How many of you can think of a time when you were embarrassed by your family?… mom, dad, brother, sister … we can even go out into aunts, uncles, and cousins if you want to. I remember when I was in the 3rd grade, my mom, sisters, and myself were out doing something … probably shopping or something else crappy that happens when you are the only boy. Anyway, while we were gone, my two best friends, who lived on my street, had come over to play soccer. Since I wasn’t there, they decided to go ahead and take the cones out for goals and kick around until I got back Seems fairly innocent, right? Well apparently mom didn’t think so. When she got out of the car, she let poor Brian and Blake have it. I don’t really know what sparked it, but she got really mad about some soccer cones … I still don’t get it. Well, I felt awful and, at the time, was embarrassed that my mom did something like that.
Now, I don’t really remember, but I am almost certain that a thought went through my head that went something like this: “Why can’t my mom be more like Blake’s or Brian’s mom?” “Why can’t my family be cooler?” I bet we’ve all had thoughts like that from time to time.
Let’s take it a step further; who has ever run away from home thinking, “I never asked for a family anyway… I’ll be fine on my own.”? I did it once … made it all the way down the street before I turned around and ran back up the street crying!
Anyway, we obviously do exist in families and, at least for a while, don’t have much choice in the matter. So let’s see if we can uncover a little bit of how this whole family thing got started.
Gen. 2:18-24
Read also Gen 1:28
Now, we know from the order of the creation story that both of these things happened before the earth was corrupted by Sin, meaning that family was a part of the original creation that God called “good.” We see that God created a wife for Adam, which implies some sort or a marriage or union. We also see that He instructed Adam and Eve to have lots of babies, completing a full- fledged family.
However, Adam and Eve didn’t have kids until after the fall … so children are evil!!! No, actually, that’s not true at all … in case you were wondering. Children are great creations of God and if there is some reason that they don’t show up until after the fall of man, I certainly don’t know it. Either way, we still have a family structure laid out by God before sin and corruption, and it is … GOOD!
Gen. 7:1
Obviously God thinks here that Noah’s family is important to him. You can see that He tells Noah to take his wife and all three sons with him onto the ark … nowhere does it say that all of Noah’s family was righteous … they may have been righteous along with Noah, but since I don’t know Greek or Hebrew or whatever, I can’t be sure if the “you” in verse 1 is referring to the whole family or just Noah. If it is referring only to Noah, then His family was kept alive by God’s grace, not only for them, but for Noah. Once again, we were created for family … for community. God wasn’t going to send Noah onto the boat all alone because He knew that Noah would need his family. If not, well then that’s not quite as good of an example anymore; but we still know that God created family, and just like all of the other creations that he could have started over with, he chose to preserve it.
Did ya’ll catch it earlier when I mentioned the family “structure?” Structure is defined by dictionary.com as “The way in which parts are arranged or put together to form a whole.” The “parts” that go into a family are man, woman, boy and girl. When God created Adam and Eve, he told them to increase in number, which for them resulted in who? Cain and Abel. So God’s original plan for the structure of a family is a man and a woman getting married and having and raising children together. But that doesn’t always happen today, does it? No! We live in a world with a quickly growing divorce rate and growing number of illegitimate children (meaning that they are born outside the bonds of marriage). The growing number of single mothers have become such an issue that there are support groups all over the United States for these women who are suffering the consequence of a cursed earth … not to mention the children growing up without a mother or without a father, or even completely orphaned. When any of these things happen, it means that the structure has been broken, and while the family may still exist in some form, it no longer exists in the way that God originally intended. Is that hard for some of ya’ll to hear? I know it is, but I think that it is a very necessary thing for you all to know.
Now there is some good news about all of this. Broken family is no different, as far as coping with it, than anything else broken in this world. We live in a world where Tsunamis hit coastlines, where children are born with deformities, and where the ozone layer is being depleted; but we press on through all of these broken parts … we help one another out and we make the best of our brokenness. So a broken family doesn’t equal a bad family; it just means that the family has to work a little bit harder.
So the question on every child’s mind … “Why do families have this structure?” Why can parents say things like, “…because I’m your mother/father?” I’m not saying that I think that is a good answer and I hated hearing those words! But your mom and dad are responsible for raising you and so, most of the time, what they say goes. As their children, you are supposed to honor them.
Ephesians 6:1-4
So what exactly does “honor your father and your mother” mean anyways? “And how can you possibly expect me to actually do it?” Well, first of all, “to honor” is defined in two different ways by Webster’s Dictionary:
1: to regard or treat with honor and respect and, 2: to live up to or fulfill the terms of
We are not only supposed to treat our parent with respect by pretending to listen, but to actually hold a high level of respect for them. While this is one of the Ten Commandments, I really feel like God is also offering some good advice for children with that one too: “If we respect…if we value our parents’ opinion and really listen to what they say … ‘it will go well with you and you may enjoy long life on earth.’” That’s a promise from God!!! Most of the time, believe it or not, your parents have good reason for the rules they enforce. Whether they are able to explain those reasons to you or not may be a different story; but your parents have been alive a lot longer than you have and they have most likely been through a lot of the same things that you may feel totally alone in. So even though we may want to do our own thing and make our own decisions, the truth is, it will often work out better for you if you will just listen to what your parents have to say. Have enough respect for them as people and as your parents to listen … you don’t always have to agree with what they say, and there are even some circumstances when you won’t have to do, or shouldn’t do what they say. But consider this question: are you really valuing your parents’ opinions if you never take their advice?
Colossians 3:18-21
“Fathers, do not exasperate your children” and “husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them” both follow a message of authority. So we have a rule of authority and submission followed by a rule of care and compassion. One accepted without the other is unable to complete and stabilize the structure … it can only support a little bit of pressure before the whole thing collapses. Think of a table. The top of the table is the family and the legs are care, compassion, submission and authority. Take away just one of those legs and the table won’t be able to stand up right!
So you, as children, have a responsibility to obey your parents, but at the same time, your parents have a command to be reasonable as well as a responsibility to bring you up in faith in Jesus. This is one of the few times when it might be ok to not do everything your parents say to do. Think about this… is God the ultimate authority in your life, or are your parents? I hope it is obvious that God should be your ultimate authority, which means that if your parents are keeping you from following Christ, intentionally or not, you have a higher allegiance to Him than you do to your parents. But even in this disobedience, it is important to maintain that “honor” that is commanded of us. God didn’t put a disclaimer or an exception clause on that commandment because there aren’t exceptions. And in certain cases, it is possible to honor your parents without doing what they say. However, most of the time while you are still living under their roof and being completely supported by them, honoring your parents means obeying your parents. So don’t go home and tell mom and dad that Will said it was ok to be disobedient, because it isn’t. Otherwise, the passage in Ephesians would not use the word obey when giving children its command.
So all this stuff sounds really fun right? I bet you all came to church this morning thinking “man, ya know, I just want someone to tell me how to be obedient!” To be honest, even though I feel like God has equipped me to teach on family and the different family relationships, I had this huge fear the whole time that I was preparing for my talk that none of you guys would care; and here’s why… When I was in middle school, I am pretty sure that it would have been a miracle if I had ever said to my parents “you’re right.” I don’t really know why it was so hard for me to admit that my parents were wiser than I was … I think that it might just be that we, as humans, don’t like to be wrong. Maybe ya’ll are better about that than I was, but I’d be willing to bet that with your parents, a lot of ya’ll are just like I was with mine… stubborn and prideful. But as we mature…not as we get older; as we mature (there are plenty of immature old people just like there are some very mature students in this room) we start looking for ways to make the best choice and not ways to conserve our pride. And while I understand what you guys are feeling, I really want you to hear what I have to say from this side of middle school. This is important for ya’ll as you are maturing. As I have gotten older, my parents, as I think most do, have loosened up on me. For instance, each year in high school, my curfew got extended a certain amount, and now that I’m in college, my parents’ usual response when I want to do something that they don’t think is a good idea is to say, “well, I don’t think you should do that for ‘this’ reason, but you are old enough to make your own decisions and your own mistakes.” You see, my parents realized that most of their responsibility for my upbringing as theirs and God’s child is finished. But I have realized that my parents love me … they have always loved me and most of the time have my best interest at heart. I ask their advice, listen to them and do what they tell me more now than I ever have … but I wish that wasn’t the case. I’m wiser now than I was 8 years ago and I needed my parents more then than I do now, but I was too stubborn and prideful to honor them as people and as parents. Don’t make the same mistake that I did … take God’s Word for what it is: a guide to the best, fullest life possible.
“Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the LORD your God will give you.”
- Ex. 20:12 (the 5th Commandment)
