SHOW A LITTLE RESPECT
MATTHEW 15: 1-20
NOVEMBER 10, 2002
INTRODUCTION: A LITTLE GIRL ONCE SAID TO HER MOTHER, “Mommy, if Santa Claus brings our presents, and God gives us our daily bread, and Uncle Sam gives us Social Security, why do we keep daddy around?”
On his sixteenth birthday a son approached his father and said, "Dad, I’m sixteen now. When I get my license, can I drive the family car?" His dad looked at him and said, "Son, driving the car takes maturity, and first, you must prove that you are responsible enough. And one way you must do that is to bring up your grades. They are not acceptable. Second, you must read the Bible every day. And finally, you must get that hair cut; it looks outrageous." The son began the task of fulfilling his father’s requirements, knowing that the last might be impossible.
When his grades came out he went to his dad with a big smile. "Look, Dad, all A’s and B’s on my report card. Now can I drive the family car?" "Very good, son. You are one-third of the way there, but have you been reading the Bible?" the father replied. "Yes, Dad, every day," said the son. "Very good son. You are two-thirds of the way there. Now when are you going to get that hair cut?"
The son, thinking that he could out smart the father, responded, "Well, I don’t see why I should get my hair cut to drive the car. Jesus had long hair, didn’t he?" The father looked at his boy and said, "That’s right, son and Jesus walked everywhere he went."
TRANSITION THOUGHT: What does it mean to honor your Father and your Mother? What does it mean to receive the command that comes with a promise? Just like in parenting, as we discussed last week, there are so many issues we struggle with. How do we care for aging Parents who are living longer? How do we care for Mom, since dad is gone? How do we care for Dad since mom is gone? How do we care for divorced parents lost in the shuffle? How do we care for our parents who have remarried and now have a new spouse for us to get to know? Financial issues need to be addressed. Health care issues need to be addressed. These were just a few thoughts off the top of my head. But this is a growing issue in our lives and for many of you today it is an all consuming issue!! Scripture helps! But the word of God doesn’t always address specifically the issues some are facing. SO WHAT DOES SCRIPTURE TEACH US??
THESIS SENTENCE: “HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER, AS THE LORD YOUR GOD HAS COMMANDED YOU, SO THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG AND THAT IT MAY GO WELL WITH YOU IN THE LAND THE LORD YOUR GOD IS GIVING YOU (DEUTERONOMY 5: 16/ EXODUS 20: 12).”
SO I ASK, “WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SHOW A LITTLE RESPECT TO OUR MOTHERS AND FATHERS?”
I. RESPECT IS NOT ABOUT TRADITION
A. TRADITION NULLIFIES THE WORD OF GOD
1. Let the argument begin. Jesus’ detractors, the Pharisees and teachers of the law question Jesus’ Piety.
2. The tradition was the application of the law, and not the law itself. It was the how to of the law and proved one’s piety before God.
3. The question was, “if you are who you say you are, why aren’t you more pious than we?”
4. One step further might be the statement, “we are holier than thou!” And “What’s your problem, don’t you even know the traditions?”
5. Don’t you know, you can only sing hymns at church and you have to wear a coat and tie? Didn’t you hear, church last from 11 to 12 and then you go to the steak house for lunch?
6. In verse 6 Jesus replies, “Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.”
B. TRADITION IS THE TRUTH OF MEN
1. Tradition taught that you must ceremonially wash your hands before you eat. The original law was for the priest of the temple, but after the temple was destroyed, it became a tradition for all Jews to ceremonially wash.
2. Jesus gets fired up here and starts quoting scripture!
3. Do you ever get fired up and start quoting scripture? I HOPE SO!
4. Jesus quotes Isaiah and calls these Pharisees and teachers of the law hypocrites! 5. Isaiah wrote, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.”
6. What Jesus is driving at is not what God says is truth, but what men say is truth!
7. The bottom line here is that what they taught was not the truth!
ILLUSTRATION: THE GOLDEN RULE OF FAMILY
One of Grimm’s fairy tales tells of an old man who lived with his son, the son’s wife, and the young couple’s four-year-old boy. The old man’s eyes blinked, and his hands shook. When he ate, the silverware rattled against the plate, and he often missed his mouth. Then the food would dribble onto the tablecloth. This upset the young mother, because she didn’t want to have to deal with the extra mess and hassle of taking care of the old man. But he had nowhere else to live. So the young parents decided to move him away from the table, into a corner, where he could sit on a stool and eat from a bowl. And so he did, always looking at the table and wanting to be with his family but having to sit alone in the corner. One day his hands trembled more than usual; he dropped his bowl and, and broke it. “If you are a pig,” they said, “then you must eat out of a trough.” So they made the old man a wooden trough and put his meals in it.
Not long after, the couple came upon their four-year-old son playing with some scraps of wood. His father asked him what he was doing. The little boy looked up, smiled, and said, “I’m making a trough, to feed you and Mamma out of when I get big.” The next day the old man was back at the table eating with the family, from a plate, and no one ever scolded him or mistreated him again.
II. RESPECT IS NOT ABOUT THE LAW
A. RESPECT IS THE TRUTH OF THE LAW
1. Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, “Honor your father and mother and anyone who curses his father of mother must be put to death.”
2. Did you catch that “God said” PART? How about the death part?
3. The truth will always be the truth!! God’s word will always be the truth!! 4. Do you practice the truth of God or do you follow your own rules?
5. Jesus says, “Say it isn’t so!”
6. This reminds me of the temptation in the desert. Satan came up against Jesus distorting the word of God, but in every instance Jesus quoted the word of God and Reminded Satan of what GOD SAID!!!
B. RESPECT IS NOT MISINTERPRETING THE LAW
1. After Jesus quotes God, he then quotes the Pharisees and teachers of the law. 2. “But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God’, he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it.”
3. What these religious leaders had done was invent a loophole to get around caring for their parents by saying that what they would have given to their parents had been given under oath to God!
4. These teacher of the law taught that the very word of God could be superceded! 5. They taught in error.
ILLUSTRATION: SHOWING RESPECT FOR MOM
Adrian Rogers, Pastor of the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, TN, tells a story about a man, his boys, and respect for their mother:
"It seems that one of the boys lipped off to his mother one day. Now I don’t know about your home, but in the Rogers home showing disrespect to Mama was not tolerated. It wasn’t tolerated in this home either, because this boy’s father said to him, ’Son, I want to tell you something. When you lipped off to your mother, you sinned against God. God says you are to honor her, and you’re going to have to answer to Him for that.’
’Not only that, but you sinned against your mother. She went down into the valley of the shadow of death to bring you life. How ungrateful you’ve been to speak to your mother that way, and you’re going to have to answer to your mother for that.’
And then this godly dad said, ’I want to tell you something else. Not only is she your mother – she’s my wife. And you’re not going to talk that way to my wife. Now not only do you have God and your mother to deal with, you’ve got to me to deal with because you have shown disrespect to my wife.’"
AND YET I SAY THERE IS ONE MORE LAYER TO THIS ISSUE OF RESPECT OTHER THAN THE VERY LAW OF GOD. YES THE LAW IS TRUE; GOD SAID IT! BUT WHAT WOULD CAUSE SOMEONE TO TRY TO OVER RIDE THE LAW?
III. RESPECT IS A MATTER OF THE HEART!
A. IT IS NOT ABOUT CEREMONY
1. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still not the right thing to do! 2. “Jesus called the crowd to him and said, ‘Listen and understand. What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean’ (verse 10).”
3. Do you remember where it all began, this conversation between Jesus and these Religious folks? “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat (verse 2)!”
4. The issue again is legalism and ceremony and to this Jesus replies, “out ward appearances do not reveal one’s heart.”
5. Think about it, the Religious Right was accusing the disciples of being wrong! They were judging the “hearts” of the disciples implying that these men could surely not know God. Surely if these men, and their leader Jesus, knew anything of God they would live holier lives!
6. Jesus reply is that surely if you knew God, you would know better than to live as you do and call it “OKAY”!
7. Now think about it, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law looked the part. They were educated, well groomed, and had an outward appearance that no one could question, except for Jesus, the very Son of God!!
8. If you were an innocent by stander, you would have sided with the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law!! I would have.
Scripture thought: I Samuel 16: 1—13: read this text!
B. IT IS ABOUT THE HEART
1. “Then the disciples came to him and asked, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
2. Why, if these men were right, would they have been offended?
3. We know that “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).”
4. Jesus goes on to elaborate in our text, “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean’. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, … (verses 17-19).”
5. The point here is these men who are casting judgment on Jesus are standing condemned. “He replied, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit (verses 13-14).’”
C. IT IS ABOUT A PURE HEART
1. Jesus taught us, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Mtt. 5:8).”
2. David prayed in Psalm 139: 23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
3. David also prayed in Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
ILLUSTRATION: HONORING OUR FATHERS
I believe there is something in us--a law written on our hearts--that says, "Honor your father and mother." That’s how it’s stated in the Bible, but you’ll find it in all of the world’s religions. The ancient Chinese Analects advise, "surely proper behaviour to parent and elder brothers is the [tree] trunk of goodness."
We must consciously attempt, first of all, to find the good in our fathers, no matter how badly they seemed to have fathered us. To put a spin on Marc Antony’s cry: "We have not come to bury our fathers under the dirt of our accusations; we’ve come to praise them for what we have discovered in them, and for what they have given us." What our fathers did right is every bit as important as what they did wrong.
If, as C.S. Lewis wrote, "fatherhood must be at the core of the universe," then disrespect for a father means engaging in some very dangerous vandalism. That is true culturally, but also personally. Gordon Dalbey writes, "We had better teach our sons mercy. A man who curses his father...curses his own manhood."
CONCLUSION: The issue Jesus sets before us today is a matter of the heart! Is your heart right? Are you more concerned with the rules of man than with the truth of God? Are you committed to Honoring Your Mother and Your Father? Are you ready to receive the promise? Children, Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ – which is the first commandment with a promise – that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth (Ephesians 6:2).” Let me ask again, IS YOUR HEART RIGHT?
BENEDICTION: II THESALONIANS 2: 16—17
