Respecting People - Loren Kropf

Greeting is the name of Christ. Good to be here

again with you. God's blessings to you, brother Charles. And

also I noticed a few anniversaries, a couple of anniversaries.

GJ, it's your anniversary today? Is that correct?

Also the anniversary of a great thunderstorm? Right, I was

somebody was reminding us of reminding me of that. I

don't know if I would remember that for sure. But

and Bob and Madonna, looks like you're here and there

as well, So congratulations and blessings. All right, this morning,

I would like if we could start out with some

children helping me out. If you're between the ages of

approximately four or five and thirteen, could you just stand

to your feet and help me with something quickly?

All right?

So those of you who are standing, can you tell

me what are some bad manners?

Just give me one. What's a bad manner? You give

any example.

There's four boys here that I think would need at

least one bad manner?

Can you help me? All right?

Chewing with your mouth open, So while you're sitting down

and you just are really loud, what's an idea of

a good manner? Maybe some one of the girls can

help me on this. What's something that's good?

A good manner ism?

Any of their parents want to help me?

All right?

Opening the door for people? What are some others you

maybe see it? Thank you?

What are some others anyone adult to adult, child.

To parent, whichever, doesn't matter. Yeah, just saying please and

thank you. It's pretty basic stuff, right. So there are

a lot of manners that we could think about. It's

not really my subject, but why do we I would

like you to think with me just a little bit.

Why we have them? Why shouldn't you? I wonder there's

probably some cultures where it's actually.

Maybe it's a compliment to you with your mouth open.

I don't know, but there are some things like that

around the world that we would kind of, you know,

feel are not.

The best, and other cultures would be okay with.

Maybe eating with your hands would be one of them,

eating rice or something.

Why do we have manners? Though?

And there could be a number of different answers to this,

but I would suggest that at least one of them

is because we respect other people. It's a matter of

being respectful. I don't really want to hear you cheer

your food that much. It's polite to open the door

for someone. Somebody did that for us this morning on

the way, and here that was good manners.

I was respectful.

Wasn't necessary in a sense I was capable of opening

a door, but it was.

Okay to do it. Was fine, not essential.

Necessarily saying please and thank you is a mannerism, and

it's respectful. So the title I've given the message this

morning is respecting people. And by no means can we

be exhaustive. But let's start out with James chapter two

for a very familiar passage James chapter two, and he

is addressing here the idea of what we call partiality. Now,

to respect someone is to hold in regard to esteem,

or give deference to And intuitively, I think I don't

need to really describe respect to you. You know what

we're talking about, I think. But partiality is favoring one

person above another in an unacceptable way. Another word we

could use is bias, perhaps, But I would like you

to just take your eyes a little bit and just

scan over verses one through nine. Here there was a

man that came into church with vile raiment, and one

that came in he was dressed really well, And there

was a different response to that partiality is what he's

bringing out. We'll read this later, but as we kind

of think about this, I would like to read a

few other verses to you. The first one is a

scripture that you might not think of normally as being partiality,

but if you just back up from it a bit,

I think it applies at the very least. But it's

the story of the woman caught an adultery. Jesus said,

he that is without sin among you, let him first

cast a stone at her. And they had been accusing

her and pointing her out, And again he stooped down

and wrote on the ground. And they, which hurt it,

being convicted by their own conscience, went out, one by one,

beginning at the eldest, even unto the last, and Jesus

was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst

Was that partiality or bias? Jesus said John seven. Judge

not according to the appearance, But judge, righteous, judgeudgment Matthew five.

For if ye love them which love you, what reward

have you? Do not even the publicans the same? And

if you salute your brethren only, what do you more

than others? Do not even the publicans so is Jesus

saying that we should not have a special respect for

our brethren. Matthew seven twelve. Therefore, all things, whatsoever ye

would that men should do to you, do ye even

so to them. For this is the law and the prophets.

Let's read James two. My brethren, have not the faith

of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory with

respect of persons or partiality. For if they're coming too

your assembly or church service, a man with a gold

ring in goodly apparel, and there come in also a

poor man in vile raiment, And ye have respect to

him that wears the gay clothing, and say into him,

sit thou here in a good place, And say to

the poor, stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool.

Are ye not then partial in yourselves? And are become

judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not

God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith,

and heirs of the kingdom, which he hath promised to

them that love him?

But ye have despised the poor.

Do not rich men oppress you and draw you before

the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name

by the.

Which you are called. If ye fulfill the royal.

Law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor

as thyself, ye do well. But if you have respect

to persons, ye commit sin and are convinced of the

law as transgressors. I'll stop there. This is a very

simple illustration. Somebody mentioned Jesus using stories illustrations. This is

the same thing here. James is simply illustrating and walking

into a synagogue. He's not dressed up well, he stinks.

He just looks awful maybe, And we push him into

a corner. And the man that's rich, well, at least

we think he is. Because of the way he's dressed.

He is raised up and promoted, and you all want

we all want to be friends with him.

Right.

The point of this passage is not to say that

you should be poor or that you should dress in

a way that is repulsive, but it is to illustrate

a common human tendency to not judge righteous judgment. So

I would like to look at a few do not

and then a few things to do as we think

of partiality, and specifically actually thinking of the idea of respect.

The first few here, I'll take from the first couple. Here,

I'll take from James Chapter one here, Verses one through nine,

James two. Sorry, the first one I would say is

do not respect someone based on their dress or their adornment. Now,

this is taking specifically James two and just simply applying

it and saying, I think we're being told here that

just because someone is dressed a certain way, either good

or bad, my tendency is going to be to look

at them differently. It will be, but I do not

respect them based on that alone. Our tendency, my tendency

is to assume too much about someone based on my

impressions of them, on how I see them acting in

the first five minutes I meet them.

For example, if.

You are I'm not very familiar with the court system,

but a defendant in court is probably going to be

told by their attorney to be dressed respectfully. And one

of the reasons is is that you will probably be

treated or looked on a little differently depending on how

you're dressed in court. It's a human thing we do.

I don't know that James necessarily has a problem with that,

as much as he's saying, you're basing your respect for

a person on the wrong thing. You can wrestle with

that in your mind. What exactly is being said here,

I'll leave it maybe as more as a question mark

than as a statement. Secondly, what's being implied here is

goes beyond attire and into the riches of the man.

So he looked like a rich man. And if you

look at verses five, six, seven, eight, and nine, James

actually switches to talking about rich and poor, not attire.

So maybe that's actually the bigger one here. Just because

someone has a lot of money doesn't make it right

for me to buddy up to him or automatically do that,

set him up, bring him up, and put the other

person down because he hasn't learned to work hard or something.

We kind of have those those ideas and sometimes it's right.

But so thirdly, another do not. I would like to

go to two passages and you'll turn with me, if

you will, to Jude one only as one chapter, but

verse sixteen, and we'll just break into this passage in Jude.

And there's another one that I want to spend a

little more time on that I think is really applicable

to us today in the ability we have to be,

to be we can't think of the right word, but

to have lots of lots of words around us, lots

of media. Jude one sixteen talks about murmurers complainers walking

after their own lusts, and their mouth speaketh great swelling words,

having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. I have

that in a different translation, and I'll read that here shortly.

But before I do that, tewod Peter two eighteen to nineteen,

you don't have turned there. And when they for when

they speak great swelling words, that word swelling there is

the same Greek word used here in Jude and swelling,

and I think it's the only two places in scripture

it's used, at least the exact word for the when

they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through

the lust of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that

were clean escaped from them who live in error. While

they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption,

for of whom a man is overcome of the same

as he brought in bondage. I feel like I'm picking

out scripture a little bit. But let's just focus a

little bit on the swelling words if you will, and

you can read the context of that later. Another way

of looking at Jude one sixteen here is new English translation.

These people are grumblers and fault finders who go wherever

their desires lead them, and they give bombastic speeches, enchanting

folks for their own gain. I'm not sure if bombastic

is considered an an old word or again, can't think

of the word I want but a word that's outdated,

But it has the idea in the etymology of the word,

the history of the word has the idea of putting

cotton into clothing or furniture to make it bigger. So

I just in my non sewing abilities, I would think

of stuffing a pillowcase full of cotton, or stuffing maybe

a dress or something where you're making something look big, bigger,

maybe upholstery, and it's really just filled with cotton, is

what it is. So bombastic speech is just filled with fluff.

That's kind of what that is. So these people, there

are people out there. And my third point here is

do not respect people based on their words? And I

say that with a little bit of a caveat that

I think there we do respect people based on their words.

But that's not the basis for our respect.

And I'll try to explain what I'm thinking and hopefully

it will make sense. When I respect you or you

respect me based solely on what you hear about me

or hear from me this morning, I think it's a

little dangerous. I can say, and other people can say

a lot of good sounding speeches, podcasts, monologues, and even sermons.

But if all you respect me for is what I say,

is that a biblical reason to respect me. An example

of this a revival meetings preacher that comes along says

a lot of good things, which is what they should do.

Do we respect them based simply because they said good things?

We agree that we shouldn't respect them based on their

way they dress or their financial status. Maybe, But then

what is my basis for respect for When Leland or

Dan gets up here and talks and preaches a burden

that they have on their Heart's your basis for respecting them?

Because you agree with them, because they said it right,

because they're eloquent, because they had great swelling words. No,

whether they're pure words or not. I'm saying, maybe that's

not the basis for which I respect. Maybe there's something else.

My point is not to say.

That we shouldn't say good words.

President Trump called, and this is not to disrespect him,

but he called the implementation of Tariff's Liberation day. But

I'm not sure how I've been freed from anything since then.

Those were words. Did they mean something? Yes?

But they were words, so they're extremely powerful things. But

I guess the caution here, the warning here is not

so much that we just because someone's eloquent or says

something directly, that we disrespect them, but that in the

incredible amount of content that we have available to us today,

that we're careful that words are not all that we

respect people on.

And I wonder if that is one of the problems with.

Influencers of today. Think about it a little bit and

see see if it makes sense. All right, So those

are some some cautions or some do not maybe or

warnings dress financials and words. Let's be careful about making

too quick a judgments based on those things. Now, going

on to some more positive things I would like to

I really like And if you could just flip back

to James with me here, there's an interesting comment that

James makes in respect when he says, here is an

answer to partiality. Here's here's an answer to and and

what I'm talking about this morning, I'll just say, here's

how here's one of the basises we have for respecting people.

And that is found in verse eight.

If you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture,

thou shoult love that neighbor as thyself, you do well.

And this was as far as I can tell, I'm

being fair with this that this is still in the

context of verses one through seven. Here he didn't switch

gears quite yet, but he's saying, here's an answer to

respecting people. What if we would all just love our

neighbor as ourself. That's what Jesus said as well, of course.

So number one some dues of respecting people is just simply,

if I want to respect you, I need to learn

to love you. I need to learn to love you

as myself. And that is nearly impossible. If I can

say that I find it hard to love other people

as I love myself. If I'm honest about that, and

so a constant life life lesson, we can all be learning.

I suspect.

Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, and he said,

loving God to shorten it down here, loving God and

then loving your neighbor as yourself. Then he said, on

these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

And that's a whole other subject. But I would just

suggest to you this morning again that if I'm going

to respect you and you're going to respect me, one

of the first crucial aspects is my love for you

and your love for me. Not my finances, not my words,

not my dress, but our love for each other. Does

that makes sense now? I hope where I'm trying to

go with this. Another thing, maybe along with this is

the basis of my respect for you should be the

fact also that you are a human being. Sounds really basic,

but it is something that I think I need to

be reminded of that anybody who is a human being

deserves respect in the womb out of the womb, old, young, rich, poor,

smelly not smelly. Another basis, kind of along with this

point of loving our neighbor is that God designed us

to get along as well, and so as I respect you,

it's part of God's design for people. God designed you

and me to live in harmony with each other, and

sin has wrecked havoc on this absolutely, but as Christians

we can gain back some of this respect for each other.

As non Christians, I believe it devolves into simple politics

where we all we can do is shout and argue

with each other, and unfortunately we see this happening in

our churches at times.

So one of the.

Basic ingredients of respect, I would suggest is that I

need to love.

My neighbors myself. You are a human being.

I'm a human being designed created by God, and the Creator.

Has told me to respect and love you. Secondly, we're

going to.

Switch our thoughts a little bit to something maybe a

little more nuanced than just I need to respect everybody.

And the question could be asked and we could look

at James again and say, okay, but James, what if

the president walks into the room, What if the governor

walks into the room, what if the.

Teacher walks into the room.

Is there not a special respect or do we just

have respect for everybody the same? How does that work?

I'd like if you again could turn with me to

Acts chapter twenty six. I would like to look at

a couple examples from Paul's life that might be helpful,

and then we'll look at some New Testament scripture as

well and Old Testament. So I feel like I've tried

to and at least kind of laid a basic foundation

that we ought to respect each other on a basic level.

We understand that. I think there's a question here. Is

there an honor or a respect that goes to maybe

a special honor and respect that goes to some people.

So Acts twenty six versus verse twenty five, specifically, I

find an interesting.

Story. Started verse twenty four. This was Paul.

Before Agrippa and Festus giving his testimony and witnessing for Christ.

And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with

a loud voice.

So Paul, and I'll.

Say it a little differently as a different translation. Here,

Festus exclaimed loudly, verse twenty four.

You have lost your mind, Paul. Your great learning is

driving you insane.

So just imagine maybe standing before the Sheriff of Lynn

County and maybe it's Leland's air or something, or sorry,

I maybe should use myself, but and they call me insane,

they call him insane, they call one of you insane.

Would you feel like saying.

Most excellent sheriff, most excellent festus, I am not insane,

I am speaking true in rational words. Or would you

kind of feel like doing what Paul did earlier? And

if you would just turn over to Acts twenty three,

and maybe Paul learned his lesson, maybe that's why he

didn't do it this time. I thought that was interesting.

But verse one through five of Acts twenty three, Paul

was earnestly beholding the council, and maybe to set this

up just a little bit, so there were the council

or the synhedron was made up of seventy people, seventy men,

and that's kind of a lot of people. Not sure,

seems like that could have been confusing. Hopefully they had

an orderly way of dealing with things. But approximately, however,

many men are here, if your attendance is normal, there

might be about seventy.

Here, maybe a little less.

But so in a semi circle, Paul's standing before them.

There's maybe a couple people over here recording notes. And

here's that's the context. So Paul is standing before them,

earnestly beholding the council, and said, I have lived in

good conscience before God until this day. The High priest

was anoniused and he you could say, maybe the chairman

or something commanded them that stood by him Paul to

hit him on the mouth. Hit Paul on the mouth,

and Paul said, unto him, God will hit you, thou

whited wall for sittest Thou to judge me after the

law and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law.

And they stood by said, are you going to revile

God's high priest? Then said Paul, I didn't know that

he was the high priest, for it is written and

he quoted basically from Exodus twenty two, don't curse the

ruler of thy people. So it seems here Now I'm

not sure if it had been right or not for

Paul to say this about somebody that wasn't the high priest.

But Paul recognized that the high priest had a position

to fill and that he needed to respect it. There

was at least some respect there for that position. So

that's where I start thinking, well, maybe I do respect everybody,

but is there are there people in my life that

I do have a special regard for, not that they're

better than other people, but that God has called me

to respect them because of the way God once thinks

to work, honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God,

honor the King is mentioned specifically in First Peter. Also

earlier in Peter, from that verse, there's another one that says,

submit yourself to every ordinance of men, whether it be

to the King, as supreme governors, so on. So we

understand that I would remind you, and you all know

this already, that the Bible says to honor your father

and mother. Are my mom and dad any different than

anybody else? Do I need to respect them any differently?

We know that in the local bodies submission, honor, respect

that goes everywhere all directions. But it does mention in

Hebrews thirteen of submitting to church leaders. One Peter five

mentions the elder, which could refer to a church leader

or an older person. For Thessalonians five, and we beseech you, brethren,

to know them which labor among you and are over

you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem

them very highly in love for their work's sake. The

Old Testament speaks about people who are older, Thou shalt

rise up before the hoary head and honor the face

of the old man.

And fear thy God. I am the Lord.

So there's some fairly specific commands in scripture that there's

respect that goes to certain people. I want to point

out something that just for you to think about. Maybe

it's a theory that I have that you can.

Consider. But in each of these positions that I mentioned,

such as.

Being older or being a church leader, God says he

sets up and he has control over the political realm.

There's something I see as being interesting in each of

those positions. I want to take, for example, the idea

of getting old.

Those of you that.

Are older than I am, which there are quite a

number here, did you choose to be older than I am?

You know that you didn't.

If I'm older than you, did I choose to be

older than you? No, if you're younger, didn't choose that either.

I would just see a concept here for you to

consider that when God calls us to respect people or

honor people specifically, is it when God is the one

who sets those people in those positions. Age is not

something you choose. God has given you age. Really, God's

the only one that can give you age. I mean,

you can smoke yourself into death. And that kind of thing.

But God gives you life you did not choose when

you were born. The way we choose leadership in a church,

and for sure the way we as Mennonites do it

is not the only way to choose leadership. But one

of the things I do appreciate about it, and I

think one of the things we want to keep, even

though maybe the Bible doesn't always say exactly how to

do everything, is emphasizing the calling of God and the

work of the Church in choosing leadership. Whenever we have

a leader that lobbies for himself to become ordained, or

a leader that is going to set himself up like

it happens in the political realm, God does have influence

over that.

I think it's dangerous.

There is a blessing in being able to say that

brother Leland and so on were set in a position

of leadership by the Church and by God. And that

is a position that God does call us whatever position

of leadership we are in, and that's how we exercise

even in choosing your school board and some of those things.

There is some value in having the church.

Call you to that, isn't there?

And then we are to respect those people in those positions.

And again this could apply to simply older people, it

could apply to church leadership, it could apply to my

mom and dad who God made and created us to

be Mom and dad. That's his design. And so I say,

that's a God given position. So when we are to

specially respect people, is it I'm just asking and suggesting,

is it? Because actually God gave them that position to

a certain degree.

And let's keep it that way.

That God gives you and me places of authority, sometimes

of leadership. Men, you would always, and ladies there's always

leadership almost always in some way God has given you.

You can consider that.

So I would just say, maybe it kind of as

my second point that yes, we already respect everybody, but

also there are some things such as political authorities and

older people and so on, that there is a special

honor that is given. And James, I don't think that

contradicts what James is saying. So as we finish up here,

kind of a bit of a long conclusion here, just

some more practical thoughts and maybe some a little bit redundant.

The wrong kind of respect, again is based on man's accomplishments.

So if I respect you only for what you have

achieved in life, your wealth, your dress, your adornment, or

your amazing and eloquent words. I would just suggest that

is not the right basis for me to respect you,

even though that might change how I look at you,

It's not my basis I should. The right respect is

based on the acknowledgment of God's work in your life

and who God has made you to be. It's an

acknowledgement of God ultimately, because you are my neighbor and God.

Said to love you.

So that's a basic concept there. Along with that, we

acknowledge that God is in control and gives people positions

in life and opportunity as he desires. Respecting my mom

and dad or whatever is respecting God's work in their lives,

whether or not they act like it. So maybe three

three things yet before we close in conclusion, I would

challenge you this morning. Respect everyone. Because God said to

love your neighbor as yourself. It's second to greatest commandment.

Today and tomorrow Monday morning, every relationship I have should

have a base level of respect, no matter how someone looks,

no matter how someone dresses, and so on. Every person,

even if they're not acting in a dignified way should

be treated with a degree of dignity. And I'm talking

to myself here because I know how.

Much I need this. We don't disrespect people, We should

try not to.

Secondly, I already mentioned this, but how we respect can

vary in cultures, and so be aware of your culture.

Maybe it's a family culture, maybe it's a church culture.

Coming into a different community, you might be surprised by

some of the things that happen, right, but maybe it's

again holding the door, standing when shaking hands, or maybe

just acknowledging that other people exist. I know how easy

it is for me to just kind of ignore people

and walk on. Is that respectful for me to do that?

We can't acknowledge everybody, but think about it. So the

culture that you are in learned to show respect to

other people. Thirdly, and maybe one of the more important

things I want to.

Leave with you if you struggle and if I struggle

with respect.

As found the Philippians two verse three, it says, let

nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness

of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. I'm

going to put in the word humility there. I wonder

if my struggle with respecting maybe it's my children, maybe

it's my spouse, maybe it's my church, maybe it's even president.

Does it have something to do with my humility? I

believe it does have something to do with my humility,

and maybe that should have been the focus.

But I want to just leave that with you.

Think about it the next time your struggle, maybe not

respecting someone, Ask is it pride in my life? Be

pride in my life? Am I humble? So I just

challenge you with those closing thoughts. Let's learn in our

culture to in our own frail way, learn.

To respect each other. We won't do it perfectly.

I won't always do it just right, but we can

at least give it a good try. And it starts again,

I think, with humility and loving our neighbor as ourself

as two key elements at least. And may the Lord

bless you as you attempt to do that. Let's why

don't we just bow our heads for prayer? Father, We

thank you for this day, thank you for this little

study we had. I just asked that you would help

us to understand in our everyday lives, especially with our

families that were around all the time, maybe our church

brothers and sisters that were around a lot too, that

even though we know them well, that we'd learned to

respect and honor each other, not in a flattering way,

but in a godly way and in a humble way.

Father, I just pray that.

We remember it this week as we relate to people

and maybe anger rises up within us, or justice or

whatever we think needs to happen to a person and

things seem unfair.

Just pray that we would remember.

To be respectful with our words, and also, most of all,

in our heart, thank you for each one here, thank

you for our time together, and thank you most of

all for Jesus and the work that he has done

in our lives.

I pray that.

We would focus on what He would have us to

do and to rejoice in his salvation.

Pray this in Jesus name. Amen,