1 Timothy 5:1-6:2
Honour
Honour, is a way in which respect and value is shown to another person.
People are honoured in many different ways.
When a person of importance enters a room, sometimes people will stand to show their honour and their respect to them. Sometimes people will even bow or kneel.
At our Anzac day services we have a moment of silence to honour those soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom.
At sporting events, sometimes there is a guard of honour made for a team mate who has reached a certain milestone- 100 games played or something like that!
There are many ways we can honour people.
Today, we are going to look at what the bible tells us about honouring not only our biological family, but our church family too.
Because surprise, surprise, God is consistent when it comes to family and church family.
Yes, Families can be such a source of Joy and also such a source of pain!
What does a “normal” family look like anyway?
Is there such thing as a normal family?
Whether we liken it or not, we are all part of some family……we are all connected to somebody by blood, by genes, and whether you like it or not, you didn’t chose to be part of your family.
You didn’t tell your mother that you would like to be born- you were just born.
I heard a crazy case in America where a daughter tried to sue her mother, because her mother gave birth to her without permission. Crazy world we live in!
Well guess what brothers and sisters?
You didn’t chose to be part of God’s family, but God the Father chose you to be part of his family.
Look at what John 1:12-13 says:
But to all who did receive him (Jesus), who believed in his name (Jesus), he (Jesus) gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And so, yes, you did receive Jesus, yes, you believed in his name to save you from your sins, but only because God first chose you to be in his family. You didn’t decide that you would be born again, you didn’t decide that God would birth his Holy Spirit within you, but it was the will of God that he birthed you into his family.
And because God birthed you into his family, that means that we all have the same Father- God the Father.And unlike some earthly fathers, who are absent, our Father is always with us, always caring for us, always protecting us, always working for our good, whether that is disciplining us or comforting us.
And because we have the same father- God the father- it means that we are all part of the same family, we are brothers and sisters. And because we are brothers and sisters in Christ, it means we are part of a family: that even takes precedence over our biological families.
Blood may well be thicker than water, but the spirit it thicker than blood.
Blood may well be thicker than water, but the spirit it thicker than blood.
And so Paul reminds us in this letter to Timothy that biological family is important but God’s family is even more important.
I know that seems crazy to our modern ears today…..because let’s face it…..family seems to be idolised these days.
You could fight and scrap with members of your family, and call them all names under the sun, but if someone else has a pop at your brother, sister, mother, or father, then watch out- because you don’t mess with my family.
Sons and daughters seem to be idolised today.
Parents can centre their lives around making their children happy and successful.
Don’t get me wrong, as Paul tells us in this letter, it is good to look after your family, but don’t make members of your family idols…they are not gods…they can’t cope under that strain.
When we come into God’s family, by His saving grace, we become part of a new family, a family that is tied together by His Spirit, His spirit which is even thicker than blood.
Look at Mark 3:31-35 with me:
And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
Clearly Jesus said that those who were born again by the will of God, are the ones who do the will of God, and: it is they who are truly brothers and sisters in the family of God.
And so it is no wonder that Paul uses family language when he talks about the church.
He tells Timothy to treat older men like fathers, younger men like brothers, older women like mothers and younger women like sisters.
Now, this doesn’t mean that we should neglect our biological families and just focus on our church family, but it means we should invest into both of them. We should show respect and honour to both the members of our biological families and members of our church family. We should honour both our biological family members and our church family members.
In fact Paul warns us, that if we just look after our church family but neglect our biological family, we are worse than pagans.
Look at verse 8 with me:
But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
God’s design for the biological family, works on the same principles as God’s design for the church family.
I think one of the reasons, God wants us to look after the members of our own household and treat them with respect, is because it teaches us how to work with the family that we were born into. And so a Father, husband, who takes the word of God seriously, He knows that he just can’t abandon his family when things get tough, or just choose another family- NO- he is to protect and lead the family that God has given him.
And, therefore in our church families, God wants us to work with the family that he has given us. We don’t abandon our family when things get tough, and chose another family, but we stick with and work with the family that God has given us.
This is why Paul teaches that a pastor must be able to manage his own household well, so he will be able to manage the household of God well.
The overlap between the principles of relationships within a biological family and the principles of relationships in the church family is enormous.
We know the fifth commandment is “Honor your father and mother”
God wants us to respect, value our fathers and mothers, and even if our father or mother has treated us poorly, we can still in some way show them honour, respect and value.
And just as God wants us to show honour to our father and mother, he also wants us to show honour to different members of our church family.
First of all, Paul tells us to honour the widows in our church family.
Look at verse 3 with me:
Honor widows who are truly widows
Paul tells us to honour our sisters who are true widows and what are true widows?
Well according to verse 5 and following….. a true widow, is one who is alone, has no family support, but has her hope set on God, she continues to seek God in prayer, she has a reputation of good works, she has shown hospitality, she has washed the feet of saints, or shown humility, just like our Lord- Jesus, a true widow does not gossip or is prone to drinking too much wine.
In other words, a true widow is one who is truly alone and is truly faithful to Jesus.
And so the way we honour our sisters, the true widows is to look after them.
We value them.
We visit them, we pray with them, we help them financially….we honour them in many different ways.
The second group of people Paul tells us to honour are the elders.
Look at verse 17 with me:
Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in preaching and teaching.
Clearly from the next verse (verse 18), part of honouring your pastor, is to pay him.
Paul compares a pastor with an ox. As the Ox treads the grain in the field, the Ox can also eat some of the grain along the way. As the pastor keeps spreading the seed of the gospel, he can also earn a living from what he is doing, especially if that is what he is devoting all his time to.
Of course, Paul was not just talking about financial gifts when he talked about honouring your pastor, there are many ways to honour your pastor.
I will let you think about that.
Now the last thing I want to talk about which I am going to spend some time on now, is honouring members of your biological family and members of the church family by the way in which you deal with sin.
One of the key ways in which we honour a person is how we deal with sin in their lives.
In fact I am going out on a limb here- I think the one true mark of honour within the church family, is how we treat people who are caught in a sin.
If a person is caught in sin, we can deal with it in a way which honours God, honours the person caught in the sin, and honours the whole church, or we can do it in a way which just brings shame to God and the whole church.
Now before we roll our eyes and think, here we go again about this sin thing….the apostle Paul actually addressed this issue of sin, by looking specifically at the sins of elders, pastors, shepherds..
Look at verse 19 with me:
Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
Paul says, if a pastor, an elder is caught in a sin, the first thing you do is to follow the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 18:15, where he tells us to approach the person caught in sin, on a one to one basis. This applies not just to an elder but to any brother or sister caught in a sin.
The first thing you do, is go to the elder and point his sin out to him, in the hope that he would repent and be restored to right relationship with God and his brother or sister.
If a person is caught in a sin, the best way you can honour them is to approach them one on one. It would be dishonouring to gossip about his sin without approaching him first.
If the pastor, or person doesn’t listen to you, then as Jesus instructs you, take with you another 2 or 3 people as witnesses, and plead with the pastor to repent and be restored.
If a person, or pastor is caught in a sin, the best way you can honour them, after you have talked to them alone, is to take 2 or 3 people with you and try again.
If the pastor, person, still doesn’t repent, it is then you take it to the whole church, as Jesus told us in Matthew and as Paul tells us here in his letter to Timothy.
Look at verse 20 with me:
As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.
And so the best way you can honour your pastor, your brother or sister, is to rebuke them of their sin in the presence of the church.
If you have talked with your brother and sister, your pastor, if a group of elders have talked with your pastor, your brother or sister and yet they still refuse to repent of their sin and turn from it, then, and this is after much time of prayer and wrestling, the most honouring thing to do, would be to make their sins known to the church.
And if they still refuse to repent of their sin, then we would treat them as non-believers, since they are choosing to deliberately live a non-believers way of life. Of course, to treat them as a non-believer, means they would no longer be an elder, a pastor, a leader of the church.
To treat them as non-believers, would mean that we would keep preaching the gospel of salvation to them “repentance and belief”
Honouring a person can at times mean leading them to repentance….wow…that’s hard.
If a pastor, elder was rebuked for his persistent sin, in the presence of all the church, it would honour the church, as others would stand in fear.
In fear of sins which they need to repent of, and in reverent fear that God doesn’t have favourites- for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
And so to honour someone, means you show them that they are valuable to you, and that you care for them. And sometimes that care can mean having that straight talk with them. Sometimes caring for the eternal soul of a person means having a hard conversation about the ugly things now.
However, let me encourage you, if you are going to have these hard conversations, do it out of a place of honouring the other person.
The aim of confronting sin, is always repentance and restoration.
If you are confronting someone else’s sin, out of condemnation and self- satisfaction- then don’t- that honours no-one. It is done out of spite, out of making yourself feel better- then don’t.
Listen to why Jesus came to this earth- John 16:17
For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him
Amen…..Jesus confronted our sin on the cross, he took on the wrath of his father, so that we would be saved, saved from our sins, saved from eternal hell, saved to eternal life.
Wow….Jesus honoured you and me by giving himself for you- He couldn’t have given any more, that is how much he loves you. That is how much he honours you!
Let us honour others in the light of how Jesus has already honoured us.
Let us pray
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