Honor Your Father And Mother Series

“There is not assignment on earth that requires the array of skills and understanding needed by a mom in fulfilling her everyday duties. She must be a resident psychologist, physician, theologian, educator, nurse, chef, taxi driver, fire marshal, and occasional police officer” (James Dobson)

My aim this morning is to honor mothers in a way that will also shine the spotlight of today’s service on Jesus Christ. For it was Christ Himself who designed motherhood and blessed it.

Today’s Scripture

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12)

If America were to collapse tomorrow and you were given the assignment to come up with our new nation’s governing law and you were restricted to just ten statements… I wonder what your list would include? With the diversity of people and moral conundrums that face us, what would your list include? Would you set aside one law either for or against human cloning? Or perhaps embryonic stem cell research? If you were especially patriotic, would you make a statement on burning the flag? No doubt our ecological-minded friends, would ensure that at least one commandment had to do with being green. Nevertheless, I wonder in this day of religious pluralism and diversity if you would include a definitive statement on worshiping the Lord Your God alone? Or, would you command the citizens of this new nation to refrain from taking the name of the Lord in vain? I wonder if you would include a day set aside for worship? I wonder if would place a statement in your Ten that commanded children to respect the authority of their parents Whether you would include such a commandment, God did.

Just a quick note before we launch ourselves into a study of this commandment. This is not a commandment for children’s church. It’s not as if we have nine grown-up commandments –dealing with the things like adultery and murder – and He threw one in for the kids. This commandment is for all of us, adults and children.

1. Hate Your Family

Yes, you heard me correctly. I say this first because Jesus said it. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27).

As if to ensure that Jesus wasn’t misquoted, He says it again: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:34-39).

Jesus endorsed the command to honor your father and mother as anyone. So these words in Luke are startling.

Today’s commandment is a transitional commandment in the list of the Ten. The first four are about God. The remaining six focus on man’s relationship with one another. So the fifth commandment is viewed as a bridge between the two. Jesus would aptly summarize the commandments just this way: “And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets’” (Matthew 22:37-40).

Allow me to read the first four in order for you to catch the tenor of Moses’ words:

“And God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain’” (Exodus 20:1-7).