If you would, grab your Bibles and turn to the book of Romans. We're going to be in chapter 13 to start. For anybody that doesn't know me, my name is Mike O'Mara. I've been a member here since 2000, June of 2000. So it's getting to be a while now. I taught Sunday school over Oh, all different classes over about 20 years, so that's how I learned to like the study that it forces me to do. I don't know how many of you actually spend time not just reading, but studying the Word of God. You need to do both, not just here in this building, but on your own. Do some of your own study. And this is really what we would call a word study, but this is something that has helped me because it's something that We think we understand, but when you really start digging in, you start saying to yourself, well, the Bible says this, but do I really do this? And that's where we're trying to get to, right? We wanna be obedient to God, so when there's a command in the Bible, we want to make sure that we're following it. Romans 13, if you're there already, we're gonna start in verse number seven. The Bible says, there render therefore to all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. So this morning, what we're gonna do is take a look at just the last part of that verse. I've done a study here on what the Bible says about honor. Subject you've ever studied before? I don't know. I guess let's start out with prayer and then we'll get into it. Heavenly Father, Lord, I just thank you for your word. Thank you for this opportunity to be here this morning in Sunday School. Thank you for all that have come. Lord, I want to pray that you would help us, Lord, as I teach this morning. Lord, I pray that you would use me to help all of us, Lord, to understand the word of God better, what it means, and give us clarity, Lord, about how to obey what you have to say here. Father, I wanna ask that you'd give us understanding of what it means to render honor to whom it is due, and exactly, Lord, whom honor is due to. Bless this time of study, I pray in Jesus' name, amen. So if I asked each one of you this morning, if I just had a conversation with you individually and I asked you about this, I bet that you would all agree that we lived today in a time of selfishness. It's time, not everybody, but there's a lot of people today that are selfish. Their main concern is self. They're highly engaged, if you watch anything going out in the world, with self-promotion. It's all about them, if you will. If it's you, you feel like everything is about you. Tell you, first of all, the start of the premise is it's not about you. Nothing is about you. Now, most people don't walk around saying that it's about me. They don't say it that way. But their actions is what you notice, right? Their actions are what kind of scream life is about me. it's about my happiness, get out of my way. That's kind of the impression you get from dealing with a lot of people today. So I don't think too many of you disagree with that idea, but I want to also say that I believe most of you would agree that those of you that are Bible readers, Bible studiers, that according to God's word, honoring others rather than focusing on self is something that others, or something that needs to be a priority for Christians, right? We are to make honoring others an important part of our lives. Now, I think even more so after doing this study. The verse that we were just reading is a familiar one to you. That's why I chose that to start. And looking at just the honor, or the end of it here, we're supposed to render And one of the things we're supposed to render is honor to whom honor is due. Okay? We all know we're supposed to be obedient to God. So this morning, what I want to do is look at honor, add some knowledge and understanding to myself and to each of you, hopefully, about what God says about needing to honor others. And let's make sure we're on track. The whole point isn't for me to just stand here and talk at you. The whole point, or to just read the Bible to you, the point is for you to take that and do something with it. So consider what you do in this area, what's your practice in your daily life for honoring others, and I'll consider mine, okay? I'm not gonna ask any hard questions. You are to ask them of yourself this morning. But I am gonna ask you, as I go through each of my points this morning, I'm gonna ask you to keep thinking about, in your own mind, This question, do I do this as a regular practice in my daily life? Ask yourself that question every time I go through a point, okay? Let the Holy Spirit work on you and let him change you if there's a place where you need to be changed. That's what I like as far as, that's what I always like when I'm sitting down there is something that helps me grow, grow a little closer to God, a little more like God wants me to be, right? That's why I come to church, among other reasons, but one of those is that God will help me to be better and more pleasing in his sight, if you will. That's what I like about Sunday school, and that's what I like about the study that it takes to prepare for Sunday school. So this verse that we just read, I'll read it again. Romans 13 and verse number 7. Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. So what I want to do first here, because I started there, is understand the context of Romans chapter 13. This is always important when you're reading the Bible. Context is very important. Where we find this idea of rendering honor to whom honor is due, the author is the Holy Spirit. So never forget that when you're reading the Bible. The author is the Holy Spirit. What he was doing was using the Apostle Paul to give us a message from heaven. We refer to the Bible as God's revelation of himself, right? What he's doing is revealing God is revealing his thoughts, in this case through the Apostle Paul, and what he was doing is using Paul, who was writing a letter to people in Rome. That's why it's called the Book of Romans, if you didn't know that. What he's doing is speaking to, it says, I'm not gonna go there, but it says this in the beginning, that Paul is writing to the beloved of God, those that are called to be saints that be in Rome. That's what it says, that's who this is written to. So what that means for us in plain language is, not that that's not plain, but the way we would say it today, Paul is speaking to believers in Jesus Christ that are in Rome, the church, the early church in Rome. Now, Paul had not been there at this point in his life, but what he's doing is writing a letter to them, telling them about this idea of being subject to higher powers, rulers, governmental officials. That's what he's writing about in chapter 13 here. And he tells them that those officials are ordained of God. And he says, let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. It says that a little earlier in the chapter here. So that's the context. That's what's going on. That's who's being talked to here. So let's then make sure that we know what it means to render honor to somebody. What does it mean? Because it's telling Christians in Rome, the church, that they need to render these things, okay? It says render, which means, so that you fully understand, in our language today, render means more than one thing, right? Like if I'm cooking something and I'm gonna render the fat, right? You know, that means something different than this word means. Rendering here, means to give what is due. We might use it if I was gonna pay somebody to do something, some service, I was gonna pay somebody to mow my lawn, I would render payment. I'm giving them what they're due. That's what render here means. And the list that follows here in verse number seven is it says that we are to render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute, now tribute is it's an individual tax, it's like a personal property tax. One of the things God's telling you here, as a Christian today, is to pay your tax. Even if you don't agree with what your tax dollars are being used for, which I don't completely in our government, it was the same back here in Rome. Remember, they were run by an emperor that was pretty tyrannical at this time. And what God, through Paul, is telling the Christians is to render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, pay your tax, your personal tax. Number two, custom, to whom custom, that's another tax. Today we use the word customs, you go travel to another country, you go through immigration, which is where you show them your passport and your visa if you need one to get in, then you gotta go through customs. Customs is where the country you're entering, looks at what you're bringing in and taxes you based on what you're bringing in. That's a custom, okay? So, again, God, through Paul, saying, pay your tax. Fear, to whom fear. Now, what this is telling the Christians here is that sometimes your leaders are people you need to fear. God put them in place, but they aren't necessarily godly. They do evil things, they're men. So you should fear them, and there's a healthy fear for authority, right? So we should have that. And then honor, to whom honor, which is our subject this morning. And according to Webster's 1828 Dictionary, honor means this, it means to revere. I said to myself I was gonna do this, a little mental note here. I want you to just think, you stare at your shoes, Don't look at anybody else. You don't even have to look at me. Stare at your shoes or at the back of the seat in front of you. And I want you to picture yourself doing these things to somebody else. Whatever thoughts come to your mind as I do it. Okay, you're going to revere somebody. You're going to respect somebody. You're going to treat with deference and submission. You're going to dignify somebody. That's what honor means. You are to render honor to whom honor is due. So again, the question is, do you do that in your daily life? Is that how you treat other people? Again, so this verse is God making it clear through the Apostle Paul that Christians are to give honor, reverence, respect, deference, submission, dignification to whom it is due. And the context is talking about those that are rulers, those that are in power in government. Why? Well, it tells us in this passage, we're not going to read the whole thing, but it tells us that according to the word of God, it is because they are in power as God's ministers. God has placed them there. God has given them power, regardless of whether you like it, you like the ruler, or not, regardless of whether they are godly or not, you, Christian, are to honor those to whom God says honor is due. Okay? So I'm sounding very stern up here. I don't mean that. I'm just trying to teach you. I want you to think, okay? That's just how I teach, all right? So hopefully you're getting that. I'm not yelling at anybody. I always feel like I'm yelling at people. I'm not. I'm talking to myself. This is how I get it into my own head, okay? So anyways, that's the jumping off point, because according to the Bible, there are many others that are also due honor. There's a lot of other people, probably more than I thought when I started studying this, that we're told to honor. These are other people that we are commanded, this is why I had you think about this, just seeing yourself doing these things, that we are commanded to reverence, to respect, to give deference to, to submit to, and whom we are to dignify. So let's look at a bunch of these. There's a bunch of them in the Bible. I'm hoping to get through ten of them. You'll think about halfway through that I'm not going to make it, but I think I will. Number one, we're going to go with the obvious one. The Bible tells us to honor God. That's pretty clear, right? That's not a surprise to any of you. And by the way, I'm going to go through a bunch of verses, so you might be better off if you're a note taker to write the verses down. I'm going to probably go faster than you're going to flip through your Bible to find the verses, all right? So you can just listen this morning. You don't have to flip through your Bibles. I will read them all to you. I promise. I'm going to have them on my notes rather than me flipping through. That's so that I can finish in time. I don't know if Pastor Chris ever listens to this, but this is how you do it, Pastor. The on time part, I mean. So how do we honor God? Well, let me give you a short list and then I'll give you the verses, or at least some of the verses to show you, okay? So we honor God by obeying his commandments. So a little note there, you need to know what they are, which is why you need to read the Bible and why you need to study the Bible, not just read it. We honor him by reading the word so that you know him and what he expects from you. We honor him by respecting his house, the church building. This is the Lord's house. You hear us refer to that often around here. So we should respect it. We should take care of it. We should be mindful that it's used to honor God. I think we do a good job of that around here. We honor God by giving toward his work through tithes and offerings. We honor him by praising him. Trying to decide if I have time to. Little rabbit trail. I don't want to call it a peeve, it's just something I've noticed. And I want you to think about this if you happen to do this. Again, I'm not angry at anybody. You know, we start all of our services with what we call a song service. In a little less than an hour, we'll be singing a few hymns, right? You know what we're doing when we do that. There's a reason we have a song service. There's two parts to that. One is we're praising God. We're honoring God by praising him. That's how we begin our services. The other one is to prepare our hearts to hear the preaching. That's why we have a song service. Again, I don't, just a mild rebuke. There are many in the church, not many, I don't know about many, there's several in the church that treat the song service like it's an optional thing. Or that come in here and talk all the way through. I have no problem, look, if somebody comes in, sits down next to you, hey, good morning, we're on hymn number whatever, here's my hymnal. I'm not saying don't ever speak. That's like no speaking. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is the people that just talk all the way through the song service, you know what you're not doing is you're not as a church praising God. This is when we do that. The song service is an important part. It's not this optional thing that you could just ignore. I don't mean to get off on a rabbit trail, but my point is we are to honor God. One of the ways we do that here is we begin each service by honoring God, by praising him. So partake of that. If you're a person that comes in and doesn't sing, well, why not? Well, I sound terrible. Well, so do I. It's okay. Praise God anyway. That's why I love it. I don't care who gets up here and does a special. I'm impressed by that. Somebody to come up here and praise God, singing, playing, whatever you're doing, I don't care if it's, by the world standards, good or not. You might be really talented, you might not be. And it's great. Get up here and praise God. I love that. Okay. Off the rabbit trail. Let's look at a few scriptures so that you know that you don't have to take my word for everything I'm saying here about honoring God. Revelation 411 says, thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for thou has created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created. So who is the Lord worthy to receive glory and honor from? Who might you think? Now, it's not really a trick question. Those of you that are Bible scholars, as Pastor might say, Pastor Cole used to say this a lot. If you're a Bible scholar, you might realize that Revelation 4 and verse 11 is actually an account that takes place in heaven. It is the 20 and 4, or 4 and 20 elders seated before the throne in heaven. kind of the best of men, get those 24 seats in heaven, that are the ones that say, thou are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. It's them that say that in this verse. Okay, but if they're saying that, we're told here that the Lord is worthy to receive glory and honor and power, how much more any of the rest of us? God is worthy to receive honor, glory and honor from us. And everybody, everything, but what other thing besides maybe angels in heaven can actually give glory and honor to God? I don't know, does your dog do that? I don't know, I don't think so. The reason the rest of this verse says this, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created, is that it's us that the Lord is worthy to receive glory and honor from, the ones that he's created in his image, the ones that he created for his pleasure. We are to honor God by doing those things that I was talking about earlier. Psalm 71.8 says, let my mouth be filled with praise and with thy honor all the day. We are to honor God and our mouth should be filled with his praise and his honor all the day. Not just at church on Sunday and Wednesday. Every day. What that says, all day. We are to give God honor. Proverbs 3 and verse 9, honor the Lord with thy substance and with thy firstfruits of all thy increase. Well, here you see the use of our substance, our possessions, to honor God. We think of it mostly regarding money today. It could be other things, but we are to honor God with our substance, and we are to give him the firstfruits of all of our increase. What does that mean? Well, I'm not preaching tithing and offerings and almsgiving and all that this morning, but the Bible teaches all that. And it teaches giving him first fruits. So whenever you get an increase, so let me replace that word with paycheck. You get a paycheck, give to God first. That's what the Bible tells you to do. Then pay your bills. Buy the things you need. The things you want come last. That's biblical. So that's one of the ways you honor God, is with your substance. All right, nine more. Number two, the other obvious one, is honoring his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We honor God's only begotten son by trusting in who Jesus is and on what Jesus did to provide salvation. We honor Jesus by serving him by telling others about him and by calling upon him for our needs. John 5 in verse 23 says that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. Don't answer this out loud. Do you ever dishonor Jesus? There's lots of ways to do that. I'll just pick on one. Do you use his name in vain? Does that ever come out of your mouth? You know that's not revering him. Remember I gave you the definition of what honoring was. Do you show disrespect to Jesus by not submitting to his commands? Now we've been talking a lot about soul winning around here. We've been doing a lot of things this summer together as a church. That's because it was Jesus' command to us to go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. Why do we do it? To honor him because we were told to. And if you aren't honoring the son, you're also not honoring the father. According to this verse, he that honoreth not the son honoreth not the father which which hath sent him. It's a package deal. You can't honor one and not the other. So do you use the Lord's name in vain? Well, that's not only dishonoring to Jesus, but then you're dishonoring the father. John 12 and 26, if any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, he will, or him will my father honor. Honor Jesus by serving him. It's one of the things that I've given you. This is doing whatever he asks of you and even more because of what he has done for you. We will say it's scriptural, right? We love him because he first loved us. Jesus died for you. What are you not willing to do for him? Are you willing to do whatever he asks you, and even more? I don't think you can serve Jesus too much. It's not possible. But then, the end of this verse, if any man serve me, him will my father honor. Imagine the all-powerful God of the universe honoring you. Have you ever been publicly honored by someone or by some organization? A lot of people have, maybe not everybody, A lot of people have received some kind of honor. How did you like that? It felt pretty good, didn't it? Well, that's nothing compared to being honored by God the Father. If you'll honor Jesus by serving Him, God the Father will honor you. And that is a promise right from Jesus Himself. Those are the words of Jesus. So that's a pretty good reason to honor Him. among many of the others. All right, number three. This one, now's where it gets hard. First two are easy, right? Oh yeah, I can honor God, I can honor Jesus. All right, this is the hardest one probably of all of them. Honor everyone. Wait a minute, what are you doing? 1 Peter 2.17 says, honor all men. It's not me, it's the Bible, okay? The rest of that verse says, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. First part says, honor all men. Now, I didn't remind you for the first two, but I'll remind you now that I'm asking you to consider one simple question as we go through these. And that question is, do I do this as a regular practice in my daily life? Do you honor all men? Do you revere, respect, treat with deference and submission and dignify everyone? And right here, you're going, well, you know, not everybody is worthy. Hold on. What does the Bible say? The Bible says, honor all men. Now, I will admit that there are different degrees of honor. That's also clear in the scriptures. There's different degrees of respect, but we are to honor everyone, not honor that set and dishonor everyone else, which is sort of where the world ends up today. So the Bible says honor all men. I just want you to think about it for a second. How do you do that? Maybe when you were trying to picture, remember when I was defining what honor is, whatever you were picturing in your mind, I don't know what you were picturing. Maybe that was how you do it. Maybe that's how you show honor. I don't know. I don't know what you're thinking. I think there's a lot of good answers to that, and I'm not here to give you the answers of how to do that. I just want you to think about it, because the Bible tells us to do it. But I'll give you a hint. This might surprise you because this is the other thing that our culture, our society's turned into. Ignoring people isn't honoring them. Just walking by, head down, nose in your phone, whatever. That's not honoring them. Rendering honor is a proactive thing. It takes action on your part. So how do you honor all men? We're commanded to. The last part of that verse where it says, honor the king, is just another reference to your government, higher powers, which are ordained of God, and I'll get back to that in a minute. Number four, honor your parents. This would also include step-parents and grandparents, I think, if they helped raise you in any way. By the way, I'll say this because this crowd, we don't have too many young folks in here. This is the adult class, I get it. But I've taught this part before, and one of the things I tell young people is that honoring your parents doesn't end when you finally leave the family home. As a matter of fact, I would go as far as saying it doesn't end when your parents pass away. You honor them for the rest of your life, not theirs. You're commanded by God to revere your parents, respect your parents, treat your parents with deference and submission, and dignify your parents. That's what you're told to do. Exodus 20 and verse 12, honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. You know, one benefit of doing that is that your relationship with them is likely to be good, peaceful, even loving. Some people don't have that sort of relationship with their parents. But if you honor your parents, you're not gonna regret that when they're gone. Both of my parents are now gone. I'm glad I honored them, as opposed to other people I know that express a lot of regret about that, about not honoring their parents while they were alive. But there's a benefit there in that verse. If you noticed it, honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. You know, you may actually live longer if you honor your parents. That's what the Bible says. So there's a corollary. You know what a corollary is? Something that's implied. One thing implies another thing. The thing that's implied is if you don't honor your parents, your life might be shortened by God. I'm not God. I don't know. But he tells you here that that can happen. So honor your parents, you're told to by God. Number one was honor God, remember? We're supposed to honor our parents. Number five, honor the man of God, your pastor. 1 Timothy 5.17 says, let the elders that rule be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. So until fairly recently, obviously Pastor Cole was that man, definitely worthy of double honor. And what, a little over, what, a year, year and a half ago, we got Pastor Chris as our head pastor. And you know what? He is also worthy of double honor. He's worthy of double reverence, double the respect, double honor. He is an honorable man, Pastor Chris is. And I have no problem acknowledging that publicly, that he is worthy of double honor. I've gotten to know him pretty well. And I believe that Pastor Chris was custom made by God for our church. You know, the Bible says that he gives pastors according to his heart. And one of the things I told Pastor Chris when he was considering whether he wanted to become our head pastor is I said, listen, Pastor, I believe that you were made by God for our church. That's why he ended up coming here as a teenager, growing up in the church, you know, doing everything that he did. including being missionaries sent out of our church, and then coming back. I mean, what a great pastor. You know, a lot of churches don't have pastors, number one, and some that do aren't that good of pastors. We've had two excellent pastors. That's a blessing. I mean, Pastor Chris even lets me beat him at golf regularly. That's the test to see if he actually really watches this. That's what that is. Next time we're playing, he'll say, hey, you know, you said this from the pulpit. We'll see. You can't tell him to watch it. Miss Elizabeth. Tell him he's got to reign this guy in. All right, so I've got five more in a few minutes. I think we'll get it done. Number six, honor widows. First Timothy 5, in verse number three, says, honor widows that are widows indeed. Now, widows are to be cared for by their families. It's very clear in the scriptures. If you have a mom, a grandma, a sister, an aunt, whatever it might be that's part of your family that is a widow, the Bible says that it is your responsibility as part of the family to help take care of her. Those that don't have a family, or whose remaining family can't support or take care of them is called a widow indeed in the Bible. Okay, that's what that term means. And as Christians, we are to honor widows indeed. Those who either don't have family or can't, their family can't take care of them. We as a local church are responsible for them. Did you ask yourself the question? Are you doing that? You might be. I'll leave it there. If you think your tithes are going to that, they're not. Just something we're commanded to do to honor widows. Number seven, honor the aged. Leviticus 19 and 32, this is one I like more and more. Thou shall rise up before the hoary head If you don't know, the term hoary head just means a person with gray hair, so I qualify. What I've got left, anyway. Thou shall rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man. Fear thy God, I am the Lord. That's the rest of this verse. So be careful how you treat the older folks. They might, maybe I should say we, we might be grumpy. We might not feel too good. Your health starts going. It's a little tougher to be happy. And Mrs. Cole does it all the time. I don't know how she does it. But I'm sure there's times when you don't feel too good and you don't feel like it, right? She's not old, right? So we might be grumpy. Our health might be failing. We might be on, you know, people will get to the point where they can't take care of themselves too well anymore. They may not know how to use their smartphones, but they're not idiots. You know what they are? They're deserving and do honor, according to the scriptures. So, again, how do you do that? How are you doing it in your daily life? This is what we're supposed to be doing. Number eight, honor your wives. 1 Peter 3, 7, likewise ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. Gentlemen, when you are married, you are to honor your wife. You are to give her honor as unto the weaker vessel. That doesn't mean she's weak. That's not what that means, okay? I've taught that before, and I used an example some of you might remember years ago. I had a little object lesson to show you what that means, and it means simply this, that you need to treat your wife as you would treat a piece of fragile, fine china, as compared to how you would treat a plastic cup, okay? Plastic cup, I might just chuck it in the sink, right? It's dirty, chuck it in there. If I have a nice piece of fine china, I am not going to chuck that in the sink. That's the comparison. You're supposed to treat your wife as an, like under the, let me read it, as unto the weaker vessel. Giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel. Same way you would treat that piece of china. Very carefully. Careful how you treat her, give her a special place of honor in your life, and this can help keep your prayers from being hindered. That's what the Bible says there. Number nine, honor authorities. Now we've already looked at 1 Peter 2.17 and it says, honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. And we looked at Romans 13, that's where we started, about rendering therefore to all their dues. Here in 1 Peter 2.17, Honor of the king refers to honoring the higher powers, those in governing roles. It's those that have authority over you. Now it's different for all of us, but there are some that are the same. These are authorities at church, authorities at work, authorities in government, authorities in law enforcement. To honor them, right? There's some in the room that are in law enforcement, and I'll guarantee you they don't see a lot of honor from those that they're dealing with. Not a very biblical world we live in anymore. I can say that I do not like our current president or vice president. I don't like our current governor in New York, for example. Why? Because I don't like most of what they stand for. They are against the Bible and what they stand for. That's what I don't like. Now that said, the Bible also does tell me that I'm to honor all of them that are my authorities here. I am to respect them. I am to dignify them. And so are you. So be careful how you speak of them. The Bible tells you to be careful how you speak, right? God has placed them in their positions of authority. whether or not you like them, whether or not they are godly. God has put them there. Now, be praying for the next election cycle in our country, right? We want people that do honor the Bible and the precepts of the Bible in their governing. And number 10, honor yourself. Let me give you three verses, and then I'll talk about them in a little bit. Proverbs 20 in verse 3, it is an honor for a man to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling. Proverbs 21, 21, he that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, righteousness, and honor. In 1 Thessalonians 4 in verse 4, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor. What I'm saying there, honor yourself, doesn't mean to proclaim yourself honorable. You don't get to act like the king and everyone else is your subject. That's not what I mean by honoring yourself. What these verses mean is to do things as a way of life that are gonna cause you to be honored. That's what the Bible's telling us here. We are to, in the first example, we are to cease from strife. It is an honor for a man to cease from strife. Don't be contentious. That will help bring you honor. Follow after righteousness and mercy. Why? The Bible says, he that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, righteousness, and honor. That's why. Be set apart for God's use. What does that mean? Always act in a godly manner. that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification, that's being set apart for God, for his purposes, and honor. How do you get more honor? Be set apart for God's use, let him use you. That's all, you see how it all works together, right? That honors God, which is where we kind of, that was number one. We need to do that. So very quickly, and then I'll be done. Honor God. Honor his son. Honor everyone. Honor your parents. Honor the man of God, your pastor. Honor widows. Honor the aged. Honor your wives. Honor authorities. Honor yourself. How do you do that in your everyday life? That's where probably all of us need some kind of work. We need the Holy Spirit to work on us and let him change us. but you need to think about it, not just here. I'm not asking you to forget this in two minutes when I'm done. Walk out of here thinking, you know what, I do need to change a couple things because I don't treat somebody the way the Bible says I should. All right, let's pray and I'm done. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you again for this time. Thank you that, Lord, you use the Bible, Lord, to correct us in some places, Lord, to help us see the truth, to help us know how to live. Lord, I just pray that this would have an effect on each and every one of us, Lord, and on our lives going forward. We ask your Holy Spirit, Lord, to prompt us as we go through life with this message, Lord, about how we are to honor others, Lord, and in doing so, we can honor you. Lord, we pray now for the service to follow, pray that you would bless it as well. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.