Sermons of Redeeming Life Church

“Honoring Others Honors God” (1 Timothy 5:1-6:2)

What does honoring each other look like in the Bible? Who are the true widows? Who is the Church supposed to help? In his sermon, “Honoring Others Honors God” (1 Timothy 5:1-6:2), Robbie Tschorn answers these questions and more as he speaks about the call for believers to honor God by honoring others. Christians are representatives of Jesus and get the wonderful privilege and opportunity of modeling the Gospel to the world. In 1 Timothy, Paul says that this is accomplished by encouraging everyone, taking care of those in need, looking out for your local Pastor, and honoring those who are in authority over you. These are simple, yet Biblical ways to honor and please God. When a church follows these commands, along with the rest laid out in Paul’s letter, they will be the Church that God intends them to be. This sermon was preached on August 4th, 2024. Copyright 2024. For more information, please visit RedeemingLifeUtah.org.

Duration:: 39m
Broadcast on:: 04 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

You're listening to a sermon preached at Redeeming Life Church. Church, I'd like to go ahead and invite you to turn to chapter 5 of 1 Timothy in God's Word, chapter 5 of 1 Timothy. And just in case if you don't have a Bible, it's on page 1052 on the Pew Bible that's under the chairs here. And as Pastor Josiah shared this morning, we're going to talk a lot about honor. He's going to come up quite a bit. And just to give us a frame of reference here as we're getting ready to look into God's Word, Paul's continuing on with his instruction to the young preacher Timothy on the need to teach his church, which is the local gathering of saints, what we're doing here this morning on how to be a healthy church. See, be the church, right? We're striving to be the church to be a healthy church. And so since we have a lengthy portion of Scripture this morning that we need to cover, we're just going to dive right in. All right? So let's jump in at first one of chapter 5 here. God's Word says, "Don't rebuke an older man but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters with all purity. Support widows who are genuinely in need. But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn to practice godliness toward their own family first and to repay their parents for this pleases God. The widow, who is truly in need and left all alone, has put her hope in God and continues night and day in her petitions and prayers. However, she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command this also so that they will be above reproach. But if anyone does not provide for his own family, especially for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. No widow is to be enrolled on the list for support unless she is at least 60 years old, has been the wife of one husband, and is well known for good works. That is, if she has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the saints' feet, helped the afflicted and devoted herself to every good work. But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when they are drawn away from Christ by desire, they want to marry, and will therefore receive condemnation because they have renounced their original pledge. At the same time, they also learn to be idle, going from house to house. They are not, excuse me, they are not only idle, but are also gossips in busy bodies, saying things they shouldn't say. Therefore, I want younger women to marry, have children, manage their households, and give the adversary no opportunity to accuse us. For some have already turned away to follow Satan. If any believing woman has widows in her family and let her help them, let the church not be burdened so that it can help widows in genuine need. The elders, who are good leaders, are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the scripture says, "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain, and the worker is worthy of his wages." Don't accept an accusation against an elder unless it is supported by two or three witnesses. Publicly, rebuke those who sin so that the rest will be afraid. I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels to observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing out of favoritism. Don't be too quick to appoint anyone as an elder, and don't share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. Don't continue drinking only water, but use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses. Some people's sins are obvious, preceding them to judgment. But the sins of others surface later. Likewise, good works are obvious, and those that are not obvious cannot remain hidden. Let me look at chapter 6 verses 1 through 2, and it says, "All who are under the yoke as slaves should regard their own masters as worthy of all respects so that God's name and his teaching will not be blasphemed. Let those who have believing masters not be disrespectful to them because they are brothers, but serve them even better since those who benefit from their service are believers and dearly loved." And then if you have a pericope heading, sometimes it'll cut it off here, but it continues on to say, "Teach and encourage these things." Teach and encourage these things. This is the word of the Lord, and let's pray this morning. "Father, I, we have nothing apart from you, so God asked that you would help us to understand your word, Lord. I pray that you would bring it to life and our souls through the power of your Holy Spirit and transform us, Lord. Make us men and women after your own heart in Jesus' name, amen." What Paul tells us in these verses is simply this, "Christians honor God when we honor one another." Christians honor God when we honor one another. So the question I believe that we need to answer this morning is, "How do we go about honoring one another?" And thankfully, Paul leaves us no room for doubt. He gives us principles on how to honor others, and we're going to see this by encouraging everyone in Christ, by helping those in genuine need, by taking care of our pastor, and by honoring those who are in authority over us. Again, that's encouraging others in Christ, by helping those in genuine need, by taking care of our pastor, and by honoring those who are in authority over us. These are principles that Paul has laid out for us. So we look back at verses 1 through 2 of chapter 5, it says, "Don't rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger man as brothers, older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters with all impurity." He starts off here with saying, "Don't rebuke. Let's not miss that command that he gives." He says, "Do not rebuke. To rebuke is to sharply correct someone who's made a bad choice or done something wrong." And other translations you might have might say, "Instead of, don't rebuke." It says, "Do not sharply reprimand or do not sharply rebuke or address harshly." It's all getting at the same point. And the issue here isn't necessarily correction. It isn't that corrections are a problem. People need correction. I think we can all agree with that, right? We all need correction, but it's how the person is corrected. And to get more specific, Paul tells Timothy not to sharply rebuke elders. And by elder here, we're talking about older men, men that are older than he is, not elders as in the pastors of the church. We'll talk about that later on as Paul addresses it. But simply put, for the Christian disrespect towards those who are older than us, it just shouldn't exist. It should not exist whatsoever. Whether they are in the wrong or not, we would treat them. Those who are older than us with respect. Now maybe where I went for a second is thinking about Timothy, maybe he had some guys in mind who were older than him, who were picking on him because he was a young buck, trying to teach them things about God and such. And so Timothy's like, "Man, I'm going to lay into these guys. I'm going to give them what for, but right here, he's without excuse, right?" There's nothing he could say. He's not to sharply rebuke them. And so the question is, if he's not to speak harshly when he corrects, what is he to do? Okay? Well, God's word tells us. Verse one says, "But rather exhort him." And to exhort, that means to strongly encourage someone to change their ways. Timothy is to correct the wrong. He shouldn't overlook it. He should correct the wrong, but his approach is far different than what the flesh might want to do, right? The flesh tends to rise up, it tends to just want to just lash out, right? There's a great deal of respect given, and I believe, by implication, honor. Now, why would I say honor? Let's continue on with that verse. It says, "To exhort him as what?" As a father. Exhort him as a father. Encourage him as a father. Timothy, don't just correct a man. Talk to him. Encourage him to change like you would encourage your own father. Show him respect. Paul doesn't just stop with the older men, he includes essentially everybody in the church. He says, "Exhort him as father," and we could go on to say, "Exhort younger men as brothers. Exhort older women as mothers, and exhort the younger women as sisters." See, we lovingly address a fellow believer in a way that encourages them to change their ways. I hope we see that this morning. Now, this doesn't mean that those who are outside of the church, right, we get to treat them however we want. That's not what the text is saying at all, by any means. We should respect everyone, but especially those who are in Christ. We are the bride of Christ, and Christ loves his bride. Therefore, we don't just watch how we correct each other. We seek to correct each other in a way that will encourage. And when we do that, it will truly please Christ. So maybe you find yourself in the parking lot, and someone just right outside here and maybe it's an older brother or sister, maybe a younger brother or sister they come up, and they have some words with you, they disagree about something, and they lash out at you, right? Well, let me encourage you, don't lash out at them, because they've obviously forgotten what we've just talked about today, right? But whether they're older or younger than you, I want to encourage you to fight to love them in the moment. Seek to address the issue in a way that will encourage them and show that you love and respect them. And this command here isn't just limited towards an offense that's towards you. Maybe you have a brother and sister who believes differently about the Bible than you. You know, man, how could they think that, right? Like that person's not that smart, I guess, you know? But instead of approaching them in that kind of a manner, right, you want to approach them like, hey, you know what? This is what God's word says. Let's kind of talk about it. Why do you think this way? Okay. Well, let's see what Scripture has to say about it, right? It's a totally different approach, right? And hopefully we see that maybe you're already thinking about this, that we have to set aside self in order to accomplish this, don't we? We have to put ourself to the side. Think about this. Like this is huge. Christ set aside His glory in order to rescue us. And so we can certainly follow suit by denying our sinful, major's desire to speak harshly to one another and instead seek to encourage each other. So we honor God when we encourage everyone. And then Paul carries us from everyone to very specific people, very specific types of people, namely we have widows, elders who are pastors, and he also addresses slaves. So let's take a look at verses 3 through 16. I'm not going to reread it, but looking at 3 through 16, we see this call to honor widows. And what I want to do here with this section is I want to break this into two sections here, okay? Those who are in genuine need and those who aren't. That might sound harsh, but that's the goal isn't going to be harsh here, just trying to do approaches as the text is saying. So looking at verses 3, 5, and then 9 through 10, those verses go together and speaking about the woman who is a true widow, who is in genuine need for help, okay? This is a woman who has lost her husband, and for most women of that day, their primary means of income and has no family to support her, and we're talking children, grandchildren, and new relatives. She is the woman who reaches out to the local church for help, and that is the local body of believers, that would be us, right? And she is the one who the church should help. This true widow who has no one, she has no one, therefore the church should help her. And this help here that we're talking about isn't a one-time gift, a one-time donation by any means. Moving forward, it's providing for her well-being. The church is going to help sustain her life moving on, which is a huge commitment, and this isn't one that's taken lightly or was taken lightly back then. So verses 9 through 10, Paul gives the qualifications for this woman that needed to be met in order for her to receive this kind of help from the church. So verses 9 through 10, I read that really quick for us, it'll be up on the screen. No widow is to be enrolled on the list for support unless she is at least 60 years old, has been the wife of one husband, and is well-known for good works. That is, if she has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the saint's feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself to every good work. This is a true example of a believing widow that Paul is talking about. This is a true example of this kind of widow. This is the one who really needs help. And so, if the church is going to step in and they're going to help her and support her for her life, what is she to do? Well, verse 5 tells us, "She commits her life to prayer to the Lord." When we think about that, what an exchange that is. This woman commits her life to prayer to the Lord. And this truly is, I believe, a living out of what 1 Thessalonians 5, 17 says, where it says to pray continually, or other translations might say, "Pray without ceasing," right? And the absolute best example that I can give of this comes from the book of Luke. So I'd encourage you, please hold your places here in terms with me to Luke chapter 2, starting verse 36, Luke 2, 36, and for context's sake, this is when the parents of Jesus, they take him to the temple and they get ready to present him to the Lord. And then they have these two encounters, one with a man named Simeon and then another with a lady named Anna. And if you're curious about Simeon, I want to encourage you to read this text later. You've got to start a little bit above where we are today. But we're going to focus in on Anna this morning here. So Luke chapter 2, verses 36 through 37, it says, "There was a prophetess Anna, a daughter of Fanul, of the tribe of Asher. She was well along in years, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage." Okay, so she was married for seven years and was a widow for 84 years. She did not leave the temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayers. Now if you're like me, especially looking at men of the Bible such as Paul, let's look at this Anna lady for a second and let's not take this idea of her being or not an idea, this truth of her being a prophetess and then put her in this unattainable Christian category saying that that's something that we can never do, right? We tend to do that, don't we? Like Paul is a super apostle, I can never be like Paul or I can never do this what Anna does. No, we can do this. So let's not get caught up in this super Christian, if you will, right? She represents what the widow who is receiving help from the church should be doing. This is the kind of woman Paul is talking about and it's what's expected. And let's not forget the command that we see here in verse three of chapter, let's flip over back to first Timothy five, looking at verse three. Some translations will say support, others honor, honor widows, honor widows. So everything else that we've talked about is a qualifier of who a widow is and with all that said, the church is to honor, that is to highly value women who were in genuine need of help for their livelihood. And really think about that for a second, what a look, what a look at the great care and compassion that the Lord has for those who are deemed weak and maybe helpless in society. God would put this kind of call on the church, like we would honor said widows. James one 27 tells us, pure and undefiled religion before God, the father is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world. Pure and undefiled religion before God, the father is this, to look after widows in their distress and distress. An aspect of true Christianity is care for those who are in desperate need and can't help themselves. And truly, what a glimpse of the gospel. Think about this. I really, really take a moment to think about this, right? We're dead and helpless in our sin. We could do nothing to save ourselves from the wrath of God, but we have Christ who came onto the scene and he rescued us. He cared for us when we couldn't care for ourselves. He took our place dying on the cross for our sins and rising again so we could be forever provided for by his redeeming work. So when we care for widows, when we care for those who are truly and genuinely in need, what a glimpse of the gospel we get to display to the world. What a way for us to model the gospel. These women that we're talking about here, these are the ones who need help. So now let's address the ones who Paul sent that shouldn't receive help from the church. And what I want to do, we'll come back to verse four here in a second, but let's briefly check out verses six and then 11 through 13. First Timothy 5, 6, says the widow who indulges herself in luxury is dead. So essentially this is the woman who has a means to remarry or take care of herself, but a seeking to satisfy her fleshly desires. Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 3 speaks about the life before a person becomes a Christian. 22 says and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of heir, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. So this widow, this individual has gone back to that kind of a lifestyle. She is not to be helped by the church from a financial standpoint, that is. And that isn't to say that the church shouldn't strive to look out for her soul or love on her in any way, but especially from a financial standpoint, they're to not help out. And that's what we're seeing in the text today. And then we see in verses 11 to 13 how Paul describes the younger widows who also shouldn't receive help. The latter part of verse 12 talks about this, renouncing their pledge. And so one source that I came across, it comments how the widow would essentially have to pledge a life of celibacy moving forward in order to receive help from the church. And so assuming not everyone in the church or every widow would want to be like Anna, the lady we talked about committing her life to prayer and fasting and such, Paul talks about how the young widow could be drawn by her desire to remarry and negate this pledge she has made. By doing so, she brings condemnation or judgment on herself. And Paul goes on also to say that the younger widows of his day, they essentially learned to be lazy, they would spread rumors and would meddle in everyone else's business. Fun stuff there, huh? Fun stuff, the church isn't to take the resources God gave them to help these women who are not going to honor the Lord is essentially what he's getting across here. But we do get Paul's answer for these young widows. He doesn't leave them without hope, he says in 1 Timothy 5, 14 through 15, he says, "Therefore I want younger widows to marry, have children, manage their households and give the adversary no opportunity to accuse us, for some have already turned away to follow Satan." So by doing these things, the women are given the enemy no opportunity to tempt them, they're also giving the unbelievers around them no opportunity to think otherwise of their character. So they're able to represent Christ in this manner. Marriage, rearing children or respected things, and truthfully God still respects these things even though our culture is screaming otherwise. And I said earlier, we've jumped back to verse 4, let's go ahead and do that really quick. Verse 4 says, "But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn to practice Godliness toward their own family first, and to repay their parents for this pleases God." If the widow has children or grandchildren, there's a call on the family to help this widow, this woman who is in desperate need of help. This makes sense, doesn't it? I know my parents, they did an awful lot for me growing up, and hopefully you could say the same thing. It would be wicked of me if something were to happen to my mother or my father that I wouldn't take the other in to seek to care for them, to seek to love on them, to seek to treasure them. And on this note, I have to say my parents, they're crushing this right now, especially my mom. I have a 80 year old grandfather, he lost his wife in January of 2017, and for the better half of the past seven years, my grandfather has been living with my mom and dad. And they've been many tears, it's been hard, we've had several conversations over the years and such, but they're making sure he's provided for a man who can't do for himself. And with me sharing that, okay, we're talking about widows and such, but I don't want you to miss the fact, yes, he's a man, but don't miss the principle. This is a guy who can't care for himself properly right now, and so they've stepped in and they're handling, they're taking care of them. And so that's what it is for us, like we would step in and we would come in, we would provide for those who can't help themselves. And verse 16, it even tells us the same thing, that women should care for widows in their family, we're talking women, it doesn't specifically say widows, if I'm not mistaken here. If any believing woman has widows in her family, so it's not talking about a widow taking care of widows, although I don't think that's impossible, but says that women should take care of the widows and their family who are in need. And men, this doesn't let us off the hook by any means. All the way back at verse 8, it tells us that men are to seek to care for their families and households as well. And he goes on to say to do so is to deny the Christian faith, or excuse me, if we don't do so is to deny the Christian faith. So if we're not willing to take care of our families or our households and such, like we're throwing out Christianity, so to speak, we're throwing out the gospel. And that's strong language for him to say, to not do so is to deny the Christian faith. And so really quick, how is that denying the faith? Well, what are the two greatest commands, right? Matthew 22, 30, 70, 40 says, "He said to them, Jesus, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, this is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself, all the law and the prophets depend on these two commands." Okay, Robbie, but he's talking about neighbors here. Okay, well, who's your closest neighbor? It's your family, right? Husbands, it's your wives, wives, it's your husbands, your family. If you aren't loving them and treating them, well, how are you honoring God? And we could ask the question, how are you representing the faith? When we follow what God is saying here, we live out the gospel. And verse four tells us that these actions are acceptable in God's sight. God's sight. And what could we want more in the Christian life than to be pleasing to God? And when we do this, we live as we live out the gospel. This frees up the church to take care of those who are actually in need. So my question to you, church, faith family here, is you and your family and your life is in true need that God is calling you to help. Think through that. Who in your life is in true need that God's calling you to help? We honor God when we honor the widow, those who are actually in need. And as we're moving on here, I want us to take a quick sec to imagine Paul, okay, he's writing this letter to Timothy, okay. He looks out the window and as he's looking out the window, he sees the lady of town who has recently lost her husband. Everyone knows her. She's a well-to-do lady, but you know, so that just came to mind. So he just wrote about her and then he sees this man come walking by and this man is just worn out. He's just tired, man. You could tell his job requires so much of him, right? And as he sees this man, Paul thinks of his next category of person that he believes is worthy of honor here and that's the pastor, the pastor. In verses 5, 17 through 25, we see what it looks like to honor God by honoring our pastor. And so I'll submit to you right now, I know there's a lot here in this section, but my main focus is going to be verses 17 and 18 of this portion here, 17 and 18. The language used here for pastor is elder and they mean the same thing. And without a doubt, this is referring to the elder that's described in chapter 3, chapter 3 talks about the qualifications for an elder. And the call here is that the church is to honor the pastor who leads well. But note this, Paul doesn't just say honor them. He says, "If they are good leaders, they are worthy of double honor." And I don't believe here that Paul is saying, "Okay, double honor is, I mean, honor times too," right? They're worthy of just a lot of respect or a lot of honor, a lot of praise, if you will. I don't believe that's what he's getting at there at all. Several translations say this double honor actually to mean two things, one, that they are worthy of honor and which they are indeed valued highly, and they are worthy of renumeration. And that's our big $5 word today, if you will, renumeration, and that essentially means that they are compensated fairly, they are taken care of, right? That's what this quote from Deuteronomy 25 for reinforces, "Do not muzzle an ox while I just treading out the grain." And ox, think about this, who is hard at work should be able to graze on the produce over which it is laboring. So to put a muzzle on it is to say you want the animal to serve you, but you don't want to take care of it in return. You're not allowing it to eat and get the energy that it needs, your actions give it no value. And church, how much more is the pastor worth in the ox? So I want to take a brief moment to make two addresses here. The first redeeming life church, our pastor, he strives to be as biblical as possible here at redeeming life. He loves this church and he wants us to grow into a healthy, godly body of Christ. And he wants to see out our mission and what's our mission that we would know the gospel, that we would live the gospel and that we would proclaim the gospel. In turn, we are to show our pastor double honor. We should value him, that's show him great respect. Make sure he's taken care of, and I believe that's financially. And I would add, we need to definitely pray for him. He needs our prayers. The better we take care of him and his family, that is the less that he has to worry about regarding his livelihood, the more he's freed up to focus on caring for our own souls and preaching and teaching and that should be what we would want, right? That he would be able to care for us. Now Pastor Josiah, what a call this is for you. The implication here is that you are to lead well and to work tirelessly at preaching and teaching. God has called you to care for our souls and so, brother, let me encourage you, may you seek to honor him by honoring this text, lead us well and labor hard, work hard to preach and teach so that we might be fed. And church, what care and concern God has for our church, for our pastor? It's a beautiful thing working with Pastor Brian and Pastor Josiah over the years and I could tell you both of them, they are men who care about God's Word. I know he's got some, yeah, amen. I know they've attended a preaching workshop and I know he's got some lined up down the road so I know that he's working in preaching, he's working in teaching. So church, let's be a church that supports him and loves on him well. Okay, then we get these verses that speak into how to properly bring up an accusation against the pastor and then how to deal with that. The appointment of pastor is not something to be taken lightly. We're not going to address all of what's happening here but God takes this appointment lightly therefore the church should take it, or God doesn't take it lightly therefore the church shouldn't take this lightly, okay. So if someone's going to bring up a problem against them, it has to be a serious issue and there have to be serious witnesses that are involved with this. Lastly, we get verse 21 which I believe relates back to verse 7 and essentially I'll just share it. May we follow suit and not only apply these things to our own lives but seek to teach what we learn to those around us without showing favoritism and that's in our homes, our work, wherever, may we honor God, and may we honor God by honoring our pastor. Okay, now what I want to do really quickly is continue that train of thought. Paul's, he's still writing this letter, right, so he just finished up about the guys working tirelessly, right. Now he sees this local successful businessman and he's got this entourage of bond servants or slaves that are following along. Paul then addresses his final category here, those in the position of slavery. Slaves are to honor their masters. And I believe it goes without saying but I'm going to say yes, slavery is indeed wrong. However, we're thinking about the culture of what they're dealing with. This was the culture that they lived in, okay. Slavery is wrong. Let's just lay that out there. It's wrong. Absolutely. 1 Timothy 1, 6 through, excuse me, 1 Timothy 6, 1 through 2 says, "All who are under the yoke as slaves should regard their own masters as worthy of all respect so that God's name and his teaching will not be blasphemed. Let those who have believing masters not be disrespectful to them because they are brothers but serve them even better since those who benefit from their service are believers and dearly loved. Teach and encourage these things. Slavery here is what it means. Men, men, boys and girls who are the property of someone else, they didn't have true freedom. They were bound to obey the rules of their master. And Paul encourages these enslaved people who are Christians to regard their own masters as worthy of all respect. And Paul isn't excluding anybody here. He doesn't say only if they're Christian respecting. He says they need respect. They need to be honored, honored their masters regardless of their faith. Why? He continues on. He says so that they will give no room for God's name and God's teaching to be blasphemed. Think about this rebellious slave for a second, right? He professes to be a Christian as a master comes up and he's like, "You call yourself a Christian but you complain every single time I give you a command or an order." But you constantly curse my name to others, talk about me behind your back, sometimes to my face. How in the world is that honoring to your God? God's reputation, Paul is arguing, I believe, is on the line. We're His representatives. And I believe this 100% applies to us. Regardless of whether we are children living in our parents' home or we run a company with 5,000 employees, we're called to love and respect one another because we, as professing followers of Jesus, are the representatives of God that the world gets to see. Are you, are we, representing Him well to this world? When we honor those who are in authority over us, we honor God. And around us out here, Paul concludes with this final phrase at the end of verse two. He says to teach and encourage these things. And why do you think Paul is so consistent with this phrase to teach these things? He says it several times throughout the book, teach these things, teach these things. Timothy, teach your church these things. Simply put, if Timothy follows through and teaches his people what Paul is telling him, what God's telling him, the church will be the church God intends. The church will be the church God intends. And so church, if we wanted to be a biblical church, we must follow what Paul has laid out. And today, that call is that we honor each other. When we do this, we honor God. We look out for those who are in need, we respect those who are in positions of authority over us, we care for our families, we take care of our pastor, why? Because we represent Christ. If you're a Christian, you should be thinking, how can I please, how can I honor my God today? Our view of the value of God should be greater than anything else. And if you struggle with that like I do, let's ask for forgiveness and ask God to raise our affections for him. And on that, we've talked a lot about honoring others, but let's make it clear, if we don't honor God, we cannot rightly honor others. It's only when we have the right view, the right heart towards God that we can truly respect those around us as God would have us. So let me ask you, do you honor God with your life? Do you honor him with your eyes? Do you honor him with your actions, with your thoughts, with your words? Praise God, if so, let me encourage you to keep doing that, keep going. But if this is a struggle, let's go to the Lord and ask for his help expecting that he actually will help us. Let's approach the throne boldly as Hebrews talks about. If you're not a Christian, but you want to be one, you want to honor God and give up your life for him, simply turn from your sins and believe on him. Believe on Jesus. That is, you turn from your sins, you tell God, "Hey, I want you to call the shots in my life, not me, I don't want to call them anymore. I'm turning everything over to you." And then you believe in the fact that Jesus died for your sins and that God raised him from the dead. When you talk about honoring God, think about that for a moment. Talk about honoring God and the greatest act of obedience, Christ died for you. He died for me. Friends, he died for us, unbeliever, like he wants to save you. He wants to save you. First Timothy 5, 15. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, excuse me, I believe that's actually 215. But this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Think about who a sinner is. A sinner is an enemy of God, someone who wants nothing to do with God. Or maybe someone who's self-righteous thinking that they are on the right track with God. Sinners. Christ came into the world to save sinners. Romans 5, 8, tells us that God proves his own love for us and that while we are still sinners Christ died for us. And Romans 10, 9, tells us that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead you will be saved. Church friends, the call for us this morning is this, we are to honor God by honoring others. If you don't know, ask God how you're doing in this area. Ask yourself who is in need around me, especially my family, that needs help. How can I better love and bless my pastor? How can I show greater respect to those over me? How can I represent Christ better to my friends, family, and coworkers? Let's think on these things. And may we be a church that honors God in how we honor others. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the truth of your word, God. Although I pray that you would help us to be men and women, Lord, who seek to honor you, to respect you, Lord, that we are known for our good works. We are known for how we love and care for those who are around us, Father. And God, help us, Lord, to see you differently, Lord God, to see how great you are, to see how amazing you are. As we said earlier, Lord, raise our affections for you, God, so that we might rightly follow what your word says, Lord, that we would love you with all of our heart and then love our neighbor as our self, Father. Thank you for your word. Thank you for this day. Lord, we ask that you just get all the glory and praise in Jesus' name. Amen. We'd love to have you as our guest. For more information, visit redeeminglifeutah.org. [MUSIC PLAYING]