Love and Honor One Another

Sunday, October 12, 2025
Pastor Jojo Ma

Sermon Video

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

The New Testament was not written to you but it was written for you.

Rom 1:7 To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul’s command to the Roman Christians to show love and honor toward one another is a good example for us here at CrossLife to show love and honor toward one another.

I. What does it mean to love and honor one another?
II. Why is it important that we love and honor one another?
III. How should we show love and honor for one another?

I. What does it mean to love and honor one another?
Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Love one another, be devoted to other Christians, be committed to your local church especially, and do it in a way that shows you want to share life with them and grow together in Christ with them.

Paul is taking this family devotion and love to another level now. He is saying that, as Christians, we have an even stronger family bond, it’s a spiritual reality, an eternal union with God in Christ and our adoption into His family.

Repent and believe the gospel. You are called to die to self. You are commanded to love God and love others by the strength that God supplies. And that strength comes from the good news that Christ has died and rose again and now reigns on high.

To honor someone means treating them better than they deserve.

1 Tim 6:1 Let all who are under a yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor.

1 Cor 12:23 On those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor.

To outdo one another in showing honor means that each Christian in this building should prefer to honor rather than be honored.

Do you love to give others credit more than yourself?

Do you enjoy putting others first?

Do you rejoice with others when they succeed, even when your life is hard?

Do you exert energy to listen to, care for, and comfort others?

Or are you constantly devoting energy to self-care, self-honor, and self-recognition?

How can I be a more honoring member of this church? How can I outdo others here in showing honor?

II. Why is it important that we love and honor one another?
Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

You are not a Christian just because you say or think you are. You must be born again, and the born again love one another.

In the New Jerusalem, there won’t be any bitterness or resentment or envy, none at all. And the gospel demands that we live right now in the light of the eternal state.

Dying to self and preferring to exalt others and not yourself is gospel-fruit and gospel-evidence. It shows the truth of the gospel bearing fruit in your life.

CrossLife, do you understand the great love of God for you and the enormity of God’s mercy toward you and the immeasurable honor bestowed on you – treating you well even when you don’t deserve it?

It is vital that Christians show love and honor toward one another because it makes the church attractive and compelling to a watching world.

III. How should we show love and honor for one another?
Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Let me start with this: Repent and believe the gospel afresh.

Remember that each Christian is God’s child.

Too often we focus on the works of the flesh or the bad things we see in others. How about focusing on the evidences of grace and the good we see, the fruit that is growing?

Let the gospel be the lens by which you see others here and treat others here. And let the love and honor flow from this fountain filled with blood.

The best answer to the question of how you can become a more loving and honoring person is to really, deeply, truthfully, and personally know and feel the massive mercy of God toward you in Christ. There is no other way.

Rom 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.