Worthy of Honor
"Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves." (Romans 12:10, NIV) [1]
1. Soldiers serve as “living sacrifices.
Today we remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. We’ve seen pictures of young men and women whose lives have been laid down for others that they would never know or see. I have thought so many times that enlisting in the armed forces or becoming a police officer is a calling that is in keeping with the scripture in Romans 12:1,2.
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." (Romans 12:1-2, NIV) [2]
A living sacrifice, Paul calls it. Your life becomes someone else’s property. Your assignment becomes someone else’s discretion. One of the things that makes the personal lives of these people so difficult is that everything else takes second place. Even the ultimate meaning of your life is in someone else’s hands. That is so difficult – to allow someone else to determine what my life means here on this earth. As I have gotten older this question has become increasingly more important to me. What is the ultimate meaning of my life. I’m hoping that there will be a lasting message in it for someone. I ask it in the days when it seems that most of what I do has little to do with what I feel called to do. But then I remember that if I am truly a “living sacrifice” as followers of God are asked to be, then the sacrifice does not determine its own end or meaning.
There are many parallels between what is required of a soldier of Canada and a soldier of the cross. Perhaps in honoring those living veterans and those currently serving, we can remind ourselves of what it means to call ourselves Christian.
Today we try to remember what most soldiers would like to forget. I have watched in recent years, two movies that have helped me to connect with these men in a way that I have never been able to do previously. Those movies of course were: “Saving Private Ryan” and “Flags of Our Fathers”. They were shocking and graphic in their bird’s eye portrayal of the horrors of war. What is the most horrific is that it probably doesn’t even approach the reality that lives in the minds of some of these soldiers for the rest of their lives.
It’s not the carnage that we want to remember but those lost in the process. The lives spent for the greater cause. These men see the faces of their fallen comrades and they mourn as they remember.
So this is a painful day for those that we honor today. How do we honor them in this pain? Perhaps as we might if we were attending funeral. We provide presence today. For a few minutes together in our service we look to something far deeper than words and we stand by and we allow the protocols of remembrance to provide something for these soldiers. They will never hold the significance for us that they hold for these today.
What is the significance for us? How can God work in our hearts today?
2. It is an exercise in character building when we honor others.
I believe that whenever we choose to participate in something simply because we know that it is the right thing to do, that this is a part of the process of character building. It is one of those times that we tap into the greater source of motivation. There is something that we feed that becomes stronger and of more significance when our will drives us.
So much of our lives are emotionally fueled. And yet this fuel is so insufficient if we are to learn to live life well.
I have to confess to you that I had a bad week at this level. It started on Monday morning at 3:30. I woke up and the hamster got on his wheel and he took off as hard as he could go. I wanted to reach out and strangle him, but I couldn’t get hold of him. I flopped around in the bed for an hour or so and then gave up. Got in the car and drove downtown to Queens Square. I thought I might perhaps run the little rodent to death. So we took off – me, the rodent and God. The wheel was whirring and I was whining. I was thinking about an unresolved situation or two that was hanging over my head. And the craziest thing of all, I was remembering last Sunday morning, looking out over more empty seats than I like seeing, at least it seemed that way to me.
The all too human part of me kicked in and I was feeling sorry for myself. In the midst of my running I was graciously stopped up by a slap in the forehead. I mean that when I describe it that way. Suddenly you hear yourself and you hear what God is trying to tell you and there is this wash of shame that breaks over you followed by a true picture of your heart and then this amazing reassurance that regardless of how off track we become at times we are deeply loved.
I had a “God-answer” in my early morning run/prayer time. God asked me – forgive the mystical reference. That is a problem for some people when you say that God spoke. It’s not a problem for me however. I didn’t hear the response with my ears – it was far deeper than that. It was something that I felt in my inner self. The response was, “How many times have you laid awake at night when I haven’t showed up on Sunday AM?”
You see I find comfort on Sunday am when the crowds are up. Sorry to confess to this bit of superficiality – I see it in me and I wish I could tell you that it doesn’t matter but it does. On Sundays when the numbers are good, I guess I have a better day.
But God was asking me about Him . . . about how I felt on the Sundays when His Presence was not so obvious. He wanted to know if the Sundays when He was not so obviously present, affected me as much as the up and down attendance stats did. I got the message. At least some times, people mattered to me more than God.
3. It is possible to be addicted to emotional highs. We come to believe that this is what we should expect as a matter of normalcy.
And at an emotional level, I was an addict. I wanted to feel good. And when I didn’t have the good feelings, I had the bad ones and they were disturbing me enough that my everyday perspective was governed by them.
You know, that is not the way that God would have us to live.
There are times when faith calls us to obey God when the emotional tank is empty or when it’s full of the wrong kinds of emotion. The bottom line is that when we refuse to allow ourselves to be governed by the way that we are feeling, we are running on a higher grade of fuel. It’s something that will keep us moving, something that gives us much better mileage over the long haul.
Ministry is giving when you feel like keeping, praying for others when you need to be prayed for, feeding others when your own soul is hungry, living truth before people even when you can't see results, hurting with other people even when your own hurt can't be spoken, keeping your word even when it is not convenient, it is being faithful when your flesh wants to run away.
-- John A. Holt, Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 1.
It is that fuel that we call on today as we enter into this service of Remembrance. We are not suggesting that you try to find emotional fuel for this act today, we are asking that you participate fully with your mind leading the way.
4. There are times when other aspects of our “being” must become our primary guidance system.
The scripture tells us that we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Sometimes our heart leads the way and other times our minds lead the way.
Sometimes our human strength goes first and other times when God touches our soul, we go forward with a strength of connectedness to God that we cannot fully understand or explain.
Paul writes to Timothy the following words:
"Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 2:3, NIV)[3]
To endure means to press on when you feel like quitting. Hardship is the absence of things that make our way easier or our experience easier. Or just plainly the presence of difficulties. To push through the situations, the problems, the difficulties that would otherwise cause us to call it quits.
And sometimes there is no option. There is nothing that we can do except to “hang on”.
Sir Winston Churchill said, "If you're going through hell, keep going."
5. You know, without resistance, there would be no challenge. A lack of resistance creates atrophy.
When we want to increase our strength we do resistance training. In other words, hardship makes us better. It reveals our weak spots. It shows us the areas where we are likely to fail the test so that we can adequately prepare ourselves when the test is real. And we will be no more in our living than we are in our training. We cannot perform at a level that is higher than our training.
6. Submission to God is a pre-cursor to overcoming temptation.
Look at some “training scriptures with me:
"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7, NIV)[4]
I
think we do it backwards. We submit to the Devil and resist God and then wonder why our experience of spiritual realities is substandard.
The Bible doesn’t say that you need to beat the Devil – it just says, put up a resistance. Don’t go willingly.
"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings." (1 Peter 5:8-9, NIV) [5]
There are times when I wonder about the level of resistance that I am able to mount in my own life. I remember the Desert Storm campaign in the 80’s I think and the pictures of Iraqi soldiers surrendering en masse to the invading forces.
There are times when I am taken captive all too easily to lesser forces that encroach on my life.
Most people want to be delivered from temptation but would like to keep in touch.
-- Robert Orbin
I would have to say that as much as anything else temptation reveals my divided heart. The things that I tolerate will one day become a great force in my life. The diligence that I apply to keep my heart free from other loves will preserve a singleness of intent that may be the thing that keeps me from spiritual ruin.
Much of success in resisting temptation, in reigning in a divided heart comes from the idea of delayed gratification. It’s not that God says no for no good reason. More often, his “no” is “not now”. It is, “I have something far better than this for you.” There are times when He is simply protecting us from something that would bring unwanted consequence to us.
"By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward." (Hebrews 11:24-26, NIV) [6]
For Moses, the choice was short term pain for long term gain. Temptation beaten comes from a definite belief that God has something much better for us than our own attempts to secure the things that we think we need or are entitled to.
John Piper calls it “living by faith in future grace”.
Look further into Chapter 11 of Hebrews.
"These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. " (Hebrews 11:39-40, NIV) [7]
You see, if you understand the heart of God you know that life, even the uglier parts can become the raw material for your ultimate good.
So there are those times when overcoming temptation becomes little more than a choice between trusting God and trusting our desires, our compulsions. Some of life’s greatest rewards are those that come to us at a point when we can fully enjoy and appreciate them.
Like the soldier who courageously faces the moment of truth with nothing more than the knowledge that someone he may never know, may find something greater in life for his/her sacrifice.
Do you suppose that would be difficult? I think it would be terribly so. It’s one thing to sacrifice yourselves for those closest to us but another to lay down your life for a complete stranger or a person that you would never meet or know at any level. If you are like me, you won’t even stop to pick up a stranger on the highway.
I caught myself today thinking that it is hard to remember with honor and deep gratitude what we have never known, . . . people that we have never known. Perhaps so at one level but not nearly so hard as dying for something that we would never know or people that we would never know.
The mantra of our day is, “What’s in it for me?” It’s the same kind of “me-first” mentality that leaves the shopping cart in the parking lot to run up against someone else’s vehicle. It’s the same mentality that tosses our garbage on the ground rather than taking time to find a container. Perhaps it’s the reason that our fisheries are in such bad shape and perhaps the reason that our insurance rates are high. Have we forgotten the necessity of living in such a way that the next generation is blessed by our concern and forethought rather than cursed by it’s obvious absence in our own lives. Yeah . . . we do it for our family . . . for people we know. That’s the easy part. We could do that whether we called ourselves Christians or Superlapsarians.
“When you're ready to pay the price, only then can you truly enjoy and appreciate the benefits. If you get the reward without making the effort, it might look good, it might feel good, it might seem good. But it won't do you much good. It won't teach you or compel you to grow stronger as a person.
Have you ever played on a sports team that won a game by forfeit, because the other team did not show up? It's an empty victory. Sure, it goes in the win column, but it feels more like a defeat. After all, even though the goal is to win, the whole point is to play the game. Is the point of life to collect trophies? The trophies have value only when they represent the effort you have made and the person you have become. Seeking to obtain the rewards of life without paying the price is like buying someone else's trophies at a garage sale. They may look impressive on your shelf but they bring no fulfillment and have no meaning. Which would you rather have -- the fruit or the tree? The fruit is gone after you eat it once. But the tree continues to provide fruit, season after season. The fruits of success are a poor substitute for actually living a life that brings success. Don't just grab the fruit and run. Take the time to plant and nurture the tree by paying the price and making the effort. Then you'll have all the fruit you could possibly need.
A sacrifice is an offering placed before the Lord so that he can make something of it. Once offered it is in God's hand to do with what he will. It is no longer in your hands to improve a little more. ... His will is to work with offerings, not your perfections or your press clippings. Just leave it. You have lived your day; now leave it on the alter, an offering.”
-- Eugene Peterson in Answering God. Christianity Today, Vol. 35, no. 4.
Illustrations:
There is a story to the effect that a certain society in South Africa once wrote to David Livingstone, "Have you found a good road to where you are? If so, we want to send other men to join you."
Livingstone replied, "If you have men who will come ONLY if they know there is a good road, I don't want them."
People often discuss the importance of delayed gratification; what do you mean when you talk about "displaced gratification"?
In delayed gratification, we put off something so that we can enjoy something even better later on--avoiding a "sex life" before marriage, for instance, so that we can more fully enter into a deeper love of the marital union. In displaced gratification, we put off something so that the gratification can go to somebody else. Within marriage, for example, we put our spouse's needs ahead of our own.
When William Booth finally left the Salvation Army, he sent a one-word telegram to every member of his army. That one word embodied the guiding principle of Booth's life: "Others."
What is the reward of displaced gratification?
The man or woman who understands delayed and displaced gratification realizes that "others" are what it's all about. Instead of demanding our rights and satisfaction, we can work for the rights of others, we can find fulfillment in seeing other people satisfied, and we can serve instead of trying to conquer. Displaced gratification is the oil that keeps our society running smoothly.
Where do you draw inspiration to live this way?
Learning to put the needs of others above your own is the "displaced gratification" my father taught me about. The ultimate understanding of displaced gratification is reflected in the life of Christ, who gave up heaven for earth, who could have been crowned king, and who could have called ten thousand angels to rescue Him from the cross. Instead He accepted brutal, humiliating torture on our behalf. He put serving others ahead of serving His own needs.
-- John Ashcroft, former governor of Missouri, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994. He is author of Lessons from a Father to His Son. Men of Integrity, Vol. 1, no. 2.
See: Php 2:6-7; 1 Jn 3:16.
LOVE SACRIFICE - By Kathi Kingma
Going to an affluent high school wasn’t easy. I watched with envy as many of the “rich” kids drove their parents’ sports cars and bragged about where they bought their designer clothes. I knew there was never a chance for me to compete with their wealthy status, but I also knew that it was a near crime if you wore the same outfit twice in the same month.
Coming from a family of five, with a tight budget, allowed us little hope for style. That didn’t stop me from badgering my parents that I needed more fashionable clothes. My mother would frown at me. “Do you need them?”
“Yes,” I would say adamantly “I need them.”
So shopping we would go. My mom waited outside the dressing room while I tried on the nicest clothes we could afford. I can recall several of these “necessity trips.” Mom always went without complaining, never trying anything on for herself, though she’d look.
One day, when I was at home, I tried on one of my new outfits and modeled it in front of my parents’ full-length mirror. As I was deciding what shoes looked best with the outfit, my eyes wandered to their closet, which was partially open. What I saw brought tears to my eyes. Three shirts hung on my mom’s side of the closet. Three shirts that she’d worn endlessly and were old and faded. I pulled open the closet farther to see a few work shirts of my dad’s that he’d worn for years. It had been ages since they bought anything for themselves, though their need was greater than mine.
That moment opened my eyes to see the sacrifices my parents had made over the years, sacrifices that showed me their love more powerfully than any words they could have said.
Never forget the nine most important words of any family—
I love you.
You are beautiful.
Please forgive me.
—H. Jackson Brown, ft
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[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[3] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[4] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[5] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[6] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[7] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.