Honouring God and One Another

One of the most remarkable real-life examples of honouring both God and others is the story of Eric Liddell, the Scottish runner whose conviction inspired the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire.  In the 1924 Paris Olympics, Eric Liddell was the clear favourite to win gold in the 100m sprint—his signature event. However, when the official Olympic schedule was published, he discovered that the qualifying heats were scheduled for Sunday.  Liddell held a deeply personal conviction that Sunday was a day set apart for worship, rest, and honouring God. Despite intense pressure from many, Liddell stood firm and, he entered the 400m race—an event far outside his comfort zone and training focus. On the day of that race, someone handed him a piece of paper with a verse from 1 Samuel 2:30 “He who honours Me, I will honour.”  Liddell not only won the gold medal but set a new world record.  He always treated his fellow athletes, officials, and opponents with genuine humility, respect, and kindness, winning the admiration even of those who had previously criticized his decisions. 

Honouring God and one another forms the core of our Christian faith, we have read the commandments today providing us with a moral framework in Exodus 20 and then in Philippians 3 we read of the transformative grace of God in the apostle Pauls life.

The Ten Commandments outline the essential boundaries for honouring God and living in harmony with others. Jesus later summarized these into two commands: loving God and loving our neighbour (Matthew 22:36–40).  The danger is that where once the Ten commandments were widely accepted as a guide on how to live, in our world today exposure to content, especially online, that promotes abuse and hate seems to be shifting our social norms, changing our values and validating our, sometimes flawed, human wisdom in our decisions and actions.  So how might we live in today’s world and take positive action to show honour and respect to God and all who are made in the image of God.   The Ten commandments are like God’s plumbline, like the one the builder uses to check on the accuracy of his building, to give us the guidelines to live lives that honour him and others.  The first four commandments teach us about how to be in our relationship with God, 5-10 teach us about honouring one another. Do read Exodus 20 to see what I mean.

So, what about Philippians 3 and Paul’s words.  He provides personal context on how the Law functions in a relationship with Jesus. Paul had an impeccable religious record (“a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee”), yet he shifts from relying on outward righteousness to pursuing a personal relationship with Christ.  He speaks of counting everything he had, his human credentials and outward rule-keeping, as worthless compared to the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus m Lord.”  He speaks of having Righteousness by Faith, He is clear that true honouring of God comes through faith in Christ.  He was keen to know Christ’s Power and Sufferings, sharing in the power of Christ’s resurrection and participating in sacrificial love for others.  He uses the metaphor of the athlete by talking of Pressing Toward the Goal, Forgetting What Lies Behind.  Honouring one another requires releasing past failures, guilt, and religious self-righteousness to move forward in grace.  Straining Ahead we are called to actively pursue the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, so that he drives how we live day by day.

Honouring God begins with recognizing His authority (the Commandments) and finding ultimate value and righteousness in knowing it is Jesus who works it out in us (Philippians 3). Honouring one another naturally flows out of this: as we experience God’s grace and press toward the goal together, we treat others with the dignity, truthfulness, and love that reflect Christ.

I recently came across something written by Bear Grylls, the adventurer who is often featured on television and seeks to live his life for God. He said:

For most of my life, I tried to control everything. It turns out I control almost nothing.  It is a tiring, anxious way to live. And if I am honest, it never worked half as well as I liked to tell myself it did. What slowly changed everything for me was learning to hand over the reins.  I started to picture it like riding a bike. I could keep doing the pedalling, the hard work, the showing up. But maybe I could give the handlebars over to someone wiser and stronger than me. To a God who could actually see the road ahead, when I could barely see past the next bend.

We could see it as riding a tandem with God on the front pedals.   Where are you and I in our lives gripping the handlebars so tightly that we have forgotten we were never meant to steer alone?  Out of our love for God, taking his commandment to love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love others as ourselves, enables us to live in harmony and peace with those around us.  So let us always remember we don’t need to strive hard on our own, Jesus opened his arms wide on the cross to give us all that we need to live a life that honours God and enables us to honour others.   Let us live in the power of his love. 

The full version of this talk can be found on www.mickleoveranglicans.org.uk click on Service times and then within that page YouTube which gives you the service at St John’s on 4 October 2026.

Blessings, Helen Walley