Honouring Others

Specific vs General

A cursory view of Christian Living books at Christianbook.com shows that there are plenty of books to help us live the Christian life. There are books on discerning God’s will, there’s how to have purpose in your life, or that your life already has purpose. There are self-help books, ten or twelve-step books, all kinds of books to help you discover God’s will for your life, how to be a good Christian and how to manoeuvre life’s hills and valleys.

Often these books are full of good things, and many have been beneficial to people. But there’s still nothing like reading the Bible. When people ask, “What does God want me to do about so and so, or should I marry this person, or should I make this decision, or do this that or the other thing, at times they can become paralysed with worry.

They worry that a: God has a plan for their life, but they’re not following it. Or that God has a plan, but they just haven’t figured it out yet. They sit around doing nothing, afraid to do the wrong thing.

God is not usually so specific. Yes, there were times when God told individuals what to do and that instruction is written down in the scriptures. But those are specific individuals in specific times and places. It is never a good idea to try to discern God’s will for your life from just one Bible verse. And when you think of those specific instructions for those specific individuals, there were thousands, hundreds of thousands of individuals who did not receive such instructions from God, but who lived their lives nevertheless, presumably to God’s honour and glory.

So what does that mean for us?

It means that even though God doesn’t necessarily give us specific instructions for our lives, such as what career to pursue, whom to marry, where to live what kind of car to drive, he still gives us enough of a general picture to keep us well occupied.

Actually, we’ve been looking at these general instructions for several weeks now. They are the Ten Commandments. This afternoon, we’re studying God’s will for our lives in how we relate to one another.

Most Difficult

The command, “Do not bear false testimony” has to be one of the most difficult to obey. Did you notice how the catechism treated it? It includes court testimony, that’s rather obvious. But it also refers to gossip and slander.

It is so easy to slip into either of these. It is very difficult to honour another person’s character. It is difficult to know exactly when we slide from sharing cares and concerns to gossiping about another person.

People are not the only thing we can disparage. We can also disparage businesses, churches, institutions and governments.

But how can we know God’s will in guarding ourselves from gossip and slander? How can we know God’s will in honouring the 9th commandment?

Let’s spend the afternoon looking at this passage in Peter.

Before we begin, let us remind ourselves of what Peter has already taught. We are to submit to Christ, and in submitting to Christ, we also submit to others, a wife submits to her husband, a husbands honours his wife, church members to each other, etc. Our passage follows from that principle.

First Submit to Christ

The reality is that we cannot begin to follow any of Peter’s instructions unless we are first submitting to Christ. And this means that we give ourselves over to Christ. We surrender our will, our desires, our attitudes, everything. Jesus is not just our Saviour; he’s also our Lord. And, because of what Jesus did, living, dying, rising from the dead, we’re willing and ready, from now on to live for him.

So, then, live in harmony with each other. Often, it seems like it might be a good idea to start small, and have something harder as a goal. But Peter pretty much sets the bar sky high, and says, “begin here.”

Live in harmony. How do we do that? Again, it comes out of first submitting to Christ, then submitting to each other. There’s a lot of confusion on what this means. Some say that harmony means thinking exactly the same way, all of the time.

I would like to think that I am living in harmony with the rest of the Christian Reformed Denomination, even though I disagree with some of her decisions. It is possible to disagree, and still think that people are being faithful to the scriptures.

Live in Harmony

For instance, I have no problem meeting with the pastors of other churches in town even though they practise believer’s baptism. I think they are wrong, but I’m glad that they baptise. Apparently, some churches aren’t even doing that anymore, because it is too controversial.

Living in harmony is showing respect even when you disagree. But it is much more than that. Living in harmony, honouring the 9th commandment, means speaking well of those whom you disagree. I’m blessed to know the pastors of other churches here in town. I’m honoured to be considered one of their colleagues. I’m honoured that I get to meet with them monthly, that we pray together and for one another and for one another’s churches. It’s pretty cool when pastors from different churches, different denominations pray that other churches in town may grow, numerically and spiritually.

Part of the skill in this is identifying what belongs in the closed hand, things that are worth dying for, and what belongs in the open hand, things that are not worth dying for.

Personally, denominationally, infant baptism is important and it isn’t worth giving up willy-nilly. But I won’t let it become a divisive issue. I won’t let it break harmony between us and other churches in town.

The same applies to inter-personal relationships. Know what belongs in a closed hand; know what belongs in the open hand. When disagreements arise concerning the open hand, realise that those disagreements might not be so critical. When disagreements arise in the closed hand, work on them carefully.

In attitude toward others, we demonstrate harmony, by putting into practise these traits as Peter lays them out: be sympathetic. This is more than just putting yourself in another person’s shoes, though it is that too. It is an attempt, as much as you are able, to think of your own failings before slamming someone else for failing.

Understand that people are weak, they fail, they will let us down. Even though they ought to know better, we all know better, and yet we still sin! Grace is giving people a break. Grace is forgiving and letting God sort it out.

This is not easy, which is why it is a written command. We have to set ourselves aside. We have to resign ourselves to what is. We must love as brothers. Remember, you can pick your friends, but you’re stuck with your relatives. Yes, walls come up even in families, but you can’t really change the fact that at the end of the day, you’re family.

Family

Our Christian family ought to be no different. We ought to love, because God first loved us. But we must have the attitude that the people at church aren’t just random people, but that they are my brothers and sisters! And that changes things, or it ought to anyway. It means that we ought to be devoted to each other, seeking goodness and blessing for others and not just ourselves.

It means coming to church, not only to be blessed, not only to worship God, but in order to be a blessing to others. To bless others by inviting them over for coffee. To encourage the discouraged by coming alongside and helping. To call just to let people know that you care and that you’re concerned about them.

At the same time, be realistic. Just because church is full of a bunch of Christians, if you’re not living perfectly, then no one else is either. And if no one else is either, then it won’t take long for someone to stab you in the back, gossip, slander, rip off, or what have you.

How are you going to respond? The temptation will be to do the same thing back to them. But that’s not what God did. God didn’t treat us as our sins deserve, he extended incredible grace to us. Therefore, we can and he commands us to extend incredible grace to others.

After the short poem about how to live a good life, Peter goes on to say, who will harm you if you are doing good? Well, as it turns out, there are all kinds of evil people who try to take advantage of good doers. But again, notice Peter’s writing. He’s anticipating suffering. He is anticipating suffering for doing good, and not just outside the church, sometimes we’ll suffer for doing good inside the church too!

But we can handle it. We can actually change our perspective on it. We must set Christ as Lord, by setting him as Lord of our tongues. We must watch what we say and even how we say it. It is easy to offend someone. It is hard to retract words. Negative comments have a way of getting under the skin and staying there.

We must keep ourselves from evil, by biting our tongues. When we have opportunity to gossip, we must exercise discipline and keep our mouths shut. Again, if this were easy to do, it wouldn’t have been written down. James calls the tongue a restless evil.

It is easy to compound the sin of thinking less highly of others than we ought with slander, or undue curiosity about others, seeking and searching for information by asking others rather than having the boldness to ask them directly. Sometimes, this can be done with prudence, but let us examine our hearts to see what our motives are.

When confronted with a verbal challenge, let the grace of God in Christ govern how you speak. Let the hope you have in Jesus, be salt and light in your speech. Considering God’s grace to you, give God’s grace to others.

Don’t we often hear things along the lines of, “What will people think?” Peter is reminding us, gently, that it doesn’t matter what people think. It matters what God thinks. Clothed with Christ’s righteousness, our hope, God sees Christ’s completed work on the cross, and not our sins.

Let us have that grace also, that we would endeavour to see Christ’s righteousness covering over others, especially when they sin against us. And let us remind ourselves that really doesn’t matter what other people think of us. What matters is the power of the resurrection to restore us—this is the hope that we constantly carry with us, the hope that is so beautifully laid out in the rest of this passage.

What gives you hope? It is the eternal promise of God. It is not your experiences of God, for experiences change and we forget. God’s promises never change and they never end.

Honour God and honour others, love God and love others by controlling your tongue and controlling your curiosity. Ask yourself. Do I need to know this? Ask yourself, should I be saying these things? If there is any doubt, stop. Fight hard for the honour of others. Amen.