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[0:00] All right. Well, we are going through, we've been going through the Ten Commandments.! And I'm trying to remember, I should have this numbered like in my notes. Is this number five?

[0:12] ! Honor your mother and your father. Everybody's like, I don't know. Okay, I'm seeing a few thumbs up. All right, this is commandment number five. Honor your mother and your father. So, this is actually going to be our second message on this commandment. But like we do every week, and like we did in the very beginning, I want to kind of set us up with the right perspective. We had a memory verse this morning, which was, mentions the law. In fact, what did it say? Let me go read what that says.

[0:47] It says, therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. And then last month, we looked at the verse that said that we are under grace and that we are no longer under the law. And so, as we as Christians study and look into the Ten Commandments, we need to make sure that we come to it with the right perspective. And there are two things that I want to keep as our perspective. One is that we are not under the law anymore, as the scriptures say in Romans, we are under grace. And what does that mean? Just as a reminder, it means that the law doesn't have any power anymore to condemn us. Even if we break what's in the law, because the law still will teach us about moral things, about right and wrong. Not everything in the law is about right and wrong, but many things are, including what we're going to be looking at about this morning.

[1:44] But even though it describes right and wrong, and even though we don't do what's in the law, we are, the law has no power to condemn us, to make us guilty before God. Our righteousness, at least if you are a Christian, our righteousness is in Christ alone. That's one of the things that we sang about this morning. And the law doesn't have any power to condemn us. It also doesn't have any power to make us righteous. Like I said, our righteousness is in Christ. And so we should not look to the law to do that for us. And then the second thing is, even though we're not under the law, the law is still good. It's still holy. It still describes right and wrong for us. It can be a helpful teacher, a helpful instructor in righteousness. That's actually also found in Romans, that the law is good and it can be useful for instructions in righteousness. So we ought not to just ignore the law just because we are not under its power anymore. And so let's keep that in mind.

[2:58] We'll talk a little bit more about that at the very end of this message. But let's go ahead. And if you've got your Bibles open, Exodus chapter 20 and verse 12, this is the fifth commandment. It says this, honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. You know, this is a law that really relates to family. You know, there's one other law in the Ten Commandments. So two out of the ten relate to family. What's the other one that relates to family? You shall not commit adultery, right? Adultery has to do with the fidelity of marriage.

[3:42] And so this one has to do with parents and children. Adultery has to do with the relationship between a husband and wife. And there are two laws about family because family is fundamentally important when it comes to God's design and how he created things to be. Now, last time we talked on our first message on this commandment, we mostly actually focused not on the children, but actually on the parents. Because children need instruction in how they ought to live their life.

[4:13] And so parents ought to teach their children this commandment and expect and even demand from their children that their children honor them. And not just honor their parents, right? But honoring their parents should spread out, should broaden to honor in other places, honoring other authorities, civil authorities, other elders, people of any kind of authority in your life. It's important for all of us, but to learn, especially as children, to honor those to whom honor is due.

[4:52] Today, we're going to focus mostly on those who are on the children's side. And this is children of any age, both little tykes, you know, what am I trying to say? I was going to say teenagers, but what's below teenagers? Well, you've got toddlers, then kids, pre-teens. What's that word?

[5:16] Tween-ager. That's what I was looking for. You got the tween-agers, you got the teenagers, you got young adults, we got all kinds of words for the different graduating levels of being a child. But then, ultimately, you become an adult. But when you become an adult, does that mean you're no longer a child?

[5:31] Well, no, you're still somebody's child, right? No matter how old you get. And so, we need to make sure that we consider this commandment for any age that we're at. Just a quick review on some of the things that we talked about in explaining this commandment. That word honor actually literally means in the Hebrew to give weight to something. So, to treat something as weighty. So, we need to treat our parents with the kind of weight that they deserve. In the Greek, the Greek word for honor actually means to value something. So, to value something with the kind of value that it deserves.

[6:13] And our parents, and we'll talk about this regardless of what kind of parents they are, how good or bad they might be, deserve some kind of weight and some kind of value.

[6:26] Another word used, kind of a synonym, is that children ought to fear their parents or also translated as reverence. And those are the same kind of words that the Bible speaks to about how we ought to treat God, how we ought to look to God. We should fear the Lord. We should reverence Him. We do the same thing with our parents. Maybe not to the same degree, but it's the same kind of thing. And then, the opposite term that is used when it comes to how you ought not to treat your parents, it comes from Deuteronomy 27. It says, cursed is the one who treats his father or his mother with contempt. And so, we ought to avoid treating our parents with any kind of contempt. And there are places where that is translated as to treat them with light esteem. We should esteem our parents. We should treat them as if they are highly valuable, because they are. Like I said, we talked last week about the parents' responsibility to raise up their children, to be respectful, to honor them, to teach reverence. You know, children cannot be expected to teach themselves, right? You just leave a child to their own devices, and they're not going to learn the things that they need to learn. So, parents need to teach it to them. But then, as a child grows up, they gain more and more responsibility as they grow older to take on that responsibility, that duty of honoring their parents on themselves, regardless even of what their parents may have taught them or may have not taught them, what their parents expected or maybe what their parents didn't expect. There's a passage in Romans that's mostly talking about how, as citizens of a nation, we ought to give honor or dignity or respect to those who rule over us. And we can use that in thinking about authority in general. It says this, Romans 13, 7, render therefore to all their due, taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs are due, fear to whom fear, and honor to whom honor. And this is, just as a reminder, an age in which the governing authorities were quite evil and did not act very honorably, very respectfully. In fact, the emperor, at the time, tried several times to murder his own mother and then eventually succeeded. And this is the kind of authorities that Paul is saying that you ought to give honor to, not because they're honorable in their character, but simply because of their position. And it's the same way, actually, with parents. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that because, you know, some parents are great and some parents are not so great. Some are really, really bad. And then, you know, most parents kind of fit somewhere in the middle, right? And so how do we honor and respect our parents, even if they're, even if they don't always do what is right, even if they make mistakes? So we're going to be looking at this from two perspectives. One, two stages of life. One, when you're basically at home under your parents' authority. And then one, then second, when you get older and you come out from under your parents' authority. There's a passage in which Paul speaks, he recites this specific commandment. And so we're going to talk about young children. Turn to your, in your Bibles to

[10:31] Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. Paul is giving some instruction here, some practical instruction on how to live out your everyday life. And, you know, family and relationships are a big part of our lives. And so he's giving instruction on how you ought to live as a family, as a household.

[10:54] He gives instructions to husbands and wives and how they ought to treat and order themselves among each other. And then he has this commandment here, or this instruction, I'll say, in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 1. He says this, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and your mother. That's a quote from the, from the Ten Commandments, which is the first commandment he says with promise.

[11:25] And he quotes the promise that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. You know, for young children, the way, the primary way that young children should honor their parents is through obedience. And that's what Paul is getting at here. He's speaking to young children.

[11:50] When you are a young child growing up in your parents' home, the number one way for you to honor your parents is to obey them, to do what they tell you to do. You know, children, they start out, in fact, the proverb says this, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, right? And the rod of correction can drive it far from them. Children start out foolish. They don't have wisdom. Wisdom is something that you don't get, like, you don't get, like, the batteries included, right? When you have a, like, sometimes you get a new toy and sometimes they come with the batteries and sometimes they don't, right? Well, with children, when you get a, when you get a baby, it doesn't come with wisdom. That baby, that child doesn't come with wisdom included.

[12:31] You have to instill wisdom in that child. And so, um, we as parents need to teach wisdom. And so, in order for that wisdom to take, it requires obedience. Uh, because there's a lot of training to be done. And if you don't have an obedient child, well, you can't get the training done that you need. The home is the training ground for life.

[13:06] Um, and you cannot have, uh, successful training if you do not have obedience. I actually think about it kind of like the military. Uh, if you want to get your start in the military, where do you start off?

[13:22] You go to boot camp, right? And when you go to boot camp, they kind of treat you like a child, don't they? Right? They tell you when you're allowed to eat, when you're allowed, you know, when, what time to wake up, what time you go to sleep, they make you make your bed. They, they tell you exactly how you're going to dress. They even tell you what kind of haircut you're going to get.

[13:42] Right? I mean, in a lot of ways, that's kind of treating somebody like a child. But in the military, right, it is so important during especially that early training period that you have complete compliance and submission to those who are over you. Because that important training that things that might end up saving your life one day, you know, needs to be instilled at that early stage of your, of your military service. For many young people who joined the military, they actually didn't get a lot of these basics. Their parents didn't make, you know, have them make their beds or dress neatly or get a nice haircut. And so for a lot of them, this is the first time that maybe they're learning some of these things. But hopefully, you know, if we're, if we're doing our job as parents, we can get our kids a head start in life through some of those basic things. So for children at home, and I'll talk to the children, you know, if you're still at home, especially in the room here, you know, you are in a, in a training period. You're learning how to live your life and how to order your life. And it's your parents' job to make sure that you get that training. And so it's important that you are attentive to what they tell you to do, to respond diligently to the things that they say to you, that they ask you to do.

[15:13] Not only to be attentive, not only to do it, but also to do it with the right attitude, the right heart, being respectful, having a willing heart, and doing it with reverence and respect for your parents.

[15:30] A few verses later in this passage in Ephesians chapter 6, Paul, he's moving on to talk about servants and masters, but the same thing applies. He says this, talking to the slaves or servants, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. That's the kind of obedience or submission that God is looking for when it comes to children, that you do things, not stubbornly, but with a willing heart. You know, and does this mean, you know, should we, as children who are still at home, should you just obey your parents as long as they're doing everything perfectly, as long as they're doing everything exactly how they ought to do it, as long as they're using all the best wisdom and all the best judgment. You know, parents make mistakes sometimes.

[16:30] Did you guys know that? Yeah, parents make mistakes just like kids do. Parents aren't perfect. Sometimes they even, you know, make bad judgment calls or even sin sometimes, sometimes even against their own kids, sometimes in little ways and sometimes even in big ways. Sometimes you might even need to go to a parent and ask them for an apology because they did something to hurt you.

[17:00] And it's okay to do that. But regardless of those things, it is still important, no matter how imperfect your parents are, to obey them in the Lord. You know, when we think about the imperfections of parents, and, you know, usually you have imperfect parents and imperfect kids trying to work together.

[17:28] But even in a situation, right, where you have imperfect parents and then you have the perfect child, should the child obey their parents? Well, you know, we actually have an example of that in the Bible.

[17:44] There's an account early on in the story of Jesus, and they, the family's making a trip to Jerusalem. And guess what? The parents lose their kid. Mary and Joseph, they lose Jesus. They don't know where he's at. In fact, I think he was lost for several days. They finally found him. Where was he? He was debating with the rabbis, or the church leaders, anyway, or the Jewish leaders, I should say, are talking to them and all that. And, you know, his parents were pretty upset, like, what's going on?

[18:17] You know, what are you doing over here? And Jesus responded to them and said, you know, shouldn't I be about my father's business? But it says this, this is the follow-up to that whole scene. This is from Luke chapter 2, verse 51. It says, then he went down with them and came to Nazareth. So he went back home to Nazareth with them, and he was subject to them, it says. He was subject. That's the same word that Paul's using here. He was obedient to them. But his mother kept these things in her heart. And then it says, in Jesus, increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. Even Jesus, as a child, even though he was perfect, the Bible says that he never sinned in his whole life. And even though his parents, we know, failed, I'm sure, in many ways. We don't get all those details. But even then, Jesus subjected himself to the authority of his parents. And so even when it's difficult, even when it's challenging to obey your parents, children still ought to obey their parents. And really, you know what? That's actually when it counts the most. Because it's easy to obey someone when they are asking you to do something that you really want to do. Hey, everybody want to go to King's Island? Yay, that's great. I'm going to obey my parents. Let's go. But what happens when they say, oh, no, we're not going to do this? Or they ask you to wash the dishes or clean out the car? What benefits children the most is when they obey their parents and honor their parents when it's most difficult. And that is what will change your life and really grow you into being more like Christ and having a very healthy adult life.

[20:24] You know, going back to why should we obey our parents? You know, your parents, if nothing else gave you life, right? And so because of that, we ought to treat them always with the reverence that is due them. Just a few examples on what this looks like. I tried to come up with just a few. But when it comes to something like doing the chores, like the dishes, I know I hear from a lot of people, that's their least favorite chore. I love doing the dishes. I don't know, maybe there's something wrong with me, but I just love seeing something that's dirty and making it clean.

[21:05] Gives me a lot of satisfaction. But I've heard from a lot of people, I don't like doing the dishes. When it comes to, when your parents ask you to do the dishes, there's three things that you ought to remember when it comes to obedience. I call it the three R's. One is you ought to do it the right way.

[21:23] So you don't do a poor job, right? You do it with excellence. You make sure those dishes get clean, right? The other one is you do it right away. You don't wait until you're finished with your book or your TV show or whatever it is that you might be doing. When mom or dad says it's time to do the dishes, you say, yes, ma'am. You do it right away. And then the third R is with the right attitude, with the right attitude. Again, a willingness of the heart with a respect, not grumbling, but cheerfully. Another opportunity to obey and honor your parents is what happens when you really want something, whether you want to get something or you want to do something, and mom or dad say, no, sorry, you can't have that. Whether it's that candy bar at the checkout line, or maybe it's the friends that you want to hang out with this weekend, and mom and dad say no. How will you respond? Is it honoring to say, oh, but mom, you never... Is that honoring? Is that respectful?

[22:40] Is it honoring to pout and put your displeasure on display for your parents to see? What about when your parents aren't around, and you're supposed to be, you know, cleaning up your room, but hey, mom went to the store, and so, well, I'm going to maybe goof off for a while. Is that honoring or obeying your parents? What about this? What about if you are hanging out with your friends, and your friends are talking about kind of how dumb their parents are, how crummy they are, how they won't let them do this or that, and they can't wait until they get old enough, and they're going to leave the house because their parents are just horrible. Well, what are you going to do? Are you going to join in the same kind of thing and talk about your parents that way, or will you speak respectfully and honorably about your parents? Those are just a few examples as young children living at home on how children ought to obey and honor their parents. Now, I will say this, and this relates to any kind of authority in our lives, is that there is a limit to obedience, to submission, to any kind of authority. In this passage that Paul teaches children, he says, to obey your parents, he says, in the Lord. And every authority has a certain jurisdiction, a certain limited scope to what they are allowed to require. When the Jewish leaders told the early apostles right after, early in the book of Acts, they told them, we do not, we will not allow you to speak in the name of Jesus anymore. And what was their response? Here, I'll quote it from Acts chapter 5.

[24:50] But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than man. They did not have the authority, right, those Jewish leaders, to tell the apostles that they could not speak in the name of Jesus. And in like manner, even with parental authority, there are limits.

[25:13] And so if your parents ever asked you to do something that is sinful, right, or even criminal, and hopefully that's never happened in your life and never will. But if it does, that would be an example of where you would have to respectfully, doing it with honor and respect, but refuse or decline.

[25:37] And again, I hope that never happens to anyone listening to this. But I know that I've heard stories to where that has happened. I heard a story about a family where as a young girl, and this can actually be quite damaging. And even in Christian households, this can happen. A parent told a child to hide something so that the authorities wouldn't see it. And, you know, when you're young, you probably just will do what your parents ask. And really, probably the Lord isn't going to hold you responsible when you're six or seven or eight years old, right? But as you grow older and learn right from wrong, and can discern the difference between right and wrong, and you recognize something that your parents are asking you to do that may be very, very wrong, it is appropriate to refuse that. But still, even then, right, you can do so in a respectful way.

[26:42] So while young children should obey their parents in everything and in the Lord, eventually, children grow up, right? Many of us here were grown-up children. And at some point, obedience to our parents is not expected or required. But does that mean that we shouldn't honor our parents anymore? No. The honor that we show to our parents is a lifelong thing. How that is expressed will change, depending on age, and maybe some other circumstances, too, that we'll look at. Hopefully, that respect, that honor starts at a young age and continues for the rest of your life. However, for some people who didn't learn to honor and respect their parents, that's something that they have to learn maybe as an adult. They weren't taught it as a child, and now they have to kind of pivot in their life and learn how to respect their parents as an adult. We'll look at what it looks like to honor and respect your parents as an adult. But the first thing I want to look at, just briefly here, is this concept of this transition of being under the authority of your parents. In legal terms, you'll hear the phrase, this isn't a common phrase, but it's called emancipation. And most of the time, we hear the term, well, you're a legal adult. And in this country, anyway, as soon as you turn the age of 18, you transition legally from a minor to a legal adult. Before 18, you have to get your parents' permission to do lots of things. But as soon as you turn 18, the government says, basically, you can do whatever you want without your parents' permission. You know, there have been some, even in Christian circles, it's not common, but who have actually kind of denied that whole thing.

[28:49] But I think it's actually very biblical. And it gets really weird and strange when I've seen or met families where the adult children, maybe 18, 19, 20, 21, sometimes 25, are still expected to be under the authority of their parents. It can get kind of weird. But we actually have in the Bible some instruction and some examples of what this looks like. In the very beginning in Genesis, it really puts it in terms of marriage. But what happens when a man and a woman get married?

[29:27] It says in Genesis that the man is to leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife. So he was under the household and authority of his parents, but then he leaves and he is joined to his wife. He's starting his own family. But even if you never get married, does that mean that you're still under your parents' authority? Well, again, we have another example from Jesus himself.

[29:55] Did Jesus ever get married? You know, despite what is the Da Vinci Code or whatever that book was that tried to make that claim with basically zero evidence, by the way.

[30:09] We see that Jesus eventually left his parents' household, didn't he? He started his own ministry. Now, through all that, he was very respectful of his mother, especially. We actually don't see his father.

[30:21] Many people have kind of guessed that maybe his father passed away before Jesus started his ministry because we don't really see him in the picture at all. But we do see his mother. But early on, right, he was very respectful when his mother asked him to take care of the wine, the missing, how am I going to say this? The wine situation at a wedding, right? They ran out of wine.

[30:45] And he said, oh, Jesus can help you. I'm not sure what she was thinking. Was she thinking that he was going to do a miracle? I don't know what she was thinking. But she said, ah, Jesus, he'll take care of it. And so Jesus was respectful to his mother and helped take care of it, right?

[30:59] But there's actually another account. Very early on in Jesus' ministry, he left home, he was doing his ministry, and some people thought there was some strange things going on. And so, this is from Mark chapter 3. It says this, but when his own people heard about this, some of the things that Jesus was doing in his ministry, Mark chapter 3, verse 21, but when his own people, and that's talking about his family, in fact, later it mentions his brothers, and I can't remember if it says his sisters, but at least his brothers and his mother. So when his family heard about this, it says they went out to lay hold of him, for they said he is out of his mind.

[31:45] His brothers and sisters and his mom thought he was nuts. And so they went to, all right, Jesus, time to come home. But he resisted them. He was not under his mother's authority anymore.

[32:01] In verse 31, again, Mark chapter 3, verse 31, it says this, Then his brothers and his mother came, and standing outside, they sent to him, calling him, and a multitude was sitting around him, and they said to him, Look, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.

[32:15] But he answered them, saying, Who is my mother or my brothers? And he looked around in a circle at those who sat about him and said, Here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother.

[32:27] Now, I don't think he was dishonoring his mother in this way, but he was just saying, Hey, listen, I have a ministry that is so, so important right now. And so I need to focus my attention on all of these people that are listening to my teaching.

[32:45] And so they are my number one priority right now in my adult ministry rather than my physical family. You know, and we know that Jesus actually cared so much for his mother.

[32:57] We actually saw on the cross, this is in the book of John, Jesus is dying on the cross, and his mother is standing right there. And the scripture says that he spoke to the disciple whom he loved, almost certainly that's John, the disciple John.

[33:13] And he says, he says, I forget exactly, let's see if I wrote it down. Um, yeah, here is my mother. Oh no.

[33:24] Sorry, I didn't write it down. But he says, you know, John, this is your mother. Mother, this is your son. That's basically what he said. And he was indicating, John, I need you to help take care of my mom.

[33:34] I'm not going to be able to do it. And it says, it says that she went and stayed with John. And John helped to take care of his mother. So Jesus was finding a way through difficult circumstances to honor his mother.

[33:48] This whole transition from being a child, a young child, I should say, to an adult, can be challenging. When does that happen? You know, the law says 18.

[34:00] But you know, it can be a real problem if, you know, you're totally under your parents' authority, command and control style, you just do everything that they say, and then all of a sudden at 18, you leave home, and then now you're completely on your own.

[34:13] And I've seen that happen with families, and it can be disastrous. And so really, I think it is actually appropriate and helpful as parents, and this is really the parent's responsibility, as you raise your children, to have a transition over their lives to where you release control gradually over time.

[34:34] And if you don't do that, you can really set up your kids for failure. And I've seen this happen in real life. And what does that look like? Well, it goes from, well, you know, you've got a bedtime at 8 o'clock, and you better be in bed by 8 o'clock, to really, your kids just managing their own bedtime.

[34:51] And really, that's up to the parents to decide, well, when that is. Is that at 12 years old? Is that at 15 years old? Or from, well, you've got to eat all the vegetables on your plate, to, well, you know, it's up to you what you eat on your plate, or how you manage your own diet and nutrition.

[35:08] You might go from a very rigid school schedule, this is what time you're doing this and this and that, to, well, hey, these are some things that you need to get done, and it's up to you how you do it. And as parents, if we do that, if we release that control and give children more freedom gradually over time, that will help with their transition to finally, when they become an adult, they will have experienced responsibility for their own lives.

[35:36] And, and I think that will make things a lot easier once they get into adulthood, whether they leave home or, and get married or whatever might come about.

[35:55] Okay, so what is, what does honoring parents look like as an adult? And I just want us to consider a few things, because it can look very differently in very different situations. One is to consider how you treat your parents.

[36:08] Do you treat them with dignity, with honor, with respect? How do you talk about your parents? Whether it's in front of them or maybe not in front of them.

[36:20] Do you speak respectfully in front of your parents, but when they're not around, there's some things that you don't like about your parents, maybe things that they did when you were growing up, or maybe things that they're doing right now. And so you're going to tell all your friends about all the horrible things that they've done in a kind of a dismissive manner.

[36:40] Or will you speak respectfully about your parents regardless of what they may have done. And again, this doesn't mean that you can't talk to people about your problems and things, you know, that maybe some struggles that you've had in your life or with your parents.

[36:54] That doesn't mean that you can't talk about those things, even with other people. but do so with respectfulness toward them. Also, another thing that you can do to give respect to your parents as an adult is to give weight to them and specifically when they give you counsel.

[37:16] They don't have the authority to command anything from you, but they might make a recommendation and you should give that recommendation its proper due, its proper weight. even if you ultimately decide not to follow their recommendation.

[37:31] Be willing to consider it. Another thing is caring for your parents. And this is something the Bible speaks very explicitly about. And Paul's speaking to Timothy and he's giving the situation about, well, you've got sometimes widows.

[37:48] They've lost their husband and a lot of times, especially back then, they don't have the means to really take care of themselves very well. And so, he's actually giving some explanation on, well, what should the church do?

[38:00] Should the church take care of the widows that are part of the church? And for the most part, he gives about 15 different reasons on why the church should not. And then ultimately says, well, in certain very small circumstances, the church can help the widows.

[38:15] But the number one thing that he tells Timothy is who is supposed to take care of this widow if she's in need? Her children.

[38:26] Her children need to be the ones that care for her, even if it's difficult. 1 Timothy 5.3, but widow, excuse me, honor widows who are really widows, but if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents, for this is good and acceptable before God.

[38:46] A few verses later, but if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his own household, and again, this is referencing mom or even grandma, he has denied the faith and is worse than a non-believer.

[39:02] It's important, especially as parents get older, you know, and as you get older, life gets more difficult, it gets more challenging, and so, the number one way in those golden years, in those later years, for a child, as an adult, to honor their parents is to help care for them, to make sure that they are safe, that they're secure, that they're taken care of in their life.

[39:28] I want to ask this question, what about, how can you honor your parents if your parents aren't that great? If they've been difficult, if they were difficult when you were young, if they're difficult now, and this can look, I mean, this can be a wide spectrum, right?

[39:45] It's one thing to honor godly parents who have always invested in your life and always been great to be around, but what do you do when your parents aren't great to be around? Everything from your parents are just kind of foolish in the way that they live or they live sinful lifestyles.

[40:01] Maybe they're not even Christians at all. Sometimes it can get as bad as your parents are just mean and cruel or manipulative or violent or even criminal in some kind of way. And what do you do in that case?

[40:15] You know, Jesus actually said himself in his ministry that there are actually times when you need to divide the family and there needs to be a division between parents and daughter, specifically when it comes to him and the gospel.

[40:29] And he said, Luke 14, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and his mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life also, he can't be my disciple. Now that's a hyperbole.

[40:40] He didn't mean to actually hate, but he was kind of making a point like, hey, I'm the most important thing. I am the resurrection and the life. I need to be more important than even your family.

[40:52] And he said in Luke 12, do you suppose that I came to give peace on the earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. For from now on, five in one house will be divided, three against two and two against three.

[41:04] Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter, daughter-in-law against, sorry, her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

[41:18] You know, God does not want division. So when it says that he came to bring division, it's not saying that he came because he's like excited about everybody's, all these houses being divided, but he's saying, hey listen, sometimes the division needs to happen because there are things that are so important like your eternal life.

[41:37] But that does indicate to us that sometimes there needs to be a division and maybe it's not a complete division but maybe there needs to be boundaries in your life when it comes to your parents or sometimes it goes the other way, your children and you have to limit the interaction, maybe the time together because there's criminal behavior going on.

[41:57] Or sinful lifestyle that's involved. But still, even if there are those kinds of limitations in your relationship, we still need to find ways to honor our parents through all of that.

[42:14] We should never mock or ridicule our parents even if they really do deserve it. Sometimes parents do. we should speak respectfully to them and about them.

[42:27] And we should even help them out if we're able and even if it needs to be at a distance. We can help them out. And we certainly shouldn't enable bad behavior.

[42:41] But if we can help out in a helpful way, in a healthy way, that is appropriate and good and a good way to honor our parents. ultimately, if nothing else, we should at least seek the good of our parents.

[42:53] And at the very, very least, pray for them. Pray for them. That honor and respect under difficulty actually could be something that actually causes them to change.

[43:13] If they're not a Christian, it might actually cause them to look into this Jesus Christ who you follow that makes you so, that motivates you to be so respectful to your parents even though, man, I failed you in so many ways.

[43:26] Right? Right? We'll wrap it up here and we'll just do this really quickly. But one of the last parts of this commandment is the promise.

[43:39] It comes with a promise. And Paul actually brings this up in Ephesians chapter 6. He reminds us of the promise. And the promise is that you will, one, live a long life and two, it will go well with you.

[43:50] Those are the two things that are promised. And so, just kind of looking at that, does that mean that God will supernaturally elongate your life if you honor your parents?

[44:08] Now, that actually may have been somewhat at play in the Jewish dispensation under the law. Because he said it will go well with you in the land and God's going to bless you. I think that may have been at play.

[44:20] But now, in this age of grace in which we live, I don't think that's the case at all. But Paul does bring it up because I think there are natural consequences to how we live our life.

[44:31] And if you live a life in which you are disrespecting and constantly dishonoring your parents, that kind of lifestyle leads to misery and death. And if you honor and love your parents as you ought to, that kind of lifestyle leads to long life and happiness and joy in your life.

[44:51] So there are natural consequences that come into play. In Proverbs, it speaks to these. Proverbs 20, verse 20, whoever curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in deep darkness.

[45:03] Proverbs 31, 17, the eye that mocks his father and scorns obedience to his mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out and the young eagles will eat it. Whoa!

[45:15] That's quite a picture. But it's a picture really of death and misery. And that is what it looks like when you neglect God's design for the relationship that should be between parent and child.

[45:30] Now to wrap this up, I want to go back to this difference between being under grace and being under law. The law says if you do these things, the Ten Commandments and all the other ones, if you do these things, you will get a reward, a blessing.

[45:43] Here, long life, right? And it will go well with you. And if you don't, things will go very bad. There's the blessings of the law and the cursings. But God says as Christian believers, we are not under that curse anymore.

[46:01] So then if our motivation is, well, I'm going to obey my parents because that means I'm going to live long. That might be, that's a good motivation, right?

[46:11] I mean, everybody wants to live longer and everybody wants to avoid, you know, a hellish life. And so I'm just going to obey my parents. I'm going to be respectful because of what I'm going to get or what I can avoid.

[46:25] But you know what? Through Christ, he took us out from under the law and so all of that is, it doesn't work that way anymore. The cursing is gone.

[46:36] The blessing of the law is gone. And so what's left? What's the motivation? Well, going back to what Paul says in Ephesians 6, verse 1, he says, children, obey your parents in the Lord.

[46:49] Why? Because this is right. And that is how we ought to live under grace. We do things, not because we're going to get a reward or we're going to avoid some kind of a punishment, but we do things, we do what is right for its own sake because it is right.

[47:11] And by the way, isn't that how God lives his life? Does God love people because, well, there's a law that says he has to love, you know, these people that he created.

[47:21] Is that why he does that? No, he just does it because it's good, because he is love. And that's the way that God wants us to be. And so when the law is taken away, the only thing that's left is to do good for its own sake.

[47:37] And we see God himself coming down from heaven to earth to make himself a man, to love us even when we were unlovable. And when we put our trust in him, his love working in our life demonstrated to us compels us, the Bible says, to live like he lives, to have the same heart that he has.

[48:04] And ultimately, that's what we want. We want to be more like Christ, looking to him for help each day. Let's finish up there and just ask God to do that work, to continue to do that work in us.

[48:18] Father, when it comes to this commandment and all the rest of them, but specifically honoring our parents, sometimes it can be a challenge, sometimes it can be difficult, but we look to you.

[48:31] We need you to work in our lives day in and day out, not just today, but we need you tomorrow and the next day and the day after that to help us be transformed, to be more like you, that we would honor and respect our parents with what is due them, sometimes under difficulty, sometimes under difficult circumstances.

[48:53] But regardless, you can help show us the way and give us the wisdom that we need to do that in a way that honors you and honors them. And we thank you for that work in us, in Jesus' name.

[49:05]  Amen. Amen. Thanks, everybody. You are dismissed.