Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Who Do You Honor? | The Writings | 1 Chronicles 13-16

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

In biblical times, honor was a big deal. To today's culture? Not so much. So why is having honor important for Christians? In today's episode, Patrick looks to 1 Chronicles 13-16 to discuss the importance of giving God the honor and glory he deserves. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages:  1 Chronicles 13-16

Welcome to 10 minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. What do you honor? Who do you honor? I know that many of you listening to this live in a Western nation like America or the UK, which means that you didn't grow up in a honor, shame culture. It means that you grew up just like me in an independent culture,

where expressing yourself and acting authentically is more important than, let's say, honoring your parents' wishes. You've probably never, or at least rarely, asked yourself, will this choice bring honor to my family, or honor to my school, or honor to my city, or honor to my church? But if you live in an eastern country, you've probably thought these thoughts. You know what it is to honor someone or something and to allow your sense of honor to drive your behavior. To state the obvious, there are both strengths and weaknesses to honor culture and a more independent culture. But here's the strange thing. Whether or not you think about honor frequently, you do honor some things. Maybe it's a prized possession. You take special care of, like a car or an instrument.

Or maybe it's someone you love. And if someone offends that person, then you feel compelled to step in and defend their honor. But that said, there's at least one thing that most of us honor. We don't like to talk about it. We don't like to admit it, but it's true. We honor ourselves. We honor ourselves so much that we feel incensed and defensive when someone says something critical of us. We honor ourselves so much that we assume someone's internal desires, whether it's their sexual desires or their material desires. Well, we assume that those desires are inviolable. They are to be honored and treated as special and sanctified. To tell someone that they can't do something that doesn't hurt someone else.

Or to tell them that something they desire is sinful, that's to violate the very thing they honor and hold most sacred and self-evident. Me, myself, my desires. What do you honor most? What do you hold most sacred? What do you honor so much that it drives your behavior and your emotional life? The Bible is from an ancient near eastern culture, and so it's no surprise that it's not embarrassed by ideas like honor.

But unlike Western culture, the Bible doesn't see the self as the chief thing deserving honor in our lives. The Bible sees God as the one that we must honor above all others. It expresses this in different ways. But here are some of my favorites. The Bible calls God glorious. The Hebrew word for glory could be translated as heavy. In other words, God is a weighty being. He should be weighty in our hearts and our minds.

His weightiness should hold sway over us. Another way the Bible talks about God's honor is holiness. Again, the word holy could be translated as set apart. I think about a friend of mine who's a carpenter and he has a favorite bevel. And he loans that bevel to absolutely no one. In fact, he sets it apart and only uses it for his most important projects. He's honoring that bevel. He doesn't treat it like a common object.

In the same way, God is a being, not a tool, who must be set apart as special as honorable in our hearts. He's different. He's more important than anything else. We honor him by treating him that way, by taking his words and commands as set apart. And more important than any other words or commands. We honor him by not taking his name lightly or treating him lightly, which is, of course, the opposite of weighty. So let me ask you, is God holy and set apart in your heart? As the one whom you love the most and desire the most, the one you desire to please the most, and obey the most,

is God weighty and glorious in your heart? Do you honor him by never treating him lightly? In First Chronicles 13, today's passage, we read a story that at first, glance might make us irritated as King David is in the story. But it's a story about honor, which is why we had to do this whole preamble about honor and weightiness and holiness and why it's so important. This is a story about God's holiness and glory and the failure of David and his comrades to take his weightiness, his glory, his holiness seriously. To give context, David is now king. And he's mourning the fact that during Saul's reign, the people didn't worship at the place

of God's presence, which was called the Ark of the Covenant. The ark was a small wooden box covered with gold, and it was the footstool of God's throne in heaven on earth. It's the very place where his presence was dwelling on earth. But David saw that no one was honoring it. And David wanted to bring it to Jerusalem where he lived and his kingdom was established so that he could honor God there. There's just one problem. David didn't honor God. He didn't treat the matter as a weighty matter. He treated God's holiness and glory lightly because he ignored God's commands about how the ark was supposed to be carried. See, if God is wady, you take his commands about how you carry his presence from place to place seriously. But David didn't take that seriously.

Instead, he allowed the ark to be pulled by livestock. It was supposed to be carried on the shoulders of only humans, and specifically Levitical priests. To obey that command was to to honor God. And of course, it also visually honored God, for it's far greater to be uplifted by his own image bearers, priests, and not dragged along by a lowly ox. But that's what they did. They put it in an ox cart instead, and this is what happened. First Chronicles 13.9. And when they came to the threshing floor of Chidon, Uza put out his hand to take hold of the ark for the oxen stumbled. So let's pause. basically the ox hits a rut in the road, begins to stumble, and the arc looks like it's going to fall off the cart. And so Uza reaches out his hand and steadies it. But this is what happens. And the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Uza. And he struck him down because he put his hand out to the ark. And he died there before God. And David was angry because Yahweh had broken out against Uza. And that place is called Perez Uza to this day. And David was afraid of God that day. And he was afraid of God that day. And he was. He said, how can I bring the Ark of God home to me? So David did not take the Ark home into the

city of David, that's Jerusalem. But he took it aside to the house of Obed Edom, the Gittite, and the Ark of God remained with the household of Obed Edom in his house three months. And Yahweh blessed the household of Obed Edom and all that he had. So maybe reading this, if we're being totally honest, we feel a bit incensed, just like David did. I mean, didn't God God go a bit far? Wasn't Uza doing the right thing by trying to keep the ark from toppling off the cart? And the answer is shocking. He wasn't. He wasn't because he was already a part of the team that had already treated God lightly by throwing a symbol of his holiness and glory onto an ox cart. The mistake was made long before he reached out his hand to steady it. The ark wouldn't have toppled

if men had carried it as God called them to on their own shoulders. This is a hard passage to read, not only because it's so extreme and so foreign to people living in Western cultures who don't care as much about honor, but also because if we let it say what it wants to say, it's terribly convicting. If God broke out against Uza for something like that, then how does God feel about us? What does he feel when we treat him lightly and disobey him. When we treat him lightly and forget about him, when he's not holy and set apart in our hearts, but just a boring, unremarkable part of our lives, someone we forget to talk to, to thank, to praise. Aren't we all a bit like David and Uza, half-hearted in our devotion to him?

The good news is that God is glorious, not only in His holiness, but also in His forgiveness. And his forgiveness is weighty. It is meaningful. Later, David does bring the tabernacle to Jerusalem. But this time, he's careful to honor God. And despite his failures, he's able to offer up sacrifices to God, pointing to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf for our sins, for all the ways we've been unholy, for all the ways we've treated God lightly. Perhaps this is why David was able to sing in First Chronicles 1628. Ascribe to Yahweh, O families of the earth, ascribe to Yahweh, glory, weightiness, and strength. Bring an offering and come before him. Worship Yahweh in the splendor of holiness. It's remarkable. We may not be holy, but the holy one who is set

apart from all creation has invited you to worship him in the splendor of his holiness. He's invited you to partake in his glory, his weightiness, and enjoy him. You see, that is who you worship. You worship the one who is holy and weighty and deadly and deadly serious about it all because his holy weightiness is the basic foundation of reality itself. To deny his holy weightiness would be to deny reality itself. And yet, precisely because he is so holy and weighty, he forgives you for all the ways. you dishonor him and treat him lightly. He forgives me for all the same things. And not just that,

he goes so far as to invite you and me into his holy, glorious splendor. Friends, praise the splendor of Christ's holiness today. Honor God as first in your heart. Enjoy his holiness and glory.