Honor in a Cancel Culture

well some would say that we're living in the age of perpetual offense where we're quick to judge quick to criticize quick to condemn and quick to cancel anyone who offends us have you noticed that it used to be just those who were more well-known like we'd cancel the politicians or uh the athletes or the business leader but unfortunately uh now it might be someone like your school teacher that says something that you don't like it could be the person that you work with or it could be the friend on social media that just crosses some line and so you just write them out of your life it doesn't take much in the culture that we're in today it could be a single misstatement it could be a misunderstanding it could be something very intentional something very very dumb it could be a tweet that's 10 years old but there might be a person that literally had years and years of integrity but with one moment of foolishness or even one moment of sinfulness we just completely write them out the tragedy is to me is it's not just with those who are well known that it's so easy to dismiss but today it can be with your friends it can often be with your family there are family members who don't speak because they don't like the way another family member voted or they don't like who they follow on social media or there was a disagreement over a single issue and so we completely distance ourselves from somebody and it doesn't have to be just something that's big or what would be majorly important it could be that i just don't like the way she was looking at me and he never comments on my posts and they're really really slow to respond to my text because one time i texted and you started to respond i saw the bubbles and then you ghosted me i'm so done with you we live in the age of perpetual offense we have to acknowledge the truth that if you're on a continuous search to be offended you'll always find what you're looking for and when we live in such a culture that's almost looking to be offended looking to be angry and looking to dishonor the way we're called to live by god is very different than the current culture in which we live in fact scripture tells us in romans chapter 12 verse 10 this will introduce our virtue for today scripture tells us to honor somebody say honor you might just type that in the chat i'm going to show honor type that in the chat scripture says to honor one another above yourselves to show honor to someone else even above the way we would honor ourselves so i would ask you how are we doing at that huh how we doing in our culture how are we doing at honoring one another above ourselves and that's why today i want to talk to you about one of the most important and most overlooked virtues that matters to god and it should matter to us i want to talk to you today about my title is honor in a cancel culture would you pray with me today at all of our churches father we ask that your living word would speak to hearts today would transform us by your grace that as followers of jesus we would honor you first god and you would empower us by your spirit to honor others above ourselves we pray this in jesus name and everybody said amen are you ready for god's word today if you're ready say i'm ready type it in the chat i'm ready today we got some people really ready here uh we're gonna be in in mark's gospel today mark chapter six and what i want to do is give you the context of mark chapter six um jesus had just done a couple of miracles pretty powerful miracles he healed a woman that had an issue of blood for 12 years and miraculously brought healing into her life and then even more incredible there was a little girl that actually died she was physically dead and at the power of his spoken word he raised this girl from the dead then jesus goes into his hometown now this was not his birthplace this was the place where he was raised he goes to his hometown nazareth and the people there were looking for the messiah where is he jesus comes in as the messiah and they looked right past him and didn't show any honor but we're going to see actually did the opposite let me read mark chapter 6 starting in verse 1 to you scripture says this jesus left that part of the country and returned with his disciples to nazareth his hometown the next sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue and many who heard him were amazed they asked where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles then scripture says they scoffed he's just a carpenter isn't this the guy we grew up with isn't that the guy who made your end table he's just a carpenter they said the son of mary and the brother of james joseph judas and simon and his sisters live right here among us that we know they're family they're so familiar and there can't be anything special about those who are familiar to us the bible says they were deeply offended and they refused to believe in him then jesus told his disciples he told them a prophet is honored everywhere except in his hometown and among his relatives and his own family he was without honor in his own home town jesus was without honor what is the difference between showing honor and withholding honor and i want to show you a couple of greek words that you can find in scripture the first one is the word atemos uh this word means without honor the word atemos means to dishonor or to treat as common or ordinary there's nothing special about you there's no reason to treasure you i shouldn't say anything good about you i shouldn't expect any throne from you you're simply ordinary you're common the word that is translated as honor it looks like the word time but is translated it's pronounced team a and this word means to value to respect or highly esteem it means to treat as precious weighty or valuable what do you think honor does honor esteems it cherishes it values it builds up it encourages it believes the best what does dishonor do dishonor on the other hand treats as common it tears down it belittles it criticizes it devalues it assumes the worst it's a little bit like if a guy is dating a girl that he likes she smells good i like everything about her and so what does he do he shows her honor he honors her by opening the door for her he honors her by taking her on a date do you all remember what a date is he he gives her compliments he compliments everything he brags on her he posts photos with them together and uses the hashtag true love one day they get married and then they settle down and over time they start to take one another for granted and instead of honoring and lifting he starts to treat her as ordinary this is my girl comes home and says what's wrong what'd you do all day i've actually seen men that show more affection to their dogs than to their wives and then he comes home and he burps and he scratches something said wants some of this and he wonders why she vomits on him [Applause] some of you guys are being real quiet listen you you want a special god-honoring marriage what do you do you honor one another above yourself you want a common marriage you treat each other as ordinary because when you do what once was special becomes ordinary every single time we saw this played out amy and i were working with a couple that were friends of ours and they started out with a good marriage but after a while they were completely dishonoring so we were meeting with them and this wife i'm just here to tell you she was all up into her husband's business she was tearing them down and never never nathan you don't you never knew this and i was really uncomfortable now amy the godly quiet one can sometimes be loud and prophetic and she jumped in and said to that wife do you realize the whole time the only thing you've done is tear your husband down you need to stop it right now and she bowed up looks back at amy and said well if my husband was one-tenth the man that your husband is then maybe i'd show him honor and amy didn't give an inch and said maybe my husband is the man he is because i've been honoring him since the day we met him [Applause] don't mess with the pretty girl she's got some fight in her [Applause] here's the problem we often tend to think that once you act honorable then i'll show you honor once you live in such a way that you deserve honor then at that moment i'll go ahead and ascribe honor to you but there's a big difference between respect and honor what do we know we know that respect is earned but honor on the other hand is given it's it's a posture of the heart it's a humility of saying god because of who you are and because of your creation even if they're not yet acting in an honorable way i choose to honor because this is one of the ways that i honor you and here's what's crazy is when you start to ascribe honor to someone and you treat them as special and weighty and precious and as you start to build them up and believe the best and encourage them they often just start to become honorable and on the other hand when you assume the worst and you tear them down and you tell them over and over and over again what they're not and you belittle them and you criticize them and you take them out at the knees it's so amazing how sometimes they start acting even more dishonorably why because honor builds up and dishonor tears down so what are we going to do how are we going to respond what i want to do today is i want to narrow in on four different avenues of scripture in which we are told to be honorable to show honor we'll look at four different categories of those that we should honor the first one if you're taking notes you can jot this down number one we are to honor god our creator our sustainer el shaddai the god who is more than enough our provider the holy one the one who spoke and created all that is our redeemer our savior that god and how do we honor god scripture gives us lots of different ways one of the ways we honor god is we honor him with what he gives to us scripture says honor him with our wealth or with the first fruits everything that we have comes from god everything that we are comes from god and so when he gives us any increase we honor him with 10 back as an act of honor to the goodness of who god is we honor him with our bodies they are holy and set apart for his glory that means there are some places we won't go and some things we won't do and some things we won't look at and some things that we'll do that may seem different from others because he's called us to be holy and set apart with our bodies we honor him with our worship it's not lip service it's the overflow of our hearts because of who he is and what he's done we honor the goodness of god in a culture that makes fun of god we honor god we're also told in scripture not just to honor god but we're told to honor our parents and i want to talk to kids of all ages today because some of you are going to say well my parents are weird and they are weird my kids tell us that all the time you're weird you're older whatever but parents we're not called to be buddies to our children as much as we're called to be spiritual authority imparting life unto them and we're going to teach them to honor in the home so they'll help know how to honor throughout their whole lives this will sound really old-fashioned this will date me and you can make fun of me all you want but amy and i just decided one of the ways we teach honor in our home with our six children is when we ask you something your response is yes sir or with amy it's yes ma'am if there's any kind of adult this is just a posture of honor you're saying well that's kind of controlling an old-fashioned we're going to start here and we're going to build into our children a culture of saying we honor those who have gone before us we honor those who are over us and if you think for a moment one day your kids are going to honor some boss when they didn't honor you in your home you're robbing them of the blessing of teaching them to ascribe honor to those who are around them we honor god we honor our parents the third thing scripture teaches us is to honor those who are in authority oh if i haven't gotten up into your business yet i'm about to do it just now because a lot of you right now go why not honoring you know the current administration or the past administration or whatever can we just have a little real talk right now can we just go there can we just do it over the years um i have liked some of our leaders more than others and i have disagreed with either tone or policy or perhaps both i dare you in 25 years of leadership to find any time that i've dishonored our leaders because you can disagree without dishonoring there is a big difference we honor our leaders we pray for those that we voted for and we pray for those that we didn't vote for we pray for our leaders it is the right thing to do we don't have to agree you look at uh in the old testament when um david was running for his life from saul saul's trying to kill him what did david do he still showed honor i don't know about you but to this day i've never had the president try to kill me and if you can be under that type of authority and still show honor our god shows us to honor our leaders with the posture of prayer you can disagree without being dishonorable we're better than that scripture also teaches us that we're to honor our pastors and our spiritual leaders and i don't want this to sound self-serving so i will deflect but the bible does say that those who oversee the church are worthy of double honor and so i would say to your campus pastors and to your staff and even more than that listen to me those who are serving your kids when you're in church double honor double honor those who are here on wednesday nights to those who have invested in my six children i love you i honor you i come with gift cards and thank you notes and hugs because of what you do it matters to god and it matters to me why does honor matter so much why does it matter it's not just right before god but to be dishonorable actually hurts you anytime you're dishonoring it actually hurts you in fact scripture teaches us this in mark chapter 6 verses 4 and 5 back to our text when jesus was talking to those around him he said a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown among his relatives and in his own home now watch in verse 5 there's a crazy little verse that says this jesus could not do any miracles there except lay his hand on a few sick people and heal them here's what's crazy is it doesn't say that he would not but scripture says he could not now we know that before he could because he just raised a dead girl to life he just healed and issued a woman who had an issue of blood for 12 years but in this context when there was a lack of faith and when there was a lack of honor he could not do any of the big miracles and i don't fully understand this i'm not going to pretend like i do but what i do know is that a lack of honor and a lack of faith limited what jesus would have done otherwise so i wondered what miracles god wanted to do for you what blessings god wanted to give to you what prayers god wanted to answer for you but he didn't because you lacked honor scripture says this this is the word of god honor one another above yourselves how we doing in a canceled culture will you write your friend off for a facebook post honor one another above yourselves i like the way another virgin translates it says to outdo one another in showing honor out do i want to outdo you in showing honor if we go to dinner together i promise you i'm getting the bill it's one small way i can outdo you and all my friends know that and so they try to do battle and so i call a day before [Applause] right dad and he goes there a week before so i buy the restaurant because we're going to outdo one another in showing honor you want a marriage that's blessed instead of tearing each other down what if you tried to out love one another what if you tried to out encourage one another what if you tried to out give one another what if you tried to out cherish and out esteem one another we're gonna outdo one another in showing honor and so because i have the microphone and i get to do whatever the heck i want i want to just take a moment i want to honor some people and i'm going to start with the moms in our house at every location and those online can you give up some love and honor for the moms in our lives we thank you for the amazing sacrifices no one loves and sacrifices like a mom and i want to honor a few people that are here tonight and people that are in my family um i start with on the left i honor my mom who is here and uh for years she's been wanting me to say it and so i'll just say it mom you were right about everything i said it and and i love you and my dad who never missed a game and worked me harder than any dad could have worked me because he loved me more than any dad could have loved me i honor you dad and to my bride and my best friend oh dear god i don't know if i can get through it but um no one will ever know no one will ever know you're giving heart your serving spirit your godliness your prayers hours and hours of prayers putting up with me standing by me holding my hand praying through the night there's no way to describe how much i love you and honor you with all of my heart the leaders of our church this is what's amazing and stunning what i want you to understand is these men have been with me for over two decades and you won't see that hardly anywhere the best of the best who could go anywhere and make any amount of money but they give their lives their wives their children they're all pure all in completely in and that is special and i honor those leaders this place would not be what it is without these leaders and my pastor who is no longer on earth as of this year who taught me god's word taught me to preach um gave me a chance to keep doing ministry when most would have given up i honor my pastor nicaras i honor those of you in our community that serve i honor first responders who run in when everybody else runs out i honor our leaders whether i voted for them or i didn't i honor our leaders i publicly stand to pray for our leaders and believe the best that god can use even someone i may disagree with i choose to show honor i honor you our church with more love than i have the ability to describe you are the best of the best you are set apart you are holy for god you are courageous in what you do you're the most innovative faith-filled passionate bet the farm risk takers 20 years ago when it had never been done before we said what if we did church in more than one location and we helped plow ground new ground on how the gospel can be spread throughout the world through the local church you broke that ground when it had never been done before and we said what if we took insurance online and the world debated is that good is that real and you said yes we'll do anything short of sin to reach people who don't know christ to reach people that no one's reaching we've got to do things no one's doing and he helped us innovate when we said let's give it away you raised the money to give it away and when the world shut down there were 50 000 churches who said we'll take that gift even right now the universim bible app on almost half a billion devices out of one local church because of your innovation and because your generosity the greatest distribution tool of the word of god in the history of the world born out of the generosity of this local church your heart to pray your desire for righteousness your willingness to love those who walk in very different than you different views different mindsets your willingness to stand centered unified around the gospel of the name of the lord jesus christ knowing we can do more together than we can apart i honor you our church with all of my heart and above all i honor the name that is above every name i honor the name of jesus my redeemer my king my savior my lord the righteous one the one who's forgiven me the one who's healed me the one who brought redemption the one who reached down when i was so low and pulled me out of the brokenness of my sin the one whose name is above every name his name is jesus he said this he said the people they they honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me we live in a culture today that may give god lip service treating god is familiar common ordinary he's not the big guy in the sky jesus is not your homeboy he's not the six pound eight ounce tiny baby jesus right no no he is the prince of peace he is the lamb of god he is the alpha and he is the omega he is the soon returning conquering king of kings and the lord of all lords that's [Music] [Applause] our jesus and we honor him with all of our hearts [Music] so when we honor god we honor people one of the ways that we honor god is by honoring others above ourselves why do we do that when they're different and when they're wrong because they still are his because they need the same grace that you need and the same grace that i need [Music] we honor them because his name is on them because he created them and that's what i want you to understand is you're not common and you're not ordinary because his name is on you it's because of his name is because of his name i'll illustrate it like this dad you'll like this one babe ruth is considered one of the greatest home run hitters of all time the bambino autographed tons and tons of baseballs but only seven home run bats i'm going to show you something that might be hard for you to believe but i'm holding in my hand one of those seven baths not really this is uh [Applause] just one we bought online that had babe ruth on it but wouldn't that have been cool [Applause] that'd have been so awesome that no this one was 1999 including free delivery and uh and um there were seven bats and one of the bats vanished for decades and then in 1988 the man who had the vanished bat he was um sick on his deathbed and there was a nurse that took care of him her name was marcia and he had no living relatives no one to give his wealth or his treasures to and because of the way this nurse honored and cared for him before he died he offered her one of the seven babe ruth bats and for the next 18 years she kept this bat underneath her bed not fully understanding that it was a pretty special bath then one day she retired from nursing and she'd always dreamed of opening up a restaurant but she didn't have enough money to fulfill her dream so she thought i wonder if that old bat is worth anything and so she took it down to a memorabilia store and showed it to the owner who looked at it as like could this be could this be and he verified it was one of the seven and it was the missing babe ruth home run bat and so in 2006 she auctioned off that bat for almost 1.3 million dollars you can clap for that that's pretty cool [Applause] this one's for 20 bucks if that was really his name because of the name the value would change she used a portion of that money to open up her restaurant and then she donated the rest of the money to a foundation for children that babe ruth had always loved and the media didn't understand like why would you do that why would you donate so much money and this is what marcia said she said the bat was only valuable because babe ruth's name was on it since he made it valuable the only reasonable thing i could do was something that would honor his life what is it that makes you valuable what is it that makes me valuable it is the name that is above every name and his name is the name of his name is the name of those of you online don't leave us out type it in the chat his name is his name is his name is above every name and because his name is upon you you are not common and you are not ordinary and because of who he is and because of what he's done my only reasonable response is to show him honor with my whole life if you're a christian what makes you valuable is the name of jesus and so your only reasonable response your only reasonable response is to show him honor how do we do that we honor one another above ourselves and so if you find yourself recognizing um you've lived a little bit without honor it's not just right but could actually hurt you not to and you can build up those who are around you so we might just ask god to forgive us and as the spiritual leader under the authority of god as i show him honor i declare a spirit of honor upon this place i declare a spirit of honor upon your heart i declare a spirit of honor upon our church that we would be known as a church that builds up rather than tears down i declare upon our church that when we speak we'll be a voice of healing and always a voice of hope i declare that as a people we will always fight for unity because we know we can do infinitely more together than we can apart i declare a spirit of honor over your homes i declare a spirit of honor over your families i declare a spirit of honor over your children i just declare a spirit of honor over everything that you touch because of who jesus is and because of what he's done our only reasonable response is to love him to honor him with our whole hearts mind soul and strength god help us to honor one another above selves as you join me in praying today at all of our churches those of you who would say god help me to be more honorable toward you and more honorable toward others would you just lift up a hand right now if that's your prayer god i hope it's everybody father because of your name because of who you are because it's right help us treat others as precious as weighty as worthy of encouragement god help us to build up starting in our homes and overflowing into our communities god help us to show honor even if someone else isn't honorable god help us to show honor because it's the right thing to do god forgive us anytime we've lacked this and may your spirit dwell within us because of your name because of your name because of your name help us to honor you and help us to honor under others even above ourselves as you keep praying today without looking around there are those who would honor god with their lips but their hearts are far from them there are others in honor governor lips but our hearts are still far from i'd ask you this where's your heart toward god where's your heart toward god what did god do for us god loves you so much that while you were disobeying and dishonoring while you were sinning while i was sinning while we were still sinners scripture said christ gave his life for us the son of god god in the flesh jesus who was without sin became sin on a cross for us and died in our place and because the power of god he raised jesus from the dead so that anyone and this includes you it doesn't matter how dishonorable you've been and how mean how angry how much you've hurt people how many stupid things you've done how bad and how dark your sin has been anyone that calls on that name the name that is above every name our god hears your prayers and he forgives your sins and he makes you new there are those of you this is your moment you're being drawn to god that's his love that's his grace that's his spirit drawing you how's your heart toward god how's your heart toward god because of who he is because of what he's done our only reasonable response is to say jesus take all of my life when you cry out to him he hears your prayers listen he forgives everything that you've ever done and you become brand new today online or all of our churches those who say yes i don't want to just honor him outwardly i want my heart to honor him i want him to be first today i walk away from my sin i let it go i confess it to him i cry out to jesus jesus save me take me be first be the lord of my life i want to honor god in all that i do today this is your prayer very simply jesus i give you my life that's your prayer lift your hands behind now all of the places lift them up over here are saying yes over here others today say yes jesus i'm giving you my life lift them up right up here praise god for you those of you watching online just type that into the chat i'm giving my life to you i'll come somebody praise god for what he's doing to date all of our churches would you just join your faith and pray aloud with those around you pray heavenly father i give you my life jesus save me forgive me make me brand new i surrender fill me with your spirit so i could serve you follow you and honor you help me to honor others as i honor you thank you for new life i give you all of mine in jesus name i pray because somebody celebrate big worship loud welcome those born into the family of god

Channel: Life.Church

Views: 55,225

Rating: 4.9169211 out of 5

Keywords: Craig Groeschel, Sermon, Life.Church, Lifechurch, life church, life church sermons, craig rochelle, groeschel craig, church sermons 2021, true virtue, virtues, honor, honor god, honor your parents, honor one another above yourselves, why does honor matter, honor one another sermon, honor one another, is cancel culture good, cancel culture, easily offended, easily offended people, i'm offended, offence, virtue signalling, cancel culture sermon, cancel culture sermon series

Id: dUl3Isozzgo

Length: 37min 23sec (2243 seconds)

Published: Sun May 09 2021