Ten Words to Live By: Honor Parents
Exodus 20: 12
Patter Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
8-25-2025
My Mother Jayne
Maxine and I love to watch documentaries and this week we watched an extraordinary one entitled “My Mother, Jayne.” This doc was produced by Mariska Hargitay, the actress that plays Olivia Benson on Law and Order: SVU.
Her mother was actress Jayne Mansfield who died when Mariska was three years old. She has no memories of her mother and admitted that she was embarrassed to be the daughter of a Playboy pinup with bleached-blonde hair who embodied the “dumb-blonde” role, had multiple children by multiple husbands, had affairs, and was known for flashing camera men.
By the end of the documentary, you learn that Jayne had an estimated IQ of 165, spoke five languages fluently, was a concert-level pianist and violinist, and desired to be taken seriously as an actress.
Maxine and I both agreed that the documentary was an incredible example of the fifth commandment in action. Mariska honored her mother’s memory, without downplaying her failures, and we both may have shed a tear or two at the end.
Review
We continue our series called, “Ten Words to Live By.” We know them as the “The Ten Commandments” although that name is never used in the Bible.
In Hebrew, this top ten list is known as the “Ten Words,” or Decalogue, and we find them in Exodus 20.
Pastor John Miller reminds us of three reasons the ten words were given:
* God is holy
* Man is sinful and we need a Savior
* Shows us how to live
They are less rules about what to do and tell us more about who God is to us:
1. One God - God is God.
2. No idols - God is Creator.
3. Revere His Name - God is holy
4. Remember to Rest - God is Rest
5. Honor Parents - God is Father
6. No murder - God is Life
7. No adultery - God is Faithful
8. No stealing - God is a Provider
9. No lying - God is Truth
10. No coveting - God is Sufficient
The first commandment tells us who to worship - “do not have any other gods before you.” We are to worship God exclusively and passionately. The second commandment tells us how God desires to be worshipped.
The first commandment covers idolatry generally. The second hones in on the specific relationship between visible things and the invisible God.
The third commandment calls us to revere His name in our keeping our promises, avoiding using his name flippantly, in our integrity, and by not playing the “God card.”
The fourth commandment reminds us to find our rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
The ten words are divided into two groups. The first four cover our relationship with God. The last six detail our relationship with others.
Jesus was asked by a teacher of the Law what the greatest commandment was and He responded:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
The four commandments are how we love God with all that we are.
The second six commandments are how we love our neighbor has ourselves.
Commandment five is the foundation of the ones that follow - no murder, no adultery, no stealing, no lying, no coveting.
Please turn with me to Exodus 20:12.
Prayer
Honor Where Honor is Due
“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12)
The word that we translate “honor” is “kabod” which means glory or weighty. It has the idea of “carrying a burden” or “taking weight from one side of something to balance the load.”
We are called to give weight to our parent’s position and recognize their God-given authority over us. We are called to respect, esteem, and value their hard-won wisdom.
It is I the present imperative, meaning this is a continual habit. It’s not a suggestion, it’s a command.
Jen Wilken writes,
“Home is the lab where children learn submission to authority.”
Children don’t just learn submission to earthly authority from their parents but also submission to God.
“The first relationship beyond the relationship with God, who according to the Old Testament is the giver of life, is the relationship with father and mother, who together are channels of God’s gift of life. No other human relationship is so fundamental, and none is more important.” - John Durham
It is our responsibility as parents to teach our children to come under authority. Why? Because they will always be under someone’s authority.
It is children’s responsibility to honor their parents, to obey, to listen, to seek wisdom, and to provide for them when they get older.
God meant this and He didn’t play around.
Do you know what was the penalty for disrespecting your parents in the Old Testament?
“If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.” (Deut 21:18-21)
If we had lived back then, how many of you would have ended up being stoned? I would have for sure.
It’s important to point out that these verses are adult children who are unrepentant and that there are no examples of this actually being carried out.
But it does show how seriously God takes respecting proper authority.
Just a chapter later, Moses writes
“Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.” (Exodus 21:17)
And in Leviticus:
‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head.” (Lev 20:9)
And Solomon wrote to his own sons:
“If someone curses their father or mother, their lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness.” (Proverbs 20:20)
I think we have established that God calls us to honor our parents. Easy, right? Okay, let’s pray. Not so fast.
Teach Your Children Well
Paul addresses this commandment in Colossians and Ephesians.
“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” (Col 3:20)
In that culture, children were considered property not people.
But Paul addresses them as morally responsible human beings capable of making choices. Again, this was revolutionary.
Notice that Paul assumes that there will be parents plural - a mom and a dad. No matter how much the culture wants to say that the nuclear family is dangerous to society, research consistently shows that children fare better with both parents in the house.
Children are called to “obey.” This is written to children still in the home. As older children, we still have the responsibility to honor our parents but not obey them.
In Ephesians, Paul addresses the children as well and gives them rationale behind their obedience:
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” (Eph 6:1-3)
Paul writes that their obedience pleases the Lord. The “in everything” obviously has some exceptions. Children are not required to obey parents if they are commanding them to do something wrong.
This is difficult for children because they are born with a sin nature that naturally wants their own way.
One little boy was sent to time out and was sitting in the chair sulking when the parent heard him say, “I might be sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside!”
I found a list of toddler’s rules:
If I want it, it’s mine
If it’s in my hand, it’s mine.
If I can take it from you, it’s mine.
If I had it a little while ago, it’s mine.
If it’s mine, it must never ever appear to be yours in any way.
We are building something together, all the pieces are mine.
If it looks like mine, it’s mine
If I think it’s mine, it’s mine
If I give it to and change my mind later, it’s mine
Once it’s mine it will never belong to anyone else, no matter what
Children must learn to obey their parents because if they don’t learn to obey them they will struggle to obey other authority figures as they grow up.
Recently, I saw a video of a little boy, probably no more than three years old and a police officer was trying to ask him a question. The little boy kicked the police officer and then started cussing him out. That little guy is going to have a long hard road ahead of him.
Backtalk, partial obedience, rebelliousness, sneaking around can all be ways of disobeying.
In fact, Paul writes to his son in the faith Timothy that disrespect of parents will be rampant at the end of days.
Why do we honor?
Paul pointed out that the fifth commandment is the first with a promise:
“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12)
Paul combines Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:6:
“…so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
Some have misinterpreted this promise to mean obeying your parents automatically leads to a long life.
In general, children who learn to heed the wisdom and direction of their parents, are less likely to die doing something stupid.
I still hear my dad’s voice in my head, “Judgement son. Use good judgement.”
But this is not what Moses or Paul is saying. There are those who are very obedient to their parents and die in car wrecks and there are people who are awful to their parents who live into their 90s.
Moses focuses on the land more than the length of years. The Israelite community will flourish in the land if children learn to love God through obeying their parents.
Paul is also not speaking about how many decades you live. He is focused on not the quantity of years but the quality of years.
Learning to obey authority, starting with our parents, prepares us to experience an abundant life of healthy relationships with authority figures.
In Ephesians, Paul simply writes that honoring our parents is “right.” It is the correct and righteous thing to do. One commentator writes, “This is appropriate to the proper Christian ordering of the community.”
But another question that comes up. Are there limits?
In the Lord
In the Ephesians passage, Paul writes that we should honor our parents “in the Lord.” What does this mean?
Once, in a high school small group, a senior asked me a serious question. He said, “I’ve been smoking pot with my mom now for a couple of years. I’ve always thought it was weird but it was her idea. What should I do?
Moses wrote to the Israelites:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Duet 6:4-7)
To parents, specifically, fathers, Paul writes “do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4)
What if your parents asked you to do something that God prohibits? What if your parents direct you to shoplift or lie? Or smoke pot?
What if your parents say no to your desire to be baptized? This happened to my brother. Two sisters committed their lives to Christ in his church and asked to be baptized. Their father walked into the church and threatened to punch my brother if he baptized his daughters.
I had something very similar happen in our student ministry. I told the student to obey their dad and they could get baptized when they are older.
What do you do when when you come from summer camp fired up for Jesus and your mother says, “Don’t you bring that religious junk into this house?” I’ll introduce you to Casey in just a minute.
Now, it’s important to remind children that taking out the garbage, doing homework, feeding the dog, and cleaning their room are all “in the Lord” activities.
Here’s another question - what if your parents are not honorable?
Position not Personality
Many people have grown up in homes where it was difficult to honor their parents. Maybe your dad left and never came back.
Maybe your mother was an alcoholic. Maybe one or both had mental health issues. Maybe your house, like mine growing up, was chaotic and not safe.
What do you do with this commandment?
Here’s an important distinction I want you to remember. We honor their position as parents, not their personalities.
My brother was born again when I was 17 years old. My mother, who had mental health problems, would call us into the living room and go off on us for whatever she was made about at the time.
After my brother became a Christian, I marveled at his ability to sit quietly and listen to her rant and simply say, “Okay mom.”
One time, when she finished with Mark, she yelled for me. I met him in the tiny hallway of our house. Out of the blue, he grabbed me by the shoulders and put me up against the wall and said, “Honor your mother and your father! Shut your mouth and say okay mom.”
I growled that she didn’t deserve that respect and he said that she deserved it just by being our mother.
As usual, I walked into the living room guns blazing and she and I cussed and yelled at each other for a while.
Again, we are called to honor their God-given position as parents, not their personalities.
Here’s one way we can do this. Forgive them. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (Colossians 3:13)
Holding on to unforgiveness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
Your parents were imperfect. Your parents made mistakes. Your parents had their own issues. Your parents were living life for the first time as you are.
If your dad left? Your mom abandoned the family? Forgive them.
“Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” (Psalm 27:10)
Your parents lost their temper sometimes, didn’t always understand your needs, or hurt your feelings? Forgive them.
You experienced emotional, physical, sexual abuse growing up? Forgive them.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t set boundaries with parents like that.
In an article entitled, “Honoring your Father When He’s Evil,”
Jennifer Greenberg writes:
“Honoring ungodly people means calling them to repent of their sin, encouraging them to do what is right, and preventing them from doing further evil. An honorable response to sin is confronting it, refusing to enable it, and reporting crimes to law enforcement.
In the spirit of the law, I honored my father by refusing to
succumb to the damage his sin inflicted. I honored my father by reporting his abuses. I honored my father by breaking the cycle and being a godly parent to my children. I honor my father daily by not letting him near my daughters.”
If you walk into my office and hit me with a bat, I can forgive you. But the the next time you are at my office door, it isn’t wrong for me to ask to see your hands.
Many years later, when I was in counseling, my therapist asked me to write a letter to my mother outlining the things that she did that had hurt me. I wrote ten pages front to back!
I folded the papers and put them between the seats of my car. My sunroof leaked and it rained and then, in typical Mississippi fashion, the temperature spiked over 100 degrees.
When I pulled the papers out, they were blank. Only around the very edges could you see any evidence there had been writing.
As I sat in the car staring at 20 blank pages, God spoke to my heart and said, “This is what I did with your sin. This is what I want you to do for your mom.” I wept over this powerful word picture God provided me.
I called my mom and had healing conversation with her and we were good when she died, which was an incredible blessing.
Let me make one more observation. It seems that Millennials have gotten the idea that if their parents do anything they don’t feel is supportive, they cut off all contact with them.
This isn’t healthy to either side and keeps dialogue from happening that could lead to peace.
Last question - How do we do this?
I introduced you to Casey earlier. She came back from camp on fire for Jesus. She was so excited to share her faith that she sat her mom down and explained the Gospel to her. Her mother said, “Don’t you bring that religious junk in our house.”
Casey called my crying and asked me what to do. I said, “Honor your mother. Take out the trash. Clean your room. Say okay.”
She took this seriously. She wrote in her journal different ways she could honor, respect, and obey her mother and then lived out her faith in front of her.
A couple of weeks later, I asked Casey to share her experience at camp in one of my sermons. Her mom reluctantly agreed to attend. Her mom came back the next week and the next. And, on Easter Sunday, Tammy surrendered her life to Christ. Casey jumped over a chair to hug her mom right in the middle of the service!
Moses gives no age range for honoring our parents. This is for small children who can learn to say yes mom or yes dad. This is for teenagers who can learn to say, “I’m sorry” when their anger gets the best of them.
By the way, it is not true that teenagers automatically rebel. I spent a day with my beautiful niece who is 15 years old and is one of the kindest, sweetest, obedient teenagers I’ve ever met. She loves her parents and siblings, and Uncle Pepe, and is a joy.
This applies to adult children who can express their gratitude toward their parents for all the sacrifices they made along the way.
One of the easiest ways we can honor them is simply saying hello, calling them and visiting them. Many of us understand that there will come a day when that will no longer be possible.
I asked Facebook friends how they honor their parents. Here’s what some of them said,
Grocery shop for them…do their laundry…when she was younger I gave her a $50 gift card to the grocery store once a month
Something as simple as sending a card on mother or father's day is very meaningful...spur of the moment calls on those days can feel obligatory but intentionally thinking ahead seems to make a difference for my parents and truthfully when my kids do those things
But, I think it's honoring to give extra grace when you see their telltale signs of age (with any person older than yourself, not just parents) Forgetfulness, telling the same story multiple times, moving slower, confusion. We're all going to experience those things, so I think it's good to honor the person they feel like in their minds even when their bodies say otherwise.
Visiting my dad in his nursing home. I'm not sure he knows I'm there as he sleeps all the time. It's getting more and more difficult to see him, but I know he would have visited me if the roles were reversed. He was a wonderful father and I will always honor him. Thank you, Jefferson, for this reminder!
And it doesn’t just apply to our parents. The Westminster Confession of Faith makes this clear:
“By father and mother, in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents, but all superiors in age, and gifts; and especially such as, by God’s ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.”
We can express our gratitude to teachers, coaches, pastors, extended family, and anyone else who had a hand in teaching us how to honor authority in our lives.
I was talking to one of the lifeguards before she headed back to school. She is planning on being a teacher. Her reason? “Because I had some amazing teachers that made a difference in my life and I want to do that for others.”
The Father’s Love
Remember the punishment for disrespecting your parents? Death!
That is why the Father’s response to the prodigal son is so extraordinary. Instead of picking up the heaviest stone he could find, the Father waited, on tip-toes, staring at the horizon, for his son to return.
The Pharisees would have called for his head. The Father called for the fattened calf and for a party.
In that story, God is the Father and we are the prodigals. We have all gone astray and gone our own way. None of us have loved God with all our heart, minds, and strength.
I love what David writes in Psalm 103:
“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust…But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. (Psalm 103:13-14, 17-18)
And yet, while we were still sinners, the Father sent the Son to take our punishment for us. Dying on the cross, in our place, to pay for our sins, Jesus made a way back to the Father.
One author writes:
“While we were still sinners. While we were still blowing it. While we were not measuring up. While we were oblivious to Him and His love, He sent His Son to die for us. That is unconditional, sacrificial love and it is unlike anything you can experience on this earth. God is a Father who chose to love you and you didn’t do a thing to earn it.”
When some people hear God is a father, they physically cringe. Their father was such a poor example that they project their dad’s failing onto God.
God is not just a bigger version of your dad. He is not a reflection of your dad. He is the perfection of fatherhood.
The Apostle John wrote:
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (I John 3:1)
We are going to sing two songs to end. The first is “Good, Good Father” by Housefires.
This song was written by Pat Barrett and Tony Brown of Housefires. Tony grew up without a father figure in his life. In an interview he said that, “the only person in my life who I called father was God.” And then he went on to say, “I know saying ‘good good’ isn’t grammatically correct, but it wasn’t enough just to say it once.”
The second is a hymn called “How Deep the Father’s Love for me” that Stewart Townsend wrote as he was meditating on the extravagance of the Father’s love and the cross and his own sin that caused Jesus to be sacrificed there.
