Well, you know, as the family sat down for dinner that night, little Johnny was not in a great mood. He'd already been spanked twice.
He's already had to spend a half an hour in his room by himself taking a time out. And so as everyone was seated, Johnny's dad turned to him and said, Johnny, we'd like you to thank God for the food. Johnny said no. So his father asked him a second time. And a second time, Johnny refused. Finally, with a very stern voice, his father said, Johnny, Johnny said, All right. All right. He bowed his head. And he thought for a moment. And he said, Lord, I want to thank you for preparing a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.
Now, I don't care who you are. That's funny. That is.
All right. Today, we're going to talk about parents and children because today we're going to talk about commandment number five of the Ten Commandments. Now, remember, we're involved in an ongoing study of the life of that great man of God, Moses. We have followed Moses now, along with the Israelites, to Mount Sinai, where God is giving them the Ten Commandments. And we have been looking at the Ten Commandments one at a time.
We've already looked at the first four. We've looked at commandment number one, where God tells us to love him supremely. We've looked at commandment number two, where God tells us to admit no rivals into our life for his love. We've looked at commandment number three, where God tells us, his followers of Christ, to do nothing that would tarnish God's reputation here on earth. And finally, we've looked at commandment number four, where God tells us to set aside one day of the week deliberately to focus on eternal things and on God. And we said that these first four commandments make up what is commonly referred to as the vertical commandments, the first section of the Ten Commandments, because these are the commandments that deal with our relationship with God. Now, with commandment number five, we move into section two of the Ten Commandments, commonly referred to as the horizontal commandments, because they deal with our relationship with our fellow men. And here in commandment number five, God begins the section, section two, by talking to us about the very first fellow men you and I ever meet here on this earth, namely our parents. Here's commandment number five.
I'll read it to you. Exodus chapter 20, verse 12. It says, honor your father and your mother, so you may live long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Now, in order to really understand what God is saying here in this commandment, we want to ask and answer three questions today.
Here's the first one. What exactly does the Bible mean when it says to us, honor our father and our mother? Well, the word to honor in Hebrew literally means to consider someone heavy, to consider them weighty. And in this case, God means heavy with respect, to consider them heavy with dignity, heavy with esteem, to honor our parents means to revere them, to respect them, to venerate them, listen, not so much as a function of what they do, or as a function of how they act, but rather as a function of who they are, the position they occupy, namely, they are our parents.
Now practically, day by day, what does this really mean in life? Well, it depends. It depends whether we're talking about young children and teenagers, or whether we're talking about grown adult children.
So let's talk separately about each. When we are young children and teenagers, honoring our parents means that we obey their instructions and that we submit to their authority. Ephesians chapter six, verse one, the Bible says, children, obey your parents in the Lord, honor your father and your mother.
Colossians chapter three, verse 20 says, children, obey your parents in all things. Friends, God is a God of authority. The Bible tells us, 1 Corinthians 1433, that God is not the author of confusion.
And the chapter goes on to say that God loves things done decently and in order. Now for this to happen, God knows that there is the need for authority in the universe. God began by setting up authority first in the Godhead itself. God the Son submits to the authority of God the Father. Jesus said, John 638, for I came down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. Jesus said, John 1249, for I do not speak on my own accord, but the Father who sent me commands me what to say. And then after that, God the Holy Spirit submits to the authority of both God the Son and God the Father. Jesus said, John 1613, the Holy Spirit will not speak on his own initiative, for he will receive from me. And remember, I, Jesus said, received from the Father.
He will receive from me and make known what I tell him to, that's what he'll tell you. Now after God established authority in the Godhead, the next thing he did was establish authority in the heavenly places. For example, Daniel chapter 10 tells us that even among the angels, there is authority.
There are regular angels, and then there are archangels that rule over the regular angels, even in the heavenly places with the heavenly beings, there is authority. And finally, God established authority here on earth. He established authority in human government, authority in the workplace, authority in our schools, in our churches, in the military, but friends, the first and foremost place where God has established authority in our world is in the family. And so as followers of Christ, it is very important we understand that God loves submission to authority and he rewards it. And therefore, if we want God's richest blessing on our life, we must learn how to submit to authority. Now it is this principle that lies at the heart of commandment number five.
Commandment number five tells us that God has placed authority in our mothers and our fathers because early in life, God wants us to learn how to submit to authority in general by teaching us how to submit to our parents' authority in particular. And the truth is, this is the easiest place, the home, to learn to submit to authority. I mean, no one will be more patient with you while you're learning how to do this. No one will be more forgiving towards you as you're learning to submit to authority.
No one will give you more chances. No one will bear with you more than your parents. I mean, if you're a young person here today and you think your parents are too hard, too demanding, too strict, too overbearing, listen to me, your mom and dad are a piece of cake compared to what is coming in your life. My oldest son Jamie discovered this in spades when he left home at the age of 18 and matriculated into the United States Naval Academy.
It took that young man all of about 20 minutes to suddenly realize that mom and dad were like mashed potatoes and gravy compared to what he was going to deal with for the next four years. You say, well, Lon, I understand what you're saying, that children, young children and teenagers submitting to the authority of their parents is how they honor their parents, right? Right. You say, but Lon, I've got a couple of issues here that this raises. Okay, let's ask them. We say, all right, issue number one is what if my parents are not Christians? What if my parents are not active followers of Jesus Christ?
Do I still have to submit to them? Well, friends, when you read Exodus 20, commandment number five, when you read Ephesians chapter six, Colossians chapter three, I don't see anywhere in there that God qualifies His command to honor our parents by whether or not they are followers of Christ or not. This is an obligation every dude a child a child has.
It's a duty every child has to every parent, whether that parent is a follower of Christ or not. You say, well, all right, I got a second issue. My second issue is what if I've got lousy parents?
What about that? Well, it's true. Some parents are better than other parents.
Friends, it's also true. Some bosses are better than other bosses. Some teachers are better than other teachers. Some husbands are better than other husbands. Some military officers are better than other military officers.
Some coaches are better than other coaches. But as followers of Christ, God tells us to submit to all human authority, whether the person who has it exercises it in a good way or whether they exercise it in a not so good way. First Peter chapter two, verse 18, Peter says, servants, submit to your masters with all respect, watch now, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh and unreasonable.
And in this very same way, God expects you and me to honor our parents, even when their behavior may not be deserving of that honor, because in submitting to their authority, we are really submitting to God's authority in our life. Years ago, we had a gentleman here at this church, who he wasn't part of our counseling center, but he just kind of did some ad hoc counseling, kind of on his own, you know. And I had some people come to me and say, you know, I'm a little confused about what he's teaching me in this counseling. I said, well, what is he teaching you? And they said, well, he's teaching me that parents are only parents when they act like parents.
I said, what does that mean? He said, well, he's teaching that parents are supposed to love their children, accept their children, encourage their children, affirm their children, comfort their children. And if your parents don't do this for you, then they are not really your parents. They are your borners.
I don't think there is such a word. They're the people who bore you, but they're not really your parents because they're not acting like parents. And therefore you have no responsibility to honor them as your parents.
Now, friends, this is absolute utter rubbish. This gentleman is no longer with us here at McLean Bible Church, because he was convinced this was right. And we said, we're sorry, you're not teaching that at this church. Friends, your parents are your parents are your parents. And in spite of their imperfections, God expects you and me to honor them.
You say, well, that raises another issue, Lon. Number three, what if my parents asked me to do something that's wrong, something that's clearly unbiblical and sinful, like lying on the telephone and telling people they're not home when they really are home or stealing or perjury or incest or something horrible like that? Am I obligated to obey my parents then and to do things that I know from the Bible are just wrong?
Well, the answer is no, absolutely not. This is where God draws the line. Jesus said, He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Remember what Peter said, we must obey God before we obey men. Parents should never ask a child to deliberately do anything that is wrong or sinful. But if your parents ever do ask you to do that, you have the freedom to tell them you must choose to obey God first. And the answer is no. Give them the phone, say tell them yourself.
Issue number four. How long, Lon, finally, am I obligated to obey my parents like this? I mean, if I'm 45 years old with two children, do I still have to obey my mommy when she calls me up on the telephone? Well, the Bible doesn't give us an absolutely definitive answer about when we stop having to obey our parents.
The Bible makes it clear marriage is one of those points because a person leaves their father and their mother and cleaves to their wife for their husband. But it is my opinion that when a child is number one older than 18 and number two ceases to be financially supported by his or her parents, that at that point, the biblical obligation to obey our parents ceases, stops. Parents, remember, your children are not put here on the earth to listen to you and obey you the whole all of their life. Our job as parents isn't for us to get our children to obey us their entire life. Our job as parents is to teach them how to obey God their entire life so that even when we're not in the middle, they still know how to do that.
Now, what happens then when we make this transition? All right, now we're grown children. We're not under obligation to obey our parents anymore. So what does commandment number five mean for us now as grown adult children? Well, for grown adult children, honoring our parents means that we treat them with ongoing esteem, reverence, and respect, not just in our minds, but that we actually do those things that actively communicate that message that we feel this way about them. It means like keeping in touch with them on a regular basis, like doing things we know make them happy. My mom used to call me up all the time and say, would you please send a birthday card to your fifth cousin twice removed living outside? I didn't even know this person.
And I would say, Mom, I really don't want, please, for me, she used to say, for me. You say, did you do it? Yeah, I did it.
Yeah, I did it. Why did you do it? I did it because God says honor your parents. And that was one way I can honor my mother. It was important to her. We honor our parents as adult children by showing them that we value their wisdom by asking their opinion.
We don't have to take their opinion, but I asked for it. We do it by making sure the grandchildren get lots of time with them. We do it by caring for their earthly needs when they become older and they can't care for their earthly needs.
We do it by telling them in words how much we love them and appreciate them while they're still alive to hear it. A few years ago, I read a biography by Mickey Mantle called The Mick. Now, Mickey Mantle, as you may know, was not a follower of Jesus Christ until the very end of his life.
He was led to Christ by legendary New York Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson. And there were a lot of things in Mickey Mantle's early life that I did not find particularly exemplary. But one of the things about Mickey Mantle that I really was impressed with was this man loved his parents, especially his dad.
His dad worked in the mines in Oklahoma. But when Mick was young, every day when his dad came home, no matter how exhausted he was, he immediately went out and played baseball with Mickey Mantle every single day. And finally, when Mick made it to the professional ranks, his dad would follow him around, encouraging him, supporting him, comforting him when he'd had a bad day at the plate. At 39 years old, his father died from Hodgkin's disease. Mick was 20 when his father died. And here's what Mickey Mantle said about the funeral of his dad, and I quote.
He said, I went to my dad's funeral alone. I stood before my father's grave, remembering a thousand things from the past, so many chances then to let him know how much I loved him, and yet I never said it not once, end of quote. Friends, this is what part of what it means to honor your parents as an adult child. It means tell them how much they mean to you. Tell them how much you appreciate them.
Tell them how much you love them while they're still alive to hear it. Well, let's summarize. To honor our fathers and our mothers means to treat them with a lifelong attitude of love, of respect, and of reverence. When we're children and teenagers, this issues out in obedience and submission to their authority.
And when we're grown adult children, this issues out in an attitude of affection, esteem, and respect in the way that we react to them. Now all of this leads to question number two for the day, and that is, why should I? I mean, Lon, this is a lot of work you're asking me to do here. Why should I do this? Well, I got four quick reasons for you.
Number one, because in most cases, they deserve it. Friends, listen, if it wasn't for your parents, you wouldn't even be here today. If it wasn't for them, you'd have starved to death. If it wasn't for your parents, you'd have choked to death on your teething biscuit. You'd have swallowed marbles and you'd have drunk Clorox, if it wasn't for your parents.
If it wasn't for your parents, you would have one whale of a diaper rash today, if it wasn't for your parents. They were the ones who got up in the middle of the night with you when you were sick. They were the ones who got you your shots, who bought you clothes, who helped you with your homework, who paid for your piano lessons, your dance lessons, your ball lessons, who took you to sporting events. They deserve your honor and your esteem. They've earned it. You say, but Lon, I had terrible parents who didn't do any of this for me. I've got an awful diaper rash today.
No, I had terrible parents, Lon, so they don't deserve it. All right, well, then I have three other reasons for why you should do this. Reason number two is because God commands you to. Ephesians 6.1. Reason number three is because God says this is well pleasing to Him, Colossians chapter three. And reason number four is because God promises to reward and bless our life if we do this. Listen to Ephesians 6.1 again. Children, Paul writes, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is the first of the Ten Commandments with a promise attached to it. And what is the promise? Namely, that it may go well with you and that you will live long on the earth. You say, Lon, I don't understand. By honoring my parents, how in the world does that help me live long here on the earth?
Well, two ways. Number one, because on the human level, our parents' rules often usually keep us away from the kind of sinful actions and destructive habits that shorten our life here on earth. And number two, because on the spiritual level, God bestows supernatural blessing on the life of every person who honors their parents. I have three boys, two in their 20s, one who's 30 now. And they, two of them, one's married, but the other two are looking for the right woman. And I told all three of my boys and I continue to tell them, when you're evaluating a potential woman as a wife, you make sure you go home and meet those parents and watch her interact with her parents and watch how she treats her parents. Young ladies, if you're looking for a man to be your husband, you make sure you go home with him and watch how that man treats his parents. Because how a person treats their parents is a huge spiritual barometer of their spiritual character.
It is a barometer of where their walk with God is, and it is an indication of the level of God's blessing they will bring into your marriage or the lack thereof. Now, all of that leads to our third and final question. And you know this question. Yeah, you do.
You all know this question. So are you ready? Are you ready? All right, nice and loud. Here we go.
One, two, three. Yeah, you say, Lon, so what? Say, all right, I got this. I got it.
I got it. You know, but my parents are gone. I mean, I have children, but my parents are gone.
And so for what does this have to do with me and and whatever, what? Listen, I want to take a moment and take the so what time in my message and talk to us who are parents. And I want to say that as parents, people who are followers of Christ, who have children of our own, the question we should always be asking ourselves is this question, how can I make it easier for my children to honor me? You say, well, Lon, I don't have to try and make it easier for my children to honor me. You just got through saying that no matter what I do, that they're supposed to honor me anyway, just because I'm their parent period.
So there. Wait a minute, wait a minute, friend, if that's what you really believe, I would like to say to you that you are woefully ignorant of the word of God. You are, because in Ephesians chapter six, right after Paul says, Children, obey your parents, here's the next thing he says, verse four, he says, parents, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger in Colossians chapter three, right after he tells children to obey their parents, he says, Parents, do not exasperate your children, friends, the point is that God is deeply concerned that we as parents do those things that make it easier for our children to honor us, as the great preacher G. Campbell Morgan said, honorable parents are easier to honor. And he's right.
He said, All right, so on, how do we do this? Well, after 26 years of being a pastor, and evaluating children coming out of every kind of home you can imagine, I have seen that those who come out of homes where the parents, where the children rather have a good and honorable attitude towards their parents, I've noticed in every case, there is one key element that all of these families had in common, one key element about their parents, that was always true, that these children had experience growing up with those parents. And that is this, those parents in those homes were serious people about living authentic Christian lives in their home. Listen, friends, and you know, this children have a cheese meter as big as this building. I mean, they can smell cheese a mile away, they can spot a phony a mile away. And the thing about being a parent is that you don't live a mile away from your children.
You live right up close. And friends as parents, when we act one way at church, we go in and we're all pious and holy. And then we come home and we live like the devil himself, yelling and screaming and threatening and speaking abusively and cursing and drinking and and talking nasty about people and watching stuff on television. We got no business watching and reading magazines. We got no business reading. Our children are forced to conclude that we are nothing but cheap religious hypocrites, because our actions don't give them any choice but to conclude that.
And you know what? It is tough to honor and respect a cheap religious hypocrite. As followers of Christ, the greatest thing you and I can do to help our children honor us and respect us as their parents is for us to be serious about living genuine, authentic, godly, Christ-like, biblically obedient lives, not just at church, and not just out in the world's eyes, but most importantly, in our homes. Now the truth is, as followers of Christ, we should be passionate about living like this anyway, whether we got children or not. But this is particularly important when children are watching your life. You say, well, Lon, I understand what you're saying, but you know, when you're home, people see the worst side of you. I mean, you know, there's no way at home, no matter how hard I try, that I'm not going to mess up.
I mean, sooner or later, I'm going to fumble the ball. Sooner or later, I'm going to do something un-Christ-like in my home, and then I'm going to lose my children's respect, and I'm going to lose their honor, right? Not necessarily.
Not necessarily. You know, I told you I've raised three boys, had the privilege of doing that, and I learned something very important raising these three boys. I learned that children don't expect their parents to be perfect.
They simply expect their parents to be honest. You say, what does that mean? What that means is, friends, when you mess up, you fess up.
That's what that means. That means when you mess up in your home and we're all going to do it as parents, it means you have the integrity and the honesty to go to your children and tell them you messed up. Could I tell you something? You're not going to be telling them something they don't know. They know you messed up.
These are smart people. They're just waiting for you to be honest enough about it to admit it. Go to those children. You tell them you messed up. You tell them you blew it. You tell them you didn't act in a way that honored Christ. You ask for their forgiveness. You seek their forgiveness, and you promise them that you're going to try to do better and that you're going to make amends if it's possible for what you messed up, and you ask for them to pray for you as a parent because you're not perfect and you need their prayers. And I promise you, you handle a mistake like that in your home, and you won't lose the respect of your children. You will gain the respect of your children.
And so, let's summarize, shall we? Whether you're a child here today whom God has commanded to honor their parents, or whether you're a parent here today whom God is told to live authentically for Christ in the sight of your children, and you know some of us are both. Some of us, we've got parents who are alive and we've got the child side to worry about, and we've got children and we've got the parent side to worry about. Either way, it doesn't matter where you and I fall, folks, it is impossible for us to do this effectively. It is impossible for us to do it properly in the energy of the flesh.
We can't do it that way. You know, you and I cannot be the child to our parents that God wants us to be in our own energy and strength. You and I cannot be the parent to our children that God wants us to be and that they desperately need us to be in our own strength. We need the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit operating in our life. If we're going to be able to be the kind of child and parent God calls us to be, we won't be it perfectly, but even to be it consistently, we need a higher power than you and I can just gut up in the energy of the flesh. And that's what the song we sang, the power of the cross, is all about, at least in part.
It's about the fact that when we give our life to Christ, we get a new power, a new set of resources into our life to enable us to live and serve God and obey God. And that power comes from the Holy Spirit that comes to live inside of us. And so if you're here today, I urge you not to try to be the kind of child God calls you to be or to be the kind of parent God calls you to be in the energy of the flesh.
I can't do it. I urge you instead, number one, every day to yield your heart and will to the Holy Spirit. I call on you every day to ask the Holy Spirit to fill you and control you. And finally, I call on you every day to depend on the Holy Spirit's power to enable you to live like this. Don't try to do it on your own.
You can. And friend, if you're here and you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, I'm here to tell you that the power of the cross is available, a completely different and new power than you've ever known anything about in your life. The power that allows you to live above your passions and above your dysfunctionalities and above your own unhealthiness and obey God consistently in your life. But you only get that kind of power when you come into relationship with the living God through faith in Jesus Christ. And even if you're not willing to do that for yourself, if you're a parent, I beg you, do it for the sake of your children because they need you to be the kind of parent God calls you to be in the Bible. And you can't do that without the power of Christ operating in your life. Commandment number five, honor your father and your mother so you may live long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thanks for reminding us today of our obligation and responsibility to our parents. And for some of us here, this is a difficult message to hear. We really chafe under this because we had lousy parents. We come from homes with all kinds of unhealthiness and pain and dysfunctionality. And to honor the people who did that to us, it's difficult to hear that.
Lord, I came from one of those homes. I totally understand this. But Father, remind us today that we're not honoring our parents as unto our parents, but we are honoring them as unto the Lord. We are doing this, Lord, not because they deserve it. We are doing it because you ask us to. And I pray that you would enable us to rise up in the power of your spirit and overcome our human pain, overcome, Lord, our human anger, overcome our human hurt, and return honor to our parents as an act of obedience to the living Christ in our life. Lord, change our lives because we were here today. And we sat under the teaching of the eternal Word of God. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen.
