“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).
Notice again that the first four have to do with God and worship. There is a real threat to idolize families. Allow me to risk offending you on a very special American holiday. One the day when Hallmark tells us that more than 150 million Mother’s Day cards will be sent… On the day that represents the third largest greeting card holiday…
Allow me to say that a family can become a real threat to your spiritual health. Scripture is clear on what makes God angry. And Scripture repeatedly tells us that God that the primary thing that angers God is not rape (as horrible as that is) or murder but idolatry. When we place the well-being of our family over God, then we make a dreadful mistake. What God is looking for when it comes to parents are not people who make their child’s baseball and softball games.
In 1974, Harry Chapin released the enduring song known to us as “Cats in the Cradle” The words speak to a busy father in the familiar chorus: “And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin’ home dad?
I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then…”
The second stanza has seemed to define what successful parenting looks like in my generation. Listen to the words and see if you agree:
“My son turned ten just the other day
He said, ‘Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let’s play
Can you teach me to throw,’ I said ‘Not today
I go a lot to do,” he said, ‘That’s ok’
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, ‘I’ gonna be like him, year
You know, I’m gonna be like him’
Every image of successful parenting in our culture shows parents sitting attentively at their child’s athletic events. Oftentimes, they do this at the expense of God. Parenting is about making priorities. Parents communicate their priorities when they juggle everything including worship in order to make one more game.
“Every one of us is, even from his mother’s womb, a master craftsman of idols” (John Calvin) One person has written,
“We have feed our children…
We have clothed our children…
We have educated our children as no one throughout history has done so…
Yet, we have starved our children’s souls.”
Prepare your children for eternity. If you want to be among God’s select company of godly mothers, tell your children to loathe idols. If you want to be among God’s select company of godly mothers, tell your children to hate family. Hate family comparison to their delight in Christ.
2. Honor Your Parents
This 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. The commandment is viewed as a bridge between the two. It’s placed strategically for the Ten to direct our attention first to the ultimate authority, God and then it directs our attention to the authority of our parents. Again, this commandment is placed intentionally by God. It’s not as if God simply came up with His top Ten in no certain order. He placed them in a certain order. Again, He placed them strategically. And this commandment is placed to remind us of the importance of our parents right behind the significance of God Himself.
This command turns our attention from the Creator to that which is created. This pivotal command moves us from considering the divine to consider how to relate to one another. And as I have said, it’s our parents who are to transition our attention back to the Creator through prayer, biblical instruction, and becoming involved in church.
2.1 What Does it Mean to Honor?
“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). This is one of just two commandments that are positive. The remaining eight are stated negatively. The word “honor” in the original language conveys the idea of physical heaviness. While it can describe someone who is literally heavy or large, the word is used to signify also something or someone who is heavy, weighty, or important. The prophet Ezekiel would use the word “honor” in just this way. When he spoke of God, Ezekiel would often describe God’s majesty and glory as heavy (Ezekiel 1:28; 3:23; 8:4). It means to treat your mother with respect. It means to give deference to her position because being a mother deserves such honor.
2.1.1 Honoring Means to Fear
To honor is to fear your father and mother. “Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:3). The word “revere” is literally the word that means fear. It means to stand in awe. Jewish rabbis suggested some ways in which this fear could be shown. Children were not to sit in his or her place. There were not to contradict their parents. Jewish rabbis instructed their children not to call their parents by their names
2.1.3 Honoring Means Obeying
The word “honor” has broader connotations. The word also intends for us to obey our father and mother. Compare God’s commandment to honor our parents with His commandment to obey the government: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment” (Romans 13:1-2).
God has laid down principles for you to follow. He wants us to respect and honor the authorities over us. God has delegated His authority to the parents to run the home. “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord” (Colossians 3:2). Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. There are times when we must defy this authority in order to obey God. Yet, whenever possible, we should honor, obey, and respect the authorities over us. Many historians believe that a significant shift took place in the USA in the 1960s. Many young people during this period were anti-government and anti-military, anti-school, and anti-family. All institutions came under attack but none more so than the family. Annie Gottlieb writes, “We might not have been able to tear down the state, but the family was closer. We could get our hands on it… We truly believed that the family had to be torn apart to free love, which alone could heal the damage done when the atom was split to release energy. And the first step was to tear ourselves free from our parents.” We recognize the significance of the breakdown of the family in recent years when we realize that there is one parachurch organization dedicated entirely to rebuilding the ruins: James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.
Honoring means obeying. Someone says, “My parents are not worthy of honor.” Please note: The commandment does not say, “Honor your father, so long as he is worthy of honor.” Again, we honor the position of each parent. As we honor government officials, we honor our parents. Yet, you cannot obey and not honor your parents. You outwardly obey and inwardly hate them. Yet, God invests fathers and mothers with dignity. Therefore, you and I are called to outwardly obey and inwardly honor. This means refraining from sarcastic comments. It means not rolling your eyes. You should not “sass” your parents. It means speaking of them with dignity both in their presence and when you are away from them. There was a day when children would rise from their seats when their parents came into a room.
To honor is to fear…
To honor is to obey…
2.2 Practical Ways to Honor
The OT suggests other practical ways to honor your parents. Many adult children today will call their mothers. Yet, honoring involves caring for our parents as we are adults. In France in 2003, as a heatwave spread throughout Europe, fifteen thousand elderly people died in France alone. They were allowed to die as their children went on without interruption on vacation. Honoring them goes further than calling them.
Children were to never curse their parents (Exodus 21:17). They were not to steal from their parents (Proverbs 28:24). We are not to treat them scornfully (Deuteronomy 27:16). This means to behave respectfully toward them. You are not to insult your parents. You are to cover your parent’s sins when possible. Right after the story of Noah and the worldwide flood, we learn that Noah is drunk. Noah had three sons: Ham, Shem, and Japheth. You can read the story in Genesis 9:20-27 and I’ll warn you, you’ll find it confusing at first. Ham sees his father Noah drunk and naked lying exposed for the entire world to see in his tent. Instead of covering him up and covering his shame, Ham tells the other two brothers. They quickly find a garment and walk backward into the tent so as not to see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke, he cursed his son Ham and blessed his son, Shem, and Japheth.
Modern readers are left scratching their heads? Why no condemnation for Noah? Why does Ham receive a curse for such a simple act? Because he failed to honor his father and mother. It wasn’t that he just stumbled upon his father. Instead, he probably made fun of his father’s sin to his brothers. He failed to act as his brothers did. In contrast, we read the story of Joseph in the later chapters of Genesis. Joseph honored his father as he sought to give him food and water in a drought. Joseph respected his father by bringing him before Pharaoh, the emperor of Egypt and Joseph’s boss. Joseph honored his father by taking his remains back home after his father’s death (Genesis 50:1-14). This mother’s day, be like Joseph. Don’t be like Ham.
2.3 Honoring Comes with a Promise
The reason for honoring our parents is also stated in verse twelve: “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). Here is our motivation for honoring our parents. If you fail to honor dad and mom, then God will shorten your days. For God to reward you with many days in this life when you hate your parents would be a crime. One way that your life would be longer by honoring dad and mom is that you would avoid the death penalty in the OT ” (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). People make light of such a notion in our day. Yet, I think this practice needs a minute of explanation. A rebellious son (or presumably a daughter as well) would be condemned to death by the nation of Israel. The guilty and rebellious son would eventually be put to death for his actions threatened the entire nation. The normal procedure would go as follows. The parents would patiently instruct their child on who would rebel. His rebellion carried on for many years, would be reported to the legal authorities of Israel. The punishment was carried out by the courts and not the parents.
3. A Parent Worthy of Honor
3.1 Love Them
Hug your children. Give them physical affection. Dad, don’t withhold your affection from your children.
3.2 Lift Them
Tell them how proud you are of them. Give them verbal praise. Watch your criticism of them Praise more than criticize.
3.3 Limit Them
Set healthy limits for your children.
3.4 Lead Them
I’m not nearly worried about whether the Ten Commandments are placed on a school wall as I am concerned if they are heard inside your walls. I’m not as worried if the teacher prays before a test as I am if you pray with your children.
The fifth commandment reduces everyone to the level of a sinner. Not one of us have consistently honored our parents. God evaluates your life by God’s character: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
The Ten Commandments are not merely a recipe for happy families. They are commands from a holy God whose people were to live this way in order to display God’s own character. This commandment leads us to the cross. The cross forgives us of our sins and empowers us to obey this command.
