ILL. Here is several things you’ll never hear form a parent:
- You know Pumpkin, now that you’re 13, you’ll be ready for un-chaperoned car dates. Won’t that be fun?
- I noticed that all your friends have a certain hostile attitude. I like that.
- Here’s a credit card and the keys to my new car. Go crazy!
Your Mother and I are going away for the weekend. You might want to consider throwing a party.
- Well, I don’t know what’s wrong with your car. Just have it towed to a mechanic and I will pay whatever he asks.
- No son/daughter of mine is going to live under this roof without earrings and tattoos. Let’s go to the tattoo and piercing-saloon for the rest of your body.
- What? You wanna go and get a job? I make plenty of money for you to spend. (http://www.sermoncentral.com/illustrations/sermon-illustration--2535.asp0
Honor your father and your mother… Consider those things:
1. God has given us our parents. We all have biological fathers and mothers. Parents or Step-parents. Others of us have someone who has stood in as a real father or mother and did the “dad” or “mammy” things with us. But we all have a heavenly Father who has demonstrated His love for us… He has accepted us as sons and daughters because He has accepted the work of His Son on our behalf.
2. God has given us instruction on how we are to treat our parents. Read Ex. 20:12. We are told to honor our parents. The word “honor” means to show respect, to reverence, even to hold in awe. What this means to us is that, no matter what our age (since this is a timeless command), we are to treat our fathers with high esteem.
3. We honor God by honoring our parents. This should inspire us to think differently than we have at times. We may have the tendency to be critical if our parents failed us in some way. At the same time, we need to remember that that we did not have been for them perfect son or daughter. So whatever the mistakes of the past, whether they are ours or our parents’, we are to honor them. One of the ways we honor our parents is by listening to them and:
4. Learning from our parents ILL. A young boy was talking to his father about what little boys know and what their fathers know. The boy asked, “Do fathers always know more than their sons?” The boy’s father answered, “Yes.” The boy asked another question. “Who invented telephones?” Alexander Graham Bell,” his father replied. The boy then asked, “If fathers always know more that their sons, then why didn’t Alexander Graham Bell’s father invent the phone?” (Dr.James Dobson - Parenting for eternity, radio program 11.23.08)
5. Respecting Your Elders Looking at the scriptures it begins with Elisha who is the successor to Elijah. He was on his way to a town called Bethel. In this town was a school for prophets.
However the people of this town were not too pleased in having this school for prophets. They wished that the school for the prophets would move to some other town or even not to be in existence.
As Elisha was coming near the town a group of boys around 42; some commentaries even went to call them a group of hoodlums, approached Elisha. And as they approached him they began to tease him and calling him names. They said to him Go on up you baldhead, go on up you baldhead.
Little did they realize just who this man truly was. Little did they realize the relationship that Elisha had with God. Elisha was God’s man.
You better be careful messing around with God’s men and women whom He has set aside for His purpose, because the Bible says in 1 Chronicles 16:22 – “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm”.
They teased Elisha by calling him an old bald head and asking him the question of why did he not go up in the chariot of fire into heaven like his successor did who was Elijah.
Elisha, the prophet of God turned and faced the young boys. He immediately called down a curse form the Lord on these boys. Two she-bears, which are female bears that have cubs which are baby bears,came from out of no where from the woods and killed all 42 boys.
The Bible says in 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. Disobedience will shorten your days to live.
HE PROMISE. Now we have a very interesting parenthesis by Paul here; interesting because of the way it is worded. He says, “Honor your father and mother” quoting the 5th commandment given to Moses on Sinai, then says “(which is the first commandment with a promise)”
You see, it’s the only of the Ten Commandments that is accompanied by a promise.
Here is that commandment, from Deuteronomy, and also found in Exodus 20
“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you.” Deut. 5:16 (also Ex. 20:12)
If you pay attention to the specific wording, you see that God was making reference to the land He was going to give them in Canaan. Paul understands that the specific promises of God also have a spiritual and more general application, so in Ephesians 6:3 he says, “…that you may live long on the earth”
Now any reasonable person has to know that nothing about our behavior or any action we take or lifestyle we adopt is necessarily going to ensure us long life. Many good and obedient children have died very young, and many evil men have lived to a ripe old age.
Commandments 6 through 10 are not accompanied by a promise, so Paul could not have meant this in the way it seems to be intended on the surface. Why call it the ‘first’ commandment with promise, when it is the only one? Well, perhaps this will help.The word, “first” in the parenthesis, is “Protos”. Now that can be given different applications, depending upon the use of it. One meaning, rather than being first in order, like first in line, would be more like, first in importance. Chief. Of greater superiority. Jesus = PROTOTOKOS and MONOGENES.
Now, the 5th C is the first commandment that concerns the relationship between man and man, whereas the first four had to do with man’s relationship to God.
So it may help our understanding of this, to paraphrase it this way: “Honor your father and mother (which is a commandment of primary importance, and comes with indication that God wants to bless the one obedient to it), …”
Now Ephesians 6:3 presents us with a small problem, as I eluded to a minute ago, because certainly we cannot hold God to any presumed obligation to make us prosperous and give us long life as a sort of payment, or reward, for being obedient to one commandment.
But I take verse three in this light. We generally accept, just because it is statistically true, that people these days have an average life-expectancy of around 70-80 years.
So your doctor might say to you, that if you have a fairly regular regimen of exercise, and eat properly and don’t smoke or indulge in other unhealthy habits, you can expect to life a long and healthy life.
That doctor will not promise you that you will not die in a plane crash or a vehicle accident. He or she won’t even promise you that you won’t suddenly die of a heart attack in your office one day, or suffer kidney failure, or any other ailment that attacks mankind.
Those things do happen, sometimes to seemingly very healthy people. But since they are relatively rare, compared to the total of the population, the doctor will say that if you take care of yourself and take prudent precautions, you will probably die in your bed at a ripe old age.
This is the way I understand Ephesians 6:2-3. That the Holy Spirit is saying through Paul, that this commandment is of chief importance to God, and He wants His people to know that obedience to it brings blessing, and rebellion against it will most certainly bring sorrow and loss.
Like the doctor, giving you a diet plan and an exercise plan and saying, ‘follow these and stay healthy’. The implication is that if you do not follow them, then do not expect to stay healthy or live long.
And why would this particular commandment be of such prominent importance to God? Why put such emphasis on the importance of obedience to it?
I think because, in the same way the marriage relationship typifies Christ and the church, the relationship between children and parents typifies the relationship between Christ and the Father, and even the church and God the Father.
This promise that Paul talks about in Eph.6 relates to long life, and inheritance. On the spiritual plane, what we have been guaranteed in becoming children of God, is eternal life, and an inheritance in Him.
“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.” Romans 8:16,17
There is the confirmation. Long life, and an inheritance. So when Christian children are obedient to their parents, and honor them, they are a picture of Christ’s unfailing obedience to the Father in all things, and they are a picture of the church as those adopted into the family, and therefore destined to an inheritance, rich beyond imagination.
ILL. "Once upon a time there was a home in which a man lived with his son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. The meals they ate together were always a wonderful time of sharing. The grandfather just loved being there. As the years went by, the man’s health began to decline.
He couldn't help as much around the house as much as he used to do. His hands began to shake. He sometimes would spill his food on the table or even on the rug. One day when he was shaking particularly badly the spoon he was holding broke his bowl, spilling food all over, on to the floor, on to the table and on to him, and on to his son.
The son said to his father in anger and frustration, "Dad, I can't take this any longer. "Can't you control yourself? You will just have to eat by yourself in your room." And so the son gave his father a wooden bowl that could not break and for every meal would bring food to the father in his room.
Time went by and the meals at the dining-room table were much quieter and much neater. The old man was very lonely eating his meals in his room, but he didn't say anything because he didn't want to make his son even more upset. Several weeks later the son came home and found one of his children making something out of wood.
"What are you making?" he asked.
"I'm making a wooden bowl," answered the young boy.
"It is very nice, but what will you use it for?"
"Oh, it is not for me, Dad, it is for you." …”For me?”
“It is not for you yet, Dad. I am saving it for when you get older and your hands begin to shake. When I see it is too hard for you to eat with us, then I will give it to you so you can eat in your room."
The father silently walked into the house and went to his own father's room. "Dad, I'm so sorry for what I have done. How many years did you take care of me and never once did you make me eat a meal in my room; and look at what I have done to you. Can you ever forgive me for not giving you the respect you deserve?"
That night the old man returned to the dining-room table. Though the table was a little less quiet and a little less neat, the family was whole." (I discover this classic story in various formes, but the same one, in diverse cultures - in Romanian as well).
CALL. Can you see now why a promise is added to this 5th commandment? Law and Grace…Our days will be long for honoring our parents. Not just in number but in joy, in contentment, in family, and in the New Earth. The kind of people who honor their parents are the type of people who will honor God with their presence throughout eternity.
