Honoring Father and Mother

If you were to go into a Christian bookstore or a secular bookstore today, you would see hundreds of books dealing with the family. A lot of ink has been spilled on the subject of how to get along as families. But no words ever written about the family are more important than the 22 words that make up the fifth commandment.

Exodus 20:12 Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Remember that the Ten Commandments fall into two sections. The first four commandments deal with our relationship with God. The rest of them deal with our relationship with people. The fifth commandment is the first one that deals with our interpersonal relationships.

We’ve also learned that each one of the Ten Commandments tells us something about the character of God.

C1 - God is the king over all the universe - “you shall have no other gods before me.” The king deserves our exclusive loyalty.

C2 - God is a loving God. He loves us so much that he doesn’t want to see us squandering our affections on false gods - “you shall not make for yourself an idol… you shall not bow down to them or worship them.”

C3 - God is a righteous God. He is worthy of praise; his name and his reputation are excellent. He doesn’t want us to live our lives in such a way as to bring dishonor to His name - “you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.”

C4 - God is a God of order; he taught us to order our lives so that one day in every seven would be devoted to Him - “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”.

C5 - God is a God of authority. God wants things to be done decently and in order, and because he does, he has established certain lines of authority in the universe. Authority is an integral part of organization.

Whether it’s a football team, or an army, or a Fortune 500 company, or a church, or a family, wherever you have organization, you also have authority.

You may be saying “Right. You have to have authority, because there’s sin in the universe. God gave us lines of authority to keep us from going astray, because we’re sinners. In fact, sin made authority necessary.”

Wrong! Authority existed long before there ever was sin in the universe. How do we know? The Bible tells us that there is authority in heaven, where there is no sin. There is authority among the angels. Some of the angels are in charge of other angels. Michael is an arch-angel.

In the book of Revelation, we read that there are twenty-four elders and living creatures who bow down before God’s throne. In the millennium, the twelve apostles are going to sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Paul tells us in 1 Cor.6:3 that we will judge angels. You can have authority even where there is no sin.

Did you know that there are lines of authority in the godhead, among the three persons of the Trinity? Jesus, the Son of God, submitted himself to the authority of God the Father. When he was here on earth, he said that he came, not to do his own will, but to do the will of his father in heaven. When he agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said “Not my will but thine be done.” He willingly submitted himself to the authority of God the Father.

And the Holy Spirit submits to the authority of God the Father and of Jesus Christ. Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears… He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” The Holy Spirit willingly submits himself to the will of the Son and the Father.

God is a God of authority, and that authority existed long before there was sin. Authority is part of the basic make-up of the universe. God designed it in. it’s part of the nature of things, because it’s part of God’s character. All the authority in the universe comes from God.

Now when God created man, he lent him some of that authority. Remember, he gave him authority over creation; over the animals and the plants and the environment. And then God created a helper for man; he created woman. He created marriage. And in that relationship, God put lines of authority also.

In spite of what the feminists say, there are God-given lines of authority in the husband-wife relationship. The husband is the head of the wife and the wife is to willingly submit to the husband’s authority over her. God designed marriage to work that way. If you don’t like that fact, then you’d better take your complaint to God because it was His idea, not mine.

God also designed lines of authority in the relationship between children and parents. That’s what the fifth commandment is all about. God wants children to honor their parents. God wants children to recognize the authority that God has given their parents over them. God wants children to learn to submit to that authority.

The word “honor” in Hebrew literally means “heavy”.

A few years back, there was a popular expression among young people. Teenagers used to talk about things being “heavy”, and what they meant was “serious”. If something was “heavy”, it was something to be reckoned with, it was something significant, not something to be taken lightly.

That’s the idea here in the fifth commandment. You need to regard your parents as being heavy. Not heavy physically, but heavy with dignity, heavy with respect, heavy with significance. And that heaviness comes not from what they do, but because of who they are. They are your parents. They deserve that honor. And God expects us to give our parents that honor.

There’s a lot riding on it. The fifth commandment is the first commandment with a promise. The promise to Israel was that they would live long in the land the Lord was giving them if they obeyed this commandment. In effect, God was saying: “I will bless you if you obey this command.”

And the same is true today. God hasn’t changed. God will bless you if you obey this command to honor your parents.

Now a lot of you are sitting there saying, “Boy, I sure hope my kids are listening to this. After all, this is a commandment for kids, isn’t it? I mean, now that I’m an adult, this commandment no longer applies to me.” Oh? It doesn’t?

I’ve got news for you: Commandment #5 doesn’t have an expiration date. I don’t see anywhere in there any mention of age, do you?

The truth is that the commandment to honor your father and mother is a commandment for all of us, whether we are young or old.

Now when a child is a young child, when he is still dependent upon his parents, and he is not yet ready to make his own decisions, honoring parents involves obeying them.

Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Colossians 3:20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

The word that is used those verses is the word for young children; children who are still living at home, children who are dependent upon their parents.

But there comes a time when you leave home and you become independent and you begin to make decisions for yourself. At that point, you are no longer obligated to obey your parents. But God still expects you to honor them, even when you’re an adult.

You hear so many heart-breaking stories today of adult children who dishonor their parents in the way they treat them. I read of a family who drove up to the door of a nursing home and simply dropped their elderly mother off in the driveway, leaving her sitting there in her wheelchair. They drove away, never to see her again. They call it granny-dumping.

America is full of elderly parents who have been abandoned by their grown-up children - abandoned emotionally, abandoned physically, and abandoned financially. The children are so preoccupied with themselves that they have foisted their parents off on the government, or the welfare agencies, or the church to look after them.

A lot of grown up kids say “Yeah, but you don’t know my parents. They gave me a rough time. They mistreated me. They made my life miserable.” But the Bible doesn’t say “Honor your father and mother if they are good parents.” It says “Honor them… period.” Honor them because they are your parents. Honor them because God gave them to you. Honor them because they’ve done a lot for you, even if they weren’t always perfect.

They gave you life. Your mother carried you around inside her body for nine months. She went through a lot of pain and discomfort for you. And then when you were born, your parents fed you, they burped you, they comforted you when you cried. They changed a thousand dirty diapers for you. You would have a whale of a diaper rash today if they hadn’t done that.

They put clothes on your back. They put food in your mouth. They sent you to school. They may have paid your way through college. They did a lot for you. You owe it to them, and you owe it to God, to honor them.

How do you honor your parents as an adult?

1. Keep in touch. Pick up the phone. Write that letter. Remember their birthdays and anniversaries.

My mother lives in Montreal. Every time I phone her, I can hear in her voice how much she enjoys getting a call from me. She loves to hear how we’re doing, and how the kids are doing. She’s coming to visit us next week, so you’ll all get to meet her. She’s a special lady.

And Carolyn’s folks are here today. They’re actually here to make sure that I preach this sermon right! Because we’re both ministry families, we can’t get together as much as we like. Our weekends are usually tied up! But the times that we do get together are rich times of fellowship.

2. Tell your parents that you love them. Nothing means so much to a parent than to hear an adult child say “I love you, Mom” or “I love you, Dad. I appreciate all you’ve done for me.”

Mickey Mantle was a great ballplayer for the New York Yankees. He grew up in Oklahoma, and he was very close to his Dad. His father worked in the mines. Every day at suppertime, his Dad would come walking down the dusty road, tired and dirty from a day underground. Mickey would come running to meet him carrying a couple of old baseball mitts. The two of them would play baseball till sundown.

Pretty soon, Mickey got into little league baseball and Mickey’s Dad, on his day off would faithfully go to see Mickey play. The years went by and Mickey came up to the big leagues as a rookie for the New York Yankees. But during that rookie season, tragedy struck. His father, whom he adored, died of Hodgkins disease at the age of 44. Mickey was stunned by the loss of the man who had meant so much to him.

At the funeral, Mickey and his mother stood beside that open grave. Eventually Mickey’s mother turned to go back to the car, but Mickey stayed there for a few more minutes. He was thinking about the fact that although he loved his Dad so much, he had never told him so. And now his Dad was dead, and he’d never get another chance.

You can’t say “I love you” to a corpse. Tell your parents you love them.

3. Make sure the grandchildren get to be with them. That’s not always easy when you live far away from your parents. So many families hurt themselves and their children by never allowing a relationship to develop between the grandparents and the grandchildren.

My kids love to be with their grandparents. In fact, they would like to go and live with them! They have told us that several times.

4. Care for their earthly needs when they lose the ability to do it themselves. Irma Bombeck tells the story of her changing relationship with her aging mother. She makes the observation that so often, with the onset of old age, there is a role reversal: the child becomes the parent, and the parent becomes the child.

In Mark 7, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for failing to honor their parents by providing for their needs. They evaded their responsibility to care for their parents, and they did so in the name of religion.

In those days, the Pharisees had a nice little religious game going called Corban. Here’s how it worked: A devout Jew could go to the Temple and make an arrangement with the priests. By signing a paper, he could turn all his possessions over to the Temple - they were Corban - which means, “devoted to God”. But then the priests would give him permission to go ahead and use whatever he needed for his own personal needs, and then they’d settle up with him when he died.

So you see what this did? Whenever anybody came up to you and asked if they could borrow something, or use something, you could say “Oh no. That’s Corban - that’s devoted to God. I can’t let you have that.” If your parents were elderly and had needs, you could say “Gee, Mom and Dad, I’d really like to help, but you know, I don’t really have anything - it all belongs to God now. You’ll have to go ask him for it.”

Jesus said to them: “you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.”

If you are neglecting to provide for an elderly parent who needs your help, even if it is so you can give more money to the church, then you are disobeying God.

1 Timothy 5:4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.

1 Timothy 5:8 If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Don’t you come in here and put money into the offering plate if that money should be going to take care of your parents. They are your primary responsibility before God. And if you honor God in that way, you will find that He will honor you, and then you will have enough money to give to the work of the church.

You get the idea that God cares very deeply about how we treat our parents, even as adults. But what about the way we, as parents, treat our children?

God designed the family to serve as a spiritual boot camp. The relationship between children and parents, is God’s way of teaching us how to respond to authority. If we’re ever going to have a relationship with God, we’re going to have to know how to respond to authority, because God is the ultimate authority in the universe.

A child learns how to respond to God by learning how to respond to his parents.

So that makes my role as a parent absolutely crucial. As a parent, it is my role to teach my children how to respond to my authority so that when they grow up, they will know how to respond to God’s authority. My assignment is to teach my children to honor me, and become responsive to my authority, so that one day they will know how to honor God, and be responsive to His authority.

Now there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about doing that. And we’re going to talk about that next week. But let me just tell you that in order to teach your children how to honor you, you have to be a certain kind of person. Respect cannot be demanded; it has to be earned.

G. Campbell Morgan said “Honorable parents are easier to honor.” Dad and Mom, if you’re going to be an honorable parent, you’re going to have to be an honorable person. An honorable person is not a perfect person. An honorable person is a person who knows what to do with his imperfections.

There are no perfect parents. In the heat of the moment, in the pressure of raising a family, you often say and do the wrong things. What do you do then? How do you handle those mistakes you make? Do you gloss over them, and say “Well, I had a right to be angry, I had a right to lose my temper.”

Or do you humble yourself, and confess your sin to God and acknowledge your mistakes to your children? Do your kids ever hear you say “Hey. I’m sorry. I blew it. Please forgive me?”

God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. If you humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, he will lift you up. That’s how you get to be an honorable person and an honorable parent. Your children see you bowing before the authority of God in your life. And that will make a deep impression on them.

They will honor you for it. And when they honor you, God will bless them.