Voice of the Nazarene 6-16-24

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

I'm coming to you from North Central Ohio, we share with you the voice of the Nazarene, a week by week venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus, Ohio Church of the Nazarene, we join our Pastor Reverend Ray LaSalle, and the voice of the Nazarene.

Pastor Ray LaSalle: 0:19

Nations that are built upon these 10, survive. Marriages, homes that are built on these 10 survive. Children obey your parents in the Lord for this right now, I want to talk to you today about the honor system. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with thee that thou mayest live long on the earth. You want things to go well with you? And did you catch that phrase that may us live long on the earth, what does that mean? It means so your parents don't kill you. That's what it means. I want to speak to you about the importance of honor. The honor system, someone said that you can never over honor another person. I don't know about that, I'm trying to get my head around that and get my cranium to understand that. But honor others, living a life of honor. Did you know, that before all of the 10 commandments were given out and incidentally, that's what they are 10 commandments, not 10 suggestions? Somebody said I broke the 10 commandments. No, no, the 10 commandments will break you if he tried to break them. But did you know that before the Bible said Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not commit adultery, before all of that it said, Honor thy father, and thy mother because God, being omniscient, knew that if you do not respect and esteem your parents, you're not going to honor the authority of anybody else? It all begins there. If I don't esteem and honor and respect my parents, I'll not respect other people nor their property. Tim Keller said it's the respect of parents that is the basis for every other kind of respect to every other kind of authority. We live in a culture that's not a culture of honor. It's a culture of dishonor, it seems like the cruder and the ruder and the more derogatory and the more mean you can be toward others. Do you get the buzz? I mean, if you go around with an attitude, they seem to think that your hip, you know, we're too cool for school. Well, I want to say something a spirit of dishonor in your life, and I don't care if you're 14 or 24, 54 or 74 a spirit of dishonor will prohibit God's blessings on your life. Living a life that's not a life of honor a life of dishonor will prohibit you from reaching your full potential for what God wants you to do in your life. Pastor, can you prove that? I think I can, to myself I can. I can really impress myself sometimes don't seem to affect others but they're in Matthew chapter 13, verse 55, all through verse 58. Jesus had been over in Capernaum, let me give you a background on it. And that was his headquarters. His headquarters was over there and Capernaum and all kinds of great things I mean, he was raising the dead and healing the sick and casting out devils, of course the church these days spends more time raising the devil and casting out the sick and burying the dead and there forever. You had one guy die in service and when the undertaker came, he carried out six before he found the right one. But Jesus was healing everybody, I mean, the lame we're walking the blind we're seeing the deaf we're hearing and Jesus was doing great things and then he comes to his home town which is Nazareth after all this great healing ministry and look at what the people said when he showed up in his own little town. They said Is not this the carpenter son? I mean, get real. Call him God, you think he's God? He's just like us. He's just one of us. He's no better than we are. And we know that his daddy ran a little cabinet shop and it was his stepdad of anything named Joseph. Tell us to honor him. Isn't not his mother's name Mary don't we know is four brothers and he's got sisters, he atleast had two, it said his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? He's just a carpenter. And look what Jesus said in verse 57, because they were offended in Him. Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor. Honor savored his home country and in his own house. Notice that we're to honor and then notice what the next verse said that he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. He the person did not many mighty works there the place because of the people's unbelief. He healed everybody over there and Capernaum but he gets to Nazareth, and they don't honor him. And the Bible said he didn't do many, mighty works there. What could have happened at Nazareth, if that honored him? What's going to happen, ladies and gentlemen, in your life and in my life, if we would honor the Lord? Live lives of honor. You know, respect has to be earned, but honor should be freely given. So I want to talk to you about three areas that the Bible is very clear about which were to honor. We are to honor first of all those in authority. If you read Romans 13, first two verses, Let every soul be subject unto higher powers, for there is no power, but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God, Whosoever therefore resisted the power, resist with the ordinance of God, and they that resist you have received themselves damnation. So there's to be an honor over those who are in governing authorities. And then we'll jump down to verse seven, render therefore to all their dues, that mean pay your bills. That's a thought innit? Did you miss it? Well, it went right on over you didn't it. Tribute to whom tribute is do custom to whom custom fear to whom fear honor to whom honor, and you know, there's something wrong when law enforcement officers can put on their uniforms and put their lives on the line day after day, and we let our children call them pigs. Something's wrong with that. I don't know about you, every time I see somebody in a military outfit. If I'm gonna head up on the line at a restaurant, I pay the bill. And I try to get to them, and let them know that I thank them for their service to me, and that we have the freedoms and it bothered me, I don't know if it bothered you. But back when the COVID-19 thing hit, it bothered me when 8,000 of our soldiers, our military were discharged, because they simply didn't want the vaccine in their body. And we let hundreds of 1,000s come illegally across the border with no kind of vaccine. Tells you something doesn't it? Moving along. But I'm talking to you about honoring teachers, the educators, I'm talking about we ought to honor our coaches, and I think we ought to honor the elderly, we, ought to honor the disabled. I'm talking about what husbands ought to do in first Peter three, seven, likewise, the husbands, dwell with them talking about your wife, not wives, wife, according to knowledge, giving the honor under the wife, as under the weaker vessel, as being heirs together the grace of life that your prayers be not hindered. I'm talking about Ephesians

5: 9:34

33. For the wife to reverence your husband or honor her husband, you say well, he's not worthy to be honored. Well, set a standard for him to shoot at then. Set a standard for your wife to shoot at. Living lives of honor. I'm talking about honoring your boss you say well, preacher, I'm smarter than my boss. Let me tell you something, you'll never learn to be over until you learn how to be under. And the Bible teaches you to honor authority, honor your superiors, and whoever you may be. And as long as you have that attitude, I'm smarter than my boss. Here's a newsflash, you will never be the boss. Honor those in authority, but secondly, honor our spiritual leadership, spiritual leadership. I heard about an old preacher, he was invited out to lunch in a home and of his parishioners, a couple that lived out in the country, and they're in their cooking and you can smell the food wafting its way into that front room. And then preacher trying to connect with Johnny said, Johnny, what are we having for lunch? He said, goat? He said goat? Yes. He said, I overheard Dad tell Mom, just have the old goat over anytime because this Sunday is as good as any. Well, you know what the Bible says in First

Timothy 5: 11:03

17. It says, Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor. Especially they who labor in the word of doctrine, the spiritual authority in your life, double honor. Those that God has called to share the searchable riches of Jesus Christ, have a higher position then political authorities. I'm talking about spiritual authority in your life. I'm talking about Sunday school teachers, that spend the week trying to put nuggets together to teach their students when they show up in class. I'm talking about your worship leader. Did you realize this morning while we're in here in this service, that we have people manning the nursery without pay, volunteering their time, and they miss the service, they miss the music and the message. They're watching your kids. You realize that if you have children, we have a children's church and right while we're gathered here, they're in there, but we have some paid staff there. But we also have a number that volunteer their time every Sunday too. When was the last time that you thanked them for pouring their energies and their time into your children and into your grandchildren? We need to say I want to honor you. And many times we complain about spiritual authorities in our life many times when we say derogatory things, and wonder why the blessings of God is not on our lives. Would it be wonderful when you got to have if God got confused and He gave you all the blessings of somebody that was much bigger and brighter and better than you, like Billy Graham? Well, let me just give you what Matthew 10:41; He that received with a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward. You can get right up there with a greatest if you bless them, God said, I'll bless you. So the basis of how you treat spiritual authority in your life. You say, Pastor, the spiritual authority in my life just not up to snuff. Well, let me give you a real insight here. You can find you a different authority then. And if you have about five and you got a problem with all of them, I would suggest buy you a mirror. Now if one person calls you a donkey, that's a nice word, donkey. If one one person calls you a donkey, you can disregard it, but if five called you a donkey, you probably better buy you a saddle. I thought it was pretty good. Find you a church don't just be bouncing around but find your place where you believe in the ministry and you believe in the direction the church is going and get in there and give it your best supporting, stand behind it and say good things. And then here's the third area talking. Happy Father's Day incidentally. Don't give me any more notes. Keith, this is not going over well if I mispronounce it, it's because he misspelled it. Honor your parents. If you can't honor their performance then atleast honor their position. If you can't honor their person honor their position. It's like me walking into a courtroom. I say your honor to the judge. I don't say Hi, Jim. No, it's Your Honor, Your Honor. And maybe sometimes their judgment may not be up to snuff but we honor the position, not the personhood but the position. You say, Well, Pastor, how do you do that? Well, here's how you do it. Number one, you obey them when you're young. That's how you learn how to have honor, start young. Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. And if you want the blessings of God on your life, learn how to obey parents. And obey your parents without an attitude. It's good preaching innit? You folk deserve the best. One little boy said to his buddy, he said, I know how to get along with Mama, if you do everything she says it goes better. Here awhile back somebody said, Hey, pastor, Johnny don't like going to church anymore. It caught me off guard. How old is Johnny? 11. Hey, Johnny don't have any choice. Not at our house when I was growing up. You better not open your mouth and tell Dad that when you're 11. And if you got a problem with that, may I just say don't sleep on your side your brains gonna leak out your ear. We're going to God's house. I like what King Edward the eighth of England said. He said I was most amazed about America that the parents obeyed the children. And he said it in sarcasm. Obey your parents when you're young. And then secondly, care for them when they're old. Care for them. You know there's something wrong when Mama raises seven kids and seven kids can't raise mama can't take care of mama. Something is wrong with that. You say am I supposed to feed her? She fed you. You say well, I think it's the job of the church. I know we've been dumped a lot of stuff on us. It's not the job of the church to take care of mom, it's the family's responsibility. Here's what the Bible says. But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety in the home and to requip or repay mom or dad, their parents for that is good and acceptable before God that's First Timothy chapter five verse four. Pastor I think the church, no the family needs to, the family needs to step up and take care of mama and papa. And that's what the book says, by the way. And then thirdly, honor them whether you're young or old. Pastor, how can I honor dad on this Father's Day? Can I just give you an incidentally, I don't know everything and you don't have to say Amen there you missed your place. Your opportunity's gone. Your silence gives consent. I was reading the other day and it dawned on me that God got the children of Israel out of Egypt in one day. But it took him 40 years to get the Egypt out of them. And some of us are still on a learning curve, including the pastor up front. I've learned that I don't always have it together. I've got feet of clay and I'm trying to win the grace race and I'm dependent upon the Lord, I'm human. But there's something that I've learned if you want to honor your parents, sometimes that means to forgive them. People that are sitting around grudging their dad or grudging their mom forever and always upset at him. And some of our our parents are gone and we're still upset. We need to let it go. And let God bring the spirit of forgiveness. Because you'll benefit if you forgive. You know, bitterness will do more damage to what it's stored in then what it's poured on. So let bitterness go. You'll benefit by it. You say well, dad's dead, okay, then sit down and write him a letter when you get through tear it up. But say Dad, I forgive you or mom or whatever. Just get you a chair and sit dad down in it and he may be dead but just say dad I want to talk to you, pour out your heart and say, You know what, I choose to forgive. I'm not going to let this eat me up anymore. I forgive you. You'll be amazed at how things will change in your attitude. And then here's the third thing speak well of them. You know without them we wouldn't be here. I'm talking about parents. Am I going too fast? There wouldn't been a human race. I mean if Adam hadn't said the Eve we'll raise a little cane when we get Abel. The idea of parents was God's plan the most of us here got here by that plan. And you need to tell daddy today just get on the phone and said, Daddy, I learned a lot from you. And here's what I learned. And Daddy, I'm a whole lot like you and our eyes may be a different color but I find myself becoming you, his buttons will pop off. If he doesn't quit, eating they're gonna pop off anyway, but speak well of him. And then thirdly, seek their wisdom. You know, we live by Google. We got an Alexis at our house. It's amazing how little she knows. I asked her out for a date the other day, she said, I have to think about this. You got Alexa? We got siri, we got the internet. We think we're so smart. But look at what the Bible says in Job 12:12; with the ancient is wisdom; And in the length of days understanding. They've lived longer than we have. And we live in a culture that says, you know, I'm a millennial, so I know everything. I told a freshman the other day, and I shouldn't have but I did. But I found forgiveness. I asked myself to forgive me. I said, you can always tell a freshman. She looked up and said how? I said just about very much. I told you I shouldn't have said it. You said Well, I'm young, and I'm pretty sharp. Well, if you're not 25, yet, your lobel. That part of your brain that we call the front lobe, hey, it hadn't even developed all of its brain cells yet. So hang around and learn a little. Seek wisdom, you know, it's wise to learn from experience, but it's a lot wiser to learn from the experience of others. Somebody said, if I know what you're reading, and if I know who you're running with, I can tell where you will be in about five years. Because you know, birds of a feather flock together, you hang with the losers, you're gonna be a loser. If you hang with winners, it'll help you to become a winner. Zig Ziglar was telling a story. Everybody remembers Zig Ziglar, the guy that can motivate so well, he was telling the story about a business man. And the businessman was in a hurry there in New York City was trying to ride the subway, and it was about ready to pull out and he's hurrying. And here stands a guy kind of in his way with a can with pencils in it. So he reached his hand in his pocket through some change in the can and never said a word just rushed on by him and got on the subway. And then the speaker system said, we're going to be delayed for about five minutes, just wait till we pull out again. And he got to thinking I didn't treat that gentleman very well. And you know, we're all created equal, God didn't have superstars. We're all pretty well put our britches on the same way. He began to feel bad that he just rushed by and hadn't acknowledged the man at all. And so he said his bag down, stepped back off the subway and walked over to the man with the can that had the pencils. And he took his billfold out and put a goodly sum into the can and took a few pencils. And he said, You know, I'm sorry that I just rushed by a while ago. But I got to thinking about it and I'm sorry. I want you to know that you're a businessman, just like I'm a businessman, you sell things, I sell things. And he said, I appreciate you making a living for your kids. Climbed back on the subway, six months went by a year went by and he was in a business meeting. And a gentleman came in dressed to the nines. And he recognized it was that same guy that had been holding that can about a year before with pencils in it. And he walked over to him and said, Aren't you the same gentleman that stood down there in the subway and I rushed by you and I came back and told you I was sorry and I acknowledged you? He said yes I am. And he said and sir, you did something that changed my life. He said I didn't do it. He said you did. You said to me that I was a businessman just like you and you gave me my dignity. And he said I quit selling the pencils and I got a better job and I'm working my way up and he said I'm doing very well because of you. You know what? If we'll'" honor others God said He would honor us. He would honor us. Noah was on the ark for 371 days with stinking animals. 371 days can you imagine? And I don't think those animals took a bath. And when he got off that ark, he did a terrible thing. He went and got drunk, maybe you would have if you'd been with those animals. He did. He went and got drunk. And here's what the Bible said in Genesis nine, verse 22, he had a son and look, it said of Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, when he had gotten drunk, saw his nakedness and told his two brothers, and you know, what those two brothers did? It said that Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it both up on their shoulders. And they went backwards, they turned around and they backed into the room and they kept their faces backwards from their father, and they covered his nakedness with that blanket. His actions were not right. But you know what they were saying, he's still our father. He's still our father. And we're going to respect that his position. And I've heard preachers preach that God cursed Ham for what he'd done. But I read it again this week and I saw it different God didn't curse Ham. He cursed his children Canaan. And they bore that curse, because of what Ham had done, what I'm trying to say to you, if you want to have an impact on your children. And if you want to have an impact on your grandchildren, live a life of honor. Understand the honor system, because what we do will affect our offspring. I don't know about you, I want them to do better than I've done. I want them to climb off from my shoulders, not from my side, I want them to do well. I don't want them to make mistakes that I've made. I don't want them to live a lower style life than what I've lived. The honor system, your life counts. And I leave this verse with you and Psalm 37, verse 25, the psalmist said I was young and now I'm old; Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He had learned a lot over a lifetime. He had been young once now he's old. And he saw the difference that the righteous had, that God would take care of them on down the way. Let's live a life of honor, I want to honor you. I want to respect you. I want to live a respectful sort of a life. And I want that same spirit to settle down on my kids, kind of like when they anointed Aaron. And it said the oil ran down his beard and down over him. I want God's presence to flow over me and my children and your children. Happy Father's Day to every dad in the house.

Unknown: 28:12

Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene visitors every Sunday at 9am with BNC's Pastor Ray LaSalle. For more information regarding BNC visit Bucyrus nazarene.org.