Honor God in Your Community
How do we honor God in our community?
What does that look like? It’s one thing to honor God when we gather to worship, read His word and sing His praise. But what does it look like to honor God when we leave worship? When we go to work on Monday morning, or school the next day?
What does it look like for our kids to honor God when they’re playing sports on the field, or maybe a better question… how do we as parents honor God when we’re watching from the stands!? 🙂
What does it look like to honor God at the grocery store and when we go out to eat for Sunday lunch?
Maybe another way to frame the question is to ask it this way….
What do you do when…
What do you do when something really amazing happens to you?
Like, when you eat at a great restaurant?
You know what you do when you eat a great meal at a great restaurant, you tell people! You might even post a picture of your meal on social media before you take the first bite! You announce it, you share it, you can’t help it.
Maybe it was a new burger joint, or a new TexMex place, or BBQ pit. Whatever it was, if you loved it, if you thought it was great, that the food was amazing, you know what you’re going to do. You’re going to tell someone and you’re going to tell them how great it was! And you invite them to taste and see for themselves just how good it really is.
What do you do when something really amazing happens to you? You share it! You shout it! You can’t help but tell people about it!
We do this with food, we do this movies, with music, with funny videos we see online, you do this every week when you hear a great sermon at your church! 🙂
You can’t help but tell somebody and what you want is for them to try it out for themselves so they can know what you know, so they can experience what you have experienced, just how good IT is, whatever IT is.
This is true with just about everything in our lives except…
Except when it comes to God.
Falling Silent when it comes to Faith
For some reason, even though we’ve experienced the goodness of God, even though we’ve been on the receiving end of His blessings, even though He’s made a difference in our lives that transcends anything else that has ever happened to us.
For some reason, when it comes to our faith we tend to fall silent.
Why is that?
Have we somehow bought into a narrative that tells us it’s taboo to talk about our faith, that it’s not worth risking offending someone, or maybe it’s because we’re afraid that we don’t have the answers to the questions they may be asking and we don’t want to say the wrong thing, or maybe we’re afraid that if we bring up God we might lose the relationship?
Maybe we’re afraid of rejection, or being judged. Or maybe it’s because we know the culture we’re living in right now believes that there really is no such thing as truth and whatever your truth is, that’s what you should live into. Or maybe we just don’t want to be labeled as a hypocritical, judgmental Christian.
Whatever the reason, for many of us we find it hard to talk about our faith outside these four walls. But it’s going to be really difficult to HONOR God if we can’t find a way to share with those around us just how good the Lord has been to us.
There is another narrative that I want to invite you into today.
Instead of buying into a false narrative that tells you to fear sharing your faith, I want to suggest there’s another narrative where you don’t have to fear sharing your faith because it’s who you are. Because your experience of God has changed your life. Your story is all tied up into His story.
You can’t help but share about the goodness of God with others no more than you can’t help but share about the latest restaurant you ate at or the latest show you watched that you loved.
David’s Story
This was David’s experience and you see it all across the psalms.
What’s interesting about David is that we know he wasn’t living on the mountain top. Sure, he had his good days. There were the days when he defeated the giant and he was crowned as king.
But more often than not, David was dealing with the harsh reality of living life in a broken and fallen world where things are just not the way they are supposed to be.
You see this in Psalm 34. At this point in his life, David had every reason to complain. He had every reason to question God, doubt God, and the last thing you would expect him to do was to write a song about the goodness of God.
Why?
Because at this point in his life David is on the run from King Saul who is out to kill him. His enemies are rising against him. He finds himself on the run in enemy territory in the Philistine city of Gath which, if you remember, was the hometown for Goliath! David is afraid for his life. He pretends to be insane so that the Philistine king would let him leave, believing he was mentally ill and posed no threat.
After narrowly escaping death, David writes this song of praise.
1 I will praise the LORD at all times.
I will constantly speak his praises.
2 I will boast only in the LORD;
let all who are helpless take heart.
3 Come, let us tell of the LORD’S greatness;
let us exalt his name together.
At All Times?
I will praise the LORD at all times?
How does that work? It’s one thing to praise God when everything is sunshine and roses, but how do we praise Him in the middle of the darkest night? How do we praise Him when the world doesn’t make sense? When we’re hurting, grieving, struggling, and crying out to God for help?
David says, I will praise the LORD at all times.
Even when I’m on the run for my life. Even when I’m surrounded by my enemies. Even when I may not survive the night. I will praise the LORD at all times.
But we struggle, don’t we, to praise Him when we have a bad day. When things don’t go our way. We struggle, don’t we, to praise Him at all times.
But think about this, is there anything more God honoring than giving Him praise in the good times and the bad?
Is there anything more God honoring than saying, “I trust you God,” when things don’t make sense and you don’t know what’s going to happen next?
Is there anything more God honoring than living by faith and trusting in God’s grace?
Is there anything more God honoring than obeying His word and singing out in worship even when you’re walking through the valley of the shadow of death?
It’s interesting, we live in a time and place where pretty much everyone knows what football team you pull for but they may not know if you’re a follower of Jesus. People know from your social media feed what you’re all about but they may not know you’re a Christian.
There are things in our lives that we talk about “at all times.”
Is giving God praise something we do at all times?
This is how it should be for us who call ourselves followers of Jesus. We can’t help but talk about His goodness, His greatness, and all that He has done.
Now there are people who give God praise every time they get a front row parking spot. I don’t know if God is involved in where you park at the grocery store, maybe He is. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with giving Him praise for that.
But I wonder what it would like for us to live our lives in such a way that His praise is always on our lips and we’re able to talk about the goodness of God in such a way that those around us on a day to day basis, even though they may not know what THEY believe, they know what WE believe. They know that we believe in God and we honor Him in all we do and say.
I Prayed and…
David says,
4 I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me.
He freed me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;
no shadow of shame will darken their faces.
6 In my desperation I prayed, and the LORD listened;
he saved me from all my troubles.
7 For the angel of the LORD is a guard;
he surrounds and defends all who fear him.
If you’ve ever wondered what to talk about when you talk about God, how you honor Him in your community, in your circle of influence, here you go. Just talk about your prayer life.
The times when you prayed to God, depended on God, leaned into God, and He did what only He could do.
I love the story about the lady whose next door neighbor was an atheist.
You’ve heard this old preacher story. She was an elderly woman, known for her deep faith, and she would stand on her porch each morning and proclaim, “Praise the Lord!” Her neighbor, an atheist, found this habit irritating and often told her, “There is no God!”
One day, facing financial hardship, the woman prayed aloud, “Lord, I have no food. Please provide for me.” Overhearing this, the atheist decided to prove a point. He purchased groceries, placed them on her porch, rang the doorbell, and hid nearby.
When the woman found the food, she shouted, “Praise the Lord! He has provided for me!” The atheist jumped out of the bushes and declared, “Ha! I bought those groceries for you. Not God!. There is no God.”
Without missing a beat, the woman replied, “Praise the Lord! Not only did He provide for me, but He made the devil pay for it!”
You may not have a story about how God delivered groceries at just the right time, or dropped a check in your mailbox from an anonymous donor, or did something miraculous for you. But I bet you’ve got a story or two of how you depended on Him in a desperate time and He sustained you, He brought the right people at the right time to you, how He made a way where there seemed to be no way for you.
You may not have a story like that story, but chances are you’ve experienced the goodness of God, the provision of God, the grace of God in your life. If so, that’s your story to share. And when you share that story, you honor God!
When you share that story, especially with people who may be in a situation similar to the one you were in, not only do you get to share your story, you get to extend an invitation.
Taste and See
Listen to what David writes next…
8 Taste and see that the LORD is good.
Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!
Here’s the invitation to everyone that David makes… Just taste and see. In other words, try it out for yourself. Find out for yourself.
It’s like a taste test. The people God puts in your life, these are the people who, when you share your story, when you honor God by sharing what God has done for you, you’re extending an invitation to them to just come and see, taste and see, for themselves.
So, what has the LORD done for you?
Can I tell you what the LORD has done for me and my family?
Many of you know this, but our family moved about a year and a half ago.
We weren’t looking to move. We were happy where we were. But Alisha and I have always wanted to live our lives with open hands, trusting God to lead us, guide us, and use us however and wherever He wanted.
One of my friends and mentors once told me, “You’re always preparing for you know not what.” And that’s a phrase that has always stuck with me.
I didn’t know 25 years ago when I started out in ministry that one day I would be standing in a church in Sugar Land, TX preparing to follow in the footsteps of a man by the name of Ronnie Norman. I didn’t know when I was going to college getting degrees in Biblical studies preparing to do student ministry that I would one day be preaching. I didn’t know that 16 years of student ministry was preparing me to know how to lead a church. I didn’t know the eight years I spent in Dallas would lead me here today.
I didn’t know when our family moved here that within a year, two of my three children would be baptized into Christ in that baptistry right behind me. I didn’t know that every mountain top we climb and every valley of difficulty we walked through was preparing me to love and serve God’s church.
I could tell you the stories of the days we were wounded in ministry. The struggles we went through. The days when parenting was hard. The seasons of life when we didn’t know what God was up to. I could tell you the moments when we had incredible clarity and felt God’s hand leading us on. The people God has put in our path that will forever be on the Mount Rushmore of our lives.
Some of you have lived longer than me and you’ve found this to be true, others of you are right here with me or your right behind me and you’re learning this too, but we serve a faithful God who is working, often in invisible ways, for our good and for His glory.
And if you haven’t discovered that for yourself yet, here’s my invitation for you today…
Come, taste and see that the Lord is good.
Try following Him for yourself and just see what happens.
Put His way to the test and see if it doesn’t work for you.
I guarantee it will. Because His way is the best way to live. His way leads to abundant life. And when you follow His way and Honor Him, I believe that you will find…
Sharing your story of God’s great love is how you honor Him.
Share Your Story
What story can you tell this week? How can you honor God not just here, not just at home, but at work, at school, outside these four walls?
What if we did this? What if we made it our goal to be the best storytellers around about what God has done for us?
What if we thought about how we tell the stories we tell and make sure we’re honoring God in all we do?
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