The Power of Honor

So you think about honor like it's really hard to be honoring somebody and get offended by that person

Right, because you're seeing their value despite so you're if your heart and your focus is this person is love the value by God

And they can see the violist thing and I just be like okay God loves you

You know and so I love you and that anchors our our attitude and it anchors our relationships with people

We become unoffendable imagining unoffendable

Welcome to the city light church podcast. Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us

If you want to connect with city light church feel free to visit us at citylight nyc.com that city light

NYC.com

Pastor Boyan Jansik and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds

As you listen to today's teaching remember that you are deeply loved by God

That you are surrounded by his grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you

Well, I want all of you to put your hands together from my brother and my friend our guest minister for the days actually one of our own

His name is Brian Anderson

You

The sting testing who we are live

Hello second service

I'd like to just start by opening in prayer for what's going on in the world right now in Iran

Uh, if you just bag your heads with me lord Jesus

We ask for your

Peace in the middle east lord and I ran Israel and United States as the unit us has gotten involved

Father, we ask for your wisdom and your grace to be upon our leaders

President Trump and all the military leaders father that you would give them wisdom in this season like never before

And father, we pray that the church would be a source of hope in this time lord Jesus as as our neighbors and friends

Look for answers and and sense fear

Father, we'd be a voice of hope and a voice of peace in the midst of turmoil in the name of Jesus we pray

and then

Well, it's good to be speaking here again. I've got an exciting message

Although you know on the on the face of it. It's one of these topics that you know

I don't think many of us understand. I know I certainly didn't understand this this topic

Whenever I thought about the the power of whenever I thought about honor

I thought about maybe like you know nights at the round table or like a night you know in shining arm or getting like knighted or

Or something like that, but I'm speaking today about honor and how the Bible views

Honor and honors really is really based in

God's value for each human and

He's expressed that value by sending his own son and shedding his blood

To set us free from sin and so we see that

From the father's very heart

He values us is so highly so highly that he would see he would send his own son to die for us

And so the blood of Jesus gives us a sense of the value of humanity to God and and the Bible teaches us that we

Also should value our fellow man and we should value them so highly that they sense and experience a little God through our lives

And so we get to participate and cooperate in the love of God

To people and it's a pretty awesome thing

I remember when I first came to city light. I was a backsliding Christian for 13 years and I had

I was I felt so so dissonance from the Lord was something was drawing and calling me to

To come and get some spirituality in my life and I remember walking into a service

In the East Village sitting down in the back back back of that church and experiencing the love of God

It woke me out of a deep sleep spiritually woke me up to the fact that I had a father in heaven who loved me

who had a purpose and a calling for my life and

So much was spoken in in experiencing God's love that I can't even today even put into words

I just knew he loved me and I knew I was forgiven and I knew he had a plan on a purpose for my life

And so sitting in the back of that church my life was forever changed in this church

And then people began in this church to to disciple me and mentor me and encourage me in my faith

And in my connection to this church has has has has let me stand here today a total miracle

I shouldn't be alive. I should have had I should have overdosed. I should have I should have been in depression

You know, I remember going to a doctor one time and getting depression medication

To try to feel to try to not feel my pain and it didn't work

And so then I tried drugs and alcohol for years and and that only numbed it because every time I get sober

The the reality of the world would come crashing in again, and then I'd have to kind of go die back in

I'd been through two divorces. I was estranged from my son and my life was a total mess until Jesus Christ

started putting it back together and

And you all are a part of that testimony and and at the part of the testimony of

Me coming to the Lord and in a few months later my then-girlfriend now wife coming to the Lord

How do you say ha? You got a a beautiful five-month-old baby a three-year-old downstairs a 12-year-old who's not with us this weekend

And they all love the Lord and it's just been a miracle to see what the Lord has done in our family

So I want to thank and bless and honor this church the the leaders of this church pastor bow pastor bow

For their steady hand their love their service

Saying the tough things that we don't want to hear sometimes watching over us watching over our growth and development and

Like pastor most said, I'm homegrown in this church

So if you don't like the product. It's you talk to the talk to management

But praise praise God you know it's you know

It's all I can do you know if I'm asked to do something in this church my attitude is

Yes, every single time. I don't care what it is that you asked me to do

You know, I'm gonna say yes every single I owe such a debt of gratitude to this church

Praise God

All right, so let's get into it. What it what is honor?

Honor is to value or esteem to treat with reverence

Deference respect because of the intrinsic value

In scripture it sometimes is

used

To to to mean to listen to or to pay attention to

Honors first a condition of the heart, but then it's it's demonstrated by our actions and our words

Sometimes in scripture it even means to give money to

So so who does God call us to honor?

I'm gonna go to first Peter 217

Honor all people

Okay, that's a pretty straightforward one

You know, I started wrestling with a concept of honor when I had a a business partnership that went south and

I reached an in-pass where I thought the the new business I'd left a big law firm with a very stable salary

I was as it was launching out into a new entrepreneurial venture and suddenly what seemed like this great lucrative thing

was turning belly up and I found myself in all kinds of turmoil

Terminal emotionally. I was about a year into my new walk with the Lord

Still pretty young in my faith and so my first my first instinct was to defend be defensive and to start

Trying to protect myself so I threatened and I lashed out and I tried all these different things and nothing was working

The partnership wasn't going the way I I I hoped it would and

I can't get into details because the Lord's taught me to honor the people that I got into if I would

But I did I went to the Lord and and I I felt the Lord say honor people and trust me

and

That didn't seem like a good solution because I didn't see a path forward with it with the partnership

So I and then I also didn't know what it meant to honor people

So I said okay Lord. What does it mean to honor people? I knew one scripture

one scripture about

You know honoring your mother and your father and that was the only honor scripture I knew

But I knew it came with a promise that it would go well with you in the land

And then you'll live a long life

I said okay, so that sounds good honor seems to have

favor and grace attached to it

Let me try it. So I started by just changing my words. I stopped

speaking insult and

criticism and gossip about these people and started speaking

Grace in fact as I started speaking my heart started changing and I started wrecking

I started realizing that actually was was experiencing love for the very people

I was in a fight with and that I was having a disagreement with and then the Lord started to show me that he had put them in my life

To open a door for me and just like a mother and father goes before you and to make a way for you

They were gonna make a way for me into the business world that I had no inroads to

You know New York is a predominantly

Jewish real estate world and I'm not Jewish and I'm an outsider and these guys were giving me an intro to all of these

relationships inside of that community and

My perspective completely changed and I started to speak highly of them

Especially when they weren't around. It started talking to people about how they made away from me

They opened doors for me and I began to bless them with my words and I noticed a shift

Completely in in in in in my relationship with them. It was spiritual because there was nothing

There was nothing new new no new facts had emerged

But suddenly we were just starting to get along and suddenly I was experiencing favor and grace

It went a place where it was just strife and bitterness and I felt twisted up inside and angry all the time

And so I started I started realizing and having a revelation of the power of honor

I said where else is this in the scriptures? Is there something besides the parent verse that

Talks to us about honor and then

Sure enough. There's a whole bunch of scriptures

I'm not I'm gonna try not to cover as many as I try to get to in the first service because that was a lot

But I'm gonna try to pick out the the key ones. I'm still learning Pastor Moe

So got the training wheels on still

Let's go to

Matthew 13

54

I think this lays out the principal pretty well

When he'd come to his own country he taught them in their synagogue so they were astonished and said

Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?

Is this not the carpenter son is not his mother called Mary and his brother James Joseph Simon and Judas

And his sisters are they not all here with us where then did this man get all these things

So they were offended at him. I just want to stop here for a second

He says they they recognized the way that he had wisdom and mighty works

But they were offended with him

It's it's a weird verse he goes on to say the weird people I should say because they

They didn't embrace the gift on his life. They rejected the gift on his life

They rejected the minister he was bringing to them because they he was common to them

He was known to them. They knew his upbringing. They knew where he came from they knew his pedigree

Maybe he didn't go to Harvard

Maybe he wasn't from the upper crust

Maybe people who do the things that he did or supposed to come from a different walk of life

Well for whatever reason they dishonored him and Jesus said to them a prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house

next verse

Now he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief

So we see we see

Jesus speaking about honor and we see that Jesus says a

Prophet is not with honor except in his own house

So he's he's tying

They're unbelief to dishonor and the implication is had they honored him

They would have seen many mighty works

Their dishonor stopped what god wanted to do their dishonors

broke

broke the flow of the spirit into their lives and it makes me ask the question

How often do we do that right? I mean if Jesus Christ experienced that and they saw his mighty works

But still kept him at an arm distance because it didn't match what they were expecting to see

How often do we block the favor and the grace that god wants to bring into our lives because we dishonor the person that through whom it's supposed to come

We dishonor the the messenger and we can't we discount their value

The Lord doesn't discount anyone's value in fact

He shed his blood for all humanity and so we're supposed to honor all people and if we would

Posture our hearts with honor we could receive from anybody and god could use anybody in the body of Christ

Even unbelievers in the business sense like I was speaking about a moment ago to open doors for us

If we would be willing to honor and to bless instead of to hold on to grudges to hold on to offense or to treat his common

Let's look at

Let's look at what what does a culture say about honor? You know, we we have such a we have such a skewed view of honor

Honors not about us. It's about blessing others. It's about valuing others our culture uses of honor like this

It says you need to defend her honor, right? You got to get violent

If our culture says you disrespected me. I need to defend my honor

So I've got to get violent to

Make you respect me

Honor is not something that you can

Demand it's something that you're supposed to give

So honor is is is outward focused

Jesus demonstrated the greatest honor we could ever receive by shedding his own blood for us

And so he left us as an example of how we are to honor all people

Honor doesn't look to the politics. It doesn't look to the sin in someone's life. It doesn't look to

Their status their beauty their intellect their race

It just looks at the fact that they are a human being with tremendous value to god

Go to go to a psalm 8 if you would

Psalm chapter 8

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

So let's flip forward to the

I don't have the verse here, but you crown him with glory and honor. So this is talking about humanity and

and

The psalmist is writing and saying

What is man that you are mindful of him? You made him a little lower than the angels you crown him with glory and honor

So the lord created us with honor. He created us with value. We were supposed to be the object of his affection

Sin separated us from that and caused a chasm between us

But he never stopped loving and cherishing us. He never stopped

valuing us and so our there it is

You have crowned him with glory. You made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor

Psalm 8.5

So our job is Christians is to reflect Jesus and

He showed it paid the ultimate price by shedding his blood for us

And we're supposed to reflect that same honor. So when we're talking to people when we're ministering to people

um

Boy the spirit of God shows up when when you honor them when you start to to value them and and see them as as

Special to God that he shed his blood for that person that's in front of you. It doesn't matter

What they're protesting it doesn't matter

You know what kind of sin they're in it doesn't matter how they've treated you when you when you just when you when you return

Good for evil when you return honor for dishonor when someone insults you and you honor them instead and you bless them

And you love them and you say you have you have value

The spirit of God shows up because he's trying to turn that per he's he's trying to reach that person

He wants them to experience his love and so the Lord is turning us into ministers of reconciliation

That see people with the value of Jesus and see people

With the through the eyes of the blood of Jesus instead of the way we tend to look at people which is their failings their shortcomings

um

The Bible teaches us to honor many different things. It's teaches us to honor family and marriage

To the things that society

dishonors the most

um and there's promises that come with it um

There's a promise with your if of honoring your parents

I mean, notice how it doesn't say honor your good good parents

Just says parents

Why is that like why would God want us to honor

people who don't deserve honor?

I mean, it's just a reflection of his heart right he it's the Bible says that while we are still sinners Christ died for us

And so he it's the honor is never about you deserve my respect. It's I'm giving it to you even though you don't

Because Jesus gave me his life even when I didn't deserve it

So we're just reflecting what we received so honor is honor is a honors honor something you do want to wrestle with because

You you need to get uh

dishonor out of your life. You need to get criticism out of your life

You need to deal with offense in your life if you're going to let the love of Jesus flow through you to you and through you

and a lot of times uh we uh

We have a hard time with honor because we have a hard time with receiving God's love

And we're receiving his grace and recognizing that we are sinners saved by grace

And it's because of the grace at honor on our lives that we can give that freely away

We're self-critical. We're unforgiving our of our own failings and so we're critical of others

And we think somehow by controlling and and demanding that we're going to get our way and the Lord is actually

calling us to uh honor and trust and let go and watch what he does

So he made it really easy like imagine if he had said

honor this category of person not don't honor this category

But that sometimes once in a while do and you'd be kind of like running this like matrix

Okay, you know and everybody would get it wrong right he just said i'm gonna make it easy

honor everyone and leave the details to me

I'm gonna flow through you and bring grace and favor into the situations where you minister and honor

And so wow that's like that make that takes the burden off doesn't it all I have to do is love people and honor people

And then the Holy Spirit shows up and then he super charges my

Natural abilities with his grace and his favor so that I can minister to people

So that's all I've got to do. I got to get my heart aligned with God's heart for people

If I want to see change in my world if I want to see change in my family change in my neighborhood change in my community change in my business

I need to honor the person on that phone call

That is driving me crazy

That's offending I need to honor that person at work who's managing me the wrong way

I need to honor that person who's on the other side of the political aisle for me and and and

Begin to reflect that with my words and with my actions and then just watch what the Holy Spirit does

It's really exciting guys once you get this it's like this is something that's more caught than taught

I think you have to get you sort of have to just get a aha moment with it

I hope some of you get it right now. Just Lord. I want to just I want to simplify

My treatment of people to honor and love

Okay, and we sometimes a lot of times in the church we talk about forgiveness being unconditional

But then when it comes to things like honor where we pick and choose and there's a reason why the scripture gives us different

Measures because it shows us where we're blocking the Lord where we're blocking the Holy Spirit

Like you may kind of have the forgiveness thing down like I don't think I hold the grudge anymore

But why you know but but you're not letting the full life of God through you because flow through you because you haven't learned to honor

The extra step then you know after you okay, I forgave the person now. I'm gonna honor that person

I'm gonna put them I'm gonna I'm gonna see them with value

And when you see what someone through that with value with the eyes of Jesus

You can't help but prophesy you can't help but speak to their value and call out who they are you can't help but

You know, I'm not talking about some weird thing

I'm talking about calling out the life of God and them calling out the purposes of God over their life calling out

The value that he deposited from the beginning of time the Bible says that he he predestined us for good works

That we should walk in them every single one of us

And so when we value someone we start to we start to call that out of you look. I see in you

This thing of honor or this that thing of honor. I see in you a love for people. I see in you an ingenuity

I see in you a creativity. I see in you this this thing of honor and

God loves you and God wants to use that and God sees that God values you

So we're supposed to be ministers of the very love of Jesus that we received in our lives

And at a time like this where there's so much political turmoil so much division so much arguing

We can honor people without agreeing with them

You know the you don't have to have the same politics at all in fact

We're called not to agree with sin

But that doesn't mean we we stop honoring people and loving people

And so when we keep that honor and that love first we can speak to people calmly like you get in the conversation

I get these conversations and in business all the time where

People are trying to get me into offense. They're trying to prod and poke me in a negotiation

To be offended and then you lose your control you lose your ration and you sort of just lash out

Then you've lost the battle

But when you can stay in honor when you can stay in love

Your it keeps your head cool calm collected and you can have a conversation and you're the entire time

You know, Jesus loves this person

You know how dare I insult them?

Jesus died for this person. How dare I

Lord it over them or abuse them in some way

So we need to recover

That the awe of of our salvation that that wonder of the love that we've been showed in Jesus and show that to others

So honor for for family and marriage

There's a this favor there too

The Bible says that he finds a wife finds a good thing it obtains favor from the Lord

So you always see this connection honor and favor so

We all want more honor and favor in our life. We always sorry. We want more favor and grace in our lives

We need more favor and grace in our lives to do the things that God's called us to do

We can't do them without his favor and without his grace

honor

Keeps us in a position our hearts in a position

Where we're aligned with the things of God and we're cooperating with his moving

Without the honor and the love of God in our lives where we step out of alignment and we block some of the flow of his grace and power in our lives

All right honor for authority. Oh, this is a tough one

Our culture teaches us to question authority

um the Bible teaches us to honor authority and again

It's it's it's it's it's it's not about um

The authority being perfect. He talks about ungodly authority

Being honoring of a godly authority. We can have an honoring heart towards ungodly authority and not follow everything

That ungodly authority tells us to do. There's lots of examples of honorable disobedience in the Bible

Shadrach Mishik and Abendigo ended up in a furnace for not bowing the knee to what the edict was which is a to worship other gods

But they didn't lose there. They didn't stop. They didn't dishonor the king Daniel ended up in a lion's den

And still

honored the king he said oh king lived forever when he was pulled out of the the lion's den

He still maintained his

Uh honor of the king in his respect

Even while being mistreated and when we do that we show that we are a different a different world

Because the people don't respond that way

Jesus was was a radical because he didn't respond the way that they were expecting him to respond he didn't defend himself

When he was mocked and beaten he took it he knew where he was headed and he knew what it was for

But he said an example for us that we don't lash out when we're when we're mistreated and wronged

Instead we honor and we love and as we do that the love of god flows through our lives

We sense the fear of the Lord for people in our relationship with the people that we treat people with

With honor as a as a holy thing and not as a common thing

My uh there's there's honor for there's honor for the over looked

Um

So often in our society. It's all about the celebrity. It's all about the one with the biggest intellect

Uh the best looks the most money

Those are the people that we honor as this as a society. That's not what the Bible teaches at all

In fact Jesus

On multiple occasions that don't prevent the children from coming to me

And why were the disciples doing that because children were not as important right

But to Jesus they were they had the same value

And so he would he would bring them in and say you know the kingdom of heaven is is of such as these

And he would he would honor and he he called it out for disciples

If you want to be great you got to be the servant of all you got to honor all

Right even the little ones even those little you know

poopy diaper

Children that we have you know our children just you know have have have are to be given honor

They are

They are precious to Jesus

And he he he shed his blood for them just as much as for us and for

um and and and we as a society often

dishonor

And categorize people and instead of

realizing to Jesus

Jesus honors all

My father is uh when we we had we had a joke at at our house growing up that

My dad would go to the grocery store, which was like five minutes away for eggs or milk real quick

And he'd come back two hours later

Really because he was such a social

Person that he got caught up in conversations

But the thing with my my father that I love about him so much is

He really reflects the heart of God because he takes the time for

Every single person does it wouldn't matter if it was a a former student

He was a schoolteacher for a while wouldn't matter if it was

Somebody in the in the shopping aisle. He just met that wanted a conversation

He could tell that they were lonely. He was he would take the time and

Everywhere you go in my father people people he gets stuck in conversations

But people love him because they feel seen and heard by him

As you remember one of the translations of honor

Has a connotation of to listen to and

What would happen is if we were that type of

Of honoring to people that we see in our daily lives our co-workers

Our bosses our friends our neighbors that we take the time you know New York City puts puts

The value of schedule way above

Taking the time for people especially people you know that aren't of the same socioeconomic class as us

Are in our lives. We we avoid eye contact. We avoid connection in the city because we don't have the time

In Jesus had the time

You know, and I see that reflected in in how my father would interact with people growing up

He always took the time and it didn't matter. There was nothing in it for him

You know, he was just he wanted to show the love of Jesus

It's powerful guys

Um

There's that there's a generational honor that I believe the Lord wants to restore to the church

You see it in

Luke 117 when John the Baptist was

Was a fulfillment of the prophecy in Malachi of turning the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the sons to the fathers

I believe the Lord wants to bring a an honor back that's to intergenerational

The God is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob there

He's a God of generations and it's always been a cultural norm at least in the United States for one culture to one one

Generation to reject the prior generation for sons to reject the ways of their fathers

And the that's not the heart of God the God God wants the one generation building on the next generation

So that our faith builds and yes the the Lord may reveal a new thing bring new revival want some old things to end

But we do it with honor and we include the generation before us as we raise up and the week we only

Care for the next generation that's coming up and we don't just make fun of there

You know, they're jargon and they're in their their ways, you know, I've I've felt this

This thing about parenting recently where I feel like the Lord

Has been teaching me to not laugh too much of my children

Um because they do a lot of funny things

But I don't want them to feel self-conscious by laughing at them all the time and by not taking them seriously

I want to just talk to them

Even when they're saying that most ridiculous things

And make them feel heard and valued because I want them to always feel included in in conversation

And I want them to feel that we're really seeing them and not just seeing them as a joke

And I think you know intergenerational in the church we need to be that way, you know, we need to

Make the effort to understand the culture that's not like ours when you make the make the effort to

Understand the next generation or the older generation and value the wisdom value the zeal

That we offer each other and really see the church united generationally

Special honor a special honor for church church leaders the Bible talks about

Double honor for elders first Timothy 517 says that we are to count worthy of double honor

Especially those who labor in word and doctrine

So the Bible also says that the the people in who are leaders of the church watch over our souls

Which is an incredible passage because

I didn't I didn't know we needed that right like

Christianity in America is so individualistic that

I thought it was just a relationship with God. It's not it's a relationship with God and his people

And if you don't have a relationship with the people his people you won't very long have a relationship with God

And and there's there's a there the thing about deception is when you step out of fellowship

The first time you step out of fellowship

And this is what happened to me before I had my 13 year back sliding when you first step out of fellowship. Guess what happens

nothing

It feels like nothing happened all you you have more free time the weekends are free

Oh, I'm gonna get take up on you hobby. I'm not going to church anymore. I still love God

But you know, I feel fine and I feel free and you know nothing's nothing's missing

the problem is

Your the Jesus said that if you build your life on his teachings you're building it on solid rock

And if you don't if you ignore his teachings you're building it on sand

And when storms of life come your house will crumble and fall if you don't follow his teachings

And he and and the Bible is very clear

That our our faith has to be walked out in relationship with other believers and deep covenant relationship

Not fickle flaky see you once a weekend maybe for a few minutes relationships

It's vital to our faith it can't be stressed enough

um

And our church leaders watch over our souls to protect us

We're often likened in scripture to sheep who need a shepherd or or a protector

And there's a spiritual power there. There's a spiritual authority there to watch over and protect

Do leaders sometimes make mistakes? Yeah do meet do other scandals and churches? Yes

That doesn't change the gospel that doesn't change the Bible and we are we are we are called to stay in fellowship

To move through the storms of life be that house built on the rock and and stay in fellowship and stay

Connected with people and not stop stop honoring what the Lord says is honorable

Yeah, man

So some things that honors honor does

It's an active surrender and trust in the Lord

It's a matter of the heart or reflection of God's heart for us

Well, we're still sinners Christ died for us. It's unconditional as a heart posture

It recognizes and values authority while not missing the overlook

So it's top down and bottom up. It notices the unnoticed what also respects authority. It's beautiful actually

um

Honor honors others focused rather than self-focused it embraces authority

uh and authority figures in our life

It acts towards people as unto the Lord

It requires trust in the Lord

It rebuffs and repels offense

So think about honor like it's really hard to be honoring somebody and get offended by that person

Right, because you're seeing their value despite so you're here if you're if you're heart and your focus is

This person is loved and valued by God and they can see the vileist thing and I'll just be like okay

God loves you, you know, and so I love you and that anchors our our attitude and it anchors our relationships with people

We become unoffendable imagining unoffendable

I'm still working on it

um

Requires honor for requires forgiveness and love

honor

Is the surest way to develop godly character

If you live and honor towards people and you're unoffendable boy

That's pretty that's pretty good character

Okay, because Jesus said we're to turn the other cheek and that's one of the hardest things to do

It doesn't make us weak it makes us stronger to be in the face of offense and honor and bless and return good for evil

That's the hardest thing to do punching back is the is the instinctive thing to do

um

Lashing out is the instinctive thing to do if you ever noticed when you when you get done gossiping about people you feel dirty

Have you ever tried like blessing people when they're not around talking highly of them

It's the opposite

It feels amazing

You know boy past or mo he is so anointed

He's had such an influence in my life man. I don't know where I'd be without him

You know those types of things imagine if that got back to him

You know imagine if somebody said go Brian was talking about you the other day and he said, you know, you really blessed him

Now now like three or four people got blessed in that chain

It's the so we need to start we need to start

Seasoning our language with more and more of that building people up reminding reminding ourselves and others of all the people

Have played a role in our development

There's a special honor for the for the body of Christ in fact if you go to first Corinthians

12 there's a very interesting sequence of scriptures that I mean that I'm still like spending a lot of time with

Paul is talking about communion and he's talking about properly honoring the body of Christ

And then he shifts into an analogy of the body of Christ being believers that are interconnected with each other

And it's such a beautiful thing because he's going from talking about communion where we take the

You know the body and blood of Christ and we and we honor what he's done

And then he says you are the body of Christ and he's talking about being discerning of the body of Christ being respectful of the body of Christ and and and

And by doing so he's elevating in our eyes

How important the church body is?

He goes on to talk about how each part of the body is interconnected with each other

And that we receive what we need from other people

And he says that you know in Ephesians he said each person is given a grace

Of a measure of grace from Christ and again in in first Corinthians

12

Verse seven

He said that the manifestation of the spirit is given to each one for the prophet of all

so

Paul is

Paul is showing that

That the value of the body of Christ is that when you're connected into the body of Christ you get what you need spiritually

Which you also receive from heaven gifts to give to other people in the body of Christ

So the whole spiritual gifts chapter which which which is sandwiched between him talking about communion then the body of Christ

and then the love of God is

Is intended to say all this all this stuff you get from heaven is to bless others

The only actual there's one spiritual gift that's for building ourselves up and that's the gift of tongues

Everything else is to give away

So if you're not connected in a relationship you're not experiencing any of the life flow of of Jesus through your life

The relationships is where all of that happens

So there's a whole part of your faith that hasn't even started yet until you're in relationship with other believers

And so you have to you have to get rooted and grounded

In a church and vulnerable relationships where the life of God can flow through you all of the gifts of the spirit

Are God so honoring and blessing

Relationships in the church that he super charges and blesses you to give more away to others

Imagine that I mean

God is is so affirming and

Blessing and calling us into relationship that he tells us an interconnected body where every single part is necessary

New we can't live without any part of the body we need all the parts and every part has value and as you connect

He's going to supercharge your love and your grace towards others with gifts to give away to those people

And then he talks about honor in that same chapter chapter 12

He says that that the parts that we see that the parts that we often overlook

Are deserving of more honor and so he's calling us to actually surround the weaker parts of the body with honor

What does that look like so?

We had some people over for a barbecue the other day

We're all sitting around eating we had the little kids out where they're running around

Kind of we're on in a circle and all the adults are just you know mesmerized with the kids

They were like these kids are so cute. They're amazing. I said I know

Um to accept for sometimes or not

And they were they were they were the life of the party. We were

Completely focused on their every word

They're every they're every little joke. They're every little funny nuance and

That's that's what Paul's talking about about giving greater honor to the weakest among us

None of the adults in that circle are saying well what about me? I want some attention

You know, we we were just fixated on the kids as the natural

weakest among us that needed the most attention and love and that's the way the body the body of crisis supposed to be

We have a new believer who comes in and doesn't know anything about anything

That's okay

There's a bunch of us who are going to surround you and and and help you and love you to walk out the things of God

And we're all going to do our part. It's not there's no clicks in the body of Christ. There's no

Hey, this is my little group over here. There's my little group over there

That's now what God's called us to. I mean, it's okay to have your group of friends

That's totally fine, but we are supposed to be looking out for the weakest among us and surrounding them

With love and letting the gifts of God flow through us and think sometimes in the commit charismatic church

We get it completely wrong because we go to a conference or something

We say I want more spiritual gifts in my life

But we have no relationship connection to anybody

So there's no point like the spiritual gifts are still flow in covenant relationship with the body of Christ

The church that were planted in and committed to and that we're willing to go through the hard times with

You know some of us are one offense away from leaving the church or one wrong conversation away

And the Lord wants to change all of that. He wants to say make a decision

Plant your feet and stay and only then can I start to develop and you the character that I've that I want to develop in your life

He's going to use

Conflict with people sometimes to develop your character. He's going to use being misunderstood sometimes to develop your character

He's going to use

Human relationship and friction that happens there to develop you into who he wants you to be

But if you abort the process all the time you'll never grow up in the Lord

You'll always go to a new church where they feed you a little bit and you feel fat and you never use it

And you wonder why don't I flow in the gifts of the spirit why why don't I have this call on my life

Well, you've never understood the value of the body of Christ you never plugged in and Paul's giving us a road map

Right here. He's saying you belong to a body you plug in and then you start to bless

Through relationships and the Lord will give you the favor and the grace on your life

Now remember the honor the honor that that Paul's talking about for the for the for the weaker members in the body

What does honor do honor puts a draw on the anointing in people's life?

So he saw that in that first scripture by Jesus could not do

Many mighty works because of the unbelief the offense and there was no draw. There's no honor

So when we honor people in our midst, you know, we start to we start to receive

Things from them that are on their life that we need the Bible says that every part of the body is necessary

So we put a draw on that and we begin to learn things from each other through the spirit

So, you know, if you want to maximize your growth in Christ

You know invest in a relationship and honor your brother and sister in Christ. You know begin to draw out

A spiritual spiritual anointing from them you'll be able to draw out the gifts that are on their life

We all have them you know nobody exempt

We all have gifts in our life of the Lord is trying to activate and what wants to pull out of us

Through the honoring culture that he's developing this church has it this church

And all I'm trying to do is is elevate it so we're more aware of it and more focused on it

The reason I'm standing here today is because this church has it this church

He's got it like in spades and if you're newer to this church plug into this church

Because the relationships it might seem like a mundane thing again

We need to honor that thing and value that thing and the life of God will start to flow

It doesn't matter who start with the person that you're closest to start with a life group start with some

Connection and just start investing and being faithful those few relationships and watch what God does in your life

It's not going to be this big flashy thing all of a sudden

But you're going to start to feel the life of God flowing through you and to you as you connect with people

And and and remember we're called to honor and lift up our brothers and sisters and as we do we're actually

Pulling them into their destiny in God. We're pulling the anointing of God out of them

And so that's why I think the Bible says to surround with the weaker members with greater honor because we're pulling them out of a place of weakness and to strength in in Jesus

So father as the worship team comes up father. We just

We bless you Lord. We want to be a church who understands honor. Father. We want to be a church who

who

Blesses and honors our brothers and sisters father forgive us for treating us common the things that you

Call holy father

Forgive us for treating as a mundane the things of of the spirit father the things of of your body father

Causes to have a new on appreciation for your church

Causes to have a new on appreciation for the power of honor

That we make participate in the life of Jesus. We might participate in the ministry of the cross to the world around us

Father and let us start in this church by building each other up father

As your word says we are to outdo each other with honor and in Romans father

We are to outdo each other with honor. So let this church be a church that speaks life that speaks life in front of people and behind their backs

Father, let this be a church whether

Criticism is rarely heard or never heard. Let's father. Let this be a church where we surround the weakest among us

That they may grow in the in the strength in the knowledge of the Lord in Jesus mighty name

Amen

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