Honor

God begins His commandments with a requirement that His people honor Him above all else. Anything else is rooted in some form of idolatry. But there is a problem—you cannot truly honor what or who you do not know.

In a short children's book entitled Yellow and Pink, author William Steig unfolds the story of two puppets: one yellow and one pink. In the story, Yellow and Pink come to awareness that they exist. One is convinced that they exist as a result of a natural process akin to evolution; the other is equally convinced that they were created. The key to the story though is that neither of them knew their maker so there was no way to correctly honor Him. Even Pink, who believed he was created could not truly know who the Maker was without something important. Yellow and Pink are both portrayed as having rational minds: one believed that he was made, the other that he had evolved but neither of them knew the maker or recognized the maker as their maker. What they needed—what everyone needs if we are going to honor God, if we are going to honor Jesus—is revelation.

At All Saints, we do not start with our selves and try to work out our understanding of God. Instead we start with God, as He has made Himself known in the Holy Scriptures, in order to grow in our understanding of ourselves in His world and in His redemptive plan for the world. The difference between these two worldviews from a theological perspective is doing theology from the “ground up” versus from the “top down.” The first starts with what humans can know by observation and the second starts with what we know from God's self-revelation in Holy Scripture. When the starting point of one's theology is what we can observe and know, then we are doomed to encounter a God who will eventually look much like us and we will find that some form of idolatry is soon to follow. However, when our starting point is what God has revealed about Himself, especially in the person and work of Jesus Christ, we are equipped to receive His love and bring honor to God in the worship, praise, and honor of His Son. When that takes place, God is glorified and the Holy Spirit lives within us. How do we honor God? By loving and honoring His Son. Only by knowing and loving who God is in Christ and worshiping Him in Spirit and Truth, not only with our lips but with our lives, can we truly bring honor to the name of Jesus.