Being Honorable

So I thought, well, let's just stick with the English Dictionary. And I am going to go into that and talk about some of the meanings of these words, and then get into what the Bible tells us about the concepts behind them. That's where it really matters.

Now, we can find many passages in the Bible talking about how we need to honor God. And of course, the Apostle Paul wrote that we should give honor to whom honor is due. But I want to not focus so much on showing honor to others. That's a very important subject.

But today, I want to talk about being honorable. Being a person of honor. And it occurred to me, actually, towards the end of the sermon this morning, I thought, boy, Frank, I've got to watch out. It sounds like you're talking down to everyone. And especially with the elevated stage here.

I don't want to seem like I'm telling you I know all about honor, and I'm telling you it's one of those sermons I'm preaching to myself as much as to all of you, that we want to be people of honor. And look in God's Word and see what it tells us.

Let's turn to 2 Timothy 2 and we'll begin in verse 19.

Note a couple of scriptures that address this.

2 Timothy 2, beginning in verse 19, says, But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. And that makes sense. Some of us have a china hutch with really nice things, and then also some vessels that we put away that are not. It says, Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he'll be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. So we want to be a vessel for honor. We want to be sanctified, set apart, useful for our Master. Now, what is it we have to purge ourselves from? He says, if you purge yourself from these things... Well, he continues on then in verse 22, Flee also youthful lusts. So those are things we want to get rid of us to be honorable. But pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing they generate strife.

Now, I thought, if I said nothing else today, this alone would give us a good idea of how to be honorable. Flee youthful youth.

Let me say that again. Flee youthful lusts. Avoid foolish and ignorant disputes. Those just lead to dishonor. Instead, follow righteousness, love, peace and faith.

But, looking at my watch, I've got a little bit more time, so I will have a few more things to add to these.

Let's, if you will, go to 2 Corinthians chapter 8. 2 Corinthians 8 will begin in verse 21. Here it says, and I'm breaking into a thought, that providing honorable things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men. Now, to show how closely the words are related, I just read that from the New King James. In the Old King James, it says, provide honest things, showing, as I said, they're very closely related. Skipping ahead a few chapters to chapter 13. 2 Corinthians 13 and verse 7.

Paul writes to the Corinthians and says this, Now I pray to God that you do know evil, not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified.

I especially wanted to note that because Paul was writing to the Corinthian church, and he'd spent some time correcting them, but he reminded them, I'm writing to you, I want you to do what's honorable, even if we are disqualified. We, meaning the ministry, the apostles in that case. And that's something all of us want to note. It's saying, it doesn't matter what anybody else does, even if it's somebody in charge and in a high authority, we have to do what's honorable, disregarding what comes from anyone else.

So as Christians, we want to be honorable. But how do we do that? And what does it mean to be honorable? As I said, we use these words, and I think we sort of know what they mean, but I wanted to dig down deep a little bit, to find a little bit more. Now, I'm going to get to what I found in my Greek and Hebrew lexicons in a moment, but as I said, since the words in English convey so much meaning, I thought I'd get into that. And I pulled my big, heavy Webster's Unabridged Dictionary that weighs about 25 pounds off the shelf. And that's why I typed it into my notes, instead of bringing that big, heavy book. But I'll start with the word honorable. And I'm not going to ask you to write all of this down, because I have several definitions, but as I read these, it should start conveying an idea.

Honorable is defined as being in accordance with, or characterized by, principles of honor, or of being upright. Now, upright comes up many times. Now, I'm not going to turn to any Scriptures, but as the Bible talks about being upright as well. So, if being honorable is to be in accord with the principles of honor, I thought I'd better look up honor. I found more than 20 definitions in the Unabridged. Let me just mention some of them. They include something that's high in public esteem, or high in respect, high in value. So, something that's valuable, respectable. Also, honesty or integrity in one's beliefs and actions. That's honor. Honesty, integrity in one's beliefs and actions. It listed several synonyms as well. Other words that mean about the same thing include uprightness, honesty, probity, and integrity. All those sounded familiar except probity. So, I looked that up, actually, because it sounded like a car part or something to me. My dictionary described probity as meaning integrity, uprightness, honesty.

The definition for honest is defined as honorable in principles, intentions, and actions, or upright. It also defined honest as being showing uprightness and fairness, sincere, frank, respectable, having good reputation. Remember, that's frank as an adjective, not a proper name. And also, honest could mean truthful or creditable. Creditable is hard to say in public. Interesting, though. The definition for honest mentions many things before truth. Now, truth is important, but I want to br- I'm going to come back to this a little bit later to remind us that being honest is above being truthful. Honest includes uprightness, fairness, respectable, good reputation. So, it's doing good beyond just telling the truth. And then I also wanted to mention the word integrity.

Integrity was described as a state of being whole, entire, undiminished. Or, and I saved this one for last because it was my favorite of all these definitions. I know one of these days you'll get tired of me starting my sermons with a list of definitions, but I like words. Definition for integrity, which is a synonym for honor, is a soundness of moral principle which no power or influence can impair. I like the sound of that.

A soundness of moral principle that no power or influence can impair. That means it's just in you, and nothing outside of you is going to shake it. Now, you'll notice a lot of these words use the other words as part of their definitions. They overlap a lot. Now, for an English professor, that might be disturbing. Luckily, I'm not an English professor because they always say you shouldn't use one word to define itself. But I find when the words overlap, it reminds me of a principle called snowball sampling. I'm not sure if snowball sampling is a precise word, but I picked it up at a workshop that deals with doing interviews.

I used to work with oral historians a lot where they'd want to study a certain principle or an event, and they'd talk to the people in an area. Say we were wanting to discuss, say, the shoemaking industry in Portsmouth, which I know there were several shoemaking factories in the past, so you're looking for people who remember that, and you find a couple of people and you interview them, and you say, well, at the end you say, who else should I talk to about this?

And they might say, well, Joe that lives down the road, you should talk to him, and how about Sally over there? And you go talk to them, and you ask, well, who do you think I should talk to? And they start naming people. And as you go, you're trying to get more contacts, but after a while, they start naming people that you've already talked to. And pretty soon you realize you've talked to just about everybody, so it's like these words.

I'm wanting to understand honor, say honor was a person, and I said, well, who else should I talk to? And they might say, well, you should talk to probity down the street, an integrity that lives around the corner. And then when I talk to integrity, well, she says, well, yeah, you should also talk to honest.

And have you talked to honor yet? Yeah, I talked to him pretty soon. They're naming each other. I wasn't sure if this analogy would hold up, but you see what I'm getting at. So being honorable is similar to being honest, upright, having integrity. We sort of know what it means. But again, I keep coming back to that definition for integrity says it the way I like best, that soundness of moral principle that no power can impair.

And then I'll add what I did find in the Greek and Hebrew. They define the words in Hebrew and Greek, which I didn't even write down because they weren't that easy to pronounce, but as something of value, something magnificent or beautiful, glorious, or in some cases solid or weighty. Now, obviously, that does apply to God. God is honorable and He is magnificent. He is weighty and solid. That makes some sense to me. When we honor God, we're recognizing His magnificence and His value.

But we can, and I think we should strive to make ourselves something of value to God. Not that we're of the value like He needs to go get us because He can't do without us. But we should strive to make ourselves valuable to Him. When we haven't taken Him, when we're honest, when we think and act honorably, then I think we become something that is beautiful to God.

Something valuable to Him. So for you to have honor, and instead you have to make yourself special. Now, I should say, for us to have honor, for me to have honor, I need to make myself special. Make my commitment, my word, or even my presence something that's about...

I might be beating around the bus a little bit, but I like to talk about words. And I'm going to ask, pardon from those of you that were camped to me, because if you were there, you heard me tell the story from a movie that I saw years ago. And I like it so well that I bought the CD. The movie, Rock Roy. I like it because it's set in Scotland and it's set in the 1700s. These are all things that I like.

But the movie deals really with the theme of honor and doing honor. In this movie, I'm curious, how many of you have seen this movie? Do you have? Okay, so you might remember the scene when I described it, but in this movie, Liam Neeson plays Rob Roy in the director. And I actually learned this when I was in the Houston spot from several years ago. Rob Roy McGregor was about to gain a call. And Liam Neeson is about this call, so they said they really messed up in the casting, but it did fabulous playing the part.

And in the movie, as the Scottish Chief, he's the Chief of the plan. It's the year 1715. The world has changed. And of course, there's still a movie between those of high nobility and aristocracy, each trying to control the country, and losing people at the pond. And some of these noble aristocrats, if I was to steal from him and try to use him as a pond, and he's in danger of losing everything of value. All of his money, losing his family. But he doesn't want to lose his good name. He was willing to risk and sacrifice everything to not compromise his training. So the movie bears out that theme in a number of ways. But early in the movie, Rob Roy has a conversation with his sons. He's out with his wife and two boys, and they're having a picnic. And they're sitting down chatting. And the theme of past royalty comes up, because the legend is that the MacGregors had been kings in earlier eras. So the boys ask their dad, well, father, will the MacGregors ever be kings again? And they do it with a Scottish accent that I can't match very well. But he says, all men with honor are kings, but not all kings have honor. The boys are interested in that. So they ask, what is honor? And Rob Roy replies, honor is what no man can give you, and no man can take away. Honor is a man's gift to himself. The boys are intrigued. He says, well, all they're talking about is, do women have it? And he says, well, women are the heart of honor. And we cherish it, and we protect it in them. And he says something that he limits to women, but I would say we could apply it to all. You must never mistreat a woman, or malign a man, or stand by and see another do so. As I said, this is fiction. It was written to support the theme that the movie was going to bring out. But I like that. And if we take the gender roles out of it, you could say, you must never mistreat another person, nor malign anyone, nor stand by and let someone else do so without raising your voice. So, as I said, the movie brings that out. But I like the fact that Rob Roy says, honor is something that no one can give you, but also no one can take away. And I see that in the sense that God makes us free moral agents to choose what we'll do, what we'll say. Now, the fact that someone might threaten you doesn't necessarily take away the dishonor if you do something wrong. Because I've heard people describe, no one can make you do something. Now, they might hurt you in the process of trying to get you to do it. They could even kill you in the process, but you decide to do wrong, or to do right. So this comes down to the fact that I think in some ways honor and righteous character overlap quite a bit. That's something we want to do for the sake of doing it. They come down to doing the right thing and not doing the wrong thing, not for reward and not to avoid punishment, but because you want to be right. You want to be honorable. And that sense honor is a gift that we can give to ourselves. So, since I still have a little time left, I want to propose a three-part way to be honorable, people. We want to be honorable in word and in deed and in intent.

So let's talk about being honorable in word, and we can say honest in word. We might say shouldn't it go without saying that Christians must be honest? After all, it is one of the Ten Commandments, and I'm not going to turn there, but Exodus 20, verse 16, tells us, you shall not bear false witness. And that's always it. Well, it just interested me, because it doesn't say you shall not lie. It puts it like in a legal sense. And shouldn't it apply to everything, not just to the court? Well, I think for us it does. It strikes me as a disappointing thing. And this came out to me recently, I was listening to the news on the radio, and there had been some court case that came, I'm not sure I remember it, it was in a public court, or a Supreme Court, where somebody had been tried in court because they lied about getting a military honor.

And the court, the judge made the decision that it's not against the law to lie about your military service.

That's pretty sad. It's not against the law of the land in the United States to lie except for the court. Sounds like a double standard to me. But for us, we're holding to a higher standard. If you'll turn to Ephesians chapter 4, let's look at the standard we want to strive for. So it doesn't matter whether we're in court, whether we've taken a note or not. Ephesians 4 and verse 25.

Apostle Paul writes this, Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for remembers one of another.

So speak truth, put away lying. That's the simple thing. No, it's interesting. Does it strike you as astounding that the simple act of being honest marks you as different from most people? And yet it's true. I've seen it in my own life and I've heard so many people in the church telling me their experiences that I know it's true. Many people out there in the world don't expect honesty. And they're surprised when they encounter it on a consistent basis. But that's where we want to be honest and word. We want people to know us and say, Yeah, I would expect that person to be honest. And that brought to mind a story. Now, how many of us expect politicians to be honest?

That's the reaction I expected. They're going to say, a politician honest? Ha!

We expect them to lie or to shade the truth or exaggerate. And this time of year, well, it used to be later in the year, as we'd get toward fall, we'd get the campaign commercials. Now we're being bombarded with them. I don't know if you're like me, sometimes you just get angry because you hear things. You think, that's not right. Or they're taking this out of context. They're not being truthful.

It brings to mind a story of, well, someone I don't like to think of as a politician, but he was a president, and that's George Washington. Many of you would have heard the story from Washington's boyhood, where, and I don't remember how he got into it, but somehow he got around to chopping down a cherry tree in the yard, right? And so the story goes, his father sees it and says, George, did you chop down my cherry tree? The answer is, Father, I cannot tell a lie. I did chop down your cherry tree.

Now, that sounds a little stilted, doesn't it? Would very many of you be disappointed if, as a history professor, I tell you that story we're almost certain is amiss? We don't think it happened. Maybe not at all, especially not like that. Now, you wonder, why is it such a popular story? Now, I'm curious, does anybody not heard that story before? Okay, because I don't know what they teach in schools anymore, but I remember it. The earliest account we know of this story came in a biography that actually was printed even before Washington died by a clergyman whose last name was Weems, and I can't remember his first name because everybody calls him Parson Weems. And he printed a collection of stories about George Washington to try to share the word and keep his legend alive. And so, apparently, he came up with this story. Now, this might lower your opinion of biographers and history teachers, but I hope it doesn't lower your opinion of Washington, because I want to turn the story around and think, did people have a high regard of Washington because they had heard that story? Or I think it's more likely they heard the story and they knew Washington's character, because at that time, he was known for being an honest person, a person of integrity. And they read that story and said, hmm, yeah, I can believe that. Knowing the man as ridiculous as the story sounds, I think it's probably true. Rather than people read the story and said, oh, I really trust Washington because he admitted to chopping down the tree. We want to be like that. We want to be someone that's known as being honest, so that if people heard a story like that about us, they would say, yes, I can believe that. I believe that that person, you know, I believe that Frank Dunkel would be honest no matter what, even if his dad's there with the big whip getting ready to let him have it. I don't remember that being in the story, but anyways. Let's consider the opposite, though. There is an interesting story in the Old Testament. If you want to go to 1 Kings 13, it's a story about someone who's not honest.

It's one that I've always been fascinated with. I wanted to read it in the sermon because it's such an example of blatant lying that you could draw many lessons from it, and I want to draw at least one or two. I'll set the stage before I start reading. This is after the division of the two kingdoms. King Solomon died, as you might remember, and then his son, Rehoboam, didn't want to relent with the taxation and the service of the people, so there was a rebellion. The northern ten tribes left and formed their own kingdom named Israel, and Jeroboam became the king. Jeroboam didn't want the people going back down to Jerusalem to worship, so he started his own imitation religion. He set up the altars and then had to proclaim to feast in the eighth month. But God was not happy about that. We start off here, we'll see, and then he sent a messenger to tell Jeroboam that he was upset. So in 1 Kings 13, He said, It's there in verse 5.

In verse 7, He was told fast while you're doing this special job for me. Now things get interesting. We meet another character. There was an old prophet, this is in verse 11, dwelt in Bethel, and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. And they told their father the words which he had spoken to the king. This fellow here says, wow, this guy is fasting. He's got to go back a different way. And he tells his sons, well, which way did he go? Well, they'd seen. So he says, well, saddle the donkey for me. So they saddled it. And he rode off looking for him. And he went after the man, and he found him sitting under an oak tree. He said, Are you the man of God who came from Judah? Well, I am. In other words, yes, that's me. He said, well, come home with me and eat bread. Sorry, I was just about to make a smart-elic remark, but I'm not going to. The fellow says, I can't eat. I can't return with you, nor go with you. Neither can I eat bread or drink water in this place. It's interesting. He says, I can't. I'm not going to or I don't want to. I'm going to talk about intentions later, but I wonder about the intentions or whether this fellow was happy about having to fast while he did this job. But he says, I've been told by the word of the eternal, you shall not eat bread or drink water there, nor return by the way you came. And so the old prophet says something to him. He says, I'm a prophet too. And an angel spoke to me by the word of the eternal, saying, bring him back to you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But now we see, it's in parentheses in my Bible, he was lying to him. So this fellow just comes out and tells a blatant lie. No, an angel just came to me and said, bring him on back and give him something to eat. This is the word the young man of God wanted to hear. Now, I guess he was probably hungry and thirsty by this time. So we went back with him and ate bread in his house and drank water. Now, as they were sitting at the table, now the word of the eternal does come to the old prophet. He was lying about an angel speaking to him before, but now God does speak through him. And he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, Thus says the eternal, because you have disobeyed the word of the eternal, and have not kept the commandments which the Lord your God commanded, but came back and drank water in the place which the eternal told you, Don't eat bread, don't eat water. Your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers. And it goes on from there. I'll paraphrase the rest of the story. I'm sure the fellas dumbfounded. He's getting this punishment, so the old fella, well, I wonder. God spoke through him. I wonder if he was surprised at the words coming out of his mouth when he heard them. But he sends the fellow on his way. Okay, I'll help you get on your donkey, go on your way. And he goes a little ways down the road and a lion comes out and kills him.

And of course, the story goes, the old man found out about it and went back and got his body and had it buried in his own tomb and made sure that he was buried there. And I think, what an unusual story! I don't know how many times have you heard this bread out in the sermon. I haven't too many. One of the reasons I wanted to, but you ask the question, why is it in the Bible? I think we could glean a lot of lessons from it, and that leaves room to come back to it in the future. And I'm not going to try to explain them all. I think I don't know them all. But there's one obvious lesson, is being honest in word does not mean being gullible in word. Be honest, speak the truth, but double check on other people in some cases, especially somebody that just rides up out of nowhere and says, hey, I'm a prophet too. You might want to say, hey, can I do that? Something I don't need to make humor about, but that should apply to all men in religious office. Don't take somebody just at their surface, because people can lie, and they can turn to where they meet. It says in chapter verse 11 here that he was a prophet, and we see within the story that God spoke through with him. Well, I don't think that he was lying when he said, I'm a prophet too. That was the truth. It's when he said, now I'm going to give you a message that contradicts the one you heard from God. That's when he was lying. But at one point, he could have served him of God. When or how did he go astray? I'm speculating here, but I suspect that maybe it started with the ability to lie. He has shaved the truth. Tell somebody something that's not quite true, and then it would lead to actions.

Like, sons go saddle the donkey for me. I've got to go on a mission. And it went from there. So there's a contrast, and it shows that even someone who's in a high position serving God is not immune to turning to lying. Lying comes from a different source. If we go to John chapter 8, we'll see where that comes from. It's a pretty well-known section of Scripture, but John 8 and verse 44.

Here, Jesus, of course, was having a confrontation with the Pharisees, which he did on a regular basis. And he didn't pull punches sometimes dealing with them. He told them exactly what he thought. He tells them, you are of your Father the devil, and the desires of your Father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there's no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, or he's a liar and the Father of it.

But because I tell the truth, you don't believe me. Which of you can fix me of the sin? And if I tell the truth, why don't you believe me? He who is of God hears God's words, therefore you don't hear because you're not of God. So there's a simple, clear-cut distinction. Those who speak and listen to the truth, and those who adhere to lies. And one of the lessons from the prophet is, having been a servant of God doesn't make you immune from the lies.

We have to be on word. We have to constantly watch to make sure that we continue to be honest in word. And that includes being honest with ourselves.

Now, I do want to move on to talking about being honest indeed, but before I move this, I thought from an experience in my own life that it's worth coming back to the idea that being honest or honorable in word goes beyond just the truth. And I shouldn't say just the truth, because the truth is a pretty high standard, as we just saw.

But, you know, sometimes there are some things that don't need to be said at all. And I don't mean to let someone believe a lie because you kept silent. You know, there's sometimes what they call lying by implication, where you don't say anything but you need to. What I'm getting at is, there are some things that we could say that would be true, but there's no good reason to say it.

You know, what's the... I'm sure this might have come from somewhere else, but like many of the things I've learned, I learned it from a Disney movie. And if you remember, in Bambi, there's a time where I think the little rabbit named Thumper is being corrected by his mom. What did I tell you? I know. If you can't say nothing good, don't say nothing at all. Did I say that? It's been a long time since I saw Bambi. There is a time when, as Christians, we need to hold that standard. You know, if you don't have something good to say, and you don't need to say to dad, sometimes it's best to keep quiet. I saw that in practice, or the opposite of it, with my grandmother. And you've heard me refer to my grandmother many times. I love her dearly, and I've got many, many good examples from her. But here's one where she showed me that sometimes it's better not to speak. Because when she got into her upper... not upper 90s, she lived in 95. But when she reached her upper 80s and 90s, I think she started to realize that she could say whatever she wanted. You know, she didn't lie. I never heard her speak a lie in my life, but she was free about saying things sometimes when being quiet would have been better. And Sue had this experience many times taking her to visit the doctor. You know how it is you're sitting in the waiting room, and then other patients come in. Grandmother developed a habit of commenting on the appearance of the other patients, and not in her inside voice. She would comment on the face, the weight, the clothes. She would, shh, grandma. Her answer was, well, I have to speak the truth. No, grandma, sometimes you don't have to speak it. You know what I'm using a little humor there, but it's... you know, there are times when you don't have to lie, but you don't have to say anything. And that also includes talking about your own situation. Also, as I said, my grandmother was a pillar in the congregation in Columbus. Many people knew her and loved her, but she did live to the point where she was ready for God's kingdom. Her body was getting old and worn out. And she sometimes would make visitors feel a little uncomfortable, especially younger people who said, I'm going to do a good thing and visit this older lady and cheer her up. And she would spend a lot of the time of their visit talking about why she wished she could die. And she wanted to be in God's kingdom. And I'd see young people wondering, what did you say to something like that? Now, I was used to it, and I would sometimes try to steer the conversation to a more productive place. But if you find yourself being 93 years old and, you know, ready for God's kingdom, you don't have to tell all the younger people you know all the details of that. It's best that it looked better on paper, but I think you get my point. Being honorable in word is not only about speaking the truth. As I said, it's making sure our words are something worthy, words of value, something that's beneficial, which includes being truthful, but also is useful and helpful to people. Let's turn to James 3 and read verse 2.

This is not a bad standard to think of for a word. Here he says, we all stumble in many things. Now, in the Old King James, I'm pretty sure he says, we all offend in many things. If anyone does not stumble, or we could say offend in word, if anyone doesn't offend or stumble in word, he's a perfect man. And able also to bridle the whole body. Now, that's something to strive for. Don't cause offense. Don't stumble in your words. If you can do that, you should then be able to bridle the whole body. If you can be honorable in word, you can proceed to being honorable in your acts, or indeed. It's interesting, I hadn't noticed before I was giving this that, indeed, as two separate words, sounds a lot like indeed as one word. And they have similar meanings, of course. Now, it seems like a short way to describe how to be honorable in deeds would be to say, do the right thing and don't do the wrong thing. But I want to go further than that, because sometimes it's easier than others to do the right thing. A scripture that came to mind for me is in Psalm 15. I keep wanting to say chapter, but I believe they're listed as individual psalms. Psalm number 15 describes something. There are various aspects to this. I want to focus on a couple of different things about being honorable in deed. One of them, I think, is very important, and we're going to look in Psalm 15 verse 4 and the latter part of the verse. Well, actually, let me read the first, because it describes who are we talking about here. In the first verse, it says, Lord, who may abide in your tabernacle? Who may dwell in your holy hill? So, God, what type of person is going to get to live with you?

And that's important. If you're going to live with God, that means you're going to be in his family, in his kingdom. So, what type of person? Now, I'm going to come back to some of the rest, but in the last part of verse 4, it says, He who swears to his own hurt and does not change. Now, that could sound a little convoluted. The New King James is a little better than some others, but basically, it's...

Well, I'll remind you, Jesus taught us not to swear at all, because he said, look, you can't change the color of your hair, white or black, unless you've got Miss Clarell. But you can't make yourself a cubic taller. You can't control things, so don't swear. But, the Bible does tell us, if you make a commitment, do it. Make your word good. So, the honorable thing is, say you made a commitment and then found out, oh, that kind of hurts me. I could have done better. The honorable thing is to stick by it. And, once again, thinking of the news reports I hear on the radio, and it's funny, I'm not in the car all the time, but I like to listen to the radio, and sometimes I like to listen to ESPN, catch up on the sports and such, and... Because it's the off-season now for both basketball and football, mostly what you hear about on those sports is contract negotiations.

And here's where the example comes in. Sometimes an athlete will sign up, a nice contract, we're going to pay you $2 million a season to play ball. Now, who wouldn't sign up for that? But, what happens is then, in his first season, he plays really well. He says, wow, I could have gotten $5 million a season. I want $5 million a season. Well, you signed a contract saying two, but some of these guys will say, well, I'm going to hold out.

I deserve more. I'm not going to come and play unless you give me a new contract. Well, to me, that's the epitome. That's what Psalm 15, verse 4 is saying. You made a deal to your own hurt. Now, getting paid millions for playing ball isn't necessarily to your hurt, but, you know, live by it. Honor your word. Now, we could... most of us aren't going to be signing multi-million dollar contracts, but we make commitments.

Maybe we agree to sell our used car to someone, and we shake hands and say, yeah, I'll give you the car for so many hundred dollars, and then we find out, oh, the guy around the corner would have given you $600 more. Well, you signed... you made an agreement. Sell the car for the price you already did. That's being honorable. Now, I'm not saying it's easy or that it wouldn't be tempting, but we want to be honorable in our actions and stand by our word. And, of course, before we leave Psalm 15, there are a lot of other things that are useful to honor. So let's read this.

He made man to stand up on two legs, and he made us after his own image. I think part of saying being upright means exhibiting the characteristics that God made in us that he shares. Being more like God is being upright, because he made us to look like him in that sense. So he who walks uprightly and works righteousness and speaks the truth in his heart. He who does not backbite, now we're getting back to being honorable in word, does not backbite with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach against his friend. And whose eyes a vile person is despised, but he honors those who fear the eternal, who swears to his own hurt and does not change. He does not put out his money to usury, nor take a bribe against the innocent. And says, he who does these things will never be moved. That's being honorable. It fits with what we've been saying. Being honorable in word, honorable in action, even if it doesn't benefit you. Now, there's a great example of this in the book of Joshua. Joshua 9. Actually, I wonder if I should have just skipped talking about the pro-athletes and gone here, but pro-athletes are something at least that we hear about all the time. Joshua 9 shows this in action and shows how God expects us to live up to our commitments. Joshua 9. Now, this, of course, after Moses has died and God puts Joshua in charge and they come across the river, dries up the River Jordan, they go across, march around Jericho seven days and it collapses. They take a couple small cities and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites are all shaken in their shoes because these Israelites are wiping them all out. Which is what God commanded. God told them, I want you to go in and kill them all off. God is thinking, I'll raise them up in the resurrection and teach them my way. For right now I've got a plan that means Israel takes over all the promised land. So don't make any alliances. Don't spare any of them. Move them out. And so the people living in the land decide that's not a good plan for them. So let's pick up here in Joshua 9 and we'll read verse 3.

They made it look like, man, we've been on the road for a long time. And they went to Joshua at the camp of Gilgal and they said to him in the men of Israel, we've come from a far country. Where are you from? Oh, far, far away. So far you wouldn't even know where it is. Now therefore, make a covenant with us. Make an agreement and an alliance. You're wiping out all the people who live here, but we're from far away, so let's make an agreement that we'll be friends.

Now, of course, Joshua is a little suspicious. The men of Israel said to the Hivites, and they said, well, what if you dwell among us? How then can we make a covenant with you? And they said to Joshua, then where are your servants?

Now we could pass over that, but what they're saying is, if we're lying, we'll be your slaves. But that's still, which would you rather be? All men, women, and children killed or made into slaves? Well, that's not necessarily the easiest question, but in this case, not so bad.

So this is a scenario. The Hivites want to live, so they work this deceptive scheme. And the Israelites make a mistake, a big mistake. They look at their old clothes, and they look at the sandals. Boy, look how thin those are. Look at your wine skins. They're broken and cracked. Boy, you guys must have come a long way.

The mistake they made is they didn't check with God. That's one of the things I wonder. I hold Joshua in high esteem, but I wonder if Moses would have said, you know, let me pull out my cell phone and call God and see what he thinks about this before we make an agreement. Boy, he wouldn't have pulled out a cell phone, but he would have went to the tabernacle of meeting and had a chat.

Instead, the Israelites, they make an agreement. And then they find out that they didn't do the smart thing. In verse 15, so Joshua made peace with them. He made a covenant with them to let them live.

And the rulers of the congregation swore to them. Now remember what we read in Psalm 15. You swear to your own hurt, but you don't change. And that's what happens here. In verse 16, it happened at the end of three days, after they'd made the covenant with them, that they heard they were their neighbors who dwelt near. And the children of Israel journeyed, and they came to their cities on the third day.

And their cities were Gibeon, Sephiroth, Beroth, and Kirajath-Jirim. But the children of Israel did not attack them, because the rulers of the congregation had sworn to them by the eternal God of Israel. And the congregation complained against the rulers, but the rulers said, We've sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel.

Now therefore we may not touch them. But this we will do. We'll let them live, lest the wrath be upon us because of the oath. And the rulers said, We'll let them live, but make them woodcutters and water carriers for all the congregations. So they do put them in positions of servitude. But they don't break their vow. They say, We're going to enforce it. You said you'd be our servants? That's what you're going to be. This was the honorable thing. Even if they hadn't done the smart thing earlier by double checking. Now I find it interesting, though, the obligation didn't stop there.

They were honorable even beyond just the letter of the Word. Let's go to the next chapter in verse 3. Joshua 10 and verse 3. We find the other kings in the area weren't so happy with the Gibeonites. Therefore Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem, and of course this is before the Israelites took over Jerusalem, sent to Hohem, king of Hebron, Pyram, king of Jarmouth, Japhaiah, king of Lekish, and Dabir, king of Igalon, and said, Come up to me and help me that we may attack Gibeon, for it's made peace with Joshua and with all the children of Israel.

Therefore the five kings of the Amorites and the king of Jerusalem and all of them, they come to gather together to fight against Gibeon. And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp saying, Don't forsake your servants. Hey, remember we're here. Come up and help us quickly and save us. For all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the mountains have gathered together against us. Now what does Joshua do?

Now he could have said, Well, I swore that I wouldn't kill you. I didn't swear that they wouldn't. I'm going to stand back and let this happen. But he doesn't do that. In verse 7, Joshua ascended from Gilgal. He and all the people of war with him and all the mighty men of Valor. They honored their word. They made an alliance, even if it wasn't a good alliance. But they stuck with it. The thing that they should have done.

Now, I'm not going to turn there, but if you want to make a note, in 2 Samuel 21, there's another one of those unusual stories in the Bible, where we find that generations later, probably a few hundred years later, during the time of King David, God is still making Israel live up to this covenant.

Because Saul had tried to get rid of the Gibeonites, and a plague came on them, because the people of Israel started to break that oath. So, when God says, you make a binding agreement, you better stick with it long-term. So, if God required that of Israel, how much more of us? If we say something, how much does he expect us to stand by it and do it? If you will, let's turn to 2 Corinthians 8, just to see that it's a New Testament principle as well. 2 Corinthians 8, and we'll read verse 10.

There's one down, but this one's still cold.

This is where Paul is speaking to the Church of Corinth about taking up an offering for the poor, who lived in Jerusalem, because they'd had a famine. But here he's saying, nice that you said it, but carry on and do it. 2 Corinthians 8 and verse 10. In this I give advice. It's to your advantage, not only to be doing what you began, and were desiring to do a year ago, but now you also must complete the doing of it. So that as there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have. So, yeah, a year ago you said you were going to do this, now do it. That's me putting it in my own words. And I kind of like there's a little bit of a poetry in it. It brings to mind a few years ago, I had the duty of organizing the Variety Show up in Columbus. And you know how it is? Sometimes people say, yeah, I'm going to do it, I'll sign up, but then it's going to show up at rehearsal and do it. So I wrote up an announcement, and I just asked a fellow giving the announcements to read the Scripture. And I said, there will be a rehearsal for the Variety Show. And I said, as you said you were going to do a year ago, now follow through the doing of it. And it actually worked. A lot of people showed up for that rehearsal. But I want to make a point, of course, moving, as I said, I wanted to look at a couple aspects of being honorable and deed. One is living up to your commitments. Being honorable and word is also, or honorable and deed, is also very important in how we do business. Let's go back to the Old Testament and look at Deuteronomy chapter 25. Deuteronomy 25, and we'll begin in verse 13.

This is one of those Scriptures that, out of context, might seem a little mysterious. I think many of us understand, but I'll describe a question that came up once.

Deuteronomy 25, verse 13 says, Now, if you don't know the context, that could seem mysterious. I remember years and years ago, I was working at a summer camp, and there was a young adult who'd read this. He actually said, I read this this morning. He said, what in the world does this mean? You can't have two different ways.

He was thinking in terms of barbells. He said, okay, I've got a 15-pounder, and I've got a 10-pounder. I'm not allowed to do that. You know, and I can't, you know, measuring measures. Now, like at our cupboard at home, we've got a 1 cup measure. Actually, we've got 2 or 3 1 cup measuring cups. And we've also got a 2 cup. Is that a sin? You're shaking your... No, no, it's not talking about that. It's talking about measuring things for doing commerce.

Back in that time, if you bought and sold, you're probably doing it by volume with a balanced scale. And so, if you want to say, say someone wants to buy 10 pounds of wheat, you get out your 10-pound weight, put it on this side of the scale. And of course, this side goes up. And so, start putting wheat on this side until they balance.

I got 10 pounds. The scripture's saying, okay, you have one 10-pound weight. You don't have one that's 9 1⁄2 pounds that you use, you know, for somebody you don't like that you're selling to. And then one that's 10, no, you have just one weight that's 10 pounds. And the same thing with the measure. Say you're selling wine. You've got a vineyard. Someone wants to buy a gallon of wine. You don't have the one gallon container for your friends and family. And then one that's really 8.75 that you say is a gallon for someone that you want to take advantage of.

You know, God's way is you're just in your dealings. One measure and one weight. Now, of course, we don't deal with those kind of things very often anymore. Now, you could if you're working at the deli counter, there's the old thing, you know, the butcher putting his thumb on the scale. That's not the honorable thing to do. Or how many of us have bought something at the store and you give her a 10 and she gives you back change for a 20. You're going out to your garden and say, wait a minute. The honorable thing is to go back and say, excuse me, I say, miss, miss or mister, you gave me too much change.

You know, it's tempting not to, or especially if it's not until the next day you find out they gave you the wrong change. But God expects us to be honorable in all of our dealings. Do the right thing. Now, let's look at one more example of being honorable in dealings. If we want to go back to Genesis, I want to talk about the case of Joseph. I'm going to go to Genesis 39, but we remember what happened to Joseph.

And he's a great example of being honorable in his actions. And he's intriguing to me, and I heard this pointed out, and I thought, is that true? And it's mostly, I'm not sure that I could dispute it. They said, of all the characters that the Bible spends very much time describing their life, Joseph is one of few where there's no description of him committing any great sins or faults. You see him doing the right thing throughout his whole life. And this is after he'd been treated pretty badly.

In this case, his brothers had gotten jealous and said, Hey, there's some ischimalites going by. Let's sell him into slavery. And let Dad think that he was killed by wild animals. So he sold into slavery. He's brought down to Egypt. There in Egypt, he's put on the auction block, and a government official buys him.

Potiphar. Now, Potiphar is pretty important and wealthy. He, I guess, owns several slaves. And it turns out that Joshua is a pretty good manager. He takes care of things very well. He's diligent in his business, in the biblical term. So he rises in importance, but he also gets noticed. Joshua is... Did I say Joshua? Joseph. Joseph is not only good in his business dealings, but apparently, he's pretty nice to look at.

Easy on the eyes. And Mrs. Potiphar takes special notice. And of course, we'll pick it up here in Genesis 39, verse 7.

It came to pass after these things that his master's wife cast longing eyes on Joseph. And she said, Lie with me. Now, that's the G version of it. But come here. But he refused. And he said to his master's wife, Look, my master doesn't know what's with me in the house. He's committed all that he has into my hand. That's trust. There's no one greater in this house than I. Nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you're his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness and sin against God? So it was, she spoke to Joseph day by day. He didn't heed her to lie with her or to be with her. Now, that's an example of honorable inaction. Now, we could surmise from what he said, Joseph didn't have to worry about getting caught. He didn't have a supervisor. I mean, Potiphar was his only boss, and he's off doing whatever he did. So there's a good chance Potiphar would have never found out. But Joshua was honorable in his action. It wasn't the punishment that he feared from Potiphar that kept Joseph from doing the right thing. It's because he didn't want to sin against God. I find it also admirable that Joseph not only refused to lie with Mrs. Potiphar, he said he wouldn't listen to her, he wouldn't be with her. He said, I'm going to stay away from this lady. She's troubled. That makes me think, and I'd pass this advice to young people if you're not married, because sometimes there's somebody that wants to be with you. They say, well, okay, I understand you've got those standards, but let's just hang out. Spend time together. Let's talk and be friends. Sometimes they've got different intentions that... Joseph said, I'm not even going to be with you. I'm not going to spend time there, because I know what it is you want. Now, I think it's possible that it was fairly easy, even, for Joseph to be honorable in his deeds, because he was already very honorable in his intentions. He was honorable in his thoughts before he had to put them into action. And that's where I want to turn next, in this three-part exposition, so to speak. Honorable in our word, honorable in our actions, honorable in our intents, or in our hearts. You might wonder why I chose to talk about intentions last, because you think, well, don't you think first, and then you talk, and then you do? And that's often the way it is. I wanted to talk about them differently, because it's relatively easy to say the right thing.

It's a little tougher many times to do the right thing, and it's often most difficult of all to do the right thing. No, I said that wrong. To think the right thing. I've got it right here in print, big bold letters. Difficult to think the right thing. I'm not going to turn back there, but remember in Psalm 15 and chapter 2, it said, an honorable person, as we described it, is someone who speaks the truth in his heart.

That's speaking, in other words, in your own thoughts, are you lying to yourself? Because it's easy to fool yourself. God is saying, don't fool yourself. Don't kid yourself. And we've done this. Sometimes we're not necessarily trying to think the wrong things, but we might end up looking for an excuse to not be entirely honorable. Sometimes we'll say, well, I can say something that's not lying, and I can get this accomplished. If you're still in Genesis, let's turn back to chapter 20. We'll see an example of this.

This is another reason I wanted to cover intentions last, because sometimes, as I said, the words of the actions aren't necessarily technically wrong, but what was your intention?

This is in the life of Abraham as he's wandering. In Genesis 20 and verse 1, Which is interesting, because at this point, I think Sarah is something like 90 years old, but she's still so good-looking that Abraham, in matter of fact, will get into the story. But, I'd like to have her in my harem, and went and took her. Now, this isn't the first time that Abraham had done this. I didn't turn to the account in Genesis 13, but you can note that it's there. He'd done this before. And it described Abraham's motivation. As I said, Sarah is so good-looking, he's afraid that the men of the area will kill him to get to Sarah. And God would miraculously intervene to protect her. But let's turn to verse 10 to see if Abraham explained himself. In verse 10, Then Abimla said to Abraham, What did you have in view that you've done this thing? And Abraham said, Well, I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will kill me on account of my wife. And here's the clincher. He says, But indeed, she truly is my sister. She's the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. So, I made this agreement with her when we traveled that she would say, Yeah, he's my brother. And Abraham conspired with Sarah to publicly tell people something that was not a lie. He said, Well, it's not a lie. She is my sister. She's my half-sister. So, in a sense, he was being honest in word, but he wasn't being honest in intent. Now, I made a note in red ink, because I want to make the point that it's rare that we look at Abraham's life for a bad example. Abraham was the father of the faithful. We're told to look to him. God told Israel, Look to the hole that you were dug from. Look to Abraham and Sarah. They were good examples in almost everything they did, but this is one case where they showed us, you have to have the right intent. I want to look at one more example. I was right this morning. This went a little long, but without a sermonette, I'm taking Mr. Call's time. I can apologize to him later. I'll give it back to him another day. Let's go to Daniel 6. Daniel 6. I want to lay out two cases side by side of people with the bad intent and then someone with good intent. Daniel 6, verse 4. I've got Daniel in here somewhere. Of course, we know in Daniel's early life, he was part of the children of captivity taken from Judah and trained to serve in the government. First under Nebuchadnezzar in the Babylonian system, and then after they were conquered by the Medes and Persians, he was so valuable of, I guess, a government administrator that the new empire employed him. But a lot of the others didn't like him. And here's where we see him, Daniel 6, verse 4.

The governors and the satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom. Concerning the kingdom means concerning his job. He's a government administrator. They wanted to find some dirt on him to get him fired. But they couldn't. They could find no charge or fault because he was faithful. He was honest in all his dealings. No bribes, no lying, no fudging the figures. Nor was there any error or fault found in him.

So these men said, well, we're not going to find any charge against Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God. We can't accuse him of doing anything wrong, so if we want to get rid of this guy, we're going to have to make up something about his religion. And so the governors and satraps thronged before the king, and they said to him, thus to him, King Darius, live forever. All the governors of the kingdom and the administrators and satraps and counselors and advisors, that's all of us guys, we've consulted together to establish a royal statute to make a firm decree that whoever petitions any God or man for 30 days except you shall be cast into the den of lions. In other words, we want to show how much we respect and like you. So we want to make this law that nobody can ask anything from anyone else. Now, they weren't going to say, were they being honest in their words? Not entirely, but they were definitely being honest. They were definitely being dishonorable in their intention. They weren't doing this to honor the emperor. They were doing it to get Daniel. So we see clearly, you know, they're doing one thing. We want to get this guy. So they're buttering up the empire. Oh, you're so great. You're so wonderful. Let's make it so nobody can ask a favor from anybody except you. Bad intent. Now, word gets out, and we'll see. On the contrary, how does Daniel react? In verse 10, When Daniel knew the writing was signed, he went home to his upper room. With his windows open towards Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as his custom was since his early days.

Daniel could have prayed secretly, or he could have said, well, I can wait 30 days. But his intention was to publicly show that he wouldn't be swayed. He wanted to make this contrast with the evil government administrators. They had ill intent. He said, I'll show the contrast.

Now, of course, the story goes on where he was thrown into the lions, then, because of this. So he obviously wasn't doing this for show or to get some kind of reward. He knew he was taking a risk, and God intervened and protected him and kept him alive. And we see intent is very important. Why are you doing something? We can see that brought out in the Sermon on the Mount. Let's go to Matthew 6.

We're winding down towards the end, but this is where we're getting to, you could say, the heart of the matter, because we want to talk about what's in our hearts. Matthew 6.

I want to look at two scriptures that might seem to be contradictory in telling us what to do. But they're not contradictory because of the action, but because of the intent. Here it says, Okay, now let's back up a chapter and see what could seem like a contradiction in Chapter 5 in verse 14.

Because he says, Here he says, Now I want to make the point, this is not a contradiction, it's an exposition of intention. The difference is, why are you doing the good works? Are you doing it to have praise for people to say, Oh, what a good guy! Look at him making that charitable donation. You know, he wrote it on a check this big. You see that usually for prizes, not donations. But, or are you doing something to show people the way and to give honor to God?

And that's what should be our goal.

It should be my goal, as I said. I'm not preaching down to you, I'm talking to me.

As a Christian, I should strive to speak honorably, and I should strive to act honorably.

But underlying it all should be an honorable heart.

While we're in Matthew, let's look at Matthew 5, verse 27.

It says, Let's look down at verse 33. Verse 43 We commonly refer to this as keeping the spirit of the law, not just the letter.

It's important. But here also in Matthew 5 and verse 8.

Blessed are those, or blessed are the pure in heart. They'll see God.

Pure in heart could be the same thing as be honorable and intent.

Have the right motives, the right thoughts. That's what God wants from us.

Matter of fact, let's go to 1 Timothy, chapter 1.

I thought I was going to wrap up in Matthew, but I did have this scripture I wanted to read.

1 and verse 5 1 Timothy 1 and verse 5 says, God wants us to do the right thing. He wants us to say the right thing, to act honorably.

He wants us to do it, though, because we have a good and a pure heart.

Do honorably and speak honorably because you have honorable intent.

That's where He wants us to be.

Now, does He expect us to be there instantly?

And I say that because I have to admit, when I first started writing this message, I thought, yeah, I want to talk about honor, and I broke it down to honorable and word and deed and intent.

And I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Yeah, I'm good at saying the right thing, I think, or at least speaking the truth.

Not always good at saying the right thing, but not of being dishonest.

I pay my taxes, I don't defraud people, and I obey God's law.

But the further I went, when I started talking about being honorable in the heart, I started not feeling so good about myself.

I read Matthew 5, 48, where it says, Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.

And I kind of said, oh, I'm not so good.

I want to be there, but you can do the right thing, strive to, but getting it inside, that's one of the reasons I left that for last, because that's harder.

Fortunately, God gives me and all of you a lifetime to grow into that.

That's our end result, not necessarily where it expects us to start.

You don't get baptized, and you're perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect.

You start seeing yourself as you are and realize how far we have to go.

And God gives us guidelines. I'm just going to refer to Galatians 3, verse 23, where Paul refers to the law as a tutor.

The law helps us to know what actions to do so that, as we're doing them, our heart can start getting pure.

We can become more honorable intent as we've been doing things in intent.

So, you know, obeying God's law, we have to be mindful not to lie, to speak the truth, to be honorable in word.

And we have to be mindful not to sin, but rather to obey God's law, to be honorable in deed.

And in doing so, we're training our hearts and our minds so that we'll become pure in our thoughts, and in the end, we'll be honorable in intent.

And as Christians, we want to be honorable in our word, in our act, and in our thoughts.

Thank you.