As a young man reared in the South, there are some things I learned you DO NOT do out of respect for adults. When I was a child, it was out of the cards for a child to jump into grown people’s conversation. It was also out of the cards for a child to talk back to his parent or any adult for that matter. One other no no was the fact that you were not to waste the food that was placed on your plate. One final thing you didn’t do was use profane language when talking to your parents. This list can be very exhaustive, but nevertheless, we as grown-ups today practice these things because we respect our parents and love them dearly. If we can do things out of respect for our earthly parents, can’t we do the same for our Heavenly Father? Can’t we step up and be the men and women of God He desires in these last and evil days? As President Barack Obama said during his campaign, YES WE CAN! Today’s main scripture from the Apostle Paul provides us how we should do certain things out of respect for God.
2 Corinthians is the back drop of today’s message. Within this chapter, Chapter 7, Paul does the following: 1) Started with an exhortation for holiness and that the church in its entirety should bear affection to Paul (verses 1-4), 2) Discussed how he rejoiced in the church’s sorrowing to repentance (verses 5 – 11), and 3) Discussed the comfort that the Corinthian church had with Titus (verses 12 – 16). Today’s thought falls within the first piece of what Paul wrote in Chapter 7. Within his exhortation for holiness, he talks about things that we should do out of respect for God.
Before Paul begins to state what we should do out of respect for God, he gives us a reason why. He does this by saying, “Since we have these promises, dear friends”. I often think about when I was a child, it profited me to act right much more than act up knowing if there was a surprise, a toy, some money, or something with my name on it. We oftentimes work hard at our jobs with the promise of knowing or receiving an award, a promotion, or recognition. Just like that, we ought to respect God because of the promises He has for us! In the beginning of 2 Corinthians, Paul mentions that God’s promises are Yea and Amen. In other words, His promises are Yes and So Be It. We ought not to praise God and respect God for the things He has done, we ought to respect Him and praise Him for the things He is going to do! You ought to praise God and respect God for the promise of a good job coming to fruition and though you do not have it! You ought to respect God and praise God for the spouse that He has made for you, though you are alone! You ought to praise God and respect God for the healing He will place on you or your family member’s body, though it hasn’t manifested! You ought to just respect and praise God for the promises He has over your life!
Now, Paul begins the ways/things we can do out of respect for God. He tells us firstly this: “let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit”. Didn’t he just say a mouthful there? This portion of scripture coincides with a similar message Paul wrote to the church at Rome when he told them that you ought to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. If truth were told, we love/loved the drink of backbiting, but isn’t that contaminating the body and spirit? We love/loved the drink of gossiping, but isn’t that contaminating the body and spirit? We love/loved the drink of having significant wealth, but isn’t that contaminating the body and spirit? We love/loved to eat things that aren’t good for us, but isn’t that contaminating the body? Whatever we love/loved, it’s on us to get it right! If we love God like we say we do and we respect Him like we say we do, then we ought to purify ourselves from the junk that resides in our life!
Lastly, Paul mentions this thing we can do out of respect for God: “Perfecting holiness out of reverence of God”. God told us back in Leviticus that we ought to be holy because He is holy. I love what Paul says here when he says perfecting. In other words, he knew that he was a wretched man and that the people of Corinth were wretched, but he asked them to perfect holiness. Strive towards holiness! Make fewer mistakes and get more grounded when it comes to holiness! As men and women of God, are we going to cross every t? Of course not! Are we going to dot every I? Of course not! What we can do is strive towards being the holy people God wants us to be! You can be holy and have a good time! Just do not let the good time make you unholy! We all know the things we need to strip from our lives in order to strive towards perfecting holiness. The more you strive towards perfecting holiness, the more you are showing respect for God!
In closing, it was a blessing to be raised the way I was raised. I learned and gleaned a lot from my elders. Through my upbringing, I strive to be careful of the things I do out of respect for my parents. We all do things to this day out of respect for our parents and the things they taught us. With that same zeal and love, let’s focus our energy on doing the things Paul mentioned out of respect for the most high God. Isn’t He worthy of your respect today?
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