Mother’s Day Tributes
SLIDES
My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.
-George Washington
Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.
-George Eliot
There never was a woman like her. She was gentle as a dove and brave as a lioness... The memory of my mother and her teachings were, after all, the only capital I had to start life with, and on that capital I have made my way.
-Andrew Jackson
My mother loved children - she would have given anything if I had been one.
-Groucho Marx
An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.
-Spanish proverb
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me but I think she enjoyed it.
-Mark Twain
Teaching Your Children to Give Honor
What’s wrong with the world... People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas.
THE BLACK EYED PEAS
This morning we are going to deal with the issue of respect – honor given to our parents.
It is important. It is Godly. It is the 5th commandment – with a promise.
Honor your mother and father is the command.
Why? Let me give you three powerful arguments for why you should obey this commandment.
The First Reason to Obey the 5th Commandment
It doesn’t come natural for children. As we read the next passage of scripture together, I want you to notice how the command for children respect and the command for parents teach it are linked.
So how do you respect your teenage son who just lied to you...again?
How do you respond to your daughter when you say, "I love you" and the response a flippant, "That’s nice"?
What do you do with a kid that seems bent on being sarcastic and flip about everything serious and who fights you on all things Godly.
It begins – this may not seem logical – with you granting them respect – and trust. More than anything else, your adolescent craves your total trust.
Author Fritz Ridenour says, "You might as well trust your teenager; you don’t have any other reasonable choice. Distrust simply breeds more distrust, but if you keep trusting your teenager, sooner or later the message will get through."
If the thought of extending more trust scares you, then somewhere along the way, the natural trust that exists between parent and child has been damaged or lost.
How did it happen? Will it happen again?
Five Trust Busters (By Claudia Arp)
A single mistake
Have you ever said to your adolescent, "If I can’t trust you in this area, how can I trust you in other areas?" In truth, trust is not a one-time gift. It must be given again from time to time. Refusing to reinvest your trust, totally blocks your child from rebuilding it.
Important tip: When a serious breech of trust has occurred, quickly establish a path back and a restoration time line. Try saying, "This has been a real learning situation, and I feel you’re learning the importance of being open and honest with us. That’s real progress. Let’s continue to work together on this, and I believe we can rebuild the trust between us."
Judging guilt without a fair trial
Knowing your child as well as you do often predisposes parents to assume the worst in a situation before all the facts are known. Do you honestly see your child as innocent until proven guilty? Everyone deserves a fair hearing.
Lack of freedom
Certainly trust must be earned, but your child cannot prove to be trustworthy unless some real freedom is given to make decisions.
Reciting failures
Recalling your teenager’s past failures in the heat of a confrontation, is self-defeating. It only proves that the forgiveness you said, and believe you had extended, wasn’t real at all.
Parental evasion of the problem
Whether it is lying or sneaking or any of many other problem behaviors, focus squarely on the conduct itself instead of immediately moving to the larger issue of trust. Instead of saying, "How can I trust you when you are continually lying to me?" try saying, "Look, we want to build our relationship, not tear it down. It would help tremendously if I could count on you being honest with me. How about for the next 24 hours, I’ll try not to attack you, and you try to stick to the truth."
Trusting Again: Psychologist Norm Wright, advises: "It might be nice if you could get your adolescent to promise in writing not to betray your trust. But it would only be a piece of paper. As in any love relationship you have to risk being hurt. That’s the price of saying, ’I still love you.’"
"But," you say, "what if my teen lies again and again or if drugs, promiscuous sex or dangerous abuses are involved? Am I to put my head in the sand and blindly trust?"
Certainly the answer is "No." The help of a professional counselor or psychiatrist may be required in chronic or extraordinary situations. But as long as you have some open communication, rebuilding trust should not be an impossible task.
The Second Reason to Obey the 5th commandment
The 5th Commandment has a Reciprocal Consequence
“Honor your father and mother… then everything will be well with you…”
The honor you give is the honor you will receive.
This is going to be a hard pill to swallow for some of you. God didn’t say honor your parents if they’re honorable. Nowhere does he say that respect must be earned before you have to give it. God simply calls us to give honor where honor is due and that is too our parents, for better or worse, because they are the ones who gave us life.
This means that, at the very least, you refuse to speak disrespectfully of your parents, no matter what they’ve done.
At the very least, it means you are polite and respectful in their presence. If there’s not some kind of abuse or violence going on it means that you maintain a relationship with them. Even if they live far away you can drop them a regular letter, a phone call or a visit. If they are open to a relationship you should pursue it. If they want nothing to do with you you’re not obligated to go after them, but you should still extend respect.
Respect must be taught and caught before it’s sought.
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.
James Emery White, You Can Experience an Authentic Life, p. 59
So you see the enormous implications of honoring your parents. We’re so disconnected from this commandment today that we have to re-learn how to honor our parents.
The Third Reason to Obey the 5th Commandment
The Fifth Commandment has a Promised Result
“Honor your father and mother… and you will have a long life on the earth.”
Living with honor for others equips you for all of life…
When God first gave this commandment to his people, he told them one of its purposes. “If you want to live a long and good life in the land I’m giving you, honor your parents.” The negative implication is that if they fail to honor their parents, they’ll be expelled from the land. As we’ll see shortly, that’s exactly what happened.
The health of the family reflects the health of the nation
“The design or end of this commandment is the preservation of civil order, which God has appointed in the mutual duties between inferiors and their superiors. Superiors are all those whom God has placed over others, for the purpose of governing and defending them. Inferiors are those whom God has placed under others, that they may be governed and defended by them.” - Zacharius Ursinus
By learning to respect parental authority, one learns to respect the authority or other superiors, such as teachers, ministers, policemen, and state and federal officials – right up to the president.
Michael G. Moriarty, The Perfect 10: The Blessings of Following God’s Commandments in a Post Modern World, p. 118-119
In other words, kids who have learned to honor their parents in turn respect those in authority over them. This enables them to be upright, law-abiding citizens.
This Promise is also a Warning
“If you make fun of your father and refuse to obey your mother, the birds of the valley will peck out your eyes, and the vultures will eat them.
Proverbs 30:17 (NCV)
This isn’t a far-fetched warning designed as a scare tactic. The death described is one of a criminal whose body is left exposed to the elements and the birds of prey. Kids who grow up disrespecting their parents in turn disrespect all authority and often become criminals.
When this happens on a larger scale an entire nation can be brought down. Approximately 600 years after this commandment given the people of Israel began to violate it. Ezekiel was a prophet who’s mission it was to call the people back to God or suffer the consequences. Speaking through Ezekiel, God points out the problem and its results:
“Fathers and mothers are contemptuously ignored. I will scatter you among the nations.”
Ezekiel 22:7, 15 (NLT)
In 586 B.C., that prophecy became a reality when the Babylonian army invaded. Nations that fail to honor parents eventually disrespect and disregard all authority. It leads to lawlessness. Even worse, failure to honor parents results in a refusal to honor God, the ultimate authority.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger writes: Parents are teachers of faith and morality. What God is to the world, parents are to their children. Unfortunately, some parents become so focused on the element of friendship or their own convenience, comfort, self-fulfillment, happiness, or love life that they forget their job is to help mold moral character so their children will have the strength to do what is right in a world that sometimes encourages them to do otherwise.
Laura Schlessinger, The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God’s Laws in Everyday Life, pp. 129-130
Let’s Take it Home
Susannah Wesley is said to have prayed one hour every day for her children. She was strict. But she was unselfishly faithful. She had six rules for teaching her children the priority of the Savior:
Subdue self-will in a child.
Teach him to pray as soon as he can speak.
Give him nothing he cries for, and only what is good for him when he asks politely.
Punish no fault confessed, but let no sinful act to go unnoticed.
Reward good behavior.
Strictly observe all promises you have made to your child.
- Susannah Wesley
Teaching Your Children to Give Honor
Children, obey your parents as the Lord wants, because this is the right thing to do. The command says, “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first command that has a promise with it— “Then everything will be well with you, and you will have a long life on the earth.”
Ephesians 6:1-3
Attitudes are the key
Remember that at the root of genuine trust are the basic attitudes parent and child bring to the relationship. If you feel insecure in your own self-love and respect, or if there is no real trust in your marriage, you will find it difficult to love and trust your teen unconditionally. Your relationship needs some attention first. But, when you bring genuine love and attitudes of real respect to the relationship with your child, especially in the younger years, it becomes very difficult for the child to spurn this base for any extended period of time.
