Study Notes

I.      1 Samuel 2:12-Eli’s sons do not honor and respect God and that is revealed to us by how they treat His things 

A.    Regard-To esteem; to hold in respect and affection 

1.      ERV-Eli’s sons were evil men who didn’t care about the Lord

2.      EXB-They did not care about, know, respect or regard the Lord

3.      GNT-They paid no attention to the Lord

4.      MSG-They didn’t not know the Lord and could not have cared less about the customs of the priests among the people

5.      NLT-The sons of Eli were scoundrels who had no respect for the Lord

6.      NET-They did not recognize the Lord’s authority

B.     Matthew 15:8-Jesus talked about people who honored God with their lips, but didn’t really honor him; So these are people who said God we honor you, but they didn’t honor him

1.      When it comes to determining whether or not you honor the Lord, your lips have very little to do with it and what you say has very little to do with it; Honor is not measured by the mouth, it’s measured by the heart and when God searches for honor he doesn’t search the mouth he searches the heart

a.    If you do say you respect/honor/value something there should be evidence of that other than you just saying it with your mouth

b.    You don’t locate honor by looking at what a person says, but by looking at what they value and treat with great care & respect

2.      Malachi 2:17-God can grow wearisome of your words

a.    Ezekiel 33:31-With your mouth you can show love, but your heart can go after something else

3.      This area is one of the biggest areas where people lack sight

a.    People are dishonoring the Lord and aren’t locating it because they don’t know what dishonor looks like

1)       I believe there’s a lot of space between how much we think we honor him and how much we actually do honor him

b.    These people in Malachi apparently have no idea how they are dishonoring the Lord

1)       Their initial response to the Lord saying, “Where is my honor is?” is “No way. How have we despised your name?”

C.    How does this disrespect and dishonor manifest? In what way does it show up?

1.      Malachi 1:7-God said they were despising his name by saying the table of the Lord is worthless

a.    They asked him how they were despising Him and He pointed to how they were treating something that belonged to Him

1)       Their disrespect and dishonor for the Lord was seen in how they treated something that belonged to the Lord

b.    Did they actually say this with their mouth? Probably not; So their dishonor didn’t manifested in them actually saying Lord we dishonor you, but rather it manifested and was seen in how they treated his things

2.      There’s no verse that says Eli’s sons went to God directly and said we don’t honor you, that’s not how dishonor usually manifests

a.    Their dishonor was demonstrated not by what they said or didn’t say, but by how they treated God and His things; When see their dishonor for Him, in how they treat His things

b.    This lack of respect and esteem and honor is revealed and manifested in seen in how they treat God’s things (This is God’s offering, this is God’s priesthood, these are God’s people) 

3.      Most believers aren’t going to God and saying I don’t honor you; If believers are dishonoring the Lord it’s manifested mostly in a lack of regard and esteem for His things

a.    You can’t say you honor God while you treat His things with contempt and disregard and disesteem; NO! How you treat his things reveals whether or not you respect and honor Him

b.    People like to try to separate God from His things and disrespect and dishonor his things and yet say they honor God

c.     With them it was the Lord’s offering, the Lord’s priesthood, the Lord’s people, but what is if for you? Maybe it’s the Lord’s services, the Lord’s assignment on your life, the Lord’s Word, the Lord’s command – If it belongs to God and you treat it with disesteem, then you treat him with disesteem and dishonor

II.     Does it matter how you treat God’s things?

A.    There’s a danger inside this environment of everything being convenient and everything being casual of eventually reaching this place where nothing matters and nothing is a big deal and everything is light and everything is okay and honor gets lost

1.      The deception and darkness a lot of times is people saying it doesn’t matter because God loves you, he loves you the way you are, he accepts you the way you are, so just do what you want, be want you want and it doesn’t matter

2.      They enemy is a despiser and he belittles; And things that do matter and are a big deal, he will tell you oh it’s not big deal and oh that doesn’t matter and God understands and God loves you

3.      Nothing matters, nothing is a big deal, God doesn’t care, he loves you

B.     Malachi 1:6-8-They despised him and dishonored him by treating his table with disesteem, dishonor and disrespect; They despised the Lord’s table, the Lord’s altar

1.      They altar was 30ft x 30ft x15ft high and it was made of stone and covered in brass

a.    It’s a big, huge brass covered table; it’s natural and yet the way the treated this natural thing revealed their dishonor for the Lord

b.    When it was time to bring and offering to this natural table they would bring natural animals; just fleshy natural cows and sheep and oxen and yet the animal they brought revealed their dishonor for the Lord

2.      I bet they thought it’s just a table, it’s just bread, it’s just an animal and I mean how much does that really mean in the big picture; after all we are giving something and the Lord doesn’t care about these natural things, he looks at our heart

a.    Yes the Lord does look at the heart, but the way you handle natural things reveals your heart

C.    Matthew 22:4-They made light of this dinner and treated it with carless neglect and by treating this dinner with dishonor and disesteem they treated the Lord that way

1.      This dinner is natural there was natural food, natural music, natural dancing, it was in a natural building and yet how they handled and treated this natural things that will all be ash someday revealed their lack of honor for the Lord

2.      It meant something to the Lord and was very important to the Lord – IT’S A DINNER

3.      I bet they thought it’s just a dinner, I mean how much does it really mean in the big picture; after all we have lives and the Lord understands and the Lord loves us and the Lord knows our heart  

D.    1 Samuel 24:10-By treating God’s choice with honor and respect, David treated God that way

1.      Dishonor would say oh it doesn’t matter, he’s jut a man and after all he’s going nuts and doing the wrong stuff

2.      David said about Saul, “He is the Lord’s anointed,” and David wouldn’t touch him

3.      This right here showed that David was a man of honor, a man after God’s own heart, and this had so much to do with why David was picked to be the next king and why God used him the way he did

E.     1 Kings 17:10-11- How you treat the one the Lord sends is how you treat the Lord

1.      Does how she treat this flesh and blood, imperfect, natural, living, breathing, talking immortal man matter to the Lord? Is he just flesh or is he something else? This is so much bigger than just flesh

2.      Luke 10:16-“I mean their just a man, their just a woman like I am and their just flesh and I know I might not treat them with the greatest respect, but I respect the Lord.” – The Lord himself says you don’t

3.      Numbers 14:2,27-They were murmuring against Moses but God counted it as murmuring against Him

F.     Luke 16:10-Money is natural and you can’t take any to heaven with you and yet the Lord says if you are not faithful in this NATURAL thing called money then I can’t trust you with true riches

1.      So apparently how you handle your NATURAL money God is watching and he’s interested in and it’s playing a huge part in whether or not He gives unto you true riches

2.      Does it matter or is it just money?

III.   So many times when it comes to thing in this natural life there’s something bigger going on that we don’t see

A.    It’s a strategy of the enemy to make everything natural and about flesh in attempt to demean the importance of something that you should be really important to you

1.      The enemy will belittle and disesteem something that you should be honoring and esteeming

2.      The enemy wants you to think that nothing really matters and he doesn’t want you to see the true importance of these things

3.      In your mind the enemy wants to turn it into something natural/flesh and demean the importance of it so that you get to the place where you’re not treating it with any respect and you think it’s okay because you think it’s not that big of deal

4.      The more carnal you are the less real spiritual things are to you and the tendency is to look at everything only from a natural, fleshy, carnal perspective and carnality says these are just things and because they are just things it doesn’t matter all that much

5.      Mark 6-He did this with Jesus in his hometown; He was just the carpenter, Mary’s boy and to them it was all natural all flesh

B.     Colossians 3:23-25-Don’t make everything about natural and about flesh because a lot of this stuff is much bigger than that

1.      The Lord is gazing into your heart and even though these things are natural they’re bigger than that because they reveal your heart