LAW HOMILY: Honor Is More Than Begrudging Obedience

Every week we look at the law of God because we want to understand what God has to say to his people and we want to understand how do we obey this

God that we're in relationship with. In our Sunday school class, shameless plug by the way, we're looking at Christ in the

Old Testament. And today we looked at this scene where the angel of the

Lord shows up and Joshua recognizes that this is the angel of the Lord and he plants his face against the dirt.

And the angel of the Lord says, take off your sandals for this place where you are standing is holy ground. He says the same thing that God said in the burning bush.

Wherever God is, there's sacred space. Wherever God is, it's holy. And if we're going to obey this

God that is holy and righteous and good, we need to know what it means to even obey him.

And the Ten Commandments is the greatest distillation of how to obey God ever written.

So we go through it every week. Today we're on the fifth commandment and that is honor your father and your mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which the

Lord, your God, gives you. Now Exodus 2012 doesn't merely command obedience.

It commands honor. And that word actually matters a tremendous amount.

A man may obey with arms crossed and teeth clenched. He may complete every required action while the heart smolders with contentment.

The task can be finished, but the requirement apparently, or the requirement is fulfilled, but God sees what no audit can actually find.

The sullen nature of the interior, the murmur complaint, the eyes that roll in the privacy of our soul, he doesn't call that honor.

He calls that rebellion. Because we're not only called to obey, we're called to honor.

And we dishonor authority, not just with God, but also we dishonor human authority.

Not only when we obey whatever someone who's in authority over us says, but when we also obey in such a way that our heart is poisoned in it.

We've learned over and over again through this particular commandment that this has more to do than just the relationship that a three -year -old has to her mom and dad.

This is a sort of blanket statement about authority in general. This is the authority that a boss has to the person who works beneath him.

This is the authority that a governor has over his citizens. This is an authority that a husband has in his family.

This is an authority that a church leader has. There's an authority structure here that has been set up and established by Almighty God that we're not only to obey, but we're to honor.

Honor is obedience with joyful deference. Honor is obedience with joyful deference.

So if we're talking about the commands of God, you and I know baseline, we don't even honor the authorities perfectly.

I think about this sometimes. My wife reminds me, we have the Life360 app, which

I love it and I hate it. I hate it because she'll say, hey, why were you driving 86 on the interstate?

And I'm like, I was just going with traffic.

I have this rebellious tendency in me that I want to make excuses for myself when my government has said, hey, this is a safe limit for which you can drive.

And when other people are going faster and I just want to match them,

I make excuses for myself. Now, I know that's a silly example, but I'm going to the silliest of examples to show you that we all have a persnickety nature inside of us that says,

I don't want to obey. You set the rule, I'm going to go an inch past it.

I'm going to test it. We all have that sort of pugnacity about us to where we don't like to submit to authority.

So we don't even obey, much less joyfully. So how much more so do we need to repent?

And this can go a lot of different ways. Maybe it's children. Your mom and dad has told you something to do.

And you say, okay. And you walk away with a frustrated and bitter spirit.

Pray children, that when your father and your mother tell you what to do, that you would not only do it to get past the situation and pacify the authority.

Pray that you would actually do it joyfully. Because that is the command that you would honor, not just obey.

What about at work? When your boss, who all week long has ridden you and acted like that he hates you.

I had a boss one time in the army. I went on a leave for two weeks.

I got to leave Iraq. Can you believe that? We live in a really weird time in history where you can go on vacation during the middle of a war.

So I went home. I saw my family. I came back. And then when I got back, I had to do a thousand pushups from my sergeant because my sergeant said that it wasn't fair that I got to go and he didn't.

So I have to, by nature of existing, do a thousand pushups. And I had 12 hours in which to do them.

And I did them. But I hated him as I did them. I don't have a right to do that if I belong to God.

Now his authority may be evil. His authority may be used in wicked ways. Your boss's authority may be used in wicked ways.

But if they're not telling you to sin and they're not telling you to avoid being biblically obedient, if they're not causing you to sin and whatever thing that they've given you to do, maybe you feel like it's stupid, maybe you feel like it's arbitrary, obey and honor.

Because what God sees in secret, he will reward you for it.

Maybe it's in your home. Maybe you're realizing that in your marriage that it's really hard to honor this person because of what they say or what they do or their inconsistencies.

But wait a minute. It doesn't say honor if they deserve it.

It doesn't say honor if they've earned it. It doesn't say honor if they have done X, Y, and Z first.

It says honor. My prayer for the church of Jesus Christ is that we would demonstrate to the world around us what honor looks like, what obedience under deference looks like.

My prayer is that we would show them what it means to be captivated by the

Spirit of God, the same Jesus who went to the cross with joy, is the same

Jesus who put his spirit in our heart that will allow us to deal with micro annoyances with joy.

So let us pray and ask God to help us with these things because all of us are guilty of these things.

Let's pray. From the moment we're born,

Lord, we have this tendency of thinking about us. The world revolves around us and how we feel and how we expect that we are going to be treated.

But honor doesn't consider that. Honor considers how we treat the other person.

Honor is inherently externally focused instead of internally focused.

Lord, would you help us like Joseph to honor even in the prison, to honor even when maligned and slandered, to honor like Christ even before his captors were silent, to honor like Paul and Silas who sang in prison, to honor like James and John who walked away from being beaten for loving you that they sang hymns of praises and they counted it a great joy that they were worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ.

Lord, the things that we deal with are real and they bother us. They elevate our blood pressure, they provoke our anxieties, they cause us to want to be in this kind of fight or flight where we defend, defend, defend, and before we know it, the problem is worse, the crater and the hole in the relationship is deeper.

The battle lines are more firmly established. Lord, would you help us to lead with honor instead of offense?

Would you help us in our conflicts to be a people who honor so fiercely that conflict and arguing and fights and divisions and all sorts of different maladies of that nature could not even exist or even be named in your church?

Lord, would you please distinguish your church from the world? Would you please let this place, this particular little church, be a place so filled with love and honor and mutual respect and submission to authority that someone could come in and say,

I've never seen this before, and the only thing that we could do is give you the glory? Lord, would you have that in our marriages?

Marriages fail and marriages divide over small micro grievances that become mountains of offenses.

Lord, would you instead of making us a people who focus on our way, our self, how we've been treated, would you make us instead say,

I am going to focus on how they are treated and I am going to honor? Would you heal marriages that are caught in the middle of dishonoring and would you heal it with honor?

Would you heal homes, restore relationships between children and parents that are caught in the middle of throwing grenades of division, would you heal it with honor?

And Lord, would you help heal our hearts to recognize that we can give honor abundantly and with infinite supply because in our shame you died for us and you gave us your honor which never runs dry.

Help us, Lord. Help us to do it for you and for your glory and Lord, let it be for our good and let our relationships heal not through being right but through honor.