Romans 12:10

Outdo One Another in Showing Honor

by Pastor James Lincoln on November 5, 2006

 

Instead of racing past Paul's exhortations on love - like sprinters running the 100 meter dash - we want to pause, examine, linger on each one asking God to drive these deep into our hearts. The phrase "Sincere Love" or "Love without Hypocrisy" functions as a heading. What follows tells us what Christian love is and how it actually shows up in the way we treat the truth and each other.

We've seen that authentic love is without hypocrisy because hypocrisy puts yourself at the center of things. It's occupied with wanting to appear better to others than you really are. It also has to do with the attempt to appear better to yourself than you really are by covering over your own sins and failings by focusing on the failings of others. This is a deflection strategy often seen in marriages. But Jesus said, "Why do you point out the speck in another's eye and neglect the log in your own." Real love is not about appearances because it's not fundamentally about occupation with you at all. Real love happens when the satisfaction, joy, security and well being of another means more to you than your own.

When your heart is full of the blessings and the tender mercies of God, when you are so satisfied with the extravagant love God has for you in Christ , when you taste and see that the Lord is good to you and will never stop doing you good, that He has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, that your sins are cast as far as the east is from the west, that He's your good shepherd, that you are His bride for ever, that if God is for you nothing can stand against you and prevail, when you pull your chair up to the table of these things and feast and drink these things into your soul it begins to leave little room for making yourself the center of things. And hypocrisy fades. Some were worried about Rebekah's ordeal in the hospital when she brought Ava Abigail into this world. But Rebekah knows that God rules over all and trumps anyone or anything in her life for good. She is so grounded and anchored to God's goodness and blessing in her life that she had peace and even joy throughout that moment of serious testing in her life. It's not that she merely knows these things. She has tasted them. They are her food and drink. God's extravagant grace in her life made little room to be consumed or shaken by anything else. I think it was Jonathan Edwards that said there is a difference between knowing in your head that honey is sweet and tasting the sweetness of honey. When you taste the sweet, rich abundant mercies of God and when you are satisfied in Jesus it's just hard to be consumed with yourself.

Agape love is not primarily sentimental. It begins with a deep commitment to hate what is evil and to cling to what is good. Agape love happens when there is heartfelt commitment to do what is good to others. This saves us from the stupidity of saying things like immorality and adultery are acts of love. It saves us from doing bad to others and calling that love. Jesus loved us by doing good to us even when he didn't feel like going to the cross.

Last Sunday we learned that Jesus not only loves the good and hates what is evil....He also loves us. He honors us as His bride and loves us with all the tender and eager affection, anticipation, expectation and deep emotions that a bride groom has for his bride. And then He calls us to love each other with the same love and affection. Brotherly love is a familial love. Brothers are bound together by something bigger than themselves and their own choosing; they have common parents. You don't choose your parents or your brothers. But you love them anyway, right? Brotherly love is not based on common interests and compatibilities. It's based on circumstances ordained by God that transcend all of these things. Again Paul is pushing us to lay hold of a love that is deep and stable like the love Jesus has for us. Peter writes, "...fervently love one another from the heart." (1Pe.1:22) It refers to loving deeply and tenderly from the heart.

God doesn't want our love to be cold, academic or closed and shriveled up. He wants us to be tender hearted and embracing each other with tender and holy affections. And of course this reveals to others just how Jesus loves us. When we love each other this way we're telling the truth to each other about who we are in Christ.

"Outdo one another in showing honor."

Today we come to the next mark of authentic love. Paul writes, "Love one another by, "leading the way" or "taking the lead in honoring each other." Some see a competitive angle to it: "Outdo one another in showing honor." Literally the word means to go before as to win a race or to show the way. One translation says, "Give preference to one another in honor." It means to be more concerned about showing honor than getting it. It means to take the initiative and not wait for others to show honor. He means to be like those holiday shoppers the day after Thanksgiving who are so eager to be the first ones at the store. That doesn't happen automatically. They get up early and make plans and make sure their car has gas the day before. They're very intententional. Now, don't hurt each other by running over each other. But lead the way.

What does it mean to show honor? It means to treat others as worthy of your service and love. It means to show respect. It means to value, to hold dear, to prize another or to treasure another. Let's look at some Biblical examples where this call to honor one another shows up.

1Tim.6:1:

To honor others may mean to treat people better than they deserve to be treated. To honor their father and mother or to honor their commanding officer may call some to honor another with more honor than they deserve. Paul tells those who are under the yoke of slavery to "regard their masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and what we believe about God won't get a bad reputation."

Joseph Tson, a Romanian Baptist pastor, was imprisoned for his faith. Every day the prison guard would come in and give him a severe beating. Hatred filled his heart for this guard. One day just before the guard came in to beat him God reminded him that it was Passion Week and that he was suffering for Christ on the same day of the year that Christ did. Suddenly he felt honored to be abused for being a follower of Jesus. He remembered that Jesus loved sinners like himself. However he only had hatred in his heart for this guard who beat him. When the guard came in Joseph ask if he could tell him something before he got on with the beating. The guard agreed. He told that wanted to confess something. He said he needed to confess that he hated him for all the beatings he had inflicted on him and he ask the guard to forgive him. He said that he had sinned by hating him because God loved him. He said, "I no longer hate you. Because God loves you so do I. Now, I'm ready... go ahead and do what you have to do." The guard was so shaken he had to leave and never beat him again. Soon he was released from prison. As he was telling us this story I realized that God gives a joy to those who suffer severely for Him that others can't yet receive. It's a riveting joy.

Paul tells slaves whose masters may be unrighteous and unkind that they are to regard them as worthy of honor. Oh, not by nature or because they deserve it. However, by the Spirit of God you can count them as "precious" in the same way God counts you and me as "righteous". That doesn't mean that you live in denial about the way they really are. It means that the gospel is about honoring people before they are worthy of God's love and honor. On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. ... But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

1 Cor. 12:22-26 NIV

Now this is a counter cultural as it gets. By nature we like to honor the successful, talented, attractive, the skillful, the smart, the young, the clever and the accomplished. But Paul is saying that regardless of a person's status, smarts, strengths or weaknesses we are to honor them equally and even give greater honor to the weak. Why? So that they'll know that they are cherished, prized, treasured, and honored in a world that will marginalize them and write them off for not being talented, attractive, young, smart, hip or what ever else the world values.

Once a church guru was speaking to a group of pastors and he said to us, "Remember, there are people and then there are strategic people." He said, it's the strategic people with whom you want to invest your time.

The Samaritan Woman: Strategic or Unstrategic?

Immediately after Jesus ministers to Nicodemus in John three who was on the top rung of the latter in terms of wealth, status, honor and smarts, who is the next person John tells us about that Jesus ministered to? She was the Samaritan woman. "How strategic was this woman in the first century?" She was unstrategic in her gender. In her day women were not even allowed to give testimony in a court of law. She was morally unstrategic. She had had five husbands and the man she was living with at the time wasn't her husband. Religiously and racially she was unstrategic: Samaritans were half Jew and half Babylonian. Few things could have discredited Jesus more than including a Samaritan immoral woman in his public ministry. Yet, Jesus does. He honors those who received no honor; oh, not because she deserved it and not because he approved of her sin. He didn't. How then did he honor her? He saw that her strategies for life and happiness weren't working. He saw what great relief and joy she would have in the gospel. Her sin and weakness was no more a barrier to new life with God than the sins and weaknesses of anyone else. This is the wonder of the gospel. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There are no strategic and unstrategic people.

We can discount ourselves because we can't be like someone else? As we look at others do we discount them or quietly mock them because they are weak in the eyes of those who judge such things? Paul commands us to show more honor to those who are weak. So we must beware of honoring a person because of their race, age group, their gender, the way they dress, how much they weigh, their status, education or anything else. The reason is that when we start making these distinctions we diminish the gospel which is for everyone regardless of these things.

James 2:1-6

James uses strong language about this.

"My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism (partiality). 2 For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, 3 and you pay special attention (honor) to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, "You sit here in a good place," and you say to the poor man, "You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool," 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?" ....(6) But you have dishonored the poor man." NAS

Now, please notice what God thinks about this. Notice first of all that James generalizes or principle-izes this when he says, "Have you not made distinctions among yourselves?" This is exactly what Jesus did not do. He didn't make these distinctions in showing honor. The gospel is for the whole world without distinction. That's found in John 3:16...Second, he says that when we end up judging who is strategic and who isn't or who is worthy of honor and who isn't. Outside of the miracle of grace none of us are worthy of honor. Finally, he says that to make distinctions in showing honor is wicked. This is why the church must never market itself to or target any one socio-economic class, race, age, gender or nationality. James reveals that honoring people on the basis of these distinctions is a wicked thing to do.

OK. Why God calls us to take the lead in honoring one another. There is just so much of the gospel in this that I don't want you to miss it.

1. It's a tangible act of humility and love.

C.S. Lewis said that compared to pride all other sins are flea bites. Paul writes, "Consider others to be better than yourselves." (Phil.2:3) When you're honoring another, it gives you a break from seeking your own honor and glory. This is good and healthy. It's a tangible way you can make the well being and honor of another more important than your own. It's a tangible way you can express love. And we need to be loved unconditionally. This is how Jesus loved us and calls us to love each other. Now, I have a warning. I'm not talking about technique-ing people with dishonest flattery. Few things are worse than finding out that you have been falsely elevated by someone who lies to you to make you feel better. Paul isn't calling us to lie. He isn't calling us to put ungifted people in positions of honor that would embarrass them. That would be false and cruel. It means to find honest ways to express your respect and love. It's a way to treat believers the way they will be treated in heaven. It will give them a taste of heaven. Every believer will someday shine with a brightness that will blind the eyes of natural man. Paul says that we consider no man after the flesh. This is especially true of believers.¹

To lead out in honoring one another is a tangible way to express humility and the love Christ has for his children. It gives others a taste of their future with Jesus.

2. To lead out in showing honor is a way to evangelize the world.

When we elevate others we are painting a picture of the good news. When we honor each other on the basis of grace and not on anything they can give us or do for us we are letting the light of the gospel shine. Jesus said, "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

3. To lead out in showing honor displays the glory of the gospel of Jesus who honored us when we were such a dishonor to Him.

Beloved, we are not by nature honorable to God. All have sinned and fallen short of the honor of God. Outside of grace we would be infinitely dishonorable to God. Nevertheless while we were yet sinners - while we were dishonoring him - Christ loved us and died for us so that we could have peace with God. He honored us by rescuing us from sin, death and hell and calling us to sit at His banquet table. Do you remember the parable about the king who invited everyone to a great banquet? However, no one would come. The king had to go out and compel people to come and sit at his table. On our own we would have never had thought to believe in Jesus. And yet Jesus does what? As one pastor pointed out to me, "He feeds us and beyond all natural comprehension He honors us by washing our feet while he was here on earth (Jn.13:1ff)...and in Luke 12:37, it pictures the second coming like this, ?He will dress himself for service and have them recline at table and he will come and serve them.'" In his mercy we have been honored. If you can't cherish, prize, love, and honor others unconditionally it may suggests that you haven't yet tasted the sweetness of such grace yourself.

The Prodigal Father Honored the Prodigal Son

The prodigal son wasted his life in selfish and excessive or prodigious living. After demanding his inheritance he ran out of money and friends. He took a job feeding the pigs in the muck and mire of a pig sty. He was hungry and no one would give him anything to eat or help him. He was so hungry that his stomach craved the feed he was giving the pigs. Then he came to his senses and realized how loving and generous his father was. He decided to go home. He got up and went to His father's house. While he was a long way off his father saw him coming, felt compassion for him and ran to him hugged him and kissed him. His son said, "I have sinned against heaven and in your sight I'm no longer worthy to be called you son." But the father said to his slaves, "Quickly. Go get the best robe and put it on him; put the ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. Don't let one unnecessary moment go by with my son standing here, dirty, stinky ashamed. Don't wait for him to take a bath; don't wait for him to take a shower. Put the best robe: the silk robe, the embroidered robe, the robe of honor and cover up his shame. Cover this boy of mine as fast as possible. Exchange his shame and guilt for honor and forgiveness. Exchange that which speaks of his failure with the certainty of the father's glory and honor. Exchange his hopeless, helpless downcast and despairing spirit with the garments of praise and expectation. Exchange my son's sad heart with gladness so that he can go out with joy and be led forth with peace. Relieve his hunger and thirst. Bring out the fatted calf, kill it and let us eat and be merry for this son of mine was dead and has come to live again; he was lost and has been found. And they began to be merry.

This is how the Father who was prodigious and excessive in love and grace honors his son. This is how Father God honors those who repent of their sins and ask His Son Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. This is the table he has prepared for those who believe. If you have not received this grace of God who honors us with so much honor when we didn't deserve it, receive it now. Today is the day of salvation. And if you have received it then go and lead out or outdo one another in honor.