Honour the Lord! — Thaddeus Barnum

Almighty God, Almighty Father, we pray, come by the grace of your Holy Spirit and break your word to us that we might receive life in Jesus' name. Amen. Good morning. You have been so kind to Aralyn and to me to welcome us back home.

Thank you. This is the stewardship season, and I would like to take a look at one passage of Scripture with you this morning. I want to see if we could just allow it to be exposited for us and allow the the Scripture to speak to us.

Honoring the Lord With Wealth and Firstfruits

From Proverbs in chapter 3 and verse 9, this great passage says, Honor the Lord from your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.

Well, our Lord is clearly showing us that we are to come to honor Him with our wealth, and that with this honoring of the Lord, it comes with a blessing. And that blessing will be that there will be plenty.

Our barns will be filled with plenty. Our vats will be bursting with wine. There's a sense, much like Matthew 6 .33, where it says you've got all these needs. Ah, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Then these things will be added unto you. He doesn't say, seek first so you can get. He just says, seek first. And it's the same thing here. Honor the Lord with your wealth. Now, I want to suggest to you that we'll never understand this verse, unless we understand the words, honor the Lord.

And I wonder what it means to you. How do you understand those words in your life? Honor the Lord. Honor the Lord. What does it mean to you? Would you say that you're a personage who does, with your life, honor the Lord?

The Meaning of Honor in Scripture and Culture

I want to bring this word to your attention. Why? Well, because I think it's missing. It's missing in our culture. It's missing in our day. It's missing in our times. Now, the secular world knows this word quite well.

To honor is simply to exalt. It is to lift up. It's a word that, well, Hollywood and Nashville every two weeks has an award of somebody. They're constantly doing it. I mean, it's completely nauseating.

I mean, there's always this honoring, honoring, honoring. Turn the television off. I mean, but at the same time, it's a good word. We honor our dignitaries, don't we? This past week, we honored our veterans, did we not?

Every once in a while, there's a hero that has done something great and risked their life, and we honor them. The way the Lord uses it in Luke chapter 14 is that there's a banquet, and there's always a seat of honor.

Because there are people to be distinguished and people to be lifted up. It's not a bad word at all. It can be very positive. But when we come to the biblical usage of that word, it shifts. It changes.

Now, let me say, as a child, I knew this word. As a child, at the age of five, I was taught, when an elder came into the room, and when you're five, that means everybody, you stand up. That's what you do.

There was a day when I was five when the principal came to our home. Scared me to death. Absolutely scared me to death. Because this man was, oh my gosh, I'm in trouble. There's a place for it, but in the biblical usage of the word, it shifts.

It has a more profound meaning. It has a deeper meaning. This word is always attached to relationships. Always. Always. Honor the Lord. It presumes you're in a relationship with Him. How do I know this?

Well, the Bible tells us. Plainly, as we see it in the great ten commandments, we find this word right at the center of it. The commandment number five, honor your father and your mother. It's right at the center, meaning that as a child grows up into the household, into life, the first thing that we learn as a child is to honor our father and our mother.

We learn respect. We learn awe. We learn it out of a context of family, out of love. It's already embedded into the conversation. Because of our love for our mother and our father, we honor them. It's what we do.

And a child growing up with this learns with their lips and their lives to do what their mother and father do because they love them. They obey them. They honor them. And that's the nature of how it works in the context of the family.

Love, Obedience, and the Will of the Father

And so it isn't difficult to understand that when our Lord takes that passage that we read from the Gospels this morning, He attaches the same meaning to it. A father goes to his two sons. He says to his one son, Son, go into the field.

And he said, I will not. But he changed his mind. He changed his mind and he went. Meaning the lip, the mind, and the will are at the center of this conversation. He spoke dishonor to his father. He spoke in rebellion to his father.

But he changed his mind and went and did what his father said to do. It's about relationship. It's about honoring his father. He goes to his second son. He says to his second son, Go into the field and work.

And his son says, I will. Yes. And does not go. So the question Jesus poses is simple. The common mind can understand this. Who did the will of his father? The one who changed his mind and obeyed him.

And right at the center of honor is love and obedience. You can't separate them. And this is why in John chapter 14 verse 31, Oh my gosh, if it's not underlined in your Bibles, underline it. If you're using a pew Bible, I don't care.

Underline it. Go ahead. It doesn't matter. Why? It's the greatest verse. Why? Jesus said, I want the world to know I love the father because I do what he commanded me to do. Isn't that beautiful? I honor my father.

I love my father because I do what he says to do. And my friends, you know the difficulty of that, don't you? In the garden of Gethsemane, he didn't want to go. This great hour of his own testing. And yet he said, Father, not my will.

So many of us go through times of great testing in our life. And to be able to have that saying in our hearts and our life, Yet, but Father, I honor you. I love you. It's at the very epic. And this is why when we actually get to the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all of a sudden it bursts.

The word bursts out of the pages of the Bible. Now, I know I'm giving you a cursory view of the word honor in Scripture, but just bear with me in this general sort of exposition of the word honor. Because when you come to our Lord Jesus Christ, his life in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Gospels, what do you find?

Well, you find he did not come to get honor. He did not seek honor for himself. What did he do? He kept honoring his father. What did his father do? He kept honoring his son. What's the ministry of the Holy Spirit?

To glorify his son, the Son. None of them, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, attract attention to himself. But it's the opposite. We honor those we love. We don't seek it for ourselves. Are you with me? This is the mystery of the Godhead.

Honor Within the Trinity

It's the very center of what it means to talk about the love of God. The honor of the Son for his Father. The Father for his Son. And the Holy Spirit, in John 16, we learn, the Holy Spirit will glorify the Son.

The Father bestows on the Mount of Transfiguration, bestows honor and glory upon his Son, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And there, our Savior, always pointing to his Father.

My friends, in the midst of the Godhead, love always has honor. Honor always has love. If you love someone and do not honor them, you do not love them. Do you understand? If you love someone, you honor them.

If you do not honor them, you do not love them. And this is what is the epicenter. You see, the entire Bible has been unfolded to you now. Why? Well, I'll tell you, this is the whole point. We're in a broken relationship with God.

Dishonor, Sin, and Humanity's Broken Relationship With God

Right back from the beginning of Genesis 3. See, this word actually unpacks the entirety of the Bible. So in Genesis 3, we've got a broken relationship with God. Let me go, if you've got Bibles, let me go to Romans chapter 1.

And let me let you, let Paul describe this conversation with us. In Romans chapter 1. What you're going to find is that what Paul is saying is that back at the very beginning of time, from the beginning of time, the Lord has inscribed His name upon every heart.

Verse 19. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Verse 20. Chapter 1, verse 20. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in all things that have been made, so that they are without excuse.

Every person ever born knows that God is by these invisible attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature. So all are without excuse. Look at verse 21. And this is the key behind it. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God.

Though they knew Him, they did not honor Him. You see, honor is what happened in Genesis 3. Dishonor. And that's how the relationship broke. Though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, what terrifying words. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.

Verse 26. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Verse 28. For since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manners of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit. My friends are describing our culture today. Are they not? Why? It all centers on this word. This word. Dishonor. Honor. Are we going to honor the Lord with our lives?

Not just with our lips, with our lives. Do you know what our Savior said? These are a people who honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. No, no. He came to bring us back into that relationship with God.

Christ's Honor in the Incarnation and at the Cross

And that's the joy of this. He came because even though we dishonored Him, yet the Lord, in His loving kindness, in His grace, in His mercy, came to us that we might, in fact, honor Him again. Because there is, in our innate nature, a rebellion to God, a rebellion to authority, a rebellion to Him.

Praise be the Lord for what He did to come. I can still never understand this. I read in USA Today that they have found a planet in some other solar system that's quite like ours. They're quite marveling over it.

It's only 39 light years away, about 230 trillion miles. And it resembles our planet, they say. Of course, the cool day is between 400 and 500 degrees. If you want to know what that's like, just pop in your oven tonight.

You see, the God who created this universe in its vast expanse decided to come among us. Born in Bethlehem. You will never read the Gospels the same if you understand this. We did not honor Him. The prophets told that a long time ago.

He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows, familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised. We esteemed Him not. The Gospel of John opens this way. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

It is the height of our rebellion. Of what we did with Him. And He knew it. In John 8, verse 49, He says, I honor My Father. You dishonor Me. He told the story of a man who went to a far country, and he gave a stewardship over his vineyard to people.

And he came to the time to reap the stewardship that belonged to him. But every prophet, every person, every messenger, they treated poorly and threw out. And he said, but they will respect my Son. And Jesus told that story, and we did not respect Him.

He too was thrown out and killed. My friends, Calvary is the single most tragic moment of all of history. It is the pronouncing that we ourselves have dishonored God. Look what we did to Him. We spat and we mocked and we crucified Him.

It's the picture of dishonor. The great twist of the cross that no one quite understood. The beauty of the cross is that He actually had upon Him our sin, our shame, our rebellion, our dishonor. We didn't know it, but as we were dishonoring Him, He was honoring us.

That's precious blood being spilled on Calvary's hill to forgive us our sin, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, to reconcile us to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross. You dishonor me.

I honor you. That's the good news. We can now come before the Father because Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. We can come back to the Father, and we can do what it's always been said to do.

Honor thy Father. Honor Him. Love Him. You're in relationship to Him now because of what Jesus did. That death, that rising to new life. Peace be with you. We're back in relationship with the living God.

Trusting the Lord and Receiving His Discipline

And this is the whole point behind the Proverbs passage. There in the center, verse 3, verse 9, honor the Lord. Honor the Lord with your wealth. Honor the Lord, you. Honor the Lord, you're in relationship with Him.

Don't you know the verses that precede verse 9? Sure you do. You're just embarrassed and shy. Okay, then I'll do it. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him.

And He will make straight your path. Acknowledge Him with your lips. Isn't that beautiful? Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord. Turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body, refreshments to your bones.

Honor the Lord from your wealth. Honor the Lord from the first fruits of all your produce. Then comes the blessing. Your barns will be full of plenty. Your vats will be bursting with wine. My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline.

Do not grow weary when He rebukes you. The Lord disciplines everyone He calls a son, a daughter, doesn't He not? He delights in the fact that we're in His family and our job and our desire is to honor the Lord.

Repentance and the Restoration of Honor

That's what John the Baptist was doing on the banks of the River Jordan. He was calling us back into relationship. The Savior's coming. Let every valley be lifted up, the mountains brought down. Let the crooked become straight and the rough become smooth because we're about to behold our Savior.

Are you ready for Him? Honor Him when He comes. That's the whole message. That's the whole message bursting out of the epistles, the apostles going out filled with the Holy Spirit. What was their message?

Repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We can come back into relationship with Him. We can love our Father again because of what the Son has done. And honor is restored back into the community, back into the heart of who we are.

The culture can dishonor Him, but not those who know Him, not those who love Him. And when honor is restored, everything changes. Did you know that? Everything changes. Is it just me? Come on. Can you imagine our children?

How many of you have seen children, especially northern children? How many of you have seen children speaking against their parents publicly? Where honor has been taken from our children. They've not been taught it.

They don't know anything about it. They grow up despising authority, despising their father, despising the laws. We live in a land of lawlessness because we have not taught it from the beginning, have we not?

Honor in Marriage, Family, and Social Responsibility

Did you know that the whole covenant of marriage, if you are married in this church, when you came to the covenant of marriage, do you know four times, four times in our marital service, this is the heart of the text of what marriage is all about.

As the Scripture says, let marriage be held in honor among us. Will you take this woman to be your wife, to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her?

It's right there. At the end, after the vows, when we declare our love, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow. And with all that I am, and with all that I have, I honor you. Husbands, did you hear me?

Thanks for reminding me. Yes, but you see, it's because the heart of our God is here. You cannot love and not honor. Honor is the stuff with which love is. It's what the love of God is. And so consequently, the Bible just begins to come open more and more.

How are we supposed to treat our elderly? Leviticus 19 .32, it says, honor your seniors, honor your aged. When you do, you honor me. In Proverbs 14 .31, it says the same thing about our poor. Be kind, be merciful, be gracious, for when you do, you honor me.

Care for the poor, give yourself to the poor. Remember that you too were poor in heart and spirit until I came. Honor them, honor me. Employers, employees, masters, slaves, it's the same conversation.

As you honor your employer, remember it's the Lord Christ whom you serve. And masters do the same. Grant justice and fairness to those in your employ because you too answer to your Father in heaven. That's Colossians 3.

Outdoing One Another in Honor

But what I really love, I mean I really love, is that in the New Testament, when the Christians began to understand the honor and the worship and the praise of God that we could again be in relationship, we could honor our Father, down came this world of honor into the heart of the Christian family.

And Paul says it this way, Romans 12 .10, and it's totally competitive, which I'm not. It says this in Romans 12 .10, Out do one another in showing honor. Yeah, you try to honor me, I'm going to get you right back.

You point to me, I'll point to you back. Out doing one another. That's what happens in the body of Christ when the Spirit of God begins to move. We stop pointing at ourselves, we start pointing to Him, and we start loving one another as Christ has loved us.

It doesn't matter where we are, it doesn't matter who we are, it doesn't matter who's in front of us, whether they've spit in our face, whether they've argued with us, whether they don't like us, we've got a chance, we've got the power of God the Spirit in us to love and honor them back.

Amen. Oh, if there's a Pentecostal that would have been the moment right there. That would have been the moment right there. You and I have got a chance to burst this honor to everybody that we meet. And Peter actually says that, 1 Peter 2 .17.

He doesn't just say honor within the community, he says, and this is the passion for mission, he says, honor everyone. Honor all people. That's the stuff of mission right there. When we go out into this world today, it doesn't matter who they are or what they've done.

They were once made in the image of God. They're as fallen as we were fallen. Jesus saved us. We've got a message to live. We've got a word to give. We've got a way to honor them and teach honor. That's how mission is done.

Honoring Enemies Through Forgiveness

Haven't you seen how our Christians have faced the ISIS? How they've had guns at their head? Did you notice what they've done? They've not cursed back, have they? They've not spit back, have they? What have they done?

They've prayed for them. They've forgiven them. Why? Because we know how to honor. Because the Lord, in His mercy, He honored us. I'm going to say this. It's just so obvious, but you and I have a choice.

Honoring God Through Suffering and Testing

We can honor the Lord with our lips, our mind, and our will. Yes, we can. In all that we are and in all that we do. Whether we're in a season of testing, whether we've got some diagnosis that's in front of us, whether we're hearts broken because something has happened into our lives, somebody we love has been taken from us, something has happened to us, and our hearts are broken.

Yet we can say with Job, but yet, though I don't understand what's happened to me, though I don't understand the burden and the suffering that I'm going through, but I do know that the Lord is good, and He's kind, and He's faithful, and always and everywhere I shall honor the Lord.

And out of Job's mouth came, Blessed be the Lord. Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I will depart. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. It's worthy of honor.

He's always worthy of honor. He's worthy of praise. Christians, this is our story. This is our God. This is our Savior. He's calling us back into relationship with Him, and when it begins to happen, our lives are changed, and honor is restored back into the community, restored back into the heart.

Revival, Worship, and the Power of the Holy Spirit

Go back and look at the revivals down through the centuries of time. What are you going to find? Every time that the Holy Spirit has shown up, has come in power upon the church, worship has changed in honor and reference unto the Lord.

The Word of God comes alive to us, and we're fed again, and we learn how to take that love, that honor, to each and every person in the church, and outside the church, because the power of God, the Holy Spirit, is with us.

Don't focus on me. Focus on Him, and how can I serve you today in a way that you might know what our Savior has done? Friends, I hate to say it. I've only covered most of the Bible with you this morning, but I have to end where I have to end, where the whole point.

The Worthiness of God and the Lamb

Didn't you notice in the book of Revelation? Didn't you notice in the songs of New Testament? It's constantly pointing to this theme, is it not? Listen to the Apostle Paul. He who is the blessed and only sovereign, King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to Him be honor and everlasting power.

Thank you. Yes. Ascribe to the Lord the honor due His name. Come into His courts with offerings. Friends, you can honor the Lord from your wealth, but if you don't honor Him with your life, your wealth means nothing.

He didn't give the ability to tithe as a law to us so we fulfill a law. How many of you know people tithe and dishonor their wives, dishonor their neighbors, dishonor others, and yet they tithe? I say forget the tithe.

Either live for Jesus or don't. If you do, then honor Him with your lives and learn to honor one another. And then out will come our songs. The songs, the great songs, the songs I love so much. Worthy art Thou, our Lord, our God, to receive glory and honor and power.

Please stand, for Thou didst create all things, and by Thy will they existed and were created. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory in dominion. Friends, if you're not living a life that's honoring the Lord, come to the altar and repent of it. Get your life right with Jesus and let's live an honored life in lip, mind, and will.

For this is the glory of our Father. Amen. Thanksgiving, blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor and might and power belong to our God forever and ever. Let us worship the Lord.