Because of some situations happening recently (which I will not detail here), there has been an outcry against honoring other Christians, especially within a church or ministry, because (so they say) if you’re going to honor a person, you must overlook their sin and let them continue sinning. The problem with this perspective is that we don’t understand honor, we don’t understand love, and we don’t understand sin – if we had a grasp on these three things, we’d be better able to handle honor in general as well as better able to deal with sin while it is small instead of waiting until it becomes a much bigger problem (James 1:15). Of course, part of the reason for the outcry is because certain people haven’t lived out this side of honor very well. So today, I’d like to talk a little bit about how to honor others without condoning sin.
First, let’s discuss what honor is – because, as I said above, we as an American culture don’t understand honor very well. Honor is not creating an idol out of a person, nor is it lifting a person onto a pedestal so you can worship them (I’ve watched both of these happen in the church, though of course we would never physically worship them!) Honor is respecting a person and treating them as though they are made in the image of God. It means treating them the way God does, which is with mercy through the blood of Jesus. Paul told the Roman church, “Honor one another” (Romans 12:10).
Honor does not mean ignoring glaring (or not so glaring) faults. Honor says, “I will not deny your failings, but I will also treat you with respect because you are made in the image of God, and you are His child, and He has forgiven you.” For example, if I know one of my siblings just messed up, I don’t have to treat them like they “deserve” for their failure – I can treat them according to how God sees them, which is forgiven under the blood of Jesus. Honor and love are closely linked – it’s very hard to honor someone if you don’t love them, and by treating someone with love, chances are you’ll also treat them with honor.
In some recent situations, leaders accurately got the honor part down. They treated people who were unworthy in a way better than they deserved, because these leaders saw the people through the blood of Jesus. This was good, and it created a situation where people were able to take God-inspired risks because they knew if they failed, they wouldn’t be ostracized or shamed for trying to follow God into a situation that didn’t work out the way they had planned.
The problem was that in the lifting up and honoring of others, some of these leaders forgot that honor doesn’t just sit around all day and tell people, “You’re awesome, you’re wonderful, you can do anything you want and we all are still required to treat you with this ‘you’re awesome’ attitude.” You see, true honor doesn’t ignore problems. It recognizes issues and helps others deal with the issues while still treating the individual in an honoring way. Let me try to give examples (which are not real, by the way), as it’s easier to demonstrate than to try and explain.
Example 1: Mark (remember, these aren’t real examples) worked for a Christian organization. He and his family went through a rough financial period, so Mark began skimming off some of the donations. He was eventually caught. Mark repented and promised to pay back what he had stolen. His boss approached Mark with compassion, treating him like he was forgiven because he had confessed, asked for forgiveness, and started making restitution. The boss agreed to this plan of action and allowed him to continue in his job.
Example 2: Susanne was a youth leader at a church. One day, the pastor happened to walk through the youth area after a youth meeting and saw how some of the young men and Suzanne were acting – and it was not holy. In fact, it was very unholy, and while it hadn’t yet led to legal charges, it was headed in that direction. The pastor looked into the situation to make sure there could be no other explanation, then he called Suzanne into his office. He treated her with respect; he didn’t scream at her or tell her she was fired. He didn’t accuse her or condemn her. He explained what was going on, and she admitted it was true, and asked for forgiveness. The pastor forgave her, but he also told her she couldn’t stay in her position over the youth – there was a maturity issue at this point, and while he could help her get the resources she needed to become healthy, at this point, he couldn’t let her continue to work with the youth. He did all this while making her feel valued, yet still stressing the seriousness of her sin.
In the first example, the boss had compassion on Mark and treated him with honor by not turning him over to the police or kicking him out of the position. It appears that Mark was truly sorry, and he probably learned a valuable lesson through this experience. But here’s the catch: If Mark does it again, and once again comes with tears of repentance and the promise of restitution, something else has to give. It’s not honoring to allow Mark to continue to sin. In fact, that’s dishonoring Mark, because it smooths over sin and allows him to continue living outside of God’s best for his life. Perhaps the boss will move Mark to a position where he can no longer get his hands on the money, or maybe he will get Mark into a program for healing to get to the bottom of why he keeps stealing money, lying about it, and then repenting very well. Or maybe he will have to remove Mark from the position or even bring legal charges. You really need to hear God when compassion doesn’t work, because only He has the perfect solution for each case.
In the second example, Suzanne was removed from her position – after all, if she wasn’t as repentant as she looks, or if she slips back into her old ways, she will be hurting children and possibly causing extremely damaging legal problems for the church. Again, it’s not honoring to Suzanne or the young people or their parents to let her continue on in her position with the likelihood of sin. Hopefully, she can get the help she needs to become mature. But even in removing her, the pastor treated her as a valuable person, treating her as God sees her while still helping her deal with her sin.
At the end of the day, that’s honor – treating people as valuable as they are in God’s sight while spurring them toward maturity.
