Honor
Notes
Transcript
Today we are starting a brand new series where we will be exploring virtues. We are going to look at what it takes to have true virtue in a world who’s values are often the antithesis of God’s values. In the coming weeks, we will be talking about integrity, loyalty, and gratitude, but for today we are going to study “Honor.”
Has everyone here heard the term “Cancel Culture?” The term has been used for a while to describe people who boycott or shun large groups of people, such as politicians or religious groups. It used to be that you would only really see this happening to public figures or at least outspoken people, however, in the last few years it has become more common practice to cancel anyone you don’t agree with.
Some say we are living in “The Age of Perpetual Offence.” In other words, everybody is always offended by somebody else. It’s not just public figures anymore, if ANYONE says something we don’t like, we are quick to judge, criticize, condemn, and cancel them. It doesn’t matter if they are a politician, athlete, business leader, celebrity, spiritual leader, school teacher, co-worker, or a Facebook friend.
There is no “3 strikes rule” either. All we need is a single misstatement or sin, and someone who may have had years of integrity can be canceled in a flash. We could have been friends since grade school, but because we don’t like the way the other person voted… CANCELLED! Don’t like someone’s post on social media? Cancel them! Don’t like someone’s opinion at church? Cancel them!
If someone says something you don’t like, shut them up. In today’s world, even in this country where we have protected free speech, forcing someone not to speak has become the common and expected thing to do. Why? Because it is easy to be offended. Here is the simple truth…
If you are on a continuous search to be offended, you’ll always find what you’re looking for.
The way we are called to live by God is completely different. Our virtue for today is “honor.” Somebody say “honor…”
Romans 12:10 (NIV)
10 … Honor one another above yourselves.
Scripture says to show honor to someone else even above yourselves. In our culture, this is one of the most important yet overlooked virtues that matters to God.
If you have your bible and want to follow along, we are going to look at a story in chapter 6 of Mark. While you turn there, let me give you a little context to the story. Jesus was travelling around teaching and performing miracles. Just before this story He had set a man free who was possessed by demons. There were so many of them that they called themselves Legion.
After that, Jesus healed a woman who had suffered from a condition for many years. She had spent all of her money on doctors who couldn’t heal her while she only got worse. Simply by her faith in Jesus, He healed her.
This encounter happened while Jesus was on His way to help a young girl who was about to die. In fact, she did die while Jesus walked to her house. Jesus told the dead girl to get up, and BOOP, she popped up out of bed and walked around.
Jesus’ next stop was His hometown…
1 Jesus left that part of the country and returned with his disciples to Nazareth, his hometown. 2 The next Sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?” 3 Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. 4 Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.”
In His hometown, Jesus was without honor. In New Testament scripture, two Greek words are used to describe someone who is honored versus someone who is without honor… (atimos - “ah-tee-mas”) (time - “ti-may”)
Without Honor
atimos - to dishonor; to treat as common, or ordinary.
Honor
time - to value, respect, or highly esteem; to treat as precious, weighty, or valuable.
What does HONOR do? It esteems, cherishes, values, builds up, believes the best! On the other hand, what does DISHONOR do? It treats as common, tears down, devalues, it assumes the worst.
It’s a lot like a guy dating a girl that he really likes. What does he do? He will show her honor! He opens the door for her, brings her gifts, compliments her, takes her out, brags about her to all of his friends, posts pictures of her on social media with all the gushy hash tags. After they get married he might begin to settle in. He slowly begins taking her for granted. Instead of opening doors, taking her out, and treating her special, he starts treating her as ordinary.
Honor and dishonor. Want a special, God-honoring marriage? Honor one another above yourself. Want a common marriage? Treat each other as ordinary. When you do, even something that was once special will become common.
There is a story of a husband and wife who were exactly like this. They started out with a great marriage, but over time they started struggling. They decided to go to marriage counseling with their pastor and his wife and in the first session the wife started badmouthing and complaining about the husband. Finally, the pastors wife interrupted her and said, “Do you realize that this whole time you have just been tearing your husband down. You need to stop it right now!”
The lady responded, “If my husband was half of the man yours is, maybe I’d show him honor.” Not backing down, the pastor’s wife said, “Maybe my husband is the man he is because I’ve been honoring him since the day I met him.”
Here is the common mistake that we tend to make. We tend to think that when someone is honorable, then I will show them honor. Once you act in a way that deserves honor, that’s when I will start to show you honor. What we must realize is that there is a BIG difference between respect and honor…
Respect is earned. Honor is given.
It’s a posture of the heart. It is a kind of humility to give someone honor when they haven’t done anything to earn it. To say, “God I want to honor you by honoring someone above myself.” What is crazy is that when you ascribe honor to someone, they will often become honorable. Why? Because honor builds up, and dishonor tears down.
Notice what happened to Jesus in the story we read. When the people realized who He was they scoffed! “He’s just a carpenter. Nothing special. He’s just ordinary. He’s that annoying kid in class that knew all the answers and the teachers loved.”
They scoffed. They were offended. They were looking for reasons to be offended. It’s not much different today. This week, my friend had to go baseball bat shopping. What is crazy about this story is WHY he had to shop for a new bat. If you are thinking that it was to bonk skulls, you are way off! He had to go buy an expensive bat for his kids to play baseball because they were getting scoffed at for playing with a Walmart bat. Their team mates were offended at their bats so they made fun of them.
God calls us to honor first. We aren’t going to wait until someone earns honor, we are going to honor God by honoring others more than ourselves. So who does God call us to honor? We are going to look at the four categories of people scripture calls us to honor…
Who Are We Called To Honor? First, and most obvious, we are called to honor God…
Honor God
Honor God
It should be obvious, but I still have to be told. So how do I honor God? Proverbs says this…
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce.
We honor God with our wealth. I love the way this verse is worded in the New Living Translation. It’s not something we do out of debt to God, we give Him the best part of everything we produce! He gave everything for us, so how could we not show Him honor in this way. Not because He has earned it, but because I want to honor God and give Him my best effort. My best worship. I want to honor Him in my marriage, with my first fruits, and with my body. 1 Corinthians mentions honoring God in this way as well…
19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
We are called to honor God. Who else does God call us to honor?
Our parents
Our parents
Some of you may be able to quote this verse word for word because you learned it on the other end of a finger, or maybe you drilled it into your children’s heads…
12 “Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
This might make me sound old fashioned, but I think one of the biggest problems this country faces today is that parents aren’t teaching this truth at home. Too many parents want to be best friends with their children and they aren’t teaching honor at home. Is it any surprise to us that, twenty or thirty years later, they grow up and show zero honor outside of the home or even with their own children and spouses? Do we really think that our children will grow up to honor their boss at work if they never knew what it meant to show honor to their parents?
The other day I saw a video online that was funny, but at the same time it was kinda difficult to watch. Looking back, it may have only been funny because of the British accents. In the video, a young boy was yelling in argument with his dad about being on the “naughty list.” His dad told him that Santa called and told him that his boy needed to be nice in order to get off the bad list, but it only made the boy angry. He did the hands on hips thing, the pointing thing, the stomping between each word thing, all while angrily yelling, “I. Am. Not. On. The. Naughty. List!”
We aren’t called to be our kid’s best friends. We are called to be spiritual authority imparting life unto them. Teaching them to honor in the home so they’ll know how to honor throughout their whole life. Teaching them how to experience the blessing of honoring and building up those who are around them.
We are called to honor God, honor our parents, third we are called to honor…
Those in authority
Those in authority
Even the ones we disagree with. We can disagree without dishonoring. We are called to pray for our leaders. Both the ones we agree with and the ones we disagree with.
7 Give to everyone what you owe them: Pay your taxes and government fees to those who collect them, and give respect and honor to those who are in authority.
In the Old Testament, David was being chased by Saul because Saul wanted to kill him. What did David do? He still honored Saul. Honor God, honor our parents, honor those in authority, and scripture also teaches us to honor…
Our spiritual leaders
Our spiritual leaders
You all know me well enough by now to know that I don’t even want you to think of me on this one. However, I do want to take the opportunity to point out the fact that there are a lot of people who participate in the affairs of the church, as timothy describes it here…
17 The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.
Every church has many people that keep the wheels turning and even though our church is small we have those people too. People that clean, bring supplies, volunteer when we need someone to watch kids, setup the coffee stuff, run the sound booth, teach when I am gone, teach/guide/encourage me, and so-on. All of these duties exist to serve the people who come in to worship and we don’t want to forget to show them honor because what they do matters.
Why Does Honor Matter?
Why Does Honor Matter?
It’s not just the right thing to do. It doesn’t only matter because God said we should honor others. It matters because honoring someone builds them up, but dishonor actually hurts you. If we can go back to our story when Jesus is scoffed, what happened because of the dishonor?
4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” 5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.
Notice what it does NOT say. It doesn’t say that Jesus WOULD NOT. Scripture says that He COULD NOT! This is crazy because we know that Jesus was capable of healing people because He just came from doing it. He just healed a woman and raised a dead girl back to life, but now, in this place, He could not.
I don’t want to pretend that I know exactly what is going on here, but what seems clear is that, for whatever reason, the lack of honor and lack of faith limited what Jesus would have done in His hometown. That is a striking thought to ponder! I wonder what Jesus wanted to do in my life, but I lacked the faith and the honor that would allow Him to do His work.
What blessings did He want to give? What prayers did God want to answer? What has God been unable to do in my life because of a lack of honor? Not because He was punishing me or didn’t want the best for me, but He simply “could not do any miracles there.”
We kicked off with this verse…
Romans 12:10 (NIV)
10 … Honor one another above yourselves.
The ESV translates that verse this way, and I love this thought…
Romans 12:10 (ESV)
10 … Outdo one another in showing honor.
In the movie, “So I married an Axe Murderer” there is a scene where the main characters are eating in a diner. When the waitress brings the check, both Charlie and Tony reach for it and start arguing about who gets to pay for the check. That is the kind of “outdo honor attitude” we are meant to have. You and the spouse come home from work and it’s been a long day for both of you, but you are still trying to outdo each other with the honor.
You do something to give your server a break. You open your home to an event that normally happens at someone else’s house. You give your kid’s coach a gift card to a nice quiet restaurant so he can take a break from all of the chaos. You take a home cooked meal to the local fire department.
If you want a great marriage you will always be trying to outdo your spouse. Instead of self-esteem, you will have a spouse-esteem! Out-serving your spouse. Out pampering! I am only going on about this because I am trying to get Amy on board with it!
Actually, Amy is the best. She always tries very hard to honor me. She definitely does better at it than I do. We get along well, though. In fact, I try not to call her during the day because we always end up on the phone for too long just saying, “I love you more!” “No, I love you more!” We just can’t get anything done.
We don’t want to be known for fostering the cancel culture. We want to be a culture that honors. Honors our parents. Honors our spouses. Honors those who serve us, whether it is at a restaurant or in another country risking their lives by running into danger. Here in this building, we want to honor each other more than ourselves.
More than anything I want to honor Jesus. I don’t want to be someone who treats God as familiar, common, and ordinary. I don’t want to be someone Jesus described in Matthew as giving God lip service when He quoted from Isaiah saying…
8 ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
He is not just the “Big Guy in the Sky.” He’s not my Homeboy. Not my co-pilot. He IS the Risen King of Kings and Lord of Lords! The Prince of Peace! The Alpha and Omega! He is the Lamb of God! He’s my Redeemer. My Savior. My Lord. My King!
We honor God by honoring His people because His name is on them. YOU are not common or ordinary. You bear His name! I want to close with this story…
Everyone knows who Babe Ruth is, right? I don’t know much about sports, but I know that he is considered the greatest homerun hitter of all time. During his life, he autographed tons of baseballs, but he only ever signed seven homerun bats. For decades, one of the seven bats was lost. In 2006 it resurfaced. This bat was used to hit a homerun in 1923 and given away as a homerun contest prize.
In 1988, the man who had the bat was sick on his deathbed and had no living relatives so he offered the bat to his nurse who served and honored him. For the next eighteen years she kept the bat under her bed. After she retired from nursing she wanted to open a restaurant, but she didn’t have the money. That’s when she thought of the bat. So she took it to a local memorabilia shop to sell it.
The owner was shocked when he verified that it was the missing Bambino bat. In 2006, she auctioned it off for almost $1.3 million. She used a portion of the money to start a restaurant, and then she donated the rest to a foundation for children that was close to Babe Ruth’s heart. This is what she said…
“The bat was only valuable because Babe Ruth’s name was on it. Since he made it valuable, the only reasonable thing I could do was something that would honor his life.” - Marcia Napoli-Tejeda
As Christians, what makes us valuable is the name of Christ. The only reasonable thing we can do is live in a way that honors Him. How do we honor Christ? By honoring one another above ourselves.