Honor Your Parents Series

1. Exodus 20:12 12 “Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

a. One of the few commands to give a reason to obey

b. Another is Deuteronomy 22:6-7 (“least commandment”)

6 “If you happen to find a bird’s nest in a tree or on the ground, and there are young ones or eggs in it with the mother sitting in the nest, do not take the mother with the young. 7 You may take the young, but let the mother go, so that you may prosper and enjoy a long life.

c. Is this about reward or is there more?

d. Fact: If we build a society where children honor their parents that society will survive a long time. The corollary is that if children do not honor parents the society will fail.

e. Question: How much honor is being given to parents and the older today?

2. In the OT there is a command to honor parents – but not a king!

3. The best way to get children to honor parents is for parent to honor God Deuteronomy 12:28 28 Be careful to obey all my commands, so that all will go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and pleasing to the LORD your God.

a. Whole-hearted honor

b. Not just going through the motions or just attending church (better than nothing but far from the intention)

I. Why Do Parents NOT Receive Honor from Their Children?

A. Failure of Parents to Know God

1. Know about vs. Know

2. 1 Corinthians 11:1

B. Failure of Parents to Teach God’s Ways – Proverbs 22:6

1. The way he should go

2. The way you should have gone

C. Failure of Parents to Live for God

1. Ungodliness

2. Uncommitted

3. Self-serving

4. High Control

II. Why is Honoring Parents so Important? Why won’t Society Survive without it?

A. Children NEED to Honor Parents

1. Society without Fathers – unbalanced; [What’s happening in USA?

2. Boys w/o dads will most likely grow up to violent crimes; abuse women; etc.

3. Girls w/o dads will seek out the wrong men and act promiscuously

B. Helps Us Receive Moral Authority from Above

1. God deserves honor

2. Hard to honor God if don’t honor parents – they are a step closer to God

C. Antidote to Totalitarian Government

1. Totalitarian Government breaks the parent-child bond and allegiance shifts to the State [“It takes a village to raise a child.” – Village is code for government;

2. The larger the government gets, the more it usurps parental control – mandatory masks; vaccinations

D. Parents Receive Special Treatment in Honoring Them

1. Don’t speak to parents the same way as others – first names;

2. Maintaining contact when leave home = honor; no contact = dishonor; funerals

1. Jacob and Wilhelm – the Brothers Grimm. Were some of the most famous story tellers from the 19th century. They were scholars. They studied law and wrote books about the German language. But we know them best for their stories: Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Many of those stories are famous. Disney has done movies based on some of them. One short story that’s not so well-known is called The Old Grandfather and His Grandson. The story goes like this:

There was once a very old man, whose eyes had become dim, his ears dull of hearing, his knees trembled, and when he sat at table he could hardly hold the spoon, and spilt the broth upon the table-cloth or let it run out of his mouth. His son and his son's wife were disgusted at this, so the old grandfather at last had to sit in the corner behind the stove, and they gave him his food in an earthenware bowl, and not even enough of it. And he used to look towards the table with his eyes full of tears. Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it fell to the ground and broke. The young wife scolded him, but he said nothing and only sighed. Then they bought him a wooden trough for a few half-pence, out of which he had to eat.

They were once sitting thus when the little grandson of four years old began to gather together some bits of wood upon the ground. “What are you doing there?” asked the father.

“I am making a little trough,” answered the child, “for my father and mother to eat out of when I am big.”

2. Honor begins with us – honor God; honor parents; receive honor

3. Romans 13:7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.