Sharing good news of great joy to all people,
Elation Church. This is week number four in our
series we've entitled, A Call to Honor. A Call
to Honor. Every believer is called to honor.
Every Christian is called to be a people of honor,
characterized by... honor. When people think
of Christians and those who go to church, it
shouldn't be those that are hypocritical. It
should be people of love and it should be people
of honor. It's different, right? Our society
is full of dishonor. So full of dishonor. We
don't honor, you know, you just see it everywhere
all the time. We are called to be different.
We're supposed to be in the world, but not of
the world. And we're called to honor. Honor is
mentioned over 300 times in the Bible. As we've
seen, we're going to recap a little bit. It's
mentioned over 300 times in the Bible. That means
it's important. And from now on, I hope through
this series that when you're reading your Bible,
when you see that word honor, a flag kind of
goes up and you start paying attention to it.
Like, what am I supposed to do with this information?
Because a lot of times when we see the word honor,
it's actually calling for a response. It's not
just intellectual knowledge when we read the
Bible. Often when we see things, they're commands
for us as Christians to take a hold of and to
respond to. To not just be hearers of the word,
but to be doers of the word. Amen? In honor,
we look at several different words. that the
Bible uses when we read our English word honor.
The Bible in Greek uses several different words.
One of those is kavod, meaning to be heavy. The
word honor means to be heavy or to make weighty.
Honor, it means glorify. Sometimes the same word
kavod is translated glorify in your Bible. talking
about the weight of glory of something, of God,
of his manifested presence. And it's talking
about value. Value kind of needs to be our mindset
shift. When we hear the word honor and when we
read it in our Bible, we really need to change
the way we think about it. It's not just, you
know, this vague sort of thing. It's actually
talking about value and how we value someone
or something. The verb that is used means to
prize or to revere, temeo. Teme is the noun.
It means a value, valuable, esteem of the highest
degree. The adjective temeos meaning valuable,
costly, honor, esteemed, beloved, precious. Kind
of goes against our normal understanding of honor.
It kind of opens it up a little bit. And as we've
seen, honor includes the ideas of worth, esteem,
dignity, and price, whether used of God or of
Christ or of people or of material goods. And
as we've seen in this study through the past
three weeks, you know, honor always measures
value. It always measures the value of something,
and it calls for a response. And our honor, our
response should be proportionate and is proportionate
to our perceived value of it, right? Perceived
value, meaning the worth or weight or honor we
willingly assign to something. So as we've learned
in week one, we're called to honor the things
that God honors, what God honors. And we talked
about honoring the word of God. How many of you
know we should honor the Word of God? Amen? We've
talked about that a little bit. We should honor
His Word, the written Word and the spoken Word
of God through the Holy Spirit. We should honor
it. We should honor the church. We should honor
the church. See, a lot of people get confused
when you say things like this because it's like,
what do you mean by church? The church, the called
out ones. Not the building. Not the elation.
But look to the person on your left. Look to
the person on your right. The church. We are
the church. Amen? And we're supposed to honor
one another. And we are called to honor the kingdom.
His rule, his eternal, God's eternal rule and
reign over everything. We're called to honor
it. We're called to value it. Too many times,
we want to honor ourselves, right? Too many times,
the king, right? We view ourselves as the king
of our own kingdom. We view ourselves as the
king and the queen sitting on the throne of our
heart. And all of our value is just, you know,
it's just about me. It's not the way it should
be for a Christian. We're called to honor the
kingdom, his kingdom, his rule and his reign.
Because as we've learned, if you don't honor
God's word, If you don't honor God's bride, the
family of faith, if you don't honor God's kingdom,
you won't receive any value from it. People all
the time say, well, you know, I just don't understand.
Why do I go to church, right? Why do I need to
go to church? I can be in my deer stand or I
can be in my car and experience the presence
of God. While that may be true, there is value
in community. We are not meant, we were not created
to do life alone. We need each other. And we
need, listen, we need to follow God. And we need
what God says, because look, God can speak through
someone else too. We are called to honor God,
as we learned in week two. We honor God with
how? Our praise and our worship, of course. We
learned we honor God with our lives, our whole
bodies, our breath, the spirit we talked about,
pneuma. We honor God with our service, the things
that we do, our time, our talent, and our resources.
And we honor God with our wealth, the first fruits.
We give a portion of that back to him. Amen.
We honor God with that increase. We give it back
to him. So, and then we've seen that the lack
of honor. will hinder the work of God in our
lives. Because honor puts us in a position to
receive everything that God has for us. And honor
is always recognized and rewarded. Amen? Our
main text is in 1 Samuel 2 .30. And it says this,
God says to Eli, after his sons, we'll talk about
this a little more later, after his sons were
dishonoring the money of the temple, they were
dishonoring it, they were dishonoring the women
who were coming through, they were taking advantage
of women. And God specifically told Eli to remove,
you know, you got to remove them, you got to
get rid, you know, take them out. But he wouldn't
do it. And God tells Eli, Here in 1 Samuel 2
through 30 says, I will honor those who honor
me, and I will despise those who think lightly
of me. And as we've seen, your value of God is
proportionate to his presence, to his work, to
his power, to his influence in your life. It's
proportionate. And your honor of him, your value
of him, is proportionate to your usefulness to
him in the kingdom. If we don't honor him, we
are of no value. We carry no weight in the kingdom
of God. Now, a lot of people, when I say that,
you might think, well, that kind of seems unfair,
because God loves everyone. And yes, he does
love everyone. He does love you unconditionally.
But your honor, listen, this verse, I want you
to see the concept of reaping and sowing. You
reap what you sow. I will honor those who honor
me. If we value God, listen, you will receive
from him. In the same way we talked about the
Bible, right? If I honor it, if I value what
it has to say, if I genuinely believe it, When
I read it, it's more than just a book. All of
a sudden, it carries weight in my life. It changes
the way I operate day to day. It changes the
way I treat the people around me. It's no longer
just words on a page if I value it. It's a good
example of what we're talking about here. I will
honor those who honor me, and I will despise
those who think lightly of me. So honor is not
love. But honor is a demonstration of love. It's
a demonstration of love. When we're showing love
to God, we will honor him, right? When we're
showing love to other people, we honor them,
right? And despise here is not hate. Often we
look at that, we think of the word despise, we
just immediately like, we see God, he's like,
oh, he despises those? That seems a little harsh.
But despise is just the opposite of honor. So
to despise means to look down on, to ignore.
Our regard is worthless. Be casual about it.
It's not to even, it's not to even like think
about it. It's just to be casual about it. It's
this whatever mentality, right? How many of you
have been there? You just like, you get tired
about something and you're just like, whatever.
Don't even care. Couldn't care any less. And
often we treat God like that sometimes. We're
like, we get sort of lazy. We get like, I don't,
you know, just whatever. Whatever. The time with
the family, whatever. My time in scripture, whatever.
It'll be there when I get to it. It's kind of
the last thing of the day. We put everything
off and then if I have enough time, I'll read
my Bible or I'll pray. I'll spend time with God.
You know, often that's the low thing, the last
thing that we do, right? We put it off because
our time is more important. You know, we got
things. We got more important things. Don't frown
at me when I'm just talking. We're just having
a conversation. It's okay. Often that's the least
thing, but we need to value it. We need to esteem
it. I will honor those who honor me. I will despise
those who think lightly of me. In week three,
we talked about how we are called to honor other
people, called to other people in our demonstrations
of honor. We went through this like four or five
times last week. But how we demonstrate honor,
huh? We're doing it again. It's going to come
up a few more times until we get it. Amen? To
demonstrate honor, we have to speak highly of
other people. Let that sink in. Yeah. We kept
saying that last week, and all throughout the
week, I was just like, oh, man, messed up again.
Speak highly of it. You know, it's so hard to
do, but you get in like a habit, almost like
an addiction of speaking bad about the people
around you. Right? Start speaking bad. You know,
it's just little phrases that we don't even really
process, but we get into a habit of just being
like, oh, well, that just, you know. Right? We
do it. It's important that we demonstrate honor
to other people, and we do that by speaking highly.
of everyone, not just the people that we like.
Show generosity towards. Show generosity towards
is a demonstration of honoring the people around
us. We should be a people who are generous, characterized
by our generosity towards those around us and
who are in our circle. Amen. High respect of.
We should be respectful of everyone. Amen? And
we demonstrate honor by submitting ourselves
to authority. We're going to talk a little bit
more about what that means today. The word submit
don't always carry the greatest happy warm fuzzies.
But it means to place yourself under. A lot of
times we want to be above everyone else, right?
And often we just want to be above God. We act
like our minds and our will and our... We always
put those things way above what God says in His
Word. We're supposed to submit to His authority,
to His way, to His will, to His kingdom. Submit
ourselves. We're not supposed to be the highest
person in our world. The world does not revolve
around you in case you didn't know. Just wanted
to remind you today that the world does not revolve
around you. Your life is much more important
than you realize and much more valuable to the
kingdom of God than you're operating in today.
I want to kind of move now into where we're going
today. I know that was a long recap, but it kind
of gets us ready and prepares us to what we're
about to talk about. So Romans 13, 7 says this,
give to everyone, meaning be generous towards,
give to everyone what you owe them. What is owed
to them? Give to just those that you like. Give
to those that you think are worthy of it. No,
it's what is owed to them. I want you to see
that. Give to everyone what you owe them. If
you owe taxes, pay taxes. I don't want anybody
at a lay church not to pay your taxes. Don't
do that. It's not okay. It's not cool. If you
owe taxes, pay taxes. If revenue, then revenue.
If respect, then respect. If honor, then honor.
It's very straightforward, very simple. Give
to everyone what you owe them. If you owe them
honor, we should honor them. Simple enough, right?
So who do we owe respect and honor to? That's
our question. Who do we owe respect and honor
to? Well, of course, we owe honor to God. We
owe it to him. It is what is due unto him. We
owe honor to God. And we owe honor. to all God
-given authority. We owe honor to all God -given
authority. Some of these verses, so we owe, get
this, we owe double honor. It's an interesting
concept. We owe double honor to elders that teach
the word. 1 Timothy 5, 17. It says this, let
the elders who, listen, rule well be counted
worthy of double honor, especially those who
labor in the word and doctrine. Double honor
is owed if you can have honor and then you have
special honor. You have... extra honor so that
tells us here that there's an honor that is owed
to everyone but then to some there is extra honor
owed okay to the elders that teach the word who
it's conditional here who rule well who rule
well so double honor is to elders who rule well
who are worthy of it, okay? Husbands owe honor
to their wives. They owe honor to their wives,
to value them, to esteem them, to set them up
on a pedestal, right? Everybody say, amen, oh
me, oh my, something, come on. Come on. Wives
owe honor to their husbands. Oh, honor to their
husbands. And how do we demonstrate that honor?
Right? We speak highly of. Be careful what you
say about your significant other. You're going
to. You're going to be really upset at me later
today. You're just going to be like, oh man,
I said that again. I shouldn't have said that.
Supposed to honor those, speak highly of, show
generosity towards, respect towards, value. We
should esteem, right? Wives honor their husbands.
Husbands honor their wives in 1 Peter 3, 1 through
7. I encourage all husbands and wives to read
this today. And then, Get this, in Hebrews 13,
4, it says that we, meaning the believers, we
owe honor to marriage. We owe honor to the sanctity
of marriage. I just want to let that sink in.
If you want to read it, go ahead. Open up your
Bibles, turn there. Read it. We owe honor to
marriage. Our society does not honor marriage.
And most people in the church do not honor marriage.
What does it mean to owe honor to marriage? We
should value marriage. Should esteem it. I'm
going to move on. Children owe honor to their
parents. Amen. Say it again for the people in
the back. Children owe honor to their parents.
Deuteronomy 5 .16. It's given in the Ten Commandments,
and it's the only commandment with promise, with
a promise connected to it. Specifically, it says
that children who honor their parents, what,
they will live a long, and satisfying life. Ain't
that a promise? Honor your parents. You'll live
a long and satisfying life. And as we learned,
honor should be modeled in the home. Meaning
that it should be genuinely displayed by the
husbands and wives towards one another. And it
is called, listen, this is how honor is supposed
to be. It's supposed to be caught by the children
from the honor displayed in the home between
the husband and the wife. But the problem is
our society has, you know, the home is so broken.
Many people grow up and they, you know, they
never know their real parents or they never,
you know, it's like their father left when they
were real little, something like that. It's like...
But it should be genuinely displayed in the home,
and that's why we need to, as the church, as
the family, is the ideal family of faith. What
you're missing at home, you should be getting
here in this community. And so that's why we're
in this study, a call to honor, because so many
people want to force honor, but that's not the
way it works. That's manipulation. No one can
force you to honor them. That's fear. It's not
how the people of God should operate. You don't
force people to honor. You don't, well, I'm your
elder. You need to honor me extra. Come on. I
had a guy one time. I was... I was praying. We
were doing like a middle school camp, and I think
it was North Carolina or something like that.
It doesn't matter. And we were in a circle praying.
These three kids had just gotten saved, and we
were praying. He asked me to pray for them. And
I had a hat on because we were doing children's
ministry, and I wore like a dog costume. I wore
a dog costume. I would do anything. Right. We
just did anything that we could to tell people
about Jesus. no matter if it was the most ridiculous,
absurd thing, like put on a dog costume, and
we'd just tell people about Jesus, traveled the
country for many years. And I remember I was
wearing a hat because I was just sweaty. I looked
like a wet rat, you know? You know when you look
like a wet rat? It's just nasty, and I'm sweaty.
I've just been going all day. We've been jumping
around being crazy. And I remember this guy specifically,
we're praying now. He's the one who asked me
to pray, and he reached over and grabbed, I was
wearing a hat, he reached over, during the middle
of my prayer, reaches over and grabs the hat
off my head and throws it into the woods. And
he's the one who said, I wasn't honoring God.
I got a lecture at the end of it saying, I wasn't
honoring God by wearing a hat. Well, I was praying
to God. What were you doing? You were upset about
my hat and the way I looked and all these things.
God didn't care. He heard me. He heard my prayer.
But somebody was not honoring God, were they?
Moving on. We owe honor. Listen, the Bible tells
us that we owe honor to true widows of the church.
1 Timothy 5 lays out the rules and regulations
for this. It's an interesting concept that we
owe honor to true widows, and it specifically
talks about what classifies a genuine true widow.
Did you know that the people of God are not called
to honor, to give of their generosity and time
to just every widow in the whole world? Go read
it. True widows of the church, of the family
of faith. We're not called to just supply the
whole world with our generous giving. It's okay
if you do that. That's great. If God leads you
to do something like that, that's great. But
a lot of people get this wrong. The church is
supposed to honor the true widows, those who
do not have family. to take care of them, those
who have been abandoned in our community, in
our local community. We are called to give to
them, generously support them when they have
no family, when they have no kids, to take care
of them. Those are all conditions laid out in
1 Timothy 5, but I thought it was interesting
to include as people with God -given authority
that we are called to honor. And it specifically
says that true widows of the church who are worthy
of respect, who are diligently seeking God, who
are valuable members of the community of faith.
We owe honor, listen, to all governing authorities.
And this includes spiritual authority and also
human authority. Let's look at it. Romans 13
.1 says this, everyone must submit to governing
authorities. A word submit, again, I'm not going
to pronounce it in Greek, but it says to subject,
to subordinate, to submit, to be in under and
obedience. What does governing authorities mean?
That word here is to surpass. to excel, to be
superior, to be above or beyond. And then get
this, the word here is exousia, meaning delegated
authority, power, right, jurisdiction, and it
refers to the authority God gives to his saints.
How many of you have heard this so differently,
and when you've read this, you've thought of
it a lot differently? But as I studied, and you
look at these words, It's specifically referring
to the authority God gives to his saints, authorizing
them to act to the extent they are guided by
faith, his revealed word. So we're supposed to
submit ourselves, again, we're supposed to submit
ourselves to governing authorities. Forget this,
and this makes more sense in context, talking
about spiritual authorities with what comes next
in the verse. For all authority comes from God.
God has placed members in the body of Christ
as authority figures, right? Prophets, pastors,
evangelists, teachers, all these things, apostles.
He's given these things. For all authority, these
places come from God. And those impositions of
authority have been placed there by God. Placed
there by God. It's not talking about, you know,
the president of the United States is placed
there by God. No. It's not true. It's not placed
there for God for, well, I know. I'm going to
move on. This is talking about spiritual authority.
But we're not off the hook. 1 Peter 2, 13 through
14 says, for the Lord's sake, submit, get this,
to all human authority. Different word, different
Greek word here, to all human authority, whether
the king is head of state or the officials he
has appointed. We are to submit to all human
authority. This word means creation, creature,
institution, man -made institutions on the earth.
We're supposed to... Live in under them, not,
you know. When a police officer pulls you over
this afternoon. No, I'm just kidding. You need
to honor them. If you want to receive a less
sentence. Real talk. If you want to receive a
less sentence, you need to honor them. You need
to say, yes, sir. Yes, ma 'am. You need to speak
plainly and don't make any sudden movements.
Somebody laugh, smile or something. Come on.
We need to submit to the authority of this place,
the human authority that's in the world. We need
to submit to them and honor them in that regard
because they have authority. If you want to receive
a less sentence, like I said, you better honor
them in that way. Dishonor. Why? We're not talking
about dishonor, but... You know, dishonor. If
you dishonor your boss at work this week, you'll
be fired. What a novel concept. If you dishonor
your boss too much, you will be fired. If you
dishonor what? Come on. If you dishonor, I don't
know, the person at the grocery store, instead
of giving you the discount, they're going to
charge you double for the same, you know, for
the same apple that you could have bought down
the street at Aldi for less money. We're supposed
to submit ourselves to all human authority, whether
the king is head of state or the officials he
has appointed. Titus 3 .1 continues, remind the
believers, everybody say, I'm a believer, remind
the believers to submit to the government and
its officers. They should be obedient, always
ready to do what is good. They must not slander
anyone. Must not slander anyone in a position
of authority in government. Come on. Just open
up your Facebook right now. I'll tell you five
minutes there'll be someone slandering someone
in authority. Come on. We're not supposed to
be like that, church. We're called to be different.
We're called to speak highly of. This is tough,
but it's true. This is the word. Don't just hear
it. We need to do it. Come on. Should be obedient,
always ready to do what is good. They must not
slander anyone and must avoid quarreling. Let's
don't fight about it. I'm just pausing here because
the word is just sinking in. Let it sink. Bless
you. Gesundheit. No slander. No quarreling. Look
to your neighbor and say, stop it. Say, stop
it. Don't do it. Instead, they should be gentle.
Should be gentle. Gentleness is not weakness.
Having self -control is not weakness. Not talking
about dancing on eggshells around everyone and
everything, but you can be gentle. Do you think
God, do you think Jesus was gentle in the earth
when he talked to people? We can be that too.
Our words should not be offensive. to our culture.
Our culture should be attracted by it. Something
different. Something not like everything else
the world is offering, right? Gentle. And show
true humility. Humility. Submission, right? We're
humbling ourselves and under in a position, right?
To everyone. That means I don't think, more highly
of myself than I do the people around me. It's
the key to true gentleness and key to receiving
everything that God has for you in the kingdom
of God is humility. I urge you, first of all,
to pray for people, for all people. Ask God to
help them. When's the last time that you prayed
for someone other than yourself and your needs,
your situation? This is intercessory prayer at
work, and it's meaning that you're praying for
the people around you because the people around
you are above you. They matter more. Right? Ask
God to help them. Intercede on their behalf and
give thanks for them. It says all people. It's
not just the people that we like. Pray this way
for kings and for all who are in authority. Maybe
instead of quarreling and complaining and fighting,
maybe we should start praying. Praying for those
in authority over us. Instead of talking about
the corruption and everything that's wrong, being
every single word, every other word out of our
mouth is like, it's wrong, it's bad, it's not.
Yep. Newsflash, yep. Maybe we should pray. Because
if we valued the word, If we value what it's
saying, we would pray. Some of us, we just need
to act like the word of God is true and we need
to start doing it. Because we're not honoring
it. There's so many Bible, you know, there's
so many Christians, people who believe in God,
who are not honoring God. You can believe in
God and not honor him. We need to honor those
in positions over us with how? With our words,
our prayer. It's what is owed to them. It's what
we're called to do. What you owe them, listen,
none of these things, look, what you owe them
is not based on their actions. But what God's
word said is owed by his children, by his followers,
by the family of faith. That is what we owe to
authority. In none of these instances does the
instruction to give honor have anything to do
with whether or not the person deserves it. God
did not put a condition on it. His word just
says for you and I to do it. A great example
of this, I can't get too lengthy here, but a
great example of this is the, I like to call
it the saga of David and Saul. I mean, it's just
a lot when you start reading through Samuel and
you start reading their interactions back and
forth. But in case you're not aware, Saul was
the king of Israel. The people had appointed
him, and God anointed him to do great and powerful
things for God's people. So he went, he was obeying
God, he was serving God, and he was walking accordingly,
doing the things that God had asked him to do,
until one day, he was like, you know, I'm the
king. You know, I know God told me to do this
specific thing, but... You know, I'll do it,
but I'll do it my way. Right? Because all of
a sudden, when you start becoming the king of
your own, you know, your own king, your own master
and your own boss, right? Things start going
downhill. Saul began to look at himself in a
high regard and said, you know, I know better.
this doesn't make sense to me, so I'm going to
do, you know, I do what God said, but I'm just
going to do it my own way. Little thing. But
because of that, God tells Saul he's going to
remove his anointing from him in his favor. And
it's all going to be removed. I will honor those
who honor me. The anointing was on his life as
long as he honored God with his actions, with
his words. There was something special. Every
battle that Saul went to fight, he won until
he did not honor. If you're losing battles, check
your honor. When the anointing was removed from
Saul, God anointed David, little boy David. And
remember, he fights Goliath. All of a sudden,
he starts winning every time he stands up, because
while he was honoring God when no one was looking,
he had a heart after God's own heart. And Saul...
It's interesting that it never really says that
Saul... Saul was never told that David was going
to be the next king, but we see throughout that
all of a sudden that kept coming up. He kept
getting jealous of David, because after David
killed Goliath, he was working for him, serving
him. And all of a sudden he's getting very jealous
of David. The people are starting to, you know,
praise David for... you know, all his mighty
things, because the hand of God was on his life,
the hand of blessing and favor. And long story
short, Saul attempts to kill David several times.
David has to leave. He gets kicked out from where
he was, and he all of a sudden becomes a wanderer,
hiding from the king Saul, who was trying to
kill him. And David couldn't figure out why in
the world, why in the world is Saul trying to
attack me? I've only been good, I've only honored.
You know, he's only done good things towards
him, only spoke highly of him. And after many
years, a lot of times, you know, people of God
don't want to face any trial or tribulation.
God promises to see you through. God promises
for you to overcome. But there's tribulation.
It says this, 1 Samuel 24. David's men, he had
garnered men and like a small army, even though
he had been... you know, cast out of the palace.
More and more people were kind of being drawn
to David. And his men, they were again trying
to hide from King Saul. And then his men come
to him and he's like, now's your opportunity.
Because Saul had went to use the bathroom. He
had went into a cave. He was kind of hidden.
He was vulnerable. And his men told him here
in verse 4, it says, now's your opportunity.
David's men whispered to him, today the Lord
is telling you, I will certainly put your enemy
into your power to do with as you wish. So David
crept forward, cut off a piece of him of Saul's
robe. Seems so insignificant, right? He cuts
off this piece of Saul's robe, but then David's
conscience began bothering him because he had
cut Saul's robe. It bothered him what he did.
He said to his men, David said to his men, the
Lord forbid that I should do this to my Lord,
the King. His words are showing that he had submitted
himself under someone who was trying to kill
him. He says, David says, I shouldn't attack
the Lord's anointed one. Now we know from the
story that God's anointing had left Saul and
been placed on David. But David is not aware
of this at this moment. And so he's still going
to honor Saul in this way, for the Lord himself
has chosen him. So David restrained his men and
did not let them kill Saul. After Saul had left
the cave and gone his way, David came out and
shouted after him, My Lord the King. And when
Saul looked around, David did what? He bowed
low before him. Bowed low before him. 1 Peter
2 .17 tells us to respect everyone and love the
family of believers. Fear God and respect the
king. Can't you see that David did this, right?
It was who he was. It's how he honored the position
that he would once take. If David didn't honor
Saul, what would have happened? Probably the
same thing that happened to Saul when he didn't
honor God. This word respect here is to mayo.
It means to honor, to value, to revere, and to
respect. So we're supposed to respect everyone.
So is everyone to be honored? Everybody say yes.
Hope we've established that by now. Is everyone
supposed to be honored? To the same degree. Are
there different levels of honor? We saw that
from the double honor portion. That's a very
clear example of that. But then all these God
-given authorities of the home, of wives, you
know, those are special honor things, right?
It's not just he's telling us this because it's
a special honor due or owed to them, to these
things, right? So it's not to the same degree.
So we need to be... mindful of our honor and
who we honor and how we honor. Our honor of God
should far outweigh our honor of any other person,
thing or ourselves. Right? Because if we show
more honor to any one or thing above God, we're
guilty of idolatry. Because we're placing something
of this world above his word. What about those
in positions of authority that openly do things
that do not honor God? Sin, moral failures, neglect,
abuse, church. Does not justify hate. Does not
justify bitterness. Does not justify harsh words
towards. Lack of basic honor that is owed to
everyone. A lot of times though, especially in
our culture today, we see someone in a... position
or whatever, they fail, something happens, like
we immediately just cut them off. We're just
like, oh, we slander them. We get all upset and
bothered and just, you know, throw them away.
Electrocute, you know, throw them in the trash.
They're completely worthless to us, right? And
it can erase everything that they've ever done.
Now, We'll talk about this in a little more detail,
but listen, for the people of God, no matter
what someone does, they deserve your honor. And
if you don't think so, if you genuinely think
that someone... in your life does not deserve
the basic honor that is due to them. Listen,
you're putting your imagination and your thoughts
above God's word. You're not challenging me.
I don't care. This is what the word of God says
for us to do as believers. We're supposed to
honor everyone. Speak highly of the people around
us. not just to a select few. Show generosity
towards everyone. Does not justify hate bitterness.
These failures though, listen, these failures
though do disqualify those in positions of authority
to receive the special honor that is owed by
their position. Okay? Does not, no one can force
you to honor them in some special way. Like that's,
we've already talked about that a little bit.
When we think of Eli and his sons, right? God
removes his honor from them because they, why?
Why was his honor removed? We've talked about
this the past three weeks. Those who honor me,
I will honor. You reap what you sow. God sees
their dishonor towards him, and they were in
a position of honor of the tribe of Levi to carry
out the stuff in the temple, right? But God is
like, you're not going to honor me, so I'm not
going to honor you. And what happened? They get
removed from their position and a lot of other
bad things. Listen, these failures disqualified
those in position. They should not be honored
as this, you know, just because they hold some
kind of position. They should not be honored
in that regard. But everyone deserves honor.
So honor is to always be given to everyone, but
the level of honor to be given should be, listen,
proportionate to God's honor of them and to their
honor of God. This is how we know what honor
is due above the basic. My wife, many of you
know, or many of you probably don't know, her
story, and her story is one that she should tell.
It's her testimony, right? But there's, you know,
growing up, she grew up in a very poor home.
Her mother abused her to the age of like five.
Her grandparents took custody of her. They were
able to get custody of her, remove her of that
situation, and then her mother just walked out,
said, I don't want anything to do with her, you
know. That's her story to tell another day. But
I want you to see, like Kayla and I, we were
talking about this, and there's an honor that
we're supposed to give to everyone. And you know
what? Kayla and I, we've been married now for
eight years, and she's never once spoken unkindly
of her mother. It's just who she is. She's never
spoken down about her mother or her situation.
And to me, that just blows my mind. And I'm not
doing this to just like, you know, ooh, she's
some, you know. No, when I met her, she wasn't
a Christian. You know, she's never once spoken
negatively of her mother to me or spoken down
because she realized that there was an honor
due owed to her. And she said, you know, she's
my mother whether she left me or not. So I'm
not going to speak unkindly towards her. I'm
not going to harbor unfeelings to her, right?
Because that's what God wants from me. But that
does not mean that if her mother all of a sudden
wanted some kind of, you know, in her life that
she has to honor her in that way, you know, as
her mother or give her some sort of special honor
that is because, not because Caitlin's the way
she feels about it, right? Not because of, you
know. All the things that would want to come
up and all the responses that could be given.
It would be because her mother disqualified and
lost that opportunity. Because she did not honor
God and did not honor her position. So her position
was removed. But her position in the kingdom
of God. is still love, is still honorable. The
honor you give, listen, the honor you give is
a direct reflection of your honor of God. That's
what it all boils down to. Why do you give honor?
Because God does. And I want to be like him.
You want to be like him. You want to honor him.
And you want to honor what he honors. And if
he honors someone, I need to honor them. We are
called to honor God. We are called to honor what
he honors. We are called to honor who he honors.
And we are called to honor how he honors. To
the same degree that he honors. This online worship
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