would bless the nations of the earth.

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God is going to do that to Egypt with the great grandson of Abraham.

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God says in 1 Samuel 2.20, those who honor me, I will honor.

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Folks, character matters because character tends to make us successful.

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It promotes our lives in a positive way and makes us significant for God's use.

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Our culture accepts the idea of promotion based upon reputation or based upon deeds.

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But Christ assures us that real promotion is based upon character.

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And so he says, I will exalt you in due time when I see that you are concerned about character.

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Character may be likened to a kite string.

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A kite string holds that kite in place against the current of the wind.

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And because of the resistance that it provides, the kite rises.

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But snap the string at what happens.

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The kite goes with the current and down.

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Character is like that kite string that provides resistance against the current of our day.

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And that resistance causes us to rise.

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Character matters.

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There's a second reason that character matters that we see in the life of Joseph.

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It's the next paragraph of our text, verses 7 through 12.

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It is this that character protects in pressure.

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Notice.

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We've already read that Joseph was a handsome young man.

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And it says, it came about that after these events his master's wife looked with desire

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at Joseph.

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And she said, lie with me.

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But he refused and said to his master's wife, behold, with me here my master does not concern

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himself with anything in the house.

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And he has put all that he owns in my charge.

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There is no one greater in the house than I.

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And he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.

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How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?

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And it came about as she spoke to Joseph day after day that he did not listen to her to

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lie beside her or to be with her.

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Now it happened one day that he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of

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the household were there inside.

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And she caught him by the garment saying, lie with me.

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And he left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside.

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Character protects in pressure.

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Potifar, by the way, was the head of the Secret Service to Pharaoh.

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Those who think that private sins between consenting adults must be okay need to observe

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Joseph's response in this situation.

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Consider the temptation that came to this young man.

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What he was tempted with would have appealed to his humanness.

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Joseph was a man.

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It undoubtedly appealed to his sense for pleasure, though it be momentary.

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It may have seemed reasonable to him as well as it may have seemed reasonable to Mrs. Potifar.

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After all, he was a slave.

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Potifar owned him and therefore his wife owned him.

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He was their property.

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And so it could have been that Joseph would have reasoned this out.

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Well she owns me, therefore I must do this.

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Notice about the temptation that it was persistent.

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It wasn't a one-time occasion.

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It was day after day after day.

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And it finally intensified not only with a verbal invitation, but with her laying her

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hands on his clothing.

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What was suggested could have been done in secret.

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There was no one else in the house.

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It could have been done privately between consenting adults.

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But in fact, Joseph sees that it's wrong for him to do this.

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It was wrong because she is married to Potifar.

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It was wrong against his master.

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And it was a sin in the sight of God.

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Jonah said, character is what you are in the dark.

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It was very dark this day.

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And Joseph's character turns the light on.

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I want you to consider Joseph's refusal, what courage this young man had.

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He refused to sacrifice his character for a moment of sinful pleasure.

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And I'll tell you something, the wall around him, the wall of character was built before

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this temptation came.

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That's why I say character is so important because it protects us in pressure.

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It's too late to build the wall when the temptation comes.

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The wall was already there.

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Verse 25, 28 says, whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down

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without walls.

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Joseph was a walled city.

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He was in control of his spirit.

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Joseph had already answered in his mind what he would do in case this temptation ever came.

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I am sure of that.

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He had already prepared himself to resist sexual temptation so that when it came persistently

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and reasonably and appealingly, he could still say no.

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He could refuse.

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Joseph did what he ought to have done.

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He fled.

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The Apostle Paul tells us that we are to flee the evil lusts of youth.

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We are to flee them.

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We are not to play with temptation.

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We are to flee temptation.

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Too many of us try to tempt temptation.

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What we must do is to stay away from places of temptation.

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Joseph refused because this was a sin against his master and would have human consequences.

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But overarching that was his concern that this was a great evil in the sight of God.

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Warren Wearsby quotes a Puritan preacher who said, Joseph lost his coat but he kept his

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character.

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His character protected him.

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The battle for his will was won before he ever encountered Mrs. Potifar.

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Every stone that he built into his character became a wall that protected him here from

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this sin.

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Character is important.

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It tends to promote us.

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It protects us from temptation.

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Third, as we see in the last paragraph of our chapter, character perseveres in problems.

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Doing the right thing does not always bring praise.

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Sometimes when we do the right thing, it brings us troubles.

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But integrity will always bring us through that, a winner.

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Notice what happens.

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When Mrs. Potifar saw that he, Joseph, had left his garment in her hand and fled outside,

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she called to the men of her household and said to them, See, he has brought in a Hebrew

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to us, to make sport of us.

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He came into me to lie with me and I screamed.

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And it came about when he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, but he left his garment

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beside me and fled and went outside.

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She's lying through her teeth, of course.

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So she left his garment beside her until his master came home.

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And then she spoke to him with these words, the Hebrew slave.

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Notice twice she calls him a Jew.

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There's a dig there.

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There's some bias there.

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This Hebrew, this Hebrew slave whom you brought to us, came into me to make sport of me.

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And it happened as I raised my voice and screamed that he left his garment beside me and fled

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outside.

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And it came about when his master heard the words of his wife, which he spoke to him,

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saying, This is what your slave did to me.

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That his anger burned.

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And so Joseph's master took him and put him into the jail, a place where the king's prisoners

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were confined.

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And he was there in jail.

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But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him and gave him favor in the sight of

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the chief jailer.

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And the chief jailer committed to Joseph's charge all the prisoners who were in the jail.

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So that whatever was done there, he was responsible for it.

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The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph's charge because the Lord was

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with him.

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And whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper.

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Notice again that emphasis, the Lord was with Joseph.

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Character perseveres in problems.

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Joseph was the victim here of false accusation.

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Somebody says, Well, where there's smoke, there's fire.

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Somebody says, Behind every accusation there's a kernel of truth.

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Well those statements that we often hear are here proven false.

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It's frightening to consider, actually, isn't it, what evil can be accomplished through

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a lie?

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James 3, verse 5, says regarding the misuse of the tongue, Behold how great a forest is

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set aflame by such a small fire.

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Joseph was the victim of that small fire.

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But he was also a victor.

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He was a victor in his character.

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Notice he did not become resentful because of what happened.

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He did not defend himself, although he might have done so.

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But in not defending himself, he preserved the marriage, perhaps the life, of Mrs. Potifar.

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Notice that he did his duty while he was in the jail.

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He did it out of integrity, out of character.

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And the result of his character was so evident there that he persevered in his problems.

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In fact, he rose right to the top again because of character.

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Folks, character matters.

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I hope you can see that in our text.

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It promises promotion.

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It doesn't guarantee it.

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But when you and I are concerned about character, God will take care of exalting us in due

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time.

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Character protects in pressure.

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When the temptations come against us, it's like a wall that is there that strengthens

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and enables us to refuse temptation.

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Character causes us to persevere in our problems.

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So in the midst of our difficulties, our character causes us to rise again.

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How do you build character?

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Well I want to compare building character to building a house.

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I think it's like building a house in certain respects.

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When you build a house, the first thing you have to do is find the blueprint.

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Yes, you have to find and then follow a blueprint.

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You have to understand what you want to build.

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The blueprint for character, certainly for every Christian, is the Lord Jesus Christ.

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That is made abundantly clear throughout the Bible, but just let me remind you of one

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text, Hebrews chapter 12.

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He talks about the sin that so easily entangles us, we're to lay that aside, the weights we're

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to put aside and run the race.

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And he says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

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Jesus is the one we're to look to.

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He is the blueprint.

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He is the image to which we must be conformed.

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It is a popular thing right now, especially for young people to wear a bracelet that has

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the initials W.W.J.D. on it.

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What would Jesus do?

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That is a very good question.

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I fear too often it becomes only a piece of jewelry, but it is significant.

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What would Jesus do?

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What is the blueprint for what Jesus would do in this case?

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Now when I talk about building character, I want to make something very, very clear.

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We do not build our character in order to attain salvation.

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Salvation doesn't come to us by trying to be better people, by trying to be good, by

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trying to be like Jesus.

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You see salvation is a free gift that God gives us by grace that we could never earn.

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Salvation is a gift that we receive.

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God has already paid for that gift.

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It comes to us as a gift from God.

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And our responsibility is to receive it by faith and invite Jesus Christ to come into

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our lives as our Savior and Lord.

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And here we're talking about something different.

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It's building character, particularly as a Christian.

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This work of building character comes out of salvation.

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And the first thing we have to do is find the blueprint.

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Find the blueprint.

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Jesus is our blueprint.

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Secondly, we need to take an inventory.

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If you're going to build a house, you need to see what you have already in place.

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And that's what you have to do when you think about building character.

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What is already there?

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Now with all of us, undoubtedly, when we take an honest inventory of ourselves, there's

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going to be great cause for honest confession and repentance.

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Because we have all placed into our characters things that ought not to be there that are

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not useful for building the house according to the blueprint of Jesus.

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And so we need to acknowledge those things in our lives.

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We need to confess them as sin.

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We need to see where the wall is broken down, is it where?

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We need to flee some things in our lives.

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The second thing we need to do is to see what we have to work with as we go about this work

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of building character.

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Third, we need to get the right materials.

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You have to do that for a house.

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You have to order it from the lumber yard or from somewhere.

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Have it delivered so that you can build with it.

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What are the materials by which we build character?

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Well, obviously, the first thing out of the chute is the Word of God.

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We build with the Word of God.

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As we look into this book, it says in Corinthians, it has the very power to transform us into

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the image of the blueprint.

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The Word of God is one of the means of grace that God gives to us.

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But there's the fellowship also of the church.

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Being with other believers, being discipled within the context of Christ's body, we can

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get wisdom from godly books of authors.

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There is the building block of accountable relationships with other people, finding that

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one or two or three other persons that we can be very honest and transparent with.

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There is the building block of time with God in prayer.

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There's the building block of the consecration of our hearts, our possessions, our time,

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our money, our influence to God.

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That needs to be in place.

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These are the building materials.

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We need to get them in place.

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And then finally, we simply need to go to work.

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We need to go to work.

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It requires self-discipline to build character.

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It doesn't happen automatically.

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We exert our will toward that end, and then we must depend upon the energy of the Holy

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Spirit to keep us working in the right direction.

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We exert our will, then the Holy Spirit enables us.

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He moves us in the right direction.

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He gives us the energy to build character and it's slow work.

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Building a house is slow.

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I talked to someone this week who's been building a house for several months.

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They were supposed to be in a month ago.

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Now that's the same old story here so often.

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It's going to be yet another month, and then we'll see.

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It's slow to build a house.

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There are complications in building a house.

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There's one board upon another.

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There's one brick after another.

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But eventually, eventually it's there.

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That's the way it is with character.

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You don't build character overnight.

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You can get a reputation overnight, but you're not going to get character overnight.

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It takes time and energy and hard work by the Spirit of God to do it.

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But does it make any difference?

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Oh, yes it does.

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This idea that character doesn't matter is a lie.

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It does matter.

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I believe that character is at the very root of a civilized society.

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Without personal character, civilization and order break down.

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This is what happened to the Roman Empire.

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Social integrity was laid aside and eventually the whole empire, strong as it was, was undermined.

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Today we have sincere legislators and congresspeople who are calling upon more laws to be made

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about this and about that to try to get people to behave responsibly.

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Folks, no government can pass enough laws to preserve people who have no moral integrity.

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I want to repeat that.

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No government can pass enough laws to preserve people who have no moral integrity.

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Our Constitution, the basis of our Democratic Republic, has preserved us for more than 200

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years.

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The Constitution, however, was predicated upon a citizenry committed to the morality

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that comes out of the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

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The Constitution, I want to repeat that, was predicated upon a citizenry committed to the

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morality that comes out of the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

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And without that basis, the Constitution ultimately will not work.

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Eventually our governmental system will break down entirely because of the lack of character

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in the people of America.

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That's why it is so dangerous for this lie to be repeated over and over again that character

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doesn't matter, yet it pulls everything that we hold sacred.

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Personal integrity lays a foundation for you personally to achieve positive significance.

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People can be significant without character.

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No question about that, but I'm talking about positive significance.

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Doing something that will benefit mankind, something that will bless people, for those

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of us who trust the God of Abraham, character is necessary so that we might be a blessing

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to the nations of the world.

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One final thought is this, that character is one thing that you build in this world

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that will carry you into the next.

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You will take your character with you when you expire.

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So friend, it matters.

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Character matters.

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Write it on your heart and never forget it.

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Let's pray.

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Our Father and our God, we humble ourselves in the face of a message like this because

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if we're honest and take that inventory, there are chinks in the armor of all of us.

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There are places where the stones in the wall either have not been put into place or have

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been knocked out, we all have work to do.

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And so we humble ourselves in confession and repentance.

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Let me pause right there in my prayer from home and give you an opportunity to talk to

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the Lord about whatever that may mean in your life.

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Where is the wall not in place?

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Father, having talked with you about that, be it even briefly, many of us here today

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consecrate ourselves to get back to the blueprint, to begin employing the materials at hand,

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to work hard in the energy of the Holy Spirit to build the walls of our lives.

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I pray that we may be men and women like Joseph who can be a blessing because we're

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blessable.

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We are people of character in Christ's name.

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Amen.

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Would you stand together with me please?

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I'd like to sing just a verse or two of a closing song.

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I think you know the word, just 371 if you need it, but I'd like for us to close our

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eyes and just pray it from our hearts as we sing, have thine own way, Lord.

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Let God build you today.

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Let's pray as we sing.

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Have thine own way, Lord.

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Have thine own way.

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Thou art the Potter.

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I am the clay.

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Mold me and make me.

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After thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and stewed.

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Lord search us and try us, wider than snow make us as we humbly bow in your presence.

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As we go, I pray that you will write upon our hearts how important personal integrity

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is so that we might achieve the positive significance you want us to have in the world, in Christ's

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name.

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Amen.