“Gratefully Honoring One Another” November
18, 2012
Romans 12:10
This fall and winter we’re
looking in detail at one chapter in the Bible—
Romans 12.
It’s a chapter about the practical side of the Christian life.
This is how we are to live in
view of the mercies of God.
Verse
9 and following marks a development in Paul’s thought.
So
far he’s told us how we are to relate to God—offer bodies as living sacrifices.
He’s
told us how to relate to ourselves, identity—members of the body of Christ.
Given gifts of speaking and serving for the
benefit of others. Not lone rangers.
Now,
from this point on he tells us how to relate to other people.
First, how we are to relate to other
believers.
Then, how we are to relate to those outside,
particularly enemies.
Continuing
to show us in practical ways what it means to love sincerely—
hating what is evil, clinging to what is
good.
INTRO: This is a special day in the annual rhythm of
Christ Covenant.
As
you know, we celebrate Thanksgiving as a church family with meal and service.
I usually pick a passage of Scripture with a
thanksgiving theme—
something about contentment, gratitude and
praise to God.
This
week I struggled to find the perfect passage for this morning.
Monday and Tuesday I pondered and read and
nothing spoke to me.
So finally, I just gave up and decided to
keep moving in Romans 12.
And
what do you know! Romans 12:10 is
perfect for Thanksgiving.
This
has happened to me before. I’ll be
preaching through a book of the Bible,
and some special event or day will come up,
and the very next verse or chapter
I’m planning to preach fits perfectly with
the event of that day.
A
few years ago I was preaching through Deuteronomy.
It was that Sunday in May where we recognize
our high school seniors.
And
what do you know! The passage in
Deuteronomy that was next to be preached
was Moses speaking to children of Israel as
they stood on the bank of the Jordan.
It was practically a graduation address.
There
is no way I would have ever picked Deuteronomy 11 as the perfect
message for our high school seniors. But it was.
The Lord planned it.
Another
time, many, many years ago I was preaching through Ephesians.
That
year our wedding anniversary, June 25 fell on a Sunday.
I had not mapped out where I would be in
Ephesians on that Sunday.
I had started preaching through the letter
months earlier.
But
what do you know! The passage I just
happened to be preaching on my
wedding anniversary was : “Wives submit to your husbands in the Lord!”
Allison loved that.
At
first glance, this is may not appear to be a Thanksgiving passage but it is.
Paul
says: “Honor one another above
yourselves.”
What does he mean by that?
Paul
simply means that in the body of Christ we should outdo ourselves in
expressing praise, appreciation, gratitude,
and thankfulness for one another.
Remember
last week, how we saw in verse 9 that part of sincere love is clinging to
what is good? Believing that the Holy Spirit is at work in
our brothers and sisters,
and seeing that goodness in them, even if
you have to see it with eyes of faith?
Well,
Paul says, you put that love into practical expression with words of honor.
Paul
himself does this over and over again in his letters.
He
is constantly writing how thankful he is for believers in the churches.
He is constantly complimenting them,
outdoing himself in expressing
appreciation and gratitude for them.
Just
look at how he does it in this letter.
Turn over to chapter 16 of Romans.
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the
church in Cenchrea. I ask you to receive
her in the
Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from
you,
for she has
been a great help to many people, including me.
Here’s
Paul, the greatest Apostle, the Moses of the New Testament.
He singles out this woman Phoebe for
commendation. Calls her a great help.
Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in
Christ Jesus. They risked their lives
for me.
Not only I
but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.
How would you like to be called a fellow worker of the
Apostle Paul?
Notice that
Paul expresses his gratitude in honoring them.
Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who
have been in
prison with me. They are outstanding
among the apostles, and they were in
Christ before
I was . . . Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the
Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman
who has worked very hard in the Lord.
He commends hard work and consistency in the faith
over the long haul.
Notice once
again he calls people dear friend—a way of expressing gratitude.
Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who
has been a mother to me, too.
Isn’t that a sweet compliment! We’ve all known those mother figures in the
church.
You can just
imagine her cooking for Paul, clucking over him as a mother.
What comes
across in those words of honor is a depth of gratitude.
It’s not just in Romans, in all of Paul’s letters he
does this.
He was always saying nice things and making
generous statements about others.
Always
taking opportunity to draw attention to the virtues and hard work and
sacrifices and contributions of others. Wanting other people to admire them.
It
was so important to Paul, that he commands it in Romans 12:10.
This is how you worship God. This is how you offer your body a living
sacrifice.
This is how you show your gratitude for the
mercies of God in Christ—
by outdoing yourself in expressing honor and
gratitude and praise to each other.
And
not only is obedience to this command a way of saying thank you to God—
Obeying this command brings its own
blessings. Three in particular.
Honoring
one another is
good for the church, good for your
children, good for your soul. Look at
each.
MP#1 Honoring one another is good for your church
There
are few things more important for healthy family life than frequent
words of appreciation and gratitude for one
another.
Husbands
complimenting and praising their wives.
Parents complimenting and praising their
children.
Children thanking and honoring their
parents.
Homes
where those words of honor and gratitude are frequently spoken are
happy homes.
There is greater contentment and security.
And,
of course, the opposite is also sadly true.
Few
things are more harmful to home life than the absence of grateful words.
Spouses can become embittered and distant
when there are never compliments
and children are especially harmed when
parents never praise for jobs well done.
I
have a seminary friend who grew up in a home like that.
He can’t remember a time when his parents
expressed appreciation for
something he had done, or complimented him,
or expressed love personally.
And
if he had not met Jesus Christ, and learned of the love of God the Father—
he would have self-destructed long ago. And to this day, he bears those scars.
This
need for praise makes sense not just psychologically, but theologically as
well.
Because
we’re made in God’s image.
And within the Trinity, within the Godhead,
there is an eternal circle and life of love
and appreciation and compliment.
Think
about that—throughout all eternity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have praised
one another.
That’s what God is and what God does and we are like him.
We live to love and be loved and to express
that love and receive it.
So
the church of Jesus Christ ought to be a place
where affection and appreciation are
regularly given and received.
The
church ought to be a healthy and loving family
where her sons and daughters are
complimented and praised
and where gratitude and thankgiving for one
another is common.
We’ve
already seen from Paul’s own practice of this in chapter 16.
You find this in all of his letters, Paul
giving things for people and honoring them.
And I’m sure that Paul was even more
expressive in person.
A
few things stand out about the way did this.
He didn’t flatter, he mentions his
appreciation for their hard work in church,
for their concern for him, for their
friendship, for their long-term commitment.
And
then the other thing you can’t help notice is how generous Paul is in his
praise.
He
was a founding Apostle, one of the greatest minds in history,
a man blessed with extraordinary spiritual
experiences and revelations—
and yet he calls people co-workers,
ministers together, friends.
Think
of the way he praises Timothy in so many letters and thanks God for him.
We
know from other details in New Testament that Timothy was naturally timid.
He was completely different from Paul in
this regard—Paul was naturally bold.
Probably
many times when Paul watched Timothy approach a task
in his round-about way, and thought, I wish
he would attack this head on.
But
Paul focused entirely on the positive.
His usefulness. His spirit.
Because he saw the effort and the sacrifice
for Christ.
Back
to the first point. This is good for our
church.
We
saw last week that sincere love among Christian’s means can’t ignore sin.
But we also acknowledged the difficulty in
dealing with it in others.
Here’s
practical wisdom: It’s so much easier to
take counsel from a person who is
grateful for you. A person who want to thank you for who you
are and what you
have done.
From a person who does not hesitate to say how grateful he is for you.
This
may seem obvious, but it so, why don’t we do this more often and more
enthusiastically than we do?
Why
not more often praising others for what they have done pleasing to God?
How
do you have a sweet home life? Sweet
marriage and family?
Frequent words of honor, gratitude,
thankfulness, and praise.
How
do you have and keep and build happy and holy relationships of love
and loyalty in the body of Christ? The very same way.
Praise
and thanksgiving warmly expressed.
It’s hard to get sideways with somebody who
is always thanking you
for who you are and what you’ve done. It’s hard not to listen if something hard.
Let’s be generous in our praise—it’s good
for our church.
MP#2 Honoring one another is good for your
children
I’m
not saying that it’s good for your children for you to praise them. That’s true.
But
what I mean is that you talk about and praise other Christians,
if your children hear you expressing
appreciation for them, and admiring faith,
that spirit will rub off on your
children. They will grow to love God’s
people.
They
will themselves learn to honor those who fear the Lord.
And the opposite effect is also true.
A negative or indifferent attitude towards
those who fear the Lord
will stunt your children spiritually.
I
want to tell you four quick stories—two sad and two happy—you’ll see point.
I’ve told these stories before, but think
they are instructive.
There
was a woman in our Florida church who was a retiree from New York.
Her husband had been a Presbyterian
minister, but I never knew him because
he had passed away a few years before we got
there. She had three grown sons.
None
of them were walking with the Lord, none of them were in church.
None of them would even attend church with
her when they came to visit.
She
was grieved by that, and would often mention it.
I
asked the senior pastor, Bruce Fiol why this was so.
Bruce
was a very wise man, very spiritually sensitive.
He said, Have you ever noticed the way she
talks about the churches where her
husband served as pastor? And I had.
She
was always telling stories about how this church was a bad experience,
and how the people in that church let them
down.
Bruce
said, Her negative comments have poisoned her sons against the church.
And that, in turn has turned them away from
Christ.
How
important it is for us to speak well of the members of the body.
The
second story is one very similar, told by Derek Thomas,
who is a pastor at First Presbyterian
Church, Jackson Mississippi.
He
had performed an infant baptism for first born child of some young parents.
And
after the service a visitor came up and said to the father:
“This morning you brought your child to be
given to the Lord. I did that once
too. But let me urge you from the bottom
of my heart not to do to your boy what I did to mine. Year after year he heard me criticize the
church, members of the church, and the minister. I turned my boy off from the church and today
he’s far from God. I plead with you,
don’t ever criticize like that or you’ll destroy your son too.”
Now
the happy stories. A few years ago in
Tuscumbia, visiting childhood church.
Talking
to someone and name of ruling elder came up, the man is now deceased.
Several
years ago, after we had moved to Cullman,
Person talking to asked me: Did it bother
you the way he treated your father?
I told him I didn’t know what he was talking
about.
He
proceeded to tell me how this man did not like my father, and that among other
things, he would make a point of not looking
at him when he was preaching.
Surely
you knew that, this person said. But
honestly I didn’t.
I was somewhat shocked by what this person
told me.
Because
my dad always had positive things to say about the elders
of the church, and the dignity of the office
and the value of Session.
All
I ever heard from him about the members of the church was compliment.
I know one of the reasons I’m in the ministry
is because of this quality
of my father—and the deep love it gave me
for the church.
Finally,
this is very short story, but it made an impression on me.
A
few years ago talking to old seminary buddy Charles Garland.
He told me how his son Zach, who was then a
senior in high school,
attended the men’s Sunday school class at
their church, because it was being
taught by an older man Charles admired and
spoke highly of.
Not
because he feels out of place going to the youth group Sunday school,
but it was because he had heard his dad
talking about the wisdom of this older
man and the depth of his spiritual
insight—and he had taken that to heart.
He
valued and wanted what his parents valued.
Who
do your children admire? They will
admire the people they hear praised.
The unbelieving world is often extravagant
in its praise.
Think
how celebrities and public figures are praised to the sky for coming out of the
closet, celebrating homosexuality, or
speaking favorably about abortion.
And
even more subtle, think of the admiration heaped on people for their pride,
extravagance, and physical beauty. Children hear that and it shapes them.
What
do you children hear from you? Who do
they hear you praise?
Psalm 15 asks a question:
Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?
You
want that for your children, don’t you?
You want them to be close to the Lord.
Answer:
He
who despises a vile man, but honors those who fear the Lord.
Where
do they learn that? They learn it from
you.
Honoring others good for your children.
Brings
us to the third point:
MP#3 Honoring one another is good for your soul
When
you compliment and praise other Christians, you are imitating God himself.
Why
was the Apostle Paul a man full of compliments?
Why
was this great man of God, who had seen the risen Christ,
and experienced visions of heaven, and
founded churches across Roman Empire,
why was this man able to overflow with
genuine praise for ordinary Christians
like Phoebe and Tryphena and Tryphosa, Rufus
and his mother?
Because
Paul knew the grace of God and delighted in imitating it.
That’s what appreciation and compliments are
for Christians—
imitations of the grace of God to us in
Jesus Christ.
Remember
the whole context of Romans 12?
This
is how we respond to the mercies of God.
I
often quote Dr. Robert Rayburn, Faith Presbyterian Church in Tacoma.
In
one of his sermons he said that his church has a Thanksgiving service like the
one we have.
Where people have a chance to speak to the church body
and publically thank the Lord for his
goodness in the past year.
Anyway,
Dr. Rayburn said that for many years there was something that would
happen in that annual Thanksgiving service
that bothered him.
The
things that bothered him is that many people would stand up and offer thanks,
not to God, but to other people in the
church for what they had done, or what
they had said to them. Rayburn said he thought this was a defect in
their faith.
That
these people were failing to see that it was the Lord who stood behind
the kindnesses of others, and he was the one
they should have been thanking.
But
he said that he came to realize that he was completely wrong.
That
the Bible is full of compliments that one believer pays to another—
just like these verses in Romans 16, where
Paul names person.
But
even deeper than that, Rayburn said the thought struck him that God himself
praises us for the good things we do, even
though without him we can do nothing.
The
Lord loves to praise and compliment his people.
He appreciates us even when we very
imperfectly serve him.
And he says the kindest and most
complimentary things about us.
In
the Bible Abraham is called “God’s friend.”
David is called “a man after God’s own
heart.”
Peter
was a “rock.” John was “the disciple
Jesus loved.”
All
those men were flawed. All had failures,
some quite profound.
Yet
Lord not at all stingy in honoring and praising them.
Does
the same for you. Calls you his beloved
son.
He calls you a shining star in this wicked
and depraved generation.
The
Lord Jesus Christ looks at your imperfect attempts to live for him,
with all your inconsistencies and weaknesses
and mixed motives—
and he calls you blameless and without fault
and shining like stars.
He
might as well call attention to your failures and shortcomings.
But he doesn’t. And he holds out the wonderful prospect to
all of us
that we will stand before him one day and
hear these words:
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
God,
in grace, appreciates the little things we do for him.
So it is no surprise that he also
appreciates it when we take note of the good
things others do for us and for the
kingdom.
There
is a line that can be drawn from Jesus Christ to us—
from his generous compliments to our
generous compliments,
from his wideness of spirit to our wideness
of spirit,
from his grace and love to our way of life
with our brothers and sisters.
The
great Scottish minister Alexander Whyte said:
“The size and the substance and the spirit
of a man’s soul is seen by the spontaneity and the
generosity and the exuberance and the warmth
of his praises . . . And to praise, with your
whole heart, all those men and women and
children who deserve praise at your hands, that is a
certain contribution toward your praise of
God.”
Of
course criticism is sometimes necessary.
Sincere love hates evil.
But
it also clings to what is good.
Thankful, appreciative words are always good.
They
are good to person we say them to and good to us when we say them.
They are good for our soul. Because we are imitating God in his
generosity,
and we are praising him, even as we praise
other people.
This
is not something that comes naturally to many of us.
That’s why Paul gives the example and the
command.
It’s a spiritual discipline like everything
else in the Christian life.
We
have to remind ourselves to honor one another but when we do,
we will hardly ever fail to see immediate
evidence of good
in our church, our children, and in God’s
work within us.
Now,
here’s a practical way you can obey these words.
Come
to the Thanksgiving Service tonight.
Eat with your church friends. Hear God’s word from our guest.
And then, as you are lead, give thanks
publically to the Lord and to your
brothers and sisters for the blessings they
have brought to your life.
Even
if you don’t speak publically, that’s fine.
But your heart will be warmed and widened
through the words of others.