Honor

And the title of my sermon is, Honor. Honor.

You know, in the New Testament, we can look at the Scriptures, and you tie the Old Testament to the New Testament, and you can kind of how, as gamblers call it, a trifecta. I don't know if any of you are gamblers. I never was. When I did, I didn't turn out very well, so that ended my gambling career. I was younger and didn't have much money. That's a good thing. Trifecta, according to God, is we need to love God.

We need to love our neighbors. And then Christ even brought it deeper when He said, You shall love your enemies. That's tougher.

It's a lot tougher to do. But hopefully we do these three things. Or we practice, or we strive to do it. But I asked you a question this morning. We may love people. Some people we may even have to love at a distance. But do we give honor as the Scripture instructs us to do? Do we understand the word honor? In the Oxford dictionary, there's a few meanings of it.

One is, it means distinction. Another, respect. Another actually means, as it says behind me here, esteem to esteem. I think we know what respect and esteem means, most of us. Hopefully we do. But the root word for honor comes from the word honesty, which you could see. I mean, that makes sense. You could honor somebody who is honest with you. Makes sense. Or it also goes back to a person with integrity, which would be easy to have honor towards that person that showed integrity.

But the Bible, the Old Testament meaning, and basically the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Greek word and the Hebrew word, means basically the same. When it goes into honor and esteem, they're interchangeable in a lot of places, most places. But I want to look at, because in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word started, and it meant to be heavy, weighty, which I'm not talking about somebody. You have to honor somebody who's overweight.

It's not what I'm talking about. But it talks about, and even Christ brings that out in his famous dissertation in Matthew 23-23, when he says, the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith.

It means they're... It requires certain things that are a little more weightier than others. They're heavier. They should mean more. And that's what it's talking about here when we go into the word honor in Scripture. It means something is worthy. Another translation of the word, which I found interesting in the Old Testament, was actual word glorious. Now something is glorious, which means you kind of hold up something as we would hopefully understand.

The first mention of honor in the entire Bible, and this actually surprised... I usually think I know where something is first mentioned, but I didn't, because I didn't realize the first mention of the word honor is in Genesis 34. You don't have to turn there, but it is a unique story dealing with Jacob's few sons that decide to take out their wrath on their sister Dinah being kidnapped and raped. Whether she was raped or not, that's a debate.

That's another Bible study sometime. We can go, but it mentions the man, the young prince that took her. And of all the people involved in this story, whether it was the people of the city or the sons of Jacob or even Jacob, it mentions this young prince as being more honorable than all the others. Very first mention, and it isn't having to do with righteous Jacob or any of his sons.

It makes for an interesting story. It puts a little, maybe a little different twist when God uses this, because usually the first mention, the first mention as it's referred to in the Bible, sets a tone for all the other ways in which it's used. So this one I found very interesting in the story there of the young prince, maybe more involved in that story than we have perhaps perceived in the past.

But it won't go there, because I think most of us think about the first time we think of the word honor is Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments, right? Deuteronomy 5, where it says, the fifth commandment, you shall do what? Honor! Your father and your mother. And most of us can understand that. But I'd like you to go, if you will, with me today. I only have two scriptures in the entire sermon. So all of you, they give sermonettes and think you have to have multiple scriptures. Just pick a different scripture and you can find you don't need as many.

But let's go to Philippians. Let's go to Philippians. I'm going to have turning. Usually a different Bible. Mine's about worn out, so I'm trying to save it. Philippians 2. You should know this verse. Philippians 2 and verse 3. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Esteem. Same word for honor. Do we? Do we show honor to people? I think if honor was shown in esteem, if this one scripture was kept by many people today, we wouldn't have a race problem. We wouldn't have husband and wife problems. We wouldn't have political problems. We wouldn't have attitude problems.

But it's not. And you see the world we have today. That's why I want to give this sermon, because tomorrow is Mother's Day, the day in which the world honors mothers, or a big part of the world. Now we do here, mostly in the Western Hemisphere. My message today, though, is primarily to the men in this room as a reminder. And you might say the sermon today is a gift to the mothers or the women, because I'm mostly going to be talking to guys like me that I'm looking at.

And so I'd like to go for our text of the day, and this is the last scripture you will have to turn to. And no, it isn't that short of a sermon. You will turn with me to 1 Peter. 1 Peter 3 and verse 7. Guess you have it up here. Husbands! That's me. Likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together for the grace of life that your prayers may not be hindered.

So this is a loaded scripture. There is a lot of depth here that we're going to go to. But I'd like you to think about this in another way. There's a precedent being set in these scriptures that not only is talking to husbands, but I think you can take an overall look at this and talk about all women that we men interact with, meet. Not just our wives and our mothers should we show honor to as the, what did it say, weaker vessel? Because typically men are the bigger, the stronger, and we'll talk about that a little bit. But do we show honor to women?

You know, I was reading a book this week. My father left me, and he used to read a lot of history. I still, whenever I go to Tennessee, my mother will say, Take this book, take this book, knowing I like to read as much as he did. And one of them is about the real Old West. And it was a book, a series of books telling what the Old West in the early, mid, and late 1800s was really like here in America.

And one of the things that they said was that there were not a lot of women who wanted to go West. It was not an easy life. And those women who went West and helped in that frontier life had a hard life, but they were willing to do it. And being there were so few, as this book was telling, that women were held in high esteem. All women. So much so that even the laws were different. Now, as you know from stories that you could be hung for stealing a person's horse.

There were different laws, but there were different ways to enact those laws. One of them was if a woman in the West was raped or if she was killed.

If the person was caught, the culprit, as I mentioned in this book, the word culprit, you don't hear that very often. If the culprit was caught, he was in sentence, then he was to be hung. But he was not to be hung like a normal man.

A normal man, they had the hangman who was a professional at his job with weights and so forth, so that they pulled the trap door. He went down and put the noose on the side of your neck, pull the lever, fall through, break your neck. You were dead. That's how they did. Except if you raped a woman or you killed a woman, then they put the noose behind your neck. It didn't snap your neck.

It strangled you to death. Sometimes two to five minutes of watching somebody kicking and screaming as they were dying. Found that to be a tailing sign of there was respect. There was a certain honor given to the weaker vessel, as you might say. God made the woman for the man, according to Scripture. You read it all through. Even Christ brought it out as He talked about marriage. In Genesis 2 and verse 18, it's interesting, in the Old King James version, they have this strange saying.

I will make him a help-meet. We know later it's been written as helper in many texts, but a help-meet. I found that to be strange. Of course, I knew the Old King James and some of the English words were put in there for not only understanding, but for style. But this help-meet meant fitting, proper, which makes you understand that God wanted to be proper. He fit. He made this woman fitted, as they might say, to the job.

And I found, as I was given this a few years ago, I found it to be true that in the old papers, there were picture words from Scripture even before there was language. What was interesting to me is about the man and the woman, man and the wife.

Now, to explain this, I need a prop. Phil, do you mind you and Anne coming up front? You don't have any outgoing warrants or anything anybody will see you on. What confidence from our deaconess in the back? Don't mind coming up front. If you'll just stand in front of me here, right there, and Phil, yeah, just like that. You know, if we take a picture, can you get them in the... Got to screw over a little bit. Got to get them over. There we go. Just don't push her down, Phil. You'll ruin my pitch here.

When you take a picture of a husband and wife, we think of them being side-by-side like Phil. You know, got his arm around his wife and hand close to it. And that's what we can understand that they're probably married, husband and wife. They have a loving relationship. That's what this picture pictures, doesn't it? That's not what the word picture was 4,000 years ago. And it's so interesting now, if I can borrow you guys just a second, Phil, if you'll turn this way, yeah, like that. If you'll turn this way, you still got them in the picture? Yes?

Okay. This is the picture that was on cuneiform tablets, papris, and there are even a few coins, picturing a husband and a wife back to back. We may think, what? What? That, you know, to us, that's a little strange. But that was how you understood that it was a husband and wife. And you know what that meant? It's unique. Your wife has the husband's back. And the reason that being is it wasn't just because she's taking care of him. No. It was at that time there was always danger, and she was there to look after him. And it was a picture of a husband and wife, even when he worked. If someone was coming to do harm or anything else, she would be right at his back.

And some even had a picture of a farming implement in the husband's hand. And the wife, or the one behind him, had an instrument of weapon, a war, where she was there to protect him while they were doing this. Amazing story to me. Thank you guys very much. Now you can go back and fight.

You don't want to lose it. But isn't that so interesting to me to study that? And it made me appreciate that she's now I'm not afraid to turn my back on Mary.

I bring that out because this world is upside down. And I make this statement, and I hope you don't take it the wrong way, but what man in his right mind wants to marry a man?

Doesn't even enter my mind.

God gave women, and they are what? Beautiful? Soft?

My wife, when I was in construction, Jeff, Clive, you might even have that too. Your wife, or whatever, when I was in construction, my hands were rough. They were just like, you know, and if I would, even if she had clothes on or something, and I would rub my hand against that, it might pull. She said, your hands are so rough.

I'm glad her hands aren't rough.

They're soft.

And you know, God made women to be kind. Now, there are exceptions, but there are exceptions in just that.

He made women to be compassionate, caring, articulate, wise, intelligent. Does that put me at the front of the row to eat this afternoon, ladies? But that's enough that we should honor them. But in today's society, where there's this friction, or they want to stir up friction, we lose a place of honor. And I don't just bring this Scripture out because you can go back to 1 Peter.

And it actually showed the verses before this of the honor that Sarah gave Abraham. And it almost leads like they're doing it.

But that's not where it should end. And then he gives us this powerful verse in chapter 7 that tells us, Wake up, men! This is what's on your plate. And that one verse to me is stronger than the other six verses before it.

I know any of us who've read the Bible understand the Proverbs 31 woman. Solomon wrote that, believed.

And you read that and you see the qualities. I'm blessed to have a Proverbs 31 woman. Some of you are too. Most of you are too.

I remember I talked to a woman one time, and I said, I wonder why there's not a Proverbs 32 for men? And she said, well, nobody would believe it.

And then she said, the other problem is that it would only be probably one verse, saying, where's my socks?

But we men don't mind that. We know the gifts we've been given and the gifts that women have been given.

God didn't give it all to one of the sexes.

But today, they even want to have unisex bathrooms.

And unisex clothes wasn't God's intention.

Because the world is way off course today. That's what tends to show the lack of respect, esteem, and honor by both sexes, even causes strife between husbands and wives.

We've got a world today where men are wanting to be women.

They want to dress like women.

And women want to act and be like men.

I watch changing channels, YouTube, and I see like this beautiful young lady here.

I see sports that have always been popular to men, like boxing, MMA, and I see women going into a ring and getting their face pummeled by another woman.

And I'm saying, who wants to watch this?

That wasn't the intention of God.

He put the man as the stronger vessel to make sure that his wife does not face danger alone.

And she does not have to worry about being assaulted.

That's part of our jobs.

We've even got a guy today in college who was a swimmer who swam with the men's swim team for three years, and he couldn't win there, so he jumped over into the women's.

Remember that, Clive? I remember the guy's name, but...

Oh, you know his name. You know him? He's not a relative. Thank you. Appreciate you. Glad to know that.

But he's like 6'4", and he towers over, and he won all types of things and awards and wanted to go to the Olympics and everything else, and he's clearly a man.

But they looked because his testosterone level was not very high. He could compete.

He claimed to be a female. What a disgrace that really is, not only to us men who typically would look at that and say, What's wrong with you? But also to the women that might say, Yeah, what's wrong with you? Showing honor used to mean opening doors for ladies when you go into a restaurant or a store.

I still get surprised, look, sometimes when I walk into a place and open the door and hold it.

But you know, most of the time, and I think it's been probably 99% of the time in my lifetime, they said, What? Thank you.

Diane said, Thank you. Now, I've done it. I've done that quite a few times, hundreds of times.

So I have to think that the majority of women typically like to be esteemed or show respect.

I say, Yes, ma'am. I was raised in the South. This is what we said.

And even today, when I somebody asked me something, she may be a 20-year-old young lady. I still say, Yes, ma'am.

There was saying, I learned at a very young age, ladies first. Remember that?

But now society wants to tell us that ladies don't want to be first. They don't want to be put. Really? Really?

I know I will show my age here because I didn't understand it till I got older that there is a position on a sidewalk that a man takes, and there's a position that a woman takes on a sidewalk. You know that? And why is that?

It's a protection. If the street is here, the man is supposed to be near the street.

So if a car, originally a horse or a buggy, got away, he would be there to take the brunt of it for the woman, the wife.

I mentioned that to a couple of young guys, and they're going, huh?

I hope Matthew has been trained better than that. Your son, hopefully, has been trained better than that.

So that... and one of them told me a young man said, well, that would be considered sexist today. Then I'm a sexist old man, because I still do that. And that's the thing I think about.

It becomes my habit. It becomes what I do, who I am. And hopefully this is pleasing to God.

Remember what car doors? I don't always... Mary and I are going somewhere, and I don't always open her car door anymore.

Of course, when I first started dating, first got married, I would around do this, you know?

And don't laugh, I'm probably not the only one. I see people looking at each other.

But usually Wednesday night... that's usually my day off. I try to take Wednesday off. I can.

Wednesday night is what we call date night, between Mary and myself.

It's time that I set aside, and she sets aside, and we go out on a date, just like we did when we were first seeing each other.

Spend time together. And we didn't always do that. But it reminds us of why we're together, and that we want to set time aside.

I recommend that to all that I counsel for marriage, that you have a date night.

Because it's no problem when you first get married, oh yes. But then later on, things slip in.

Life gets busy. You're making a living, working overtime, paying bills.

I think it's very important that we husbands remember to date our wives.

Still date. It doesn't require dropping money at Ruth Chris's.

It doesn't require going to a concert for $200, but just setting aside some time.

Because God has put us as a head of the family, so guess what? It's our responsibility, not our wives, to say, huh, Mary has to look at me occasionally, and she'll go, this is date night, right? Because I'm busy, and I go, oh yes, yes, yes, yes.

But it should be our responsibility to lead the family. And by doing that, we also show that we still care.

And we're going to take time out of our day, our evening, to show some honor, and it's a privilege to still date you. 1 Peter 3 and verse 7.

Back to that. Dwell with them with understanding. Understanding. What does that mean? Because that's a big statement.

Understanding. Because he didn't tell the wife that she has to understand us, because we may be that simple.

I understand that. But we're to dwell with them with understanding.

It means we've got to understand they're not like us. They're more emotional, have more feelings.

There is a reason that men don't give birth. God knew that it was best for the wife to be the mother.

There's male and female. But it also means dwell with them with understanding. We have to work to understand.

Anybody that's been married very long, it's not natural for us.

We like our little box. And we men can stay in our box for quite a while. And everything be going on around us.

And it's like, oh, right here.

One of the best books I've ever read, and I've read a dozen or more, on marriage, was written by a husband and wife team.

He was a minister called, Men are like waffles and women are like spaghetti.

It's one of the best books. As a matter of fact, everyone that I counsel for marriage, I had them both get the book.

I have a couple I'm talking to now that's going to get married in August. I said, both of you get a copy and both of you read it.

And we're going to go through it because it does the best job of explaining how God made men.

We can focus on something and nothing can tear us away.

And we're just like this. And women are more like spaghetti.

They can remember this and remember that and remember who's married to who and everything else.

And we just know they're related to us. Right?

There are different gifts. But we have to work at understanding. This is what God is telling us. It's in our court. It's our deal to understand them, not really for them to understand us.

And if we understand them, we won't have to worry about them loving us and showing us honor.

If you look at this, giving honor to the wife, esteem, esteem, respect, and love.

Do we do things? We may think it's not very big just doing things to help our wives.

Even as small as Mary's thanked me for making the bed. It took two minutes, but I guess she hadn't seen it done very much in our house in 40 years.

And she would, I guess she was praising me and giving me honor because she actually believed I could make the bed.

But there are things we can do. And as men, I want to try to do a better job to make her job and life easier.

Because in my house, she naturally makes my life easier. So I'm the one that has to do the understanding and not always have just what I need to do. Husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel.

And typically, men are bigger, stronger, typically how we're made. A few things outside of that. But he said giving honor to the weaker vessel. Well, in today's society, the weaker vessel gets stomped on.

If you're weaker, then you're considered inferior, aren't you? And that has caused some of the thoughts of why women don't want this show of respect because then we think they're weaker.

No. I look at this because both these vessels are made to hold liquid. Water, whatever you want. And this one, I could probably drop on the ground and it would still stay intact. But you see, because this one is the weaker vessel. It's made of crystal. And you can't just stick this in a dishwasher like you can this one because this will crack, break.

But which is more valuable? This one costs a lot more because it's fine crystal. I think about this with me and my wife because she's this and I need to make sure she stays this. She is the weaker vessel, but to me, she's the most valuable vessel. That's just me. Throw it around. Get banged up. Get up the next day. I'm ready to go. Brethren, giving honor to the weaker vessel is God's instruction stuff. Will we adhere to it? Can we see that? And I'm not talking just about our wives. I'm talking about just to our sisters in church, our mothers, our family. Anywhere there's a woman. We get to be a godly man when we understand this.

Let's continue on and finish this up. Giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together. Heirs together. It's our job. Heirs together for the kingdom of God. That's what he's talking about. Heirs together. Wow. Of the grace of life and also eternal life. But men, it's our job to be spiritual leaders. That's what this is referring to. Because Christ is the head of the church. We know that analogy, right? Christ is going to marry the church and he's the head. And God has put, as I've done many weddings where he has put the man over the wife and asked her to submit. But being a spiritual leader is not just reading the Bible and being able to quote scripture and knowing scripture. But being a spiritual leader is like Christ. He lives it. We men have to live it. Now, I'm sure my wife would tell you and I don't mind saying, oh, and it gets bragging that I know the Bible better than she does. I know it, but it doesn't mean a thing unless I live it. Because that's where it really shows. Because there's theologians out here that they don't care a thing about Christ. They don't care a thing about the kingdom. They just know scripture. And they can quote this and they can quote sources and stuff like that. We're called to be the spiritual leader because we not only read his word, but we live it. And I think that's so very important. Fred Keller is my mentor for over 25 years. Man, I greatly respect. Many of you may know him in here. He's a retired minister. He gave me these words probably 15, 16 years ago in a sermon when he said, the greatest gift you can ever, ever give your wife is not something you buy. The greatest gift you will ever give your wife is help her to be in the kingdom of God. That's the greatest gift you will ever give her.

It is her destiny if God has called her. It's your way of helping, making sure she's in the kingdom of God. I'll never forget that scripture, I mean that saying of His.

Being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. Your prayers may not be hindered. This prayer is hindered? What? Why would my prayers be hindered? It didn't say my wife's prayers would be hindered.

It's talking to men. He says that your prayers, this is personal. I have to do this, not only with my wife, but also treat other women as weaker vessel so that my prayers, my communication with God will not be blocked, delayed, and even of no use.

Because I take my prayers very seriously, and I know the power of prayer.

And that's amazing that God tied this to us. And I want to say, God, why did you do that?

You actually put a rope on me, because now I'm tied to making sure that I what? I don't want my prayers to be hindered. And see, it will be if I don't have what? Understanding, not honoring, not leading spiritually, not being Christlike.

So my life, not only is because of I do this and I have this honor towards women and just because I tomorrow is Mother's Day and I'll call my mother. We've sent her something.

I mean, I don't know that many of you have ever met my mother, but she's an incredible woman. She's my Mary's mother died when she was 14. She is Mary's mother.

I mean, it's that close. We've got divorced. She would let her live with her and I couldn't.

But she, my mother loves God and she loves me and I need to make sure. But see, this is a woman I'm called for. This is what these scriptures are. But see, then it goes to my mother.

And then, genie, it goes to you. Thank you for cutting my hair and making me look better today. I appreciate that.

But then it goes to every woman in here and even women I come in contact with. Isn't it amazing how all the women, I mean, here they would get on Christ because, you know, whether they were harlots or they were rich women, whatever, they were drawn to Christ. Why do you think that was? He showed honor.

I like how one man put it one time. You know why that? You know why Christ? You know why they didn't look good? Because he was a Christlike person.

Christ was a Christlike person.

We need to be able to show Philia, Philia Storge, Eros, and of course, Agape.

Because Christ showed Agape all the time to everyone.

And so I cherish my time. I cherish all of you women. And I want to continue to. And I hope we can all do that because as we go into the Bible study this afternoon, it's about relationships.

And if we can do that, we can grow a church that God wants to put his name on. That's what I want some ideas from you.

But I want to finish this sermon today, and I thank Jeff Newell for going the extra mile this time because I'll ask him to do something that took him quite a bit of time and so forth because he put this video and the song and so forth together.

I want to give us men a reminder, especially if you're thinking about your mother or thinking about your wife. I want to give you a three-minute reminder.

And it's a song by a man probably most of you've never heard of named Danny Doyle. So Jeff, if you'll play us that song.

And he smiles at the things she might say. Then the old man walks up to the altar and gives her a daisy daze. I'll give you a daisy daze. I'll give you a daisy daze. I love you, too, for the news from this town. And the four wings we know will blow away.