Honouring God Meant Humbling Myself and Asking for Help

Sermon outline

Honour is a principle that carries favour and protection, but it costs you: God empties skilled people of their own strength so that He is glorified, and like Luke beside Paul, He sends a companion through hardship rather than an easy road.

1. God empties the skilled of what they know

   Moses was trained in Pharaoh's courts and was chased into the desert when he tried in his own strength. David played the harp and God made him king. Paul knew the law and God knocked him off his horse and blinded him. God retrains the soul realm so that we consult Him and lean on Him even in the things we are good at, and then He puts the supernatural on the natural.

   Illustration: A brilliant mechanic does not think twice when he fixes a car. God wants even the skilled to come to Him first.

   “Then what He does is He takes your natural and He puts a supernatural.”

   • Exodus 2:11-15
   • Exodus 3:1-10
   • Acts 9:3-9
   • 1 Corinthians 2:4
   • Proverbs 3:5-6

2. Honour meant humbling myself and asking for help

   After Pastor passed she went straight to work on the paperwork, as a benefits specialist of over thirty years, with every record he had kept. Yet one problem on the death certificate blocked her everywhere, and fixing it means humbling herself and going to people for help. It has taken nearly six months of refusal, denial and embarrassment to lay down who she is and do what God asks. She says plainly that she does not ask for help easily, and that God is fixing that in her for her benefit, not His.

   “It doesn't matter what you know. Doesn't matter what skill you got. If you don't have God in it, it'll never work.”

3. A table in the presence of your enemies, and the principle of honour

   At coffee with friends, the people at the next table paid their whole bill because God told them to, and when she went to thank the man she recognised him as someone from a painful chapter of the family's past. To her it was God saying He had already taken care of what she must do that week. Honour is the principle the pastor of this house taught: honour people, children included, honour their decisions and their no, and never think yourself bigger than others. The first principle she learned was to honour her husband.

   Illustration: When she left home, her grandmother, who was not saved, told her to honour her husband, and she did, while learning to deal with her own quick tongue.

   “Honor is a critical part of your life.”

   • Psalm 23:5

4. Luke honoured Paul, and gave us Luke and Acts

   Paul could have stayed a respected Pharisee trained under Gamaliel, but he answered the call, ready to be bound and to die in Jerusalem, and endured floggings, prison and shipwreck. Luke, one of the best physicians of his day, laid that down to come alongside him and write down what he preached, which is why Acts says "we". Honour does not mean an easy life, but in the hardship God gave Paul a comforter, a friend and a standby, and He will send someone to speak a word in season to you.

   Illustration: Do not expect to tiptoe through the tulips or lie on a bed of roses. In the midst of your pain God provides a painkiller, not a tablet but a person.

   “Because of his honor of Paul, you and I have the Book of Luke and Book of Acts today.”

   • Acts 22:3
   • Acts 21:12-13
   • 2 Corinthians 11:23-27
   • Acts 27

5. Stop asking why

   Jesus gave His mother to John, a son of thunder whose mother had asked for the best seats, rather than to Peter's household, because He saw the love in John. He sent unschooled Peter to the Jews and Paul, trained in the law, to the Gentiles, because Paul could turn the law into the practical language of salvation. God is perfect in all His ways even when His choices seem strange.

   “So that's how God works. Stop asking why.”

   • John 19:26-27
   • Matthew 8:14-15
   • Matthew 20:20-21
   • Matthew 5:27-28
   • Colossians 3:14

6. There is favour and protection in honour

   Paul honoured the Word, Jesus and the authorities over him, and when he testified before Felix he gave them honour first. The favour he found with the government protected him when the Jews tried to kill him. When your heart asks why, be patient, because God is at work in you both to will and to do His good pleasure, and stay in the house of God where faith and revelation grow.

   “There's favor in honor. Honor comes with protection. Honor comes with favor.”

   • Acts 24:10
   • Romans 8:31
   • Philippians 2:13

7. Lay down your skill, and don't tend a grave

   God wants you to lay down your self-worth and invest in Christ in you. A sprinter by nature, she now runs long distances only by His strength, and she anoints her medication and speaks to her knees rather than accept that age brings pain. When you are given a job you have no skill for, that is where God shines. Start each day thanking Him and speaking who you are, and look past the person to the spirit behind them.

   Illustration: At sixty-four, running a steep hill near Pastor Adrian's home in America, she ran six kilometres in thirty-two minutes, committing every run to the Lord. When her knees complained after the long flight home, she laid hands on them instead of going to the doctor. A worship song says "I wasn't called to tend a grave"; embracing sickness is tending a grave.

   “Lay down your skill. Lay down what you know. Lay down what you're good at, and go before the Lord and commit it to Him.”

   • Colossians 1:27
   • Galatians 2:20
   • Zechariah 4:6
   • John 12:32
   • Psalm 118:24
   • John 17:16
   • Philippians 3:20
   • Psalm 105:37
   • Deuteronomy 29:5

8. On Malta, the free honoured the prisoners

   Shipwrecked on Malta, Paul shook off a viper and laid hands on the sick father of Publius, and Luke the physician did not say "I've got this"; his honour made him lay down what he knew. Then the islanders honoured the prisoners for three months and sent them off with everything they needed.

   “In the midst of being a prisoner, they enjoyed honor, they enjoyed benefits.”

   • Acts 28:1-11

In this message