The Heart of Honor

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Every week I tell you, you have to keep listening to More Faith, More Life, but this time I really, really mean it because I’m going to tell you a secret translation that everybody should know, but nobody does know. And it’s life changing.

0:00:14 – (Steve Gray): You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray and this is the More Faith, More Life Podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, non-profit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.

0:00:39 – (Steve Gray): When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more. More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the word of God and, and searching for the biblical principles that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode, you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.

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0:01:25 – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone, and welcome to another More Faith More Life podcast. You do not want to miss this one. I like to bring you these things about parables and teachings of Jesus, which we did last week. We’re going to be doing them in the weeks to come. But what I’m bringing you is things that you have never, probably most likely never heard before, never been taught before, even though you’ve been taught the parables.

0:01:47 – (Steve Gray): You think you know the parables, but I’m going to, I’m going to bring you the truth of these through history, through, in chronological, not chronological order, but theology, theology, history. And put this all together with. What did 1st century Jewish people think when they heard some of these stories and parables? So today we’re going to hit a really, really good one that I would say 99% of everybody I’ve ever met that ever went to church has no idea about this.

0:02:18 – (Kathy Gray): Well, you know, Steve, before we started today, we were discussing this and I realized I’m not sure I’ve ever really caught the depth of this and, you know, the meaning of it. So I’m glad we’re doing this.

0:02:30 – (Steve Gray): It is really deep and life changing.

0:02:31 – (Kathy Gray): It is.

0:02:32 – (Steve Gray): And it’s in one of my books. I don’t know which book I put it in, whether the when the Kingdom Comes. Maybe I wrote it because nobody knew about it. And when I go and teach it, even in when I tried to express it and in seminary classes like that, they just. Okay, so let’s get what it is. All right, so what am I talking about?

0:02:50 – (Kathy Gray): Okay, well, this is in the context of Jesus and the Lord’s Prayer. And then it flows on into the part where I need explanation on. But it’s in Matthew 11, and Jesus talks about and says, when you pray, say, father, hallowed be your name, and goes through the Lord’s Prayer. Then after that, he said, suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, friend, lend me three loaves of bread.

0:03:18 – (Kathy Gray): A friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him. And then suppose the one inside answers don’t bother me. What is this?

0:03:31 – (Steve Gray): Yes, because obviously this is in the context of prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and the way Luke framed it up, he said, and lead us not into temptation. Then he says, then Jesus said after that, suppose one of you has a friend that comes and needs bread and you don’t have any. What do you do? Okay, back up. Now, we live in their culture. That was the honorable thing to do. It was a disgrace to have somebody come to town, have no bread. They come to you, you have no bread.

0:04:01 – (Steve Gray): So this is a disgrace. This is a panic moment. To us. We’d say, get lost. But this is the Jewish culture. So now it’s the panic moment. So what do I do? I’ve got to go to my. friend. So I go to my friend and say, friend, give me some bread. I have a friend and I have nothing to give them. Okay, so is this in context of prayer? Because, see, it’s the Lord’s Prayer was first. Now he goes, and now you have a need.

0:04:26 – (Steve Gray): You need bread. So you’re going to go to your friend and ask for bread. And. And so in the context of prayer, he goes and asking for bread. And he just got to know in context of prayer, then that would be God, who has all the bread. And this. I have no bread. But God has all the bread. Now I’m going to go ask God, my friend Jesus, if we want to say it for bread. And the answer is no. All right, so there you go. That stops right there. Except it goes on.

0:04:57 – (Steve Gray): And what is the. This is new international version. Let’s see how close they got to.

0:05:01 – (Kathy Gray): The truth says, don’t bother me. The door’s already locked and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.

0:05:10 – (Steve Gray): Okay?

0:05:11 – (Kathy Gray): And so then he says, Verse 8. Yeah, I tell you, Jesus said, I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship.

0:05:21 – (Steve Gray): Okay, stop right there. He said, Jesus said he will not get up. I mean, if we’re going to make God and Jesus and the kingdom of God the bread giver, right? Because we just read a minute ago, give us this day our daily bread. Bread came from God. So if we’re going to make God this God just said in that, no, I’m not going to do it in this circumstance. And we don’t know why. And so they got a no. And then he says, and he’s not going to give it to him because he’s a friend.

0:05:56 – (Steve Gray): And so we say to you, okay, Kathy, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus? You do? Oh, Jesus is your friend. What a friend we have in Jesus. But that doesn’t get me any bread. I still don’t get any bread. Cause he doesn’t get up because of my friendship. I need a friendship. And what a friend we have in Jesus. But that is not the supply of bread. What’s next?

0:06:20 – (Kathy Gray): Okay, I tell you, even though I’ll not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity, he’ll surely get up and give you as much as you need. And that’s the NIV stating it like that. Shameless.

0:06:37 – (Steve Gray): Remember, King James even made it harder, used the word importunity, which I’ve never used in a sentence in my whole life. So I read it because of his importunity. Well, I wonder if I have any of that. Yeah, okay, so now they have to translate it from the original Greek. And they translated it in this one is shameless. What shame?

0:07:00 – (Kathy Gray): Shameless audacity.

0:07:02 – (Steve Gray): Is there any references later in that?

0:07:04 – (Kathy Gray): Well, you know what it says, and this is not right either.

0:07:07 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, I know.

0:07:08 – (Kathy Gray): I’m sure.

0:07:08 – (Steve Gray): That’s why I want you to say it.

0:07:09 – (Kathy Gray): Or yet to preserve his good name.

0:07:14 – (Steve Gray): I get it. Okay, Well, I get what. If you listen, though, I get what they’re trying to say, okay? It’s right in some ways. It’s just nobody’s going to understand they’re going to make that personally for him. Okay, let’s back up now to culture. You’d knock it. Nobody understands this. Everybody gets it wrong.

0:07:30 – (Kathy Gray): So if you interpret it the other Way it sounds like the homeowner, the guy inside with the bread to preserve his good name. But then the first translation is because of you guy knocking on the door to save his. Yeah, to save your shameless audacity. Or is it to preserve the name?

0:07:52 – (Steve Gray): Right. All right, the guy was Guy. Let me get it off, okay? Because people don’t know the culture. It’s been translated wrong for hundreds of years. So what we walk away with, and it’s almost preached 100% like this. So what the guy did is the guy got a no, I’m not going to get up and give you any bread. But because he kept pounding on the door, importunity means keep it up, right? His importunity, or in this case, he didn’t care what anybody thought, which is totally opposite of what the reference at the bottom said in order to save his reputation.

0:08:23 – (Steve Gray): But he didn’t. So I. He didn’t care what anybody thought. He just kept pounding and asking and asking and he’s not going to give up. And so finally then, because of his shameless audacity, pounding, the man gets up and gives him as much as he wants. That’s what’s preached, right? That’s not true.

0:08:45 – (Kathy Gray): Okay, help me.

0:08:46 – (Steve Gray): That’s not what happened.

0:08:47 – (Kathy Gray): Help me understand this.

0:08:48 – (Steve Gray): Okay, so let’s go back to the culture. The culture is if you don’t. If a man comes to town, a traveler, and he’s Jewish, he has to be Jewish in this case. And he comes to the community, and they’re a tight knit community because remember, the guy’s going to go get bread from his friend. Well, it’s like he lives next door or something, right nearby. Not going to go on a journey to go get bread. So this guy’s an outsider out of town or out maybe just from a camp nearby. But anyway, he doesn’t have any bread.

0:09:15 – (Steve Gray): And it’s at midnight, he’s hungry. Midnight. He just arrived and we got to take care of him. That’s the first culture we have to take care of. Jewish visitors coming. We take care of each other. So that’s why this guy, it’s important enough for him. It’s midnight for him too. It’s not just midnight for the other guy, it’s midnight for the guy who has no bread. But he goes ahead and gets up, he’s not saying, no, get away. It’s midnight, okay?

0:09:41 – (Steve Gray): So he gets up and does it. And there’s a reason, there’s a motivation here, okay? So then he goes to his friend and says, give me bread. And the first answer is no. So we have to understand what’s going to turn this. That he gets a yes. Well, we think it’s, like I said, just shamelessly pounding and embarrassing himself, almost right. With audacity that he would keep up pounding at midnight and keeping that guy up. So the guy finally gets up and get. All right, here’s some bread.

0:10:09 – (Steve Gray): Not what happened at all. Okay, so we’re. It’s what it is. It’s a culture thing. Now, when we started the Lord’s Prayer. What’s the first line? Our Father in heavenly, Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, to be honored, to be praised, to be honored. Okay, so we’re. We just entered into a different culture. We’ve entered into a honor culture where we honor God and we remove shame. Okay? Now, the reason our prayers are so important, our praise is so important, is we have to go back to understand this culture.

0:10:45 – (Steve Gray): We have to go back to the roots of God, who Lucifer was in heaven. He was the third archangel, over a third of the angels. And he rebels. He gets prideful. He wants to be either, like, sit on God’s throne or the throne that belonged to Jesus. Later, we don’t know. But he said, I’ll raise up. I’ll be the high one. I’m going to sit on the throne. And because of his pride and his ego, he led a rebellion. God kicked him out, but he did not leave without rebellion, leading a rebellion.

0:11:17 – (Steve Gray): He was rebellious, but he led a rebellion. And one third, we don’t know how many that is. That’s a lot of the angels believed him and went with him. Now, in heaven, there’s two thirds, but one third’s gone. One third of the choir, the one third of the choir, one third of the praise. One third of the honor is gone. Okay, it’s gone. Do you think that’s noticeable? Everybody says it doesn’t matter. We got two thirds left. God, get over it. Come on, God, just get over it. Doesn’t matter.

0:11:47 – (Steve Gray): No, it was a big, big, blunt blow to the kingdom of God that a rebellion could happen in heaven. Seeing and all that he saw and all that the angels were and were instructed and they would be willing to leave heaven and follow Lucifer and go to the earth. Now Lucifer is no longer called Lucifer. Now he’s Satan, the devil. All right, the opposer of God. But where is he? He’s on the Earth. Where are we?

0:12:18 – (Steve Gray): We’re on the Earth. Why did God put us here on the Earth? Big mistake. Why risk me? Why not just, you know, I Asked somebody once and said, you know, what is this all about? Well, God, you know, God just wanted to populate heaven. God is lonely in heaven. So the point is you live here and you die and you go to heaven and then, and I go like, okay, but what do I do while I’m here? And we don’t realize why? Well, why don’t just put me in heaven with one of those six eyed creatures or something, you know, give me six eyes and put me in heaven. I don’t want to even risk going to hell.

0:12:53 – (Steve Gray): Because if you’re here, there’s a risk you could go to hell, right? Yeah, I don’t want to go. I don’t want that risk. Just give me some wings and let me live in heaven. Right? But instead he purposely placed humanity, the humans made in his image right here in the devil’s territory on purpose to do something because he wanted to create here on earth. What was the insult up there? The honor that was lost, I’m going to restore. I’m going to create an honorable culture here, right in the face of the devil.

0:13:28 – (Steve Gray): Well, it didn’t work. Adam and Eve sinned and fell too. But now through Jesus, Jesus was honorable and he did the honorable thing. He always did what was right and he didn’t do his will. And so now we have an honor culture. And so the Jews, way back, even before that were, were raised in an honor and shame culture. So we want to honor God and when we do that, we remove the shame of what happened in heaven and all the other shame that happens around us because of fallen mankind. We’re going to be the people of God and we’re going to honor him and restore God’s honor. Cause that’s what God’s people do.

0:14:07 – (Steve Gray): And that’s the special covenant we have with him. He loves us, he takes care of us, and we’re going to restore his honor and give him honor. Okay, all right, so now we’re back to this guy in the bread thing. Well, it got down into their culture that that’s the way they’re going to live now. So the guy that got up out of bed or the guy that got pounded on the first time and said, give me bread, and he said, I don’t have any bread, but I will go, I’ll leave my house and go to another guy’s house and I’ll get you some bread.

0:14:39 – (Steve Gray): Well, he did that because it would have brought shame on his house and it would have brought shame on the community too. Right in there. Because they didn’t do what the honorable Society teaches you to do. Everybody knows this in their culture. Everybody knows it. And if you don’t do it, then it’s a shame, you know, and that guy will leave without bread, and he’ll say, don’t go into that town or that guy in that house.

0:15:03 – (Steve Gray): You know, he’s a jerk or whatever. Okay, so now, now we want to keep this in the context of prayer, though, right? Because it is in the context of prayer. So if we put it in the context of prayer, you want something, you need bread or whatever, give us the daily bread. But anyway, you go to the guy who has. And that’s God. God’s the has guy. He has it, right? Whatever you need, you’re going to go to him.

0:15:24 – (Steve Gray): And it’s an odd hour only means. It’s only showing you how people think. So the odd hour, midnight, doesn’t matter as much, except that’s what people would normally do. Normally they’d say, forget it, it’s midnight. I’m already in bed. Go away. All right? And that’s what he did. So he did a little bit of that shame on it thing that he could have. And then. And so the translation then. But because of his shameless audacity or embarrassing himself, he kept pounding and pounding till a guy finally gets out of bed. That’s not what it says.

0:15:54 – (Steve Gray): The exact way back, way back translation, the real thing, it says this. He says, no, I’m already in bed. Go away. Right. But it doesn’t. Look at this again. Does it say, the guy pounded and he, you know, knocked on the door. He asked him for bread.

0:16:14 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:16:15 – (Steve Gray): And the answer was what?

0:16:16 – (Kathy Gray): Don’t bother me.

0:16:18 – (Steve Gray): Does the guy say anything after that? Like, oh, come on, man.

0:16:23 – (Kathy Gray): No, it doesn’t say.

0:16:24 – (Steve Gray): All he heard was, what?

0:16:26 – (Kathy Gray): Don’t bother me.

0:16:27 – (Steve Gray): Don’t bother me.

0:16:28 – (Kathy Gray): The door’s locked.

0:16:29 – (Steve Gray): It doesn’t say he shamelessly pounded. He kept yelling. He kept. He. He’s out of the picture. The character now switches to the guy inside who has Brett. He’s the one of action now. Not the guy outside. The guy outside standing, like, I just have to know. Okay, okay. So he says, nope, I’m not going to give you any. It’s midnight, locked up, inconvenient. But wait a minute. The translation says, but in order to prevent shame, he’ll get up and get him as much as he wants. Give him as much as he wants.

0:17:05 – (Steve Gray): The action switched to the guy inside. The guy outside does nothing. But the preaching has been, what? And the translation sounds like, yes, it sounds like the guy outside Just kept at it. Kept at it. And we hear nothing from the guy inside. He just finally got up and said, oh, let’s go give the slob some bread. You know, the guy keeps bugging me. He keeps bugging me. So we’re going to just bug God and we don’t understand. You don’t have to bug God, all right? That’s not what it’s. Yes, he got a no, but God’s trying to. God’s trying to teach, or Jesus trying to teach us.

0:17:37 – (Steve Gray): You got to turn this around and get the system working. And it’s a system of honor, restoring honor. So if this guy doesn’t give him any bread, he’s thinking like, ha, ha, it’s midnight, I’m in my bed. Go away. You know, it’s too late. And then he. He rethinks it. Not the guy outside, he rethinks it and thinks, you know what, though? I don’t want shame to come. So in order to. To get rid of the shame, in order to not be any shame, I’m going to get up because I don’t want to bring shame on the community.

0:18:16 – (Steve Gray): Now, in that respect, that way of thinking turns into human thinking again. I mean, God’s got all the bread, but it turns into a human. The human character’s in bed. Well, God’s not in bed, right? So it’s a human character, but it represents God because he’s got the bread. So how do I get the bread? Well, now we put it back to tell us how are we praying? How do we pray? How do we express ourselves?

0:18:40 – (Steve Gray): And so the trigger goes off inside of us, right? Okay, I need bread. It seems like God is saying no to me. Well, how am I going to get him to get up and give me bread in order to remove shame? Get up. Work on removing the shame. Honor God, hallowed be thy name. He’s got the bread. Give me this daily bread. But it starts off with, thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. All these great things before we even get to the bread.

0:19:12 – (Steve Gray): In that prayer, shame is removed. Honored. To be praised. To be honored and praised is your name. Oh, God, your kingdom, let it come. Not my kingdom, not my will. Your kingdom come, your will be done. By the way, I have a friend. I have a friend who needs bread. I need bread. My kids need bread. Whatever. I need something. I need something. And because I have removed shame, he will get up and give me as much as I need. It was the removal of the shame.

0:19:45 – (Steve Gray): So you have to go back to the original transaction in order to prevent Shame. And of course, it would have been shame on the guy, the first guy. It’s shame on the guy who has bread, which we’re not going to bring. Shame on God. Obviously it represents prayer, but it would have bring. It would have brought in the natural. Now back to the natural. These are all real people in town. There’s a hungry guy, There’s a guy over here that left his house, and there’s a guy that’s got plenty of bread. There’s three characters here.

0:20:13 – (Steve Gray): And so one of them, if he has to walk away without bread, it would bring shame on the community that they did not treat the Jew, the visiting Jew, the way their culture is brought up to do it. And I’m sure it happened. I’m sure people didn’t give. You know, they did say no. But that’s the key to understanding especially difficult prayers that seem difficult. You’re in a difficult situation, don’t know how to pray, don’t know how to approach God. All you know to do is cry and scream.

0:20:39 – (Steve Gray): And so then you went and heard the sermon. Well, the guy on the outside, when he heard, no, he shamelessly. What? He didn’t do a thing. He did nothing. He did nothing else but stand there. And the trigger was that this is an honor society, so learn to honor God. And that’s what triggers the release of God’s generosity. And it wasn’t because of friendship. It was in order to remove shame or to prevent shame on this community that the traveling person, the visitor with no bread, would bring.

0:21:16 – (Steve Gray): He’s going to spread the word, and in order to remove and prevent shame, he’ll get up and give him as much as he needs. Wow, people listening. Today, I try to. To express without sounding arrogant, that I have years of jewels like this that are helping us understand the Bible better and realizing how wrong theologically our preaching has been through the years. And popping out and talking about this bread has nothing to do with the Lord’s Prayer. You know, in context of culture and people and places. Isn’t the Bible so much more interesting now that you know that story and you know that culture, that culture still remains in God’s kingdom? It’s an honor shame culture.

0:22:05 – (Steve Gray): And we approach prayer by need and friendship. But this parable of this story tells us that’s not what gets the bread. We have friendship and we do have needs, but that’s not how to get the bread. Learning how to restore and living an honorable life before the Lord with honorable speech and an honorable relationship, not a friendship. An honorable relationship is more powerful than a friendship. And that’s what that story’s about.

0:22:35 – (Steve Gray): I hope our friends will get this. Tell your friends about it and at least you don’t want to miss out. Next week we’re going to hit another parable and they’re all exciting like this where you will have jewels. And another exciting part about it. If you attend a Bible study, go and tell him, I’m going to talk about the guy at midnight and eating bread and surprise him. Go. Because you’ll be telling them stuff. And by the way, if you go to the, if you need, if you’re a real studier, you can go back to the cut. Cut through the Greek. Greek. Greek. You’ll get past that and it will say the original language was in order to prevent shame on the whole community.

0:23:10 – (Steve Gray): So you’re going to. You got some jewels to take to other people and help other people. So I hope that helps. Go to stevegrayministries.com and tell people about the podcast. You can get the book Mighty Like Gideon and If You Only Knew. And other books like When The Kingdom Comes They are all kinds of jewels in that book, just like this one in Mighty Like Gideon. So don’t miss it. Till next time. Bye bye.