Does God want our obedience, or respect, or both?

Question 1.

Does God want your

a) Obedience

b) Respect

c) Both of the above

(circle the correct answer)

'God doesn't want your respect, he wants your obedience' - so said the preacher.

And...No I don't agree with that statement, but let me give you some background to the statement and maybe what could have been said instead and why I want to bring your attention to it.

The sermon was a great sermon, by a prominent and great preacher. He was speaking about Uzzah in the Old Testament - you remember?…the guy in 2 Samuel 6:6-7 who thought he was helping protect the Lord's 'Ark of the Covenant' when it looked like it was going to fall after the oxen who were carrying it, stumbled. He put out his hand to stop it falling, and in doing so he touched the Ark - which was forbidden.

The preacher, helpfully explained that all Uzzah was doing was wanting to show some respect to the Lord's Ark.

The preacher went on to say but 'God doesn't want your respect, he wants your obedience'. 

Let's think about this for a moment, in a few ways.

1. Lets think about whether honour and obedience should be contrasted as the antithisis of each other or the opponents/threats of each other. 

God definitely does want your obedience, BUT is obedience to God the only thing that God wants, in contrast to not wanting your respect?

Respect is another word for honour, so does God really not want you to give him honour?

Romans 1:21 tells us that God definitely wants us to honour him, and in fact the big problem in our world, says God through the Apostle Paul in this verse, is that God is not honoured. And not just that, but that God is not honoured as God. In other words, not only does God want honour, he wants a unique, highest, supreme honour in our lives. He requires the greatest honour of all.

So what is going on here, in the preacher's comment?

I wonder whether sectors of the Western church are so 'reacting' against those who wish to point out that more attention needs to be put towards the 'honour' aspects of Scripture, when so much is usually put to concepts of guilt, law and obedience, that they are 'over-reacting' and inclined to not only lessen the importance of the place of 'honour', but even without realising it, 'demonize' it. 

Honour is made out to be an inferior quality to obedience, and thus if you settle for honour, you settle for less. Here in the story of Uzzah, the preacher implied that Uzzah in being concerned about 'respect' [honour] was concerned about the wrong thing, and it was so dangerous a concern that God struck him dead immediately! Honour is seen as the thief of the priority, the best, and the proper focus on obedience, as well as a reason for life to be removed from us.

But honour and obedience are not a dichotomy, and furthermore, not opponents. They are not in a battle for validity in God's eyes.  In fact as Romans 1 points out, honour of God is imperative.

2. Let's think about whether a fallen mis-placed concept of honour is clouding our vision as to the place of true properly-placed honour.

Is it wrong to honour God?  Romans tells us not. Not only is it definitely right to honour God, it is an unequivocal and imperative requirement.

But it is wrong to honour God with our own idea of what honouring God should look like, with no regard/respect [honour] of how God defines and demands honour of himself to be.

This is where we go wrong.

We can 'think' we are honouring God, we can tell ourselves we are 'doing right by God', but if the honour is not according to God's definition of 'right', then we will think we do right when in fact in God's eyes we do wrong.

This was Uzzah's problem. He had a noble intention, but it was according to his own understanding and not God's requirements. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to not rely on our own understanding but to acknowledge God (put his ideas and definitions above our own) in everything. Uzzah's noble motive was misplaced, not because it is wrong to honour, or wrong to honour God, or because God doesn't require honour, but because Uzzah didn't trust God. He didn't understand that to truly honour God is to obey God. We don't get to define what honouring God looks like, God does. And God tells us what honour looks like by giving us commands to obey. When we obey him, we honour him. When we disobey him, we dishonour him.

This story is not one about Uzzah opting for honour when he should have opted for obedience. This story is about Uzzah who did what was 'right' in his own eyes, in his own understanding, all the while thinking that his definition of honouring God would be automatically acceptable to God as honouring him. But it wasn't.  And still today, our own ideas about what honours God are not the standard God has for the definition of honouring him.

3. Emphasising honour is not the cause of the lack of obedience, rather a wrong and weak emphasis on honour for God, propels disobedience to God.

Our problem is not that we talk too much about honouring God, or that if we talk more about honouring God that people will think they can be less careful to obey God. No, our problem is that we talk too little about what right honour of God looks like and how God defines honour.  

We run into the problems when either as differing groups or differing individuals we define what we think exemplifies respect or honour or dignity, without reference to the One who not only created us but who also defined those concepts in the first place. Any residue of those concepts that we seek or think we attain are but weak, broken, unreliable and twisted images of the original intention of our Creator. When we seek after them, they will disappoint and when we use them as our standard of good and right, we  will find ourselves with empty hope in the present, and being condemned in judgement in the future eternity. 

 When we have a wrong view of what honour for God is, we will inevitably end up practicing a lifestyle of disobedience to God. We will make wrong choices, damaging choices, self-destructive choices, and others-harming choices.  When we don't have a high enough view of honouring God, we will not only be disinclined to obey God where he has laid down specific commands, but we will feel there is no particular application of holiness we are called to outside of those particular commands. Yet if God doesn't give a particular command or direction about something which we are meant to obey, there is always the overarching governing context of honouring God. 

We need to think beyond the Bible as being an instruction book which if it doesn't address something particular in a 'do this' or 'do not do this' manner we are free to do what we like. We need to also see God's word as showing us himself and his character--his honour—and what it therefore (descriptively and prescriptively) looks like to honour him, his way.