Seeds of Honor | We Cultivate What We Honor | Abundant Life Church | Pastor Chad Lang
Seeds of Honor | We Cultivate What We Honor | Abundant Life Church | Pastor Chad Lang
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Speaker 1
Hey, everyone. Pastor Sean here, and I wanna thank you for subscribing to our podcast. I'm excited to get into today's message. And remember this, God is a good God. He loves you and he wants to bless you.
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I'm gonna go ahead and dive right into our message.
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But before I do, I was thinking about today, and about when I grew up. Now, I don't know how many grew up kind of when I did. I was an eighties kid, and so I was born in 1980.
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And so, there were some positions, some careers, and some jobs when I grew up in my family that just held honor.
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Right? There were just some positions.
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There were some things that when you saw that person or saw that thing, you just it just kind of meant something to you. The first one was the ice cream truck.
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How many of you remember the ice cream truck coming down your street? How many of you know that when you heard that bell, you were going to figure out 75¢ to go and get a screwball, or the little Mario head, right? The button nose always fell off.
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You remember that? Yeah, of course you do. As a kid, the ice cream man held a position of honor.
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Now, there were some others.
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How many of you remember when teachers held honor in our school and in our nation? Come on. If you're a teacher, can you wave at me? Can you let us? We love you, teachers. Come on. I grew up in a time though when we had chalkboards.
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Anybody with me? What was the best job when you had a chalkboard in your school?
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The erasers. You got to pat them at the end of the week, didn't you? It was amazing.
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Teachers had a position of honor in my house.
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Now, there's some others that kind of fall into line with that. How many of you remember when firefighters had some honor where you were, right? You remember seeing the red trucks?
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Any of our firefighters in here? Do we have any EMS personnel? Do we have any nurses in this place? Come on somebody, just shout. They held a position of honor. I remember seeing firefighters.
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See, my mother was sick, and so firefighters were at my house all the time.
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And man, there was something special when firefighters showed up because I knew I was going to be safe, and that my mother was going to be safe.
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And so, they held a position of honor. And then there's some others that held a position of honor in my house.
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Well, first off, I've to get this out of here. Whoops.
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Alright, so just because we've cool toys, police officers in my house held a position of honor when I was growing up.
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Come on. We got any police officers in there? Can we just let our police officers know we love them?
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Like every profession in life, you gotta you can have a good ice cream man or you can have a bad ice cream man. Come on somebody, right? You got some great teachers out there, then you got a few teachers that just, man, throw it off for everybody. You got a few great firefighters, and then you got a lot of great firefighters, and then of course you've got one or two of them do well. Here's the deal.
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Just because a couple of police don't act right doesn't mean the rest of the police force is not doing right. 99.9% of our police officers are doing great. We love our police officers here. And then, of course, you know, nurses.
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Any nurses in this place? Yeah.
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If we have any doctors in this place, we know who does the real work.
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That's the nurses.
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You ever see anybody?
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I'm joking. If you're a doctor, we love you too.
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We do. We just know who does your work when you leave the room, right? You're in for two minutes. They're for they're there for a whole eight hours.
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Come on.
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And then, there was another position that held honor. And matter of fact, it's in their title. It's a judge.
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When you go into a courtroom, what do you call them? Your honor.
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It's actually in their title.
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So, man, in our house, honor was a thing. And it didn't mean that every person that occupied every one of these positions was perfect.
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It didn't mean that they were going to always tell me what I wanted to hear.
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And it didn't mean that honoring them meant that everything was going to work out in my favor. It simply meant this. We understood we understood something in our culture, and when I grew up, that I think our culture is kinda getting away from. It simply is this. Some things carry weight.
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Some responsibilities matter.
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Some positions deserve to be approached differently because of what we've entrusted them with.
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Now, I remember a time when I was younger. You're going to learn some things about one of your pastors today. I promise you I'm saved, okay? And so, I remember when I was younger, and there was a cop standing out in the middle of the road.
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And me being young, I panicked.
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So, I hit the gas, went around the cop. By the way, the cop was in the middle of the road doing this, okay? So, he wanted me to stop.
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I did not stop.
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Neither did the four other cops that pursued after me, until I stopped two red lights that I ran later.
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True story. When that cop came over to my car, I was as scared as the day is long.
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He said a few very creative words, and then pulled out the keys of my car and then threw them on the ground, and then proceeded, thank God not to arrest me for almost hitting him and then running two stoplights. He just gave me some tickets.
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Now, just because I didn't like what he did doesn't mean he was wrong. Is that right? Now, following that moment, I had to go to court. Now guys, look.
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I had the chance to go to court, and I rehearsed and preached my opening line and statement for that courtroom.
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I had the evidence. I wasn't wrong. I had a moment in my I was I was just I was accidentally ran two red lights, and I accidentally almost hit that officer. Right? I wanted to get out of this ticket. But when I went to court, the guy that had this was very nice.
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But you know what he didn't do?
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Let me off the hook.
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He didn't let me off the hook because I was nice, and I was kind. And it was my first ticket. You know what? He laughed when I said, this is my first ticket. He said, you just got your license last week.
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But just because I didn't like what the judge said didn't mean he wasn't right.
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And then there was a moment that I had with a nurse.
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And it was a tough moment for me and my family.
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See, my sister was battling stage four b breast cancer for the second time.
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And I was on the phone with her when she got re diagnosed.
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And she went from her oncologist to the hospital, where she spent the rest of her days this side of heaven.
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And on the day she went home to be with the Lord, my wife and I were sitting there with her along with some other family.
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And we saw that her vital signs quickly faded. And
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then a nurse came in and gave us news that we didn't want, and that was that my sister was no longer with us.
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I didn't like that message.
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I didn't want that news.
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I would have given anything for that nurse to walk into that room and give me any other news than that.
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But see, I understood that the nurse standing in front of me was just doing her job.
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Because the job that she has holds honor and responsibility.
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And she has to give it whether it's good or not, whether it's painful or not.
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Here's the thing about honor.
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We have a decision to make.
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I can choose to honor the judge
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only if he gives me what I want to hear. Or I can respect the authority of the officer when it validates me. Or I can receive correction in my life only when that correction is comfortable.
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Or I can have a Biblical interpretation and understanding of what honor and respect looks like.
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And so today we're gonna talk about honor.
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Sowing seeds of honor. Because honor is easy when the answer is yes.
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Honor is easy when the professor gives you the grade that you wanted. Honor is easy when the doctor says the scans look good.
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Honor's easy when the officer gives you the warning. Honor's easy when the judge dismisses the ticket. Honor becomes real when somebody carrying responsibility tells us that it's tells us something that is difficult, that is challenging, that is or simply something that we don't want to hear.
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And family, if somewhere along the way our culture started confusing honor with agreement.
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We started believing if you dis... If I disagree with you, I don't have to honor you.
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If you correct me, I'll disrespect you.
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If you disappoint me, I'll dishonor you.
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If you tell me something that I don't wanna hear, I can simply dismiss you entirely.
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But that's not biblical honor.
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Correction doesn't cancel.
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Disagreement doesn't require dishonor. Difficult truth does not make the person delivering it your enemy. Come on, somebody.
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That includes your spouse.
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That includes your kids. Come on, somebody.
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And I'm gonna take that idea somewhere today, because teachers, judges, police officers, nurses, firefighters, military personnel are not the only people that deserve honor.
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Or that the Bible tells us to honor. Matter of fact, the Bible tells us to honor God.
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The Bible talks to us about honoring others.
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The Bible talks about young young ones, talks about honoring your mother and your father.
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Some of you older ones in here too. God talks about honoring your father and your mother.
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It also talks about honoring your spiritual leadership and those who, and it talks about honoring those who serve and serve you.
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And today, want us to understand that honor is bigger than manners.
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When I grew up, yes ma'am, yes sir was the only thing out of my mouth when I was a kid. Right? My dad, I didn't know what was coming if I didn't say yes ma'am or yes sir. Anyone else in a family like mine when you grew up? Come on somebody. You're still feeling that belt. I understand. It's a good thing. I'm not saying it was right.
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At its core, honor means recognizing weight, value, responsibility, significance, and then treating that very thing accordingly. Matter of fact, Roman... Amen.
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Romans twelve ten says it this way, love one another with brotherly affection and outdo one another showing honor.
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Think about that. Scripture doesn't tell us to tolerate one another, church. Come on.
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I'm gonna sit on this side because that person's on that side. No, that's what I'm talking about.
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I go to this Publix because I just don't like the guy at the at the meat counter at that Publix, so I'm gonna go over to this Publix, right?
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It says, outdo one another with honor. In other words, kingdom culture should look completely different from our culture, or the culture that surrounds us. The world says this, do they deserve my honor?
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Kingdom culture says, I'm going to honor regardless.
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I'm gonna honor regardless.
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It doesn't matter who they are, doesn't matter what they do. And a matter of fact, with the house that I grew up in, we were to honor everybody.
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From the custodian to the CEO.
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And we treat no one different.
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Because honor isn't primarily tested by how I treat someone when I agree with them, or I like them, or they have they they have some somewhere where I want to be. They can influence my life in some way. Honor is tested when I disagree.
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Honor isn't primarily tested when leadership celebrates me.
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Honor's tested when leadership corrects me.
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And, honor isn't tested when God always answers the prayers exactly the way that I want Him.
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Sometimes, honor is tested when I still trust His character, even though I don't understand His answer. Come on somebody. Remember, listen.
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I prayed for my sister.
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We brought pastors. We fasted. I brought the elders we anointed with oil. And she still went home to be with Jesus. I don't need to like it.
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I don't need to understand it or fully understand or comprehend in order for me to trust in my God.
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And and hear me carefully when I when I talk about this. You can receive truth, even painful truth, without attacking the person God used to bring it.
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Bible says better are the wounds of a brother, the wounds of a friend.
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Man, I hope you have some people in your life that can wound you a little bit.
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That can cut a little deeper because you trust them, because they love you, and they have your best interest at heart.
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Because here's one of the fundamental ideas that I want us to understand today. What you honor, you give weight to.
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And where, when we begin treating significant things like common things, eventually we stop receiving what God intended those things to produce in our life.
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I'm a say it again.
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When we begin treating significant things, God things as common, we stop receiving what God intended those things to produce in our life.
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So today, I wanna talk to you about three specific areas. And that is this, about honoring God.
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About honoring others, and about honoring our spiritual leaders.
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And we have to start with the first one, because every other expression of biblical honor flows from this one thing, and that is we need to honor God.
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As men and women of God, people who love Jesus, who say that we love Jesus, man, we need to honor God.
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Before we talk about honoring people, about our parents, or about our spiritual leadership, before we talk about respecting authority, we have to establish that God gets first honor.
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Everything else flows from Him. Matter of fact, Malachi one six says, a son's a son honors his father, a servant his master.
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If then I am a father, where's my honor?
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Listen to this. God's speaking to His people.
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Not unbelievers.
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His people.
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He's saying, look, if I'm God, if you call me father, if you call me savior, if you call me Lord, where's the honor?
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God is speaking to His people. People who worshipped Him. People who brought offerings. People that served in the parking lot on ninety degree days.
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People who cleaned up a poopy diaper down in kids. Come on somebody. Thank God for our kids' workers. Come on, somebody. Amen? How many of you love our our kids' team?
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And God essentially says, you call me father, but where is my honor? Man, that should get our attention because apparently, it's possible to know the language of God without giving God the weight He deserves.
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You ever see someone that can quote the entire Bible as not living for Jesus? Not hard.
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Not trying to step on toes. I know I've got boots on, but I'm trying to... It's only for me. It just gives me an extra inch. You know what I'm saying? So,
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it is possible to come to church and still treat God casually.
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It's possible to sing worship songs and still organize our lives as though God's opinion is optional.
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It's possible to say Jesus is Lord and then treat Jesus as a consultant.
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And by the way, my friends, those are two very different things.
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Because if He's the Lord, His voice carries weight in your life.
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His word, I think I got your word. His word should carry weight in your life.
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If He's Lord, His correction carries weight.
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If He's Lord, what He asks of me matters even when I don't understand it.
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Malachi continues by explaining that the people were bringing God defective offerings.
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They were bringing what they didn't really want. Anyone ever have like a white elephant gift exchange at your work party? How many of you love and hate those things? You know what I'm talking about? Like, you have to... You've like a $25 limit. You find the worst possible thing that you could get wrapped and then send out. You know what I'm saying? Some of you on your work parties, you just find something broken in your house, wrap that junk, and bring it to the party. This is kind of what the people were doing.
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They were giving God a white elephant gift, and He wants our best.
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The problem is we're not talking about our Christmas party when we talk about what we bring to Jesus. We're talking about the one who was, who is, and is to come. They, and my friends, if I were to be real honest, including me and probably you, we give God our leftovers.
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Our damaged.
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Our convenient.
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Jesus, I'll come and serve you, but only if I'm seen.
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Jesus, I'll serve you, but I'm gonna still live in sin.
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I'll come to church, but I'm still gonna go to the club.
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By the way, can I tell you a funny story? So, prior to coming back into ministry, I actually oversaw an executive protection firm. So, we were doing domestic operations all over the country, working for Fortune 500 executives, celebrities, you name them, I probably took care of them in some way, shape, or form. True story.
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Very odd considering who I am. And so, there was one time we were taking care of a client, and they wanted to go to a club.
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Now, wherever the client goes, we go. It's just the way it is. And so, we had a team, and they were all there. I'm there. And I saw somebody inside of this club from my church
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who I baptized not that long ago. And you want to know the funniest expression of oh crap that you've ever seen in your life?
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Have a person from your church find their pastor at a club. Both of us needed to explain some things. You know what I'm saying?
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And it was the reality of that moment.
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And see, God challenges them in Malachi.
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Would you give that to your governor? Basically, we'd be saying, would you even give that to your local leader?
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Would you give that as a white elephant gift? Would you give someone you considered important what you're giving to me?
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Because honor is revealed by what we are willing to give weight to.
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We can say God is first while consistently giving him what's left.
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Leftover time to him, our family, our kids, our teams here at church.
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Leftover attention, leftover energy, leftover generosity, leftover passion, leftover obedience.
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And still say, God, you know my heart.
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My friends, God does know your heart. But the scripture continually teaches us that what is happening in our heart eventually becomes visible in how we live.
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Man, if you love people, love is just gonna come from you.
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It doesn't matter what they can give to you, what they can do for you.
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If you're generous, generosity is just gonna flow from you.
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And as you continue to stay more generous, God's gonna continue to give more to be generous with. Because that's the position of a heart.
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It's not an outward expression of look at me.
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There's something internal that comes alongside of that. Proverbs three:nine says, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits. And we've heard over and over again throughout this incredible series from pastor Sean. But let's take a moment and notice that word for a minute. It says, honor the Lord with your wealth and your first fruits. And notice how honor becomes visible.
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They gave God the first, not because God was desperate for stuff.
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God was teaching his people. What you put first reveals what carries weight in your life. The principle, my friends, goes far beyond finances and money.
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Giving God our first of our attention, our decisions, our relationships, our calendars. How many moms out there want run your family calendar? You guys are calendar ninjas. All the moms in this place that do that, no doubt. We love you so much. Man, because there's... I look at our calendar, and I'm like, honey, which calendar?
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Because there's a calendar over here.
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There's a calendar on a screen. And then there's a calendar that's on our fridge.
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There's three months of calendars within a five foot radius of my refrigerator.
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She holds that down. I have no idea what it is. There's like a color code thing. I need to download an app. No, I'm just joking, but it's awesome. She knows it. My kids get to where they go, thank God, because honestly, they would not eat and or golf ever. So, that's the truth of the matter, right?
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Honor says, God, you're not getting whatever is left after everything else takes from me. Honor says, you're first.
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But Jesus said that in John fourteen fifteen, if you love me, what you gonna do?
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You're gonna keep his commandments.
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That means there is an expression of honor called obedience.
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Here's the uncomfortable question.
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What does it mean if my mouth says God matters, but my choices say His word doesn't.
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Because church attendance, small groups serving, worshiping God, like, you know, man, tells God He matters, but our obedience proves that His voice carries weight.
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And today, what I what I want really us to do as we're looking at this moment of honoring God, we gotta come to a place where we understand that our obedience proves that His voice carries weight in our life.
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Our obedience to what He calls us to do. Our obedience in how we treat others. Our obedience on how we invite like crazy, so that people can come in here, get set free, experience Jesus, that we can reach our world with life, and that they can understand that God is a good God.
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That He loves them and He wants to bless them.
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See, truth of the matter is, if we think about the stories when I opened, the officer's authority did not disappear because I disagreed with what was happening.
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The judge's authority didn't disappear because I didn't like the evidence that he showed me.
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The nurse's position did not lose significance because I hated the news she brought.
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So why would God's authority suddenly become optional when we say, when He says something that we don't want to hear? When your pastor gets up and confronts confronts you with Biblical truth.
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By the way, he does that in love, doesn't he?
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When scripture confronts me in something, honor says, God, you know better than I do. When scripture confronts my attitude, God, you know better.
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When he confronts my relationships, God, you know better.
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When scripture confronts my finances, my sexuality, my forgiveness, my pride, honor, says Jesus, you know better.
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Come on. One person got it. I get it. I appreciate that.
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Because true honor isn't saying I'll obey you Jesus when I agree with you.
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Or if or if he's God. Agreement, by the way, isn't a prerequisite for obedience.
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Agree. You don't need to agree with God to understand that He is still God.
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His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our ways.
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I didn't know what socks to put on this morning.
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His ways are better than my ways. Come on, somebody.
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Some of you got to realize that in your life.
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You've been fighting with one thing in your life. Jesus is like, would you please just give me this one thing, and watch what I'll do.
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That is what makes Him God.
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And there's a story in first Samuel two that shows the danger of losing this. As matter of fact, it's Eli's sons served as priests, but they treated the things of God with contempt.
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They had become familiar with the holy things and that were sacred.
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And they became common. They handled offerings every day. They were around the church, the tabernacle. They were around sacrifice.
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They were around worship. They were around the presence of God. But familiarity did not produce greater honor, it produced contempt.
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Because that is dangerous.
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Because sometimes the greatest enemy of honor isn't rebellion, it's familiarity.
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We can become familiar with church, familiar with worship, familiar with scripture, familiar with communion, familiar with the presence of God or the the healings of God. They answer prayers, the grace, the mercy, and slowly begin treating as ordinary what once we considered sacred as a church.
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Now, I know there's only probably two people in here that this message will reach when it comes to honor, but I hope it at least reaches those two people. Everyone else, just pray for them. There was probably a time when some of us prayed desperately, God, if you would just save me. If you would just restore my family. If you would just give me another opportunity. If you would just bring me out of this moment.
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And he did.
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And then later, that very miracle that we once cried over became the very thing that we're frustrated with. Because we became familiar with the miraculous.
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We became familiar with miracles. Familiarity can cause us to forget the value of what we once prayed for. Look at Mark six, Jesus returns to his hometown. These people knew His family. They they knew where He came from.
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And instead of allowing familiarity to increase their faith, they said, isn't this just the carpenter's boy?
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Isn't that the carpenter? Think about that. The Son of God is standing in front of them and all they can think about is the carpenter.
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They
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were so familiar with the vessel that they missed what God was doing through him.
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In Mark six four, a prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.
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Then scripture tells us that he could do no mighty miracles except heal just a few sick people. Check this out.
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That does not mean their dishonor stripped Jesus of His power. Jesus is still Jesus.
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But their unbelief and familiarity affected what they positioned, what they were positioned to receive.
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Sometimes your familiarity with God, with others.
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Sometimes your familiarity with your pastors
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can force you to miss the very blessings that God wants in your life.
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The very things that Jesus wants to do in your life.
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Because honor keeps my heart teachable.
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Honor keeps me humble. Honor keeps me aware.
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Honor keeps me expectant.
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Honor says God speak, I'm listening.
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Correct me, I'm teachable.
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Lead me, I'll follow.
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And if your word confronts me, Jesus change me.
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That's honor, and it shifts our heart.
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But there is something powerful about the heart that's properly positioned with God. Psalms twenty five nine says, he leads the humble in what is right and teaches the humble his way. Humility says, I don't know everything honor says, but I'm connected with the one who does.
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Come on, somebody.
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Because the same God that I honor also created you and me.
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Created all of us. Look around this room. There's a lot of different people around this room. And that brings me to our second part today. Honor others.
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We need to honor others. We need to sow seeds of honoring other people.
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If honoring God means recognizing His weight, His value, His authority, His significance, then honoring others begins by recognizing something equally as important. God has placed value on people.
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And that value is not determined by whether I like them or not.
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It's not determined by whether I agree with... They agree with me or not, or I agree with them. It's not determined by how successful they are, how educated they are, what they can do for me. It's simply, do I honor you?
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By the way, it's also not determined by if they're easy to love or not.
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I am hard to love.
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My wife's in the front row. You can ask her after service. I am hard to love.
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Pray for my family. Jesus, help them so much. Genesis one twenty seven says, God created man in His own image, and in the image of God He created them.
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Folks, people have value because they do things for us. Wait.
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People have value because they're kind, because they drive great on '95.
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Say the right things all the time. Tell me I'm handsome all the time. Give me a raise when I ask for it. Vote the same way that I vote.
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No, no, no. My friends, people have value because they bear the image of Jesus.
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Come on. They hold value.
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And look, in about a month our nation's gonna go crazy.
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Don't go there.
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We need to stop losing family members and friends over political figures. This is ridiculous.
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My friends, I'm just gonna say this. Don't get too political at this point in my life. I have a lot of views and viewpoints. But here's the deal, if you think either one of those parties are for you, you're sadly mistaken.
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There's only one person for you, and that is Jesus. There's only one person that can change the trajectory of our nation, and it is Jesus. There's one person that's gonna give you great Medicare, and that's Jesus when He heals your body, and heals your finances, and heals your mind.
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Every state has massive gas prices and idiots run them. We love them. We pray for our people. Right? And I say that, Jen. We gotta pray for them.
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But they're not Jesus.
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And we shouldn't lose people we love
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over an election.
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Jesus, help us.
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That's all I'm gonna say.
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Truth is, we cannot continue to honor the Creator without choosing to, while choosing to dishonor what He created.
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That's why Jesus connected the two in Matthew 22. Jesus said... Jesus asked, what is the greatest commandment? He says, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind. And then he immediately says, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
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God, you almost had me.
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You almost had me. I can love you with my whole heart, with my whole mind, and my whole soul. But, you want me to love other people? I'm hard to love. You want them to love me.
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But, He brings them both together. Jesus connects loving God with loving people.
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Man, if I receive grace, we ought to be able to be a little bit more gracious.
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If God has been patient with me, I ought to be a little bit more patient with people.
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If God has forgiven me,
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we ought to be...
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Have a... Be a little less excited about holding everyone else's failures over their head.
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Because the Gospel doesn't just change how I see God, it changes how I see others.
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Romans twelve ten, as we read earlier, takes it even further. Love one another with brotherly affection and outdo one another in showing honor.
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Outdo one another. I love that language. Paul is trying to say, if you're going to compete over doing something, compete over this. If you are going to try to compete, do that.
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Love others better.
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See people more.
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Give to them when they're needing.
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Do whatever it is. Sit on the phone just a little bit longer. Ask the second and the third question to someone that's hurting.
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Just ask.
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If you know someone that recently retired from a job that they spent their entire life in.
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I sat with one yesterday.
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It's at one of our division chiefs. One of the best men that I've ever met in my life. I sat with him on Friday at his retirement party.
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Twenty six years in the fire service. This man has done so much, impacted so many. The city that I'm a part of is is so much better because of this one man.
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And I started talking to him a few months ago just to see, make sure he was set up for retirement.
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And he said to me, in his party, he said, Chad, 05:00 today is gonna be really hard.
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06:00 is gonna be even harder.
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But next Monday, when my phone doesn't ring, it's gonna be really hard.
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Maybe, just maybe, if the Lord placed someone in your life that's retired recently or has had a major transition, could you just give them a phone call, make sure they're doing well? Could you just see people where they are? Could you just help somebody out just a little bit better? If you see someone that looks down, you stop and say, hey, man, I I see that... Man, you look a little sad. You okay?
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And then, when they say, I'm fine.
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We have enough discernment to say, hey, no, I mean that. I actually, I care. Are you okay?
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And then, have a second conversation.
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And allow them to see Jesus in you.
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Outdo one another in showing love.
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Not,
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who can I, you know, how can I get encouraged?
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How can I get someone to serve me? How can I get someone to give me something first? None of that. Not not talking about any of that. I'm talking Jesus, how can we, as your people, reach our community more effectively?
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How can we pray and talk to people? Because you can pray all you want, but if you're not willing to put that prayer in action, it is pointless.
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It's pointless. I'm praying. I'm praying for God to touch my city. Oh, yeah? How about you take an invite when you leave and then go invite someone back here with you next week? Because you can pray all you like. But the truth of the matter is there's an action step that is required when we're honoring Jesus.
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We... He said, go and make disciples of nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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All we're asking you to do is take a really nice orange invite and take them out to your city so that people can experience a really incredible God.
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If we're gonna reach our world with life,
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Man, I got way too much content than I do time. If we're gonna reach our world with life, we need to start seeing our world. We need to start seeing people valuing people, loving people, Taking those invites, inviting people with you, not just people who already know Jesus.
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Lord, help me.
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Not just people that already know people. I don't want church relocation programs at Abundant Life Church.
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You know what that is? That means that you invited someone that goes down the street to a church over there that they're pretty okay with, and then they invite over here because we've a better sound system or whatever, and then they just relocate here. Unless Jesus called them out of that church, I don't want them here.
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I want them to be blessing where they are. But there's 161,000 people within the three cities that surround us that don't.
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And we're going to love on them.
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And we're gonna reach those people, not just those who know Jesus, but people that are far from God, whose lives are messy, who walk into these doors with questions, who walk in carrying addictions, who walk in carrying shame, who walk in with their marriages hanging on by a thread, that don't know the church language, that don't understand what speaking in tongues or Aramaic is. They have no idea.
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People that don't look like us.
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People that that don't believe everything we believe.
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Yet,
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they should still encounter honor here.
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Because before somebody ever understands everything we believe about God, they should be able to walk into this church and say, people saw me. People cared about me. People treated me like I matter.
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And here's the deal. As we continue in this, not only do we need to honor God, we need to honor others. We need to see people.
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We need to love on people. We need to care for people. But there's a third element to this. We need to honor our spiritual leadership as a church. We need to sow seeds of honor into the spiritual leadership of our house. The first Thessalonians five twelve to 13 says, we ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you.
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And to esteem them very high... Highly in love because of the work, because of their work.
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To esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Notice why Paul says to honor them because of their work.
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I'm gonna tell you some things about Pastor Sean, Pastor Aaron that some of you may not know.
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I know some of you have been around here a long time, forty some years. You've been around. You saw that man when he came from the hospital.
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Matter of fact, we just celebrated his fortieth birthday the other night. Man, do we love our pastor? Man, come on, just honor him.
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But
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there's something about spiritual leadership that falls under biblical counsel that is genuine, that is real, that is specific.
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And our lead pastors here, I don't know if you know how I got to know them, but six years ago I was a partner in a cohort. And Pastor Sean and Pastor Aaron came into that cohort. We were supporting lead pastors around the country.
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And Pastor Sean and I had the chance to connect, and we just hit it off. It was wonderful. I can tell you right now that over the last six years, both your lead pastors, Pastor Sean and Pastor Aaron, have always reached out for every hard situation, every hard decision, every hard moment, when they were broken in their marriage, when they were trying to figure things out, when they were trying to figure out how to lead this church and not be bishop and still be them in the same process. Your pastors have so much character and integrity that when Pastor Sean travels, he shares his location with me so that I can follow around with him.
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That I can make sure that he's real. And I love that our leaders are so humble, are so kind, that we are able to truly, truly sow a seed of honor in our spiritual leaders.
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Hebrews 13 says about spiritual leaders, keep watching over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Please understand that pastor Sean and pastor Aaron, not just here to give you good messages.
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Not just here to show us a way to live. But there's a weight that hold, that they hold on their shoulders as spiritual leaders of this house.
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And they're gonna give account for what they share.
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I may not have liked when the cop pulled me over and gave me a ticket.
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And that ticket was expensive. I had a lot of tickets in that that that moment.
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I may not have liked that the judge told me that I was way off base. I may not have liked when the nurse gave me that information. And my friends, can I just be real honest and plain to you? You may not like when you're spiritual leaders, when you're pastors get up and teach and say something that you may not like.
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See, some of you, you only see the microphone.
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But you never see the weight behind the microphone.
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You may see the presentation, but you don't see the hospital visits in the tears behind closed doors.
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The moments that we as a staff stand here and weep over you.
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We we pray over our connect cards as a church staff.
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As we go to bat in spirit for each and every single one of you.
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All the prayer, all the preparation, all the moments where somebody has to love people and lead people at the same time. That's who our lead pastors are.
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Sometimes they gotta say things they don't necessarily wanna hear, and that's alright.
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David did this with king Saul.
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King Saul was wrong. He was jealous. He was unhealthy. And he literally was trying to kill David. And David gets the opportunity to retaliate, but he chose not to.
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Because there's something about honoring your leaders. It doesn't necessarily say that everything's right. Pastor Sean and pastor Aaron, if they were standing here, they'd be the first people to tell you, hey, I don't got this thing all done yet.
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I'm not all there yet.
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But man, I thank God for our spiritual leaders.
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I thank God that we as a church can be a church that honors God.
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A church that sees people, that honors others above our self.
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And I love that we're a church that can sow a seed in honoring our spiritual leaders.
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Because king Saul's moment, king Saul's dishonor, David made a very strong point to make sure that that dishonor didn't create him to be dishonorable.
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So sometimes there's gonna be something pastor Sean's gonna say you may not like it.
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Jesus, search my heart.
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Sometimes there's gonna be messages that's gonna hit it out of the park, and man, you're gonna feel touched by God. Man, that is amazing.
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But I can tell you this, honoring God, honoring others, and honoring our spiritual leadership, and ensuring that we do not get so close that we become familiar and miss what Jesus wants to speak and do in our lives through the messages that pastor Sean speaks and pastor Aaron speaks and the the groups that we
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lead here throughout the year. Thanks again for listening to today's podcast. We trust that it has touched your heart and blessed your life. Listen to support the ministry. You can go to our website, abundantlife.tv.
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And remember, we are better together.