NOTE: The manuscript is only lightly edited and may contain spelling or grammatical errors, as well as possibly deviating from the actual audio of the final sermon delivery. Quote with caution.

I wish to preemptively warn you all about the lengthier nature of today’s sermon. I usually aim to cut myself off at the one hour mark, and fully realize that is not happening today. No way Jose. The subject matter deserves time to breathe, and I intend to give said time. I’d do a disservice to those of you here today if I were to approach this without acknowledging the weightiness of what we’re about to dive into. So, we’re going a little long today. I don’t ask you to forgive me, for I will not apologize for doing this.

Now, I've commented before on the difficulty of developing introductions to sermons. Normally you start with a joke, perhaps a story, a tangential anecdote, or something along those lines. None of those feel like they are appropriate for the message today. I feel like today I need to take this topic severely seriously. So I begin with a little exercise that I nabbed from another pastor. Go ahead and really quickly, close your eyes. I'm not gonna make it weird, I promise. Just close your eyes for a second.

I want you to go ahead and picture your parents. For some of you, this is a fond picture. Perhaps you imagine them doing their favorite activity or chatting with you in a friendly manner. For some of you, it's a darker picture. It's a painful picture. Regardless, please keep it in your mind.

As you keep your eyes closed, envisioning them, I'll repeat what this command plainly says in Exodus 20 verse 12: 

“Honor your father and mother, so you may have a long life in the land God is giving to you.”

Now, open your eyes.

I understand that exercise serves for some of you as a difficult mountain to climb. I understand that this command is not exactly what we would call “simple” to follow. (Not that I'm under the delusion that any of God's commands are simple, at least not in our own strength. That's why we need the empowering of the Holy Spirit to live out commands.) But this command, in particular, feels a little burdensome, and I acknowledge the bristling nature of this conversation, especially for those from our generations.

As I prepped for the sermon this week, I did what I usually do, and I listened to a lot of older preachers and older sermons, those who have 30, 40, 50 years of preaching under their belt. I listened to what they had to say about this particular command. And I noticed that there is a gap between the way our generation and younger generations after us might look at this command and might have an attitude towards older generations and how older generations approach this command. They lament in their sermons that younger generations disrespect and disregard their elders and blame a lot of the kids for their rebellious ways.

What I found interesting was they never stopped to reflect and wonder if perhaps the reason the children are so out of hand has little to do with old-fashioned youthful rebelliousness and more to do with parents who have not raised their kids in the ways of the Lord? See, from Millennials and Gen Z, there's almost a necessary backlash to many horrid upbringings. How can we obey this command when the parents that raised many of us did not raise us honorably, did not raise us in the ways of the Lord, or perhaps they did, but it was a distorted view of the Lord and a distorted view of his precepts? What do we do with this command? We might feel free to ignore it. We might feel free to consider this one irrelevant to our generation. 

To be sure, for some of us, honoring our parents is a fairly easy endeavor; Our parents love Jesus, they have a good relationship with each other, they love us as best they can, and they led us in the ways of the Lord as best they could. And so it's easy for us to honor them. But then, for others, it is painstakingly onerous to honor your parents. They did not lead you and love you the way that you should have been led and loved. They painted you a broken view of God as you grew up in difficult circumstances. You were not set up for success, but instead were set up for failure, having to start your adult life with a handicap. How then, do you reconcile that upbringing with this seemingly unambiguous and unyielding command? How do you honor your parents?

Where We’re Going

I want to do a few things today to help us understand this verse. I begin with asking a question which also doubles as the title of this message. The question is,  Because your parents said so? If you're anything like me, you grew up in a household where you argued every once in a while, against an unjust rule or an unfair meting out of discipline. And you reacted as any child would by asking, “why?” And the parent responded in what I can only say (in my limited experience for I do not have children of my own, so maybe I will have a different perspective as I get older, and become a father myself), but I can only say, in my opinion, one of the most disrespectful retorts you can give to a questioning child: “Do it because I said so. I am your parent, and you will obey me.”

The question I began to ask myself is, “Is that a good standard by which we are to govern our households? Just because the parent said something should be, then that something should be? But what if the parent says something that is unjust? Something that is unbiblical? Something that is anti-God? What do we do then? Furthermore, why do we follow this commandment? Is it because our parents are worthy of honor?” 

I ask because there doesn't seem to be any such footnotes in this command. It seems to be a rigid, uncomplicated, and as I said before, unambiguous command. The Word says that this command is for our benefit. It says that this command is good. So, what do we do with that?

I am blessed to preach to the church. Genuinely, I am glad that I don't only get restrained to 20 or even 30 minutes, but I get a whole hour to really dive into the complexity of this issue, but even then, it seems like not enough time. (Hence, more length today) Because I acknowledge the reality that many of you want a loophole to this command. Sometimes, if I might confess, I even look for loopholes. But this command doesn't seem to give us loopholes, even if they seem rationally necessary. So, how do we approach this? 

Let me assure you, I have worked hard to come up with some answers. I'm going to teach for a little bit. I'm going to admonish you a little bit, and then I'm going to assure you a little bit with some practical and practicable things here to understand that we don't just honor our parents and listen to our elders, inclining our ears to their wisdom just because they said so. There's more to the picture than that.

Moving to the Horizontal

 We begin by understanding that the Ten Commandments are now transitioning. When Jesus answered the scribe in Mark 12, he gave two commands that summarized the Ten Commandments: Love God and love others.

The first four commands speak of our relationship with God, and the next six focus on our relationship with others. The first four commands speak to the vertical relationship with heaven, the following six commands speak of our horizontal relationship with people. If we focus on living our lives in such a way that we clearly abide by these commandments, then what we're doing is showing God and the world where our priorities truly lie; with loving God and loving others.

God wants our love, devotion, worship, and our time. This is made apparent in the first four commands, which demonstrate how to love Him. He also cares deeply about how we treat other people, which is demonstrated with the next six commandments; how we love our neighbors.

What’s interesting is that we always think loving our neighbors begins outside of the home. It begins with the person down the hall from your apartment, down the street, the co-worker, or a friend. But we never think about it actually beginning in the home. Loving our neighbors might mean loving those that are closest to us. 

But God realizes. God understands that how we act in the world starts at home. If you can't love in your home, how can you love out in the world? We need to understand that loving your neighbor begins with the family unit, with how parents and children interact, with how spouses interact with each other. (More on that in a couple weeks.)

These are more than just commands, they are 10 words, 10 revelations of who God is and who we are as His people. They reveal that God has created certain things for us to flourish, that there are certain commands that if followed would lead us to living in a promised land of sorts.

Commands are more than just “do this because it pleases the Lord.” It's “do this because it is the way for you to thrive.” To honor God by not worshiping idols and smashing them is for more than recognizing the one true God. It’s freeing us from those same parasitical idols that sap us of everything. To honor God with our time is more than recognizing Him as our ultimate sustainer. It frees us from anxious living and potential burnout.

God loves His people, and in that love, He gives them revelation of what will bring them life. In this context, in the first revelation of the horizontal relationship with the world around us, we begin with the family unit: one father, one mother, and children.

A Dishonorable Culture

Proverbs 6:20-23 in the New Living Translation reads,  

“My son, obey your father’s commands, and don’t neglect your mother’s instruction. Keep their words always in your heart. Tie them around your neck. When you walk, their counsel will lead you. When you sleep, they will protect you. When you wake up, they will advise you. For their command is a lamp and their instruction a light; their corrective discipline is the way to life.”

There is a way that leads to life, and it begins in the home. Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land your Lord, your God, is giving you. This is more than a command. It’s a revelation, and it is not culturally limited.

Let me just say that the Israel we meet is intensely patriarchal. The firstborn confers many rights upon themselves. God is the heavenly father, the father of all nations is Abraham. The father figure, the patriarch, is arguably the most important figure in a Hebrew household.

Knowing this helps us reflect on what God is commanding. In Exodus 4:22, God says that “Israel is His firstborn son,” establishing a pattern of family. It's important to God that fathers raise their sons to be fathers and to go on and on, living blessed lives with blessed families. It's not to say that the patriarchal model is exactly what we need to apply to ourselves today. Just to say that there is a benefit in reflecting upon the context that this command was given.

 We also immediately note that this command is not merely limited to younger children, which would make it a lot easier for those of us who prefer to ignore it. It would be simpler to ignore this command on such a basis, but the text doesn't lend itself to the notion that we've got these nine commands that are for adults and then there is a little break in the text for one command to specifically address the kiddos.

And to be sure, we ought to preach this message to our children, but this also applies to adult children. You may not dwell any longer under your parents' roof, but that doesn't mean that there is an age limit or expiration date on this command. You never outgrow God's instructions to honor your parents, no matter how old you are.

God knows that when we dishonor our parents, then that is where society begins to crumble. In fact, if you are the enemy of God and of His people and you were formulating a master plan to destroy a nation, how would you begin? How do you unravel the moral fiber of the people and lead them into self-destructive ends? I'll tell you how you do it. You kill the family unit. You destroy the necessity of fathers and mothers. You make it seem normative to dishonor one's parents and to fashion oneself an identity completely separate from those who came before you, to dismiss the wisdom of your elders and to count oneself brilliant in one's own eyes. 

The fifth command, the fifth word, runs counter to all such notions. Dr. Peter Leithart comments on this matter at length:

“We believe in the self-made man, the buffered self, the isolated individual. Every man is an Adam who has molded himself from the dust, embarrassed by the belly button that bespeaks dependence. Choice is the foundation of all moral action, nearly any act is sanctified by ‘consent,’ the magic word of the liberal order.

The fifth word explodes satanic myths of self-creation by teaching that unchosen relationships have moral weight. Christians have long recognized that this principle extends beyond the family. I didn't choose to be born as an American or baptized as an infant yet I should submit to the authority of these given communities. Today's families are assembled from the blistered shards of broken households. Children are ‘yours, mine, and ours’ and grow up with multiple fathers and stepfathers, mothers, and stepmothers, a father and a father, a mother, and a mother. While most American children live with two parents, a quarter of them do not, and in some communities, the situation is worse: three-quarters of African American children are born outside marriage.

The fifth word requires honor of a father and a mother both in the singular, assuming that children have one of each sex as parents, both present. The fifth word assumes that parenthood is inescapable, but our reproductive technologies have eroded that assumption. A couple can have a genetically related child who isn’t carried by the mother. Children can be manufactured from donated eggs and sperm and borne by a surrogate, so they have no physical connection to their parents. Family is then detached from biology. Children in same-sex families can't be biologically related to both parents. The relationship between parents and children is legal rather than biological…Today, changes in marriage law effectively make adoption the legal paradigm for all parent-child relations. Among other things, this extends the reach of the state as it takes oversight of all familial relations…

 The fifth word has an implicit model of family and society. To keep this commandment fully, we must reconstruct the social situation it assumes–two-parent families as a norm, the goodness of authority, limitations of consent, & the preservation of families through a lifelong commitment of a man and a woman.”

This command formulates much more than pithy principles in this regard because God is revealing His character, and it's a character of honor towards fathers and mothers. We may wish to dismiss the family unit as a human institution and invention, but it's not. It is a supernatural gift. This post-christendom world wishes to evolve beyond the necessity of such things, not because such things are wrong, but because such things are from God, and we want to get as far away from God as possible. So we start by eliminating the beautiful institutions He's instituted.

So, it's not necessary to have families anymore. Instead, we champion communities: “find your community!” We don't value the wisdom of the elderly and instead become wise in our own minds, revealing ourselves to be, not only rebels against God, but asinine rebels at that (Proverbs 12:15). We denigrate the family unit, and it is killing us.

The secular world adopts a Freudian stance, saying things along the lines of “we need to kill our fathers (metaphorically speaking) to liberate ourselves and live free!” The word of God, however, claims that this is the root of all humanity's problems; our ultimate daddy issue, so to speak. That is, we have rebelled against our heavenly Father, and now that we are no longer anchored to our heavenly Father, we are sinking. Since we opt for wickedness, we then opt to go through suffering. Since we choose to ignore and dishonor our heavenly Father, we choose to wander in sin.

Consequently, when we alienate ourselves from our earthly parents, it is also to our detriment and ruin. When it becomes culturally vogue to form your own identity apart from your parents, you will begin to idolize youth and demonize old age, to idolize rebellion and demonize honor.

So, you have these generations, they grow up in a culture that teaches them unequivocally, to shake off your parents' authority. Dishonor your parents' legacy, forge your own identity that counts its own wisdom and authority as laudable, and then wonder why we're losing our ever-loving minds.

It's not to say parents are without sin, and I'll address further down. It is to say that there's a heavenly principle that doesn't age. A culture that honors parents is a culture that thrives. It’s a bountiful culture that leans upon the wisdom of our elderly, upon sound, aged principles, learning from past mistakes, as opposed to repeating them every single generation.

God designs the family unit for our thriving, and we need to, as believers, above all else, respect and cultivate that beautiful unit.

So what does this unit consist of?

Three things that glorify God and cause humanity to flourish. The first aspect of this unit is a father. Call him a patriarch, a head, whatever you designate him as. He has a particular responsibility in the sight of God for the spiritual temperature of his household, to raise his kids to honor the Lord, to love his wife and lay his life down for her.

The second aspect of this family unit is a mother. She is not dismissed, she's not counted lesser as other cultures or religions with male headship might do, but she is instead found right alongside the father, hand in hand, side by side, loving and leading her family.

And then you have the children, subject to the authority of the parents, to honor those who are raising them in the knowledge of God and teaching them the Lord's ways.

God’s Design Is Still Good

There are four things that God’s good design for the family unit reveals. First,  God's design for family is still the only good design. Such is blatant counter-cultural truth: That cisgender heterosexual monogamous marriage covenant relations are good and right, no matter what this antichrist world preaches. You cannot have a family without a man as a father, a woman as a mother, and children. It is not something you can do; you can have something, you can even call it a family, but it won't be the family as God has designed it. Instead, it will only serve to demonstrate that we will always be longing for family until we return to God’s good ways. 

You cannot redesign the family in your image and realistically expect it to do what God’s design does infinitely better. You can defy such views and say that they are only found in positions of power or privilege. You can attempt to build something equivalent or greater, and find you simply cannot. You can say, "Hand your kids over to the state, the state will raise them," but the state will not raise them in the ways of the Lord. You can say “you don't even have to be married in order to raise kids.” Yet, the truth is that your so-called family by most statistics, metrics and what have you, will not thrive.

The covenant marriage relationship is what covers the mother so that she can raise kids alongside the father in the ways of the Lord. You don't get to do the family without doing it the Lord's way, and we have countless examples of how much damage happens when we attempt to wrest family away from God's design.

We Need Fathers

The second thing that this command reveals is that  fathers are still necessary. I know if there are any single mothers who are listening to this, they will bristle at what I am saying. But I’m bound to respectfully preach the truth. There is no operable family without fathers; without godly men leading and loving the vision for family. This design doesn't include single parents. Are there places in Scripture where singleness is praised? Yes, all over, but it is understood that singleness is for people who are unmarried and childless. So for people who have children, to then raise them in a single household is to do a disservice to these children.

Children need a mother and a father. A father is a particular necessity in a Christian household, and I believe that the enemy has done a good job killing that idea by enticing fathers to, instead of being the men that God has called them to be, to act like little boys, sinning against the women in their lives. You want to kill family units? Just encourage fathers to abuse, to become adulterers, or to completely abandon their responsibilities. That will pollute our images of fatherhood, even polluting our image of God the Father.

The movie Fight Club is one of my favorite movies, and, side note, this is not an endorsement. Sometimes, I watch things that aren't exactly edifying. But the narrator is a perfect example of that sort of Gen X anxiety where your whole life, you're told to live the American dream, to even sell your soul to the American dream, to work yourself to the bone, to buy products, and maybe then you'll be happy. The narrator meets an anarchist, Tyler Durden, and this anarchist fellow leads him down a path that wrenches him away from his dead-end life. Now, again, not an endorsement of any of these characters, but there's a point where Tyler Durden has this incredible quote that speaks to a lot of the difficulties that we have with our parents, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, and so on.

He says, "Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God? You would have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. And in all probability, He hates you." That really drives home what many of us are struggling with when we talk about fathers. We might even disparage the necessity for fathers because our own relationships with our fathers are so messed up. We might dishonor our fathers because they bailed on their responsibilities, and we might even have a malformed, unrepresentative picture of God the Father because your father was not a very good model.

Your father was, perhaps, passive when he should have been active in your life. Your father was not kind, not gracious, not loving, not slow to anger, not slow to speak. Your father might not have led you in the ways of the Lord. Your father may not have modeled a Christian life, or Christian walk, and so you looked at that, and then that caused you to wonder about God the Father and whether or not He was actually good.

We need to fix this. We need to fix this, and I believe part of fixing that is realizing this necessity of fathers in our churches. We need to champion fathers. We need to remember that fatherhood is a beautiful and necessary thing rather than just something that is tacked on to the family unit; that he's only there to make the dough, bring it home, and that is it as far as his role in the house goes. Fatherhood is so much more than that.

Why do I harp on this? Because I’ve come to recognize that the society that hates fathers and diminishes their necessity will gradually descend into chaos. We’re living in the unveiling of said chaos right at this very moment. Do godly fathers fix everything? No, but it can certainly help.

 There was a 1994 study in Switzerland about the connection between church-going habits of fathers and mothers and the effect on their children when they are grown. It's obviously an older study, but I think it points to a lot of where we started going wrong. The study says this:

“In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshiper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between a half and two-thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally.

A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children never darken the church door. If his wife is similarly negligent that figure rises to 80 percent!

The results are shocking, but they should not be surprising. They are about as politically incorrect as it is possible to be; but they simply confirm what psychologists, criminologists, educationalists, and traditional Christians know. You cannot buck the biology of the created order. Father’s influence, from the determination of a child’s sex by the implantation of his seed to the funerary rites surrounding his passing, is out of all proportion to his allotted, and severely diminished role, in Western liberal society.

A mother’s role will always remain primary in terms of intimacy, care, and nurture. (The toughest man may well sport a tattoo dedicated to the love of his mother, without the slightest embarrassment or sentimentality). No father can replace that relationship. But it is equally true that when a child begins to move into that period of differentiation from home and engagement with the world “out there,” he (and she) looks increasingly to the father for his role model. Where the father is indifferent, inadequate, or just plain absent, that task of differentiation and engagement is much harder. When children see that church is a “women and children” thing, they will respond accordingly—by not going to church, or going much less.”

 You will never escape the necessity of fathers in the church. Husbands, hear me. Someday you will have kids, and when you have kids, they will look to you as a model. Will you show them a life that honors God and takes His commands seriously? Especially the command that church is of utmost importance? Will they see that prayer and the reading of the word are paramount to the operation of your home? Or will they look at you every day, see your hypocrisy, and then doubt for themselves if God is really real because you seem to act like He's not?

The apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians expands on the commandment. He recognizes while children are to obey their parents, the parents, especially fathers, are to treat their children well. How is it possible for a child to honor a parent who neglects their parental responsibility? How would that child even know the importance of honoring their parents if their parents live without any sort of integrity in their lives?

So, after reiterating the fifth commandment, Paul goes on to say in verse four, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." The text does say fathers, but it is also entirely acceptable to translate today's reading into parents because what is in view is those in the home who have authority over our children, and those in the home who have authority over children should act in this way.

But regardless, we're talking about fathers for a second; we'll get to mothers toot sweet. Fathers, show your children Jesus. Don't give them a reason to speak about you in dishonorable ways, but live your life in such a way that if children were to act dishonorably towards you, if they are to act dishonorably towards God, it'll be in spite of the way you raised them and not because of it.

Children are fragile creatures. Their mental and emotional state is such that even a word, a simple word, spoken quickly or thoughtlessly, and action that's taken too forcefully can cause lasting mental, emotional, spiritual, even physical damage. And so, we must be extra careful as parents with the words we use towards our children, and how we act towards them.

John Calvin once translated the first half of this passage in this way, saying, "Let them be fondly cherished." That's beautiful, isn't it? If children are to honor their parents, they must be shown love and encouragement and positive reinforcement. Children need their parents. Children need their fathers.

We Need Mothers

 The third thing this commandment reveals is the persistent necessity of mothers. Psalms 127:3 says that children are a blessing. I can understand, having observed other people's kids, that they do not always seem like a blessing, but they are nonetheless a blessing. They're there for us to parent honorably and to cultivate in them a sense of what honor is, not because we say so, but because it's what God commands. The culture will label children as a burden. Many people champion living the child-free life through a mix of birth control and abortion. We've made it so that kids are unnecessary, when once they were a natural by-product of a covenant of marriage.

There's a bunch of commentary you could throw in there about how we've forgotten what one of the aspects that marriage was designed for, like raising children, or that society has made it too expensive for people to realistically raise children. So people put it off longer and longer by choice, or the commentary that we engage in sexual relations before marriage because we get to ignore the risk of a child. And then we forget that a child needs to grow up in a sacred marriage, covenant space. All sorts of commentary I could add there, but what I'll say is this is that children are a blessing.

To become a mother has gradually been something to critique. Perhaps it’s not the most feminist thing to be a mother? Perhaps it’s not the boss girl way to live? God’s Word counters such ideas: Children are a blessing, and parents to raise them in the ways of the Lord. 

There is a second half to the parents. The mother. A prized and praiseworthy lady indeed. In John 19:26-27, as Jesus fades away on the cross, he sees his mother and the disciple he loves, John, standing at the foot of the cross. He says to his mother, "Woman, here is your son," and then says to John, "Here is your mother," and then the disciple takes his mother under his care. In this society, it is the responsibility of the children to care for their parents. There's no such thing as social security, no such thing as retirement homes. It is up to the son to care for the parents in their old age, which would make it especially egregious if any son would abandon his mother. The Bible is very clear that mothers are vital and worthy of honor.

 If nothing else, let us lean on the basic revelation that motherhood is necessary for children to even come into the world. Not one person stands here today that didn't have to pass through the legs of a woman in order to be here. Your mother is a necessary component of this family unit. You might be out of your parent's house, but you’ll have a mother for your entire life. You're still their child, not their little girl or little boy anymore, but you're still their child, so you need to honor them, to consider their instruction, not necessarily to obey them at every turn.

In 1 Timothy 5:1-2, we're told to treat older women like mothers and older men like fathers. We can find spiritual mothers in the church and seek counsel from them. See how they live their lives, see how they love their spouses, see how they raised their kids. So even if you had a mother that wasn't good to you, you can still find what you need in the church, but I digress.

The command for honoring fathers and mothers tells us that we will live long. This first command comes with a promise that you will live long. If children honor their parents and obey this commandment, then their parents have a responsibility to raise them in the faith. Christian parents are to bring their children up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Now, that's one area where many parents may fail in their duties. Many parents, mothers included, might leave it to the Sunday school teacher to teach their children in the faith, and then, roughly one hour a week, these kids learn what it means to follow Jesus and never from their parents, which means that they will ultimately not learn what it means to follow Jesus.

A common refrain you hear often is mothers who want to let their children decide what they believe for themselves, which is all that train of thought has all sorts of issues, namely your children aren't blank slates; they soak up any and everything they see, hear, and experience. Unless you constantly show them a blank slate, they will most likely either adopt your worldview or some sort of blended worldview of whatever they see from their parents on TV or on the radio or whatever they experience at school. And then additionally, this isn't what God wants us to do. Ephesians 6:4 is clear. There is a way we are to bring our children up, and the specific target of that child-rearing is that they get to know and understand better the ways of Jesus. God cares about the family; he cares about how the family interacts with itself and how that action is reflected in the world at large. That's the point of this commandment, not simply that children do what they're told, but the parents raise their children in the faith so that their children know that they are to live in a way that brings honor to their parents.

We need our heavenly Father, we need godly fathers in the church, amen? We also need godly mothers that are raising children in the ways of the Lord. Without it, we will run rampant as we currently are.

Children, Honor Your Parents

 The fourth revelation of this command is what it says to children. And you don’t need a degree in theology to parse what this command says. The explicit and plain maxim returns to the forefront of our minds. If parents are raising children in the ways of the Lord, then this command comes into place with children, and it addresses us all as children. It's a serious and weighty command. In Matthew 15:3-9, Jesus described men who are trying to circumvent the command to honor their parents, and he says, "Why do you break God's commandment because of your traditions? God said, 'Honor your father and your mother.' He also said this, 'Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.'"

Now, that's not exactly something we have written into law nowadays, but boy, howdy, doesn't that make you think a little bit? To even speak ill of your parents is to be put to death. He goes on to tell them, "You've nullified the word of God because of your tradition, and that makes you hypocrites. Isaiah spoke correctly about you when he said, 'You honor me with your lips, but your heart is far from me. You worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands.'"

What are we doing ultimately when we dishonor our mothers and our fathers? What are we doing when we disparage them? When we speak evilly about them? What are we doing ultimately when we neglect them in their old age? What are we doing ultimately when we send them the very clear message that there is no room in our lives for them? We're honoring God with our lips, but our hearts are far from him.

We really must consider for just a moment that God was serious about us seriously following this command. And we can argue all day long about it: “But my father was evil! But my mother was the devil incarnate!” I get it. From when I was a young child, all the way through, I would say about fourth grade, my biological mother was abusive, physically and verbally. For me to read this very command that teaches, "Honor her, regardless of who she was," makes me grit my teeth a little bit. That makes me furious. And yet, the command doesn't say, "Only honor those who are worthy of honor." The Bible says, "Give honor to whom honor is due." (Romans 13:7)  It doesn't say, "Give it to whom has earned it or who deserves it." To whom it's due.

 We pray for our political leaders, those who are in positions of power, not because we necessarily like them or they’re honorable people (get real, an honorable politician?), but because it's what Scripture commands us to do. And it's a wise thing to do. So we honor our fathers and our mothers even if they're not necessarily worthy of honor. It'll be a godly father and a godly mother that will live lives worthy of being honored. But even if they don't, that does not negate the command.

“Children obey your parents in the Lord.” Why? “Because this is right.” Not because you feel like it, not because you like it, not because it jives with your sensibility and the way you want to live, but because it is right.

Honor your father and mother. As Paul points out, it's the first commandment with a promise. Every other commandment says simply “do this.” This one says, "Do this, and it'll go well with you that you may have a long life in the land.” God could have said, "Honor your father and mother or else." Paul could have written, "Honor your father or mother or else." Neither of them did that. Instead, they give us a positive reason. That’s worth considering.

The Hebrew word for honor means “heavy” or “weighty.” It is of the same family and nearly identical to the Hebrew word for glory. You’re called to glorify God, which means live a life that reflects well on God and points to Him, which gives Him the credit He is due. So when the Bible tells you to honor your parents, what it means is you live your life in such a way that it reflects well on your parents. Honor is a choice of an attitude to recognize a person's position given to them by God.

You ever think about 1 Corinthians 13:4-7? Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. It's not boastful, it's not arrogant, it's not rude, not self-seeking, not irritable, does not keep a record of wrongs, it finds no joy and unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. You know, the verse that's read at every wedding despite the fact that it's not really about marriage (but I won’t rant about that for times sake)? If you apply that lifestyle to honoring your parents, what would that look like? If you are a patient and kind person, if you avoid jealousy, and if you're not boastful or proud or rude towards others, if you're not irritable and if you keep no record of the ways in which you have been wronged, if you rejoice over the truth, if you never give up on someone, if you never lose faith, if you're always hopeful, if you have endurance, people are going to speak highly of you, yes. But also, they’ll regard your parents highly. You'll be living a life that reflects well on your parents, a life that honors them. Even more to the point, you’ll stand out as a glaringly gorgeous testimony in the face of dishonorable parents, ungodly parents, that you go forth and say, "In spite of everything, I still love you, and I still honor you." 

Two Takeaways

 There are two big takeaways with this verse, two big questions to reflect on as I meander to a few more things and then a conclusion. The first question is this… Nobody in this room is a parent yet but will one day be, but if there are any parents in the sound of my voice, consider this: Are you a parent worthy of honor? Are you living in such a way that God's name is glorified in your household, and that were your children to be given to rebellion, it had nothing to do with the fact that you lived dishonorably in the Lord's eyes? 

And then the second consideration, the second takeaway is: Do we, as children, value age and look to the wisdom of our elders? Do we honor our parents? Too many times, we think we've got it all right. We think we live so much better, so much more righteously. We've got all the answers. And so we disregard those who came before us and dishonor them. And I wonder if we consider how much that's a sin.

Honoring the Dishonorable

 Now, before I conclude, let me tack on the qualifier: How do we honor those who are dishonorable? Many of us grew up with parents that were not godly, so how do we honor them regardless?

There's this important phrase in Ephesians 6:1. It says, "obey your parents in the Lord." In the Lord. Think about that phrase. Parental authority ends where God's commands begin. God does not expect you to obey a parent who's telling you to sin. God does not expect you to fall under the authority of a parent that is actively encouraging you to disobey his commands. Hence, the provizio and verse, "Fathers, don't stir up anger in your children but bring them up in training and instruction of the Lord." If your parents didn't raise you in the training instruction of the Lord, you still honor them, but perhaps, you might have a few necessary boundaries in your relationship with them.

Because this command gets sticky when you have abusive or manipulative parents. So we then take comfort knowing God doesn't say, "Do whatever your parents tell you to do." God doesn't command blind obedience to your parents. God doesn't say, "Make your parents proud by living up to their specific standards and expectations." The command is to honor your father and mother. Sometimes your parents' actions are wrong. Sometimes, their expectations of you are wrong. And that's where leaving and cleaving takes place. Even so, show honor.

We might even have manipulative parents that say, "You're not honoring me because you aren't doing what I want you to do." Then we must ask ourselves, "Is it something that's unhealthy or something that is a sin?" If so, then we have to say no. We have to obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29). And we must always tell the truth: "I am seeking to live a life of integrity and virtue that reflects well on my family. And by doing so, I am honoring my parents."

There are three considerations when it comes to honoring dishonorable parents.  The first is to consider your own shortcomings. Danny Silk, in his book "Keep Your Love On," writes this: "Honoring someone you do not respect starts with seeing them as they are created in the image of God." Isn't that so true? That all parents are imperfect people who will make mistakes, and some people are just terrible parents, but we can honor our mothers and fathers even if we don't respect them by recognizing someone made in the image of God. 

Furthermore, reflecting on something that happens usually when you have your own kids, but you can get this revelation before even then to understand, as you raise your own child and look at them. "Wow. I am a messed up person, dealing with a lot of my own problems, and now I'm in charge of another human being. Not only am I responsible for them being clothed, fed, and housed, but I'm also responsible for leading them in the ways of the Lord." That's a big burden. Maybe I've been a little too harsh on my parents and the ways they might have messed up. Maybe I am also a little bit of a problem when it comes to the way I raise kids. Maybe I've got shortcomings. It's easy to judge when you think you're perfect. But I've come to a revelation that I don't even need kids to have. My father did the best he could with what he had, my mother did the best she could with what she was given. That doesn't mean that I excuse any of their abuses or failures. But it does mean that I recognize where they got it right, that they were an imperfect human trying to do as best they could. It's so easy to grow weeds, so hard to cultivate a garden. So easy to disparage those who came before us, so easy to disregard them. It's so hard to build honor.

Which leads me to the second consideration. Consider the grace that you've received yet don't deserve. Ephesians 4:32 reads, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." You have been forgiven. So how dare you withhold forgiveness from another even if they hurt you, even if they don't deserve it. Because you've hurt God, and you don't deserve his forgiveness, and yet he gives it freely anyways. And your deliberate withholding of that same mercy reveals that you don't fully understand the weight of what he has lifted off of you.

"Well, my parents don't deserve forgiveness," you might say. To which I reply, "You don't deserve God's." Maybe shift the perspective a little bit.

Third consideration. Consider that honoring God comes first. Why do we honor our parents? Because it's commanded by God. And that's the long and short of it. That carries many implications in the text, implications that I've briefly considered and wish I had more time to consider. But above all else, we do it because we honor God. God commands it to be so, and that should demolish any argument as to why you don’t have to do this. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but a necessary one.

In verse 5 of Ephesians 6, immediately after talking about children obeying their parents, Paul says, "Slaves, obey your human masters." Now, hold on, Paul, that's just a culturally limiting command. Surely, you don't mean to tell us to tell people who are enslaved to obey their masters. Surely they should rebel. Surely they should break their chains and kill their masters. Surely.

But the Bible points to the beauty of the gospel and how God can be glorified even in dishonorable circumstances, even amidst horror, God can be glorified. Joseph was sold into slavery, and because of the way that he lived honorably and obeyed his masters, he saved a nation. I wonder if some of us are the lights in our parents' lives, and yet we don't know it yet. 

The Bible often illustrates a functioning flourishing society through holy obedience. Employees listen to your employers, wives submit to your husbands (Ephesians 5), obey your church leaders and submit to them (Hebrews 13:7), young men be subject to the elders (1 Peter 5:5), subject yourself to governing authorities (Romans 13), submit to rulers and authorities, obedient for every good work (Titus 1:1), and fear God and honor your kings (1 Peter 2:17). When disobedience is championed, what a subversive display of kingdom glory to obey. Not that we remain silent in the face of objective wickedness, but that we live in an honorable and respectful way in spite of the wickedness.

I wonder if some of us look at our parents who have dishonored us, and because of that, we aren't honoring them the way we should? Is this a good testimony of who God is? I concede this commandment has a lot of baggage attached because parents often use it to guilt children into doing what they think their children should do. Odds are your parents did that to you at some point, perhaps even pulling the title of the message out on you, “Because I said so!”

But if you strip all that junk away, all the stuff that we make this verse say, what does it really mean to honor our parents? Without letting them manipulate us or mistreat us? To understand that there is a relationship between children honoring their parents and parents raising their children in Christian faith, to treat them honorably, to not just say flippant things to our kids like "because I said so," but instead to raise them in such a way that they understand we do this because God said so. Because God commands it, and it is glorious and it's for our benefit and it causes us to flourish and to thrive.

Is that what we want for our families? Is that what we want for our lives? To live well in the land? That's what I want for my life. That's what I want for my family. And it begins with honoring my parents. It begins with you honoring yours. It begins with us getting back to a place where the family unit is prized in the church: fathers, mothers, and children all glorifying the Lord. Because God said so. Because God said so. And it's nothing short of dishonorable to imply that just because we were hurt, just because we were sinned against, just because we carry baggage, that we are then freed from this command. We are not.

Consider that as you go throughout this week. Consider what it might mean to honor your father, to honor your mother, and to, as the future comes, raise your own children in the ways of the Lord. All because God says so.