How Not to Hate Your Parents

Welcome

Well, good morning Lifepoint! If we haven’t met yet, my name is Dan and I serve here as the teaching pastor for our Worthington Campus. I’m really grateful you’re here with us today. Happy Mother’s Day!

If you’re just joining us today - we are in the middle of a series called, “I Have Questions.”

EXPAND INTRODUCTION

And so, I’ve titled today’s message, How Not to Hate Your Parents.

Celebrating the Way it Should Be

Look with me at Deuteronomy 5:16

Deuteronomy 5:16 ESV

16 “ ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

You may recognize the cadence of this verse - that it’s part of what we call the 10 commandments.

You might think of it this way, the 10 Commandments are the like an executive summary of what a relationship between God and his people is supposed to look like. It’s not the whole picture - and not necessarily the most important commandments. But the 10 commandments give a snap shot of it will look like to live in God’s world, God’s way.

Now, for those of us who’ve been around the church for a while, one challenge we run into with the bible is that some parts of it become so familiar - we barely notice them anymore. Like there are things we’re so used to hearing that we really loose any sense of wonder or pause, to stop and think, “Wait…what? What does that mean? What does that look like? And I think this happens with the passage we’re looking at here.

My question is: what is God trying to communicate to us in this commandment, “Honor your father and mother.” And before we can even get to the tension of why this might be hard…or any of the other questions we have about, I think we need to start with what it’s supposed to look like…like best possible scenario what does a healthy relationship with parents look like?

The first thing that stands out to me is the word right at the beginning. Honor…that’s interesting to me. Because what does that mean? Honor your father and mother?

Obviously it’s describing the posture we’re supposed to take in the relationship with parents. But, does that mean obey them? Listen to them? Agree with them?

Well, by now, I think you know this about me, I’m always fascinated by word choice. Think about it this way, if all God was interested in was obedience here, then I think he could have just said that. Like if the point is: obey your father and mother…do what they say…agree with them…then God could have easily communicated that. In fact, the word “Obey” is like one of the most used words in the book of Deuteronomy!

But it doesn’t say that.

Actually, “Honor” is a way more intriguing word…and I think as start to explore why God uses this word instead of that word, we’re going to see there’s something a bit more profound going on here!

Remember, the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, not English - and the word here for “Honor” is the Hebrew word, “כבר”. It sounds strange at first, but it means dense or heavy.

Actually, it’s really close to the idea of gravity.

In fact, the latin word for Honor - is gravitas…same idea here.

Think about it this way - there is something powerful and foundational about gravity. We see it’s effect everywhere.

It’s gravity that pulls the coffee down into you mug when you tilt the pot.

It’s gravity that keeps us tethered to the ground.

It’s gravity that limits how far you can throw a baseball or kick a soccer ball.

Gravity literally impacts every single part of our lives.

In the same way, there is something about this relationship between Parents and Kids that is as foundational, basic, formative and powerful.

You see it if you just take a step back a sec.

First of all, every single person has a parent. I’m not saying anything about the kind of relationship, but it is a biological reality. Everybody has parents. It’s the way that human life continues.

But there’s not just a biological reality. Because of the way God has created us as humans, there is a formational reality parenthood.

It’s not just that we all have biological parents, we are all shaped by our parents - it’s unavoidable. In good ways, bad ways - the way our parents lived - their beliefs - their actions - their decisions - even their mere presence or absence - all of it shapes us.

This is why, today, sociologies, counselors, therapists all place a huge emphasis on your family of origin! Not because it’s the most important thing about you, but it is one of the most formative influences on you! Your family of origin is like relational gravity - it’s pressed, pulled, molded you in countless seen and unseen ways.

Remember, right now, we’re talking about the best case scenario.

If you trace the relationship between parents an their kids through the bible up to this point, the pattern you’d find is that God intends parents to be the primary means through which kids develop a relationship with God.

Moses, teaching the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy says it this way:

Deuteronomy 6:6–7 ESV

6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Parents have a sacred responsibility - entrusted to them by God - to display a lifestyle of enjoying God and following Him - with the intention that as their kids grow, mature, and make sense of the world around them, can look to their parents and say “I want to navigate life like that.”

Simply put, parents: your genuine pursuit of Jesus and His way of life is the single most powerful influence on your children's understanding of God.

And, let me be clear. I’m not saying that this happens only in perfect parenting.

No parent is perfect, none of us had or will be perfect parents. We’re not perfect, but we can be credible. And part of that credibility is putting our own need of the gospel on display in front of our kids.

This means when we mess up - loose our temper - or whatever else it might - our kids need to see that, just like everyone else - we wrestle with sin and brokenness - and need forgiveness - and sometimes it’s their forgiveness!

The point is: As God intends it, parenting is nothing short of spiritual gravity.

So then, back to our question: what does it mean to honor your father and mother?

Well, I think at it’s most basic level, to honor father and mother means we recognize and celebrate the role God has intended our parents to play in our lives. It’s to recognize that that relationship has had a “gravitational” influence in our lives. It is to look for the good that God has brought about in your life as a result of the influence of your mom and dad.

In a lot of ways, it’s to celebrate mother’s day…father’s day in a way that says, “Thank you!”

And for a lot of us, we are able to do that wholeheartedly…not because we’ve had perfect parents, but credible parents - who we can see have sacrificed to care for us - to love us well - to listen and support! There there is something wonderfully biblical about celebrating the goodness God has shown you through your parents!

Honoring is celebrating parenthood the way it should be…the way God intended it!

Mourning the way it has been

But.

What if that’s not your relationship with your parents?

I was looking through some more recent gallop polls about Americans views on parents and one of them talked about how currently about 59% of adults report a good and healthy relationship with parents - really broadly defined, but generally good.

And the article was talking about this as a good thing! Lauding the fact the percentage is so high. But the first thought I had is, yeah but that’s about 40% of people DON’T have that.

And if that’s true, that means there is a significant number of us who listened to everything I just said and have been thinking the whole time, “If you’re talking about my parents, I have questions.”

To say it politely, some of did not experience what God intends in our relationship with our parents. And I said that all in past tense, because it’ a past relationship…it’s already over…for a whole bunch of different reasons.

Or maybe you’d say, even if growing up was okay - things have taken a turn - so that right now, your relationship with them is not the way it’s supposed to be. Somethings not right.

Or it might even be with your own kids…and you’re not looking up to the relationship with your parents, but are looking down to your kids and thinking about their relationship with you - and again, for a whole bunch of complicated reasons, it’s not the way it’s should be.

Herein lies the reason we’re talking about this in our series: how do we honor our parents if our parents are not honorable?

This is not theoretical - this is a live question for us as we try and makes sense of a current relationship that has been painful, or harmful to us.

And yet, in following Jesus, we still found ourselves confronted by His word. Look again at Deuteronomy 5:16.

Deuteronomy 5:16 ESV

16 “ ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

At the end of the day, this is not Moses giving a suggestion…this is not God just offering some advice about navigating life. It part of way God has intended for us, here and now to live - a commandment to honor…to recognize and acknowledge the weight of that relationship in our lives.

So what does honoring your parents in this kind of situation look like?

Well, we talked about honoring as recognizing and celebrating the way it should be…but, friends, it may also be that honoring your father and mother means recognizing that the Same. Spiritual. Gravity. of parenthood that has the power to shape and mold us- helping us see and understand what it looks like to enjoy a meaningful life with God - ALSO has the power to scar and distort.

PAUSE

And there are no easy fixes to this.

PAUSE

There really are no, “Look-at-it-this-ways” to make all the tension go away and magically repair your relationship.

PAUSE

Friends, we have see that honoring your father and mother may actually look less like recognizing and celebrating the way it should…and more like recognizing and mourning the way it has been.

And frankly, this is not something we’re good at in church; mourning…and grieving. In fact, most us have probably been discipled into a framework that has next-to-no space for grief and mourning. Instead, what we’ve picked up is this idea that what we really need to put on a brave face to save face. Act like we’ve got it all together - and push through with a mask of joy. Because if we really trusted God, then wouldn’t need to be said.

But not only is this not biblical - there is actually an entire book of the bible devoted to grief and demonstrating would faithful grief and mourning looks like!

The Old Testament book of Lamentations is this little, forgotten book nestled between the Major Prophetic tomes of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. And it’s the account of Jeremiah wrestling with the reality that life has not played out the way he OR ANY of God’s people had anticipated - grieving over the realty of the way things have been especially in comparison to how they should be…in many ways, it parallels for many of us the way our relationship with our parents has not matched the way it should be.

Look how Lamentations talks about this: Lamentations 3:17-20

Lamentations 3:17–20 ESV

17 my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; 18 so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” 19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! 20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.

Friends, this is what mourning and grief looks like…it names how we actually feel.

I mean look at what Jeremiah dares to say out loud,

“My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord…”

See, real mourning calls out the deepest levels of disappointment and disillusionment we actually feel.

And, as counter intuitive as it seems, honoring your parents may actually need start with you naming at least to yourself AND to God, exactly how you really feel.

Anger. Abandoned. Rejected. Worthless. Bitter. Jealous. Numb.

We don’t pretend not to feel this way. We don’t burry it and move on.

And in naming this…in mourning…you are seeing BOTH the relationship as it should be...the relationship as it has been…and recognizing the gravity of the space in between.

PAUSE

But do you know I love about this passage in Lamentations?

I love that it doesn’t end there.

Because if it did, I think it would really offer no real way forward - naming as a way of mourning doesn’t really offer a clear “next step” and actually has the potential to keep you feeling that way.

In many ways, this is what our current cultural moment offers to us - a twist on the old adage - “I feel, therefore I AM.”

But, you see, the Christian story offers us something after mourning…something after grief. It moves us from just naming grief to claiming hope.

And in this way, we can move from honoring as celebrating the way it should be, from honoring as mourning the way it has been…to we can honoring as healing the way it is now.

Healing the way it is now

Look again at Lamentations 3:19.

Lamentations 3:19–23 ESV

19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! 20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. 21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

You see, we move from mourning by calling on mercies that we find new every morning. We move on from grief by reminding ourselves of HIS steadfast love that we find over and over again!

Friends, this is what we actually find in the Gospel - mercies that that are new every morning. A steadfast love that never runs out…and faithfulness that cannot be out run…and this is first and foremost the posture God take with us in Jesus.

The story of the Gospel reminds us that we - first - all of us - were and are in need of God’s grace - and his mercy - daily. That we - first - all of us - wander off from the way He has created and called us to live - and that we - first - all of us - have all fallen short of that way of life.

But it’s the Gospel that also says in our weakness…our brokenness…our failure…we don’t find a God who stands over us, shaking His head telling us, “I told you not to do that!”

No…we find a God who deeply loves and cares for us!

We find the kind of Heavenly father, who, BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE FOR US, sent His son, Jesus, to live the life we should lived - to die the death we should have died, to experience the separation from Him that we should have experienced…all so that if we trust in Him…we can find forgiveness. We can find restoration. We can find life they way it’s meant to be lived. That we, regardless of what our earthly parents did or did not do, might have a Heavenly Father who perfectly knows us…hears us…sees us…and who begins the work of reshaping, reforming, and recreating us! In other words, it is in the Gospel that God begins the process of healing.

Choosing Forgiveness

And if this is the posture that our Heavenly father takes toward us - in showing us a mercy that is new every morning…in taking the first and risky step in pursuing forgiveness with us, this is what we are empowered to do in our relationships with our own parents.

Friends, the Gospel ethic that we embrace in following Jesus is an arch that always bends toward forgiveness.

And I want to be careful here…because forgiveness sometimes get confused with another idea - restoration…that forgiving means you are choosing to jump right back in relationship with that person.

These are two separate steps. You may get to restoration, you may not.

But the ethic of gospel means that, in following Jesus, we make the hard choice to let someone off our hook. We make the hard choice to say, I’m not going to carry around your offense any longer.

Questions:

-Some of us have been angry for a long time. Do you need to step out in forgiveness? -EXPAND

And this how not to hate your parents.