Put on the Weight

15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish but understand what the Lord’s will is.

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

INTRO.

It’s the first day of November, which means we’re kicking off a brand-new series on everyone’s favorite topic of conversation: honoring our parents. I know, that’s EXACTLY what you were hoping for But hear me out: I need you to lean into this because I believe that this is a series that will actually make YOUR life better, not just your parents’ lives.

And so today as we jump in, I want to kick this series off with a message that I’m titling, “Put on the Weight.”

UPSET THE EQUILIBRIUM.

I’m a proud Sunday School alumni, which is just a fancy way of saying I’ve been in church since I was little. And one of my favorite things about Sunday School was that we would always play some sort of silly Bible-themed game to start. So I thought I’d kick it old school today and have us start with a game called “not a commandment.”

I’m going to throw up two statements on the screen, and I want you to decide which of the two is NOT part of the 10 commandments. You ready?

“Do not commit adultery” or “Do not commit arson”

“Remember the Sabbath” or “Remember the Titans”

“Do not gossip” or “Do not murder”

“Honor the past” or “Honor your parents”

You guys are smart. The 4 commandments were do not commit adultery, remember the sabbath, do no murder, and honor your parents.

Don’t you find that list interesting?

Doesn’t it seem odd that God lists honoring your parents in the same list as things like “do not murder” and “do not commit adultery?”

It feels easy to see how we can live great, full, healthy lives without following the command to honor our parents. It’s a lot harder to see how we can live great, full, healthy lives without following the commands to not murder or commit adultery.

ANALYZE THE DISCREPANCY.

And I think that’s exactly why, next to remembering the Sabbath, honoring our parents may be the commandment that we break the most. Because to so many of us, it doesn’t feel like a command, it feels like a suggestion. It’s a good idea about life, but it’s not necessary. We can get by without following it.

And don’t get me wrong, we have what feel like pretty justified reasons for not doing so. I sure do. Maybe our parents aren’t part of our lives whether it be from a divorce, them walking out, or them being in jail for some bad decisions they made.

Maybe our parents are technically our parents, but we’re the one who acts like the adult in the relationship. They have places in their lives where they’re unhealthy and so we have unfortunately been forced to parent our parents rather than be parented by them.

Or maybe our parents aren’t our biological parents. We’re adopted and so we don’t feel like the people who technically are raising us are our parents.

I don’t necessarily know your story, but I do know that, for many of us, me included, it’s not very hard to find reasons to justify why we don’t honor our parents.

DISCLOSE THE CLUE TO RESOLUTION.

But I’m here to suggest that honoring our parents has very little to do with our parents and has WAY more to do with God.

EXPERIENCE THE GOSPEL.

Here’s why I say that – the passage we read in Ephesians is a piece of a letter where Pastor Paul was teaching his churches in this city in Asia called Ephesus what it looked like for them to live out their faith in Jesus in very practical ways. The whole first half of the letter is a reminder of the gospel story – what God has done for those who follow Him!

But the second half answers the question: in light of what God has done, what do we do?

And a large thread that he weaves throughout the second half of the letter is what we do when it comes to our relationships, particularly with those in authority.

Look back at our passage from earlier,

15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish but understand what the Lord’s will is…

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ…

…Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

I really struggled with this passage a couple of years ago. I was a Resident over at the Sugarloaf Campus and, honestly, I was having the time of my life. I felt like my relationship with God was really taking off in a way that it never had before.

And then I got the call that my family was falling apart back home. My dad, who was the pastor at my church back home for 16 years, got fired after my mom got the courage to come forward and tell some people at the church that my dad had been abusing her.

And then a couple of months later, my mom called me to tell me that, after having been married for 20 years, she and my dad were getting a divorce, and my dad would be moving out to go live in my uncle’s spare bedroom.

And the best way to describe how I felt is to picture a large hill [Hill Slide]. I felt like the hill represented my faith journey and, the further into my Residency I got, the further up the hill I went. I was making some serious progress.

But as I climbed the hill, I was climbing with one of those weight sleds on my back [Weight Sled Slide]. And every time I got a call from home that things were falling apart, it would add a weight to the sled. The more calls I got, the more weight I felt, and the further down the hill I slid.

And I remember praying this one day: God, I feel like I could climb the hill so much faster if You would stop adding so much weight. I might even be up the hill if You’d given me different parents.

What I was really saying was: God, I could follow you so much better if it weren’t for the weight of my parents.

You ever felt that way? Felt like your family, and your parents in particular were weighing your down and holding you back when it came to your faith? I felt that way and it made me hate my parents. I looked down on them. I felt better than them. I was ashamed of them. And because of that I felt justified to stop honoring them.

I stopped going home for holidays. I stopped calling home. I stopped asking how they were doing. I stopped treating them like human beings and started treating them like problems to solve.

In fact, I convinced myself that I was the exception to this passage in Ephesians.

“Oh, that doesn’t apply to me, my parents suck.”

“My parents are super unhealthy, I’m off the hook for this.”

But God messed with me. No matter how I justified it, I was continually haunted with this passage and I had to go on the journey to discover:

What does it mean to honor my parents? And what does honoring my parents have to do with my faith?

And what I found was 3 words that changed my whole picture of honoring my parents.

Look closely at verse 1:

…Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 

In. The. Lord. We’re going to talk more about this next week, but we can’t talk about that until we get this in our soul. That phrase, “in the Lord” can also be translated “because of the Lord.” How I honor my parents and how I follow Jesus are intricately connected. They have everything to do with each other.

What God showed me in that passage was

I don’t follow God despite my parents, I follow God as I follow my parents.

Students, your relationship with your parents is quite possibly the primary arena where your faith expresses itself. Make no mistake, honoring your parents may feel like a suggestion, but God is very clear that this is something that He has commanded.

And because it’s something that God has commanded, disobedience is not a weakness, it’s wickedness. When we choose not to honor our parents, we are directly disobeying God. God is not concerned with why we feel justified in not honoring our parents. We can’t control what our parents do or how our parents act, but we are 100% responsible for what we do and how we act.

God does this thing all throughout Scripture where He will use something on earth to represent something in heaven. God uses our relationships with our parents and their God-given authority in our lives as a picture of our relationship with Him. After all, Jesus said that we get to call God our FATHER. If we can’t learn to honor a visible authority (our parents), how will we learn to honor our invisible authority (God)?

I don’t follow God despite my parents, I follow God as I follow my parents. This is not two things that have nothing to do with one another, they have everything to do with one another.

And when I finally got that, it changed my picture.

ANTICIPATE THE CONSEQUENCES.

I used to think that my parents added weight that kept me from moving forward in my faith and my goal should be to lose the weight. But now, I see that God knows exactly who He designed me to be and He very specifically chose my parents to be my parents as part of His plan, not in spite of His plan, to make me into that person.

My parents, and my journey of having to learn how to honor them wasn’t weight I needed to lose, it was weight I needed to put on because that weight was training me. That weight was forming me. That weight was making me. It was actually good for me.

Which is how Paul finishes the passage:

2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

When I honor my parents, I am living the way God designed, which is good for ME! And who doesn’t love a reward for doing what you’re supposed to do?! Paul says that when we honor our parents, there’s a reward attached that we may enjoy long life on the earth. Now personally, I don’t think this means you get to live to be 100 if you honor your parents the way God asks. But I do think it communicates a principle: When we honor our parents and live the way God designed, we avoid a great deal of sin. When I practice honoring my parents, I am saved from the brokenness that comes with a dishonoring relationship with my parents.

Think of it this way – pieces of eternity can start right now. When we live God’s way, God’s kingdom comes to earth. We don’t get to experience that fully until heaven, but there are places and moments where we can have experiences on earth as it is in heaven.

And so my question for you is this: Where have you taken the command to honor your parents as a suggestion? And what weight do you need to put on this week in that area?

Simone is about to come up and talk through some ideas with you on what that could look like, but let’s not move too quickly from this.

I want to pause and pray over you and your relationship with your parents. I know this is a heavy subject, and some of you are carrying some really heavy weight because of your family right now.

In fact, if this is an area for you that’s particularly hard right now, you don’t have to give any details, but I would just love for you to raise your hand.

If your hand isn’t up, I want you to go find someone whose hand is, lay your hands on them, and pray for them that God would meet them as they navigate this.