Honoring Parents Series

AG: A corrupt businessman once told Mark Twain: "Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud at the top."

To that Mark Twain replied: "I have a better idea. You could stay in Boston and KEEP them." (Moody Bible Institute’s Today in the Word, September, 1991, p. 32. - Found at Sermonillustrations.com)

TS: With the start of the fifth commandment, we move from a framework of our relationship to God and start to focus on the relationship we have with ourselves and others.

When Jesus summarized all the law and prophets this way:

Love God

Love Each other

This evening, we move from the commands which spell out loving God to the commands which deal with loving each other.

Verse 12 in particular is dealing with our family relationships.

Specifically the child’s duty to the parents.

“Honor your father and mother.”

This includes respect to their persons (esteeming them inwardly and out, expressed by our conduct toward them),

Obedience to their lawful commands, submission to their instructions (rebukes and corrections),

And trying to be a comfort and help.

RS: The Bible is tells us that we are responsible for giving honor to those God has put over us. Our parents are the 1st of many in a child’s life to whom we owe honor.

What God is saying, is to treat our father and mother like we would treat Him.

The intention of the Heavenly Father is that our earthly father would provide an example of who God is and how God loves.

Our fathers make lots of mistakes and sometimes can even skew our perception of the Heavenly Father. But we are responsible for what we do and how we react.

Since God knows our hearts as well as our actions, we cannot comply with the framework for our family relationship with just what we do. Our attitude needs to be one of submission.

Our inner feelings need to be respect and love.

Okay, maybe we can do that with good parents but what about the bad ones, the ones that abuse or are lost or confused on right and wrong?

Let's look at another passage to get a feel for this:

Proverbs 23:22-25

The New King James Version Chapter 23

22Listen to your father who begot you,

And do not despise your mother when she is old.

23Buy the truth, and do not sell it,

Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.

24The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice,

And he who begets a wise child will delight in him.

25Let your father and your mother be glad,

And let her who bore you rejoice.

Again, we see no exception made for quality of parents.

We must bestow honor to whom it is due by virtue of their position.

That is counter to today’s culture!

The key to societal stability is reverence and respect for parents and for their “high status” ???, cabad, is nothing else but to pay due honour to God, and to men who are in authority

Calvin, J., & Bingham, C. W. (2010). Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony (Vol. 3, p. 7). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.authority

The habit of submission to authority begins in the home.

Honor- to hold in high regard, give great weight to, hold as valuable

respect

Hold their authority in high esteem

By virtue of the fact that they are our parents

They gave us life

They deserve our honor

It is honor owed them by virtue of their position

Ephesians 6:1 NKJV

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Colossians 3:20 NKJV

Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.

It is a simple matter:

Doing what you are told to do!

Living inside the rails established by them

curfews, house rules (no running, don’t hit, etc.)

Shouldn’t have to think: just do!

It is a difficult matter!

We want to argue against this

Our rebellious nature rears its ugly head

Why?

I don’t want to....

I don’t feel like it

When the tables are turned, and they need our care, we must not withhold it.

1 Timothy 5:8 NKJV

But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

In the Bible, there was Family Security, instead of Social Security

Families took care of each other.

It was also that way in US for many generations

EX: Think about the Waltons

When that failed, the community stepped in

My Dad told me of an incident when they were young

brothers going fishing

saw a house burning