Honor your mother and Father

Intro:

Well, it’s good to be with everyone tonight . My name is Zach Honnen. I am the student and young adult Director here.

I am excited to get to open up God’s word with you today. If you have your Bible, go ahead open up to Ephesians chapter 6.

But while you turn there, I have a question for you.

How many of you would say that you are a good listener? by raise of hands.

What does it mean to be a good listener? How would you describe a good listener?

Maybe you’re able to remember what someone says

Maybe you’re able to say back to them exactly what they said and just a different way so they know you understood

Maybe you sit there and you’re not and you don’t interrupt

Or maybe you do the thing that they said that you should do

About a year and a half ago I thought I was a good listener and then about a year and a half ago I started dating my fiancé and over that time I’ve learned I am not a good listener

I interrupt I interject I respond instead of listening

I don’t listen to understand I listen to defend and reject…

Now by the Lord’s Grace, there is improvement and there is hope for change, but the reason I bring this up is because our passage says to honor

And when we look at that word within the Greek, it says

A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible 5219. ὑπακούω

to listen attentively;

To be fully engaged to be fully ready to listen to hear to retain and Apply what is being said...

Have you ever been in a conversation with somebody and they were clearly not listening

Everything was in one ear out the other and you felt disrespected you felt dishonored

I’m gonna step out on a limb and say this is probably how your parents may feel how my parents may have felt and how my fiancé Sarah can feel…

So I want you to reflect as we jump into the text do you honor or do you dishonor your parents?

But before we jump into the text, so let’s pray….

Ephesians 6:1–3 ESV

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

“Children” -What does Paul mean by children? Who is he referring to right because you are a child of your parent and I am a child of my parents

Paul is referring to those who were under the direct household authority of their mother and or Father

If you live with your family, if you live with your parents, and you are their child, you are under their household authority you are under their authority

Therefore, you must obey your parents ”IN THE LORD”

And what in the Lord means here it means that within the body of Christ in submission to Christ, you submit to your parents within the scope of what is biblical

we are obedient to our household authorities

Now there is a caveat to obedience… If your parent asks you to disobey Christ, that is an area where you don’t obey them, but that is the only time we don’t obey them

Peter said I will choose to obey God rather than man

But that’s the only circumstance that we don’t live in obedience…

You might be thinking your mom told you to take out the trash and you don’t want to take out the trash and you can’t find a single verse that says you have to take out the trash. You might think you’re in the clear.

But what’s being taught? Is that your mother your father has authority to give you orders to give you direction and to give you responsibilities so obey them… With a Happy heart as my mom would say…

This is pleasing to the Lord… it is honoring to the Lord… it is right

Obedience to household authority is honor to the ultimate authority who is Christ

And we see this honor talked about in verse two

Ephesians 6:2 ESV

2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise),

If you go through the 10 Commandments, this is the only one that has a promise included with it

Ephesians 6:3 ESV

3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

Now, when I was a kid and I saw this passage hanging up in the bedroom of one of my friends who did not honor his parents…

And to paint a picture for that, he was a 13-year-old kid that didn’t say mom or dad he said Gary and Lorry… And to me who called everyone, Miss and Mrs, that was crazy…

But when I saw this passage for the first time, I thought…

If I obey God and I honor my parents, he’s going to bless me and in my little kid brain that meant I might get a new video game system that meant I might get a minibike

But what this passage is referring to is that when you listen to your parents when you honor your parents, you often times find that they have wisdom

You will learn from their mistakes you will learn from their wisdom, and you will walk closer to God and your life will be set in a direction that doesn’t have unnecessary suffering

Remember the word honor means to listen attentively… When I was a kid, I did not listen attentively. I listened to respond.

I loved to debate I loved to fight and because of that because of my inability to honor my parents and my inability to listen to my parents

My life has been full of unnecessary suffering

What that means is, I could have chosen to make the right decision, but I chose to make the wrong decision and that caused me and others pain… Pause

To Dishonor your parents is to not listen to your parents and to not listen to your parents is to say I know better

Its to say You’re dumb and I’m smart…

It’s to be full of pride…

The way we treat our parents is a reflection of how we treat our God…

I can tell you it took a long time for me to realize how to listen to God for me to honor God for me to trust God

Tonight I want you to reflect I want you to ask yourself are you a good listener?

Do you honor your mother, your father or your grandparent or your aunt? Whoever is in your life as a biblical authority?

Or do you live in pride …

do you dishonor your parents…

I know none of us have perfect parents and my parents are far from it, but they are the biblical authority that God placed in my life in order to shape me

In order to protect me from unnecessary suffering that I chose to walk into…

Obedience in this area is not a guarantee of a good and perfect comfy life,

but it is a guarantee that when we choose to listen to the wisdom and we honor our parents, we will then have practice in honoring God

We will have practiced how to listen to God, and when we listen to wisdom whether from the Lord or from his people

We can avoid unnecessary suffering in this life…

So tonight in growth community we’re gonna look at the foundation of honor our parents, and I want to encourage you If you haven’t, honored your parents up to this point

it is time to repent and begin that process of listening…

I can tell you, Sarah wishes I had started that process of learning how to listen a long time ago,

But it’s never too late to change. It’s never too late to seek the Lord on the side of eternity…

And with that said if you’re here tonight and all of this sounds like craziness, you don’t know the Lord you don’t believe in God I want invite you to believe in him tonight

I want to invite you to repent and believe, turning away from your old life,

Turning away from sin from disobedience and turning towards a savior who wants to forgive you and have relationship with you

Romans 10:9 ESV

9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Put your faith your trust and belief in Jesus ask him to be your savior tonight and he will save you…

the bible says “those who have ears let them hear” and ask that you would hear what God wants for you tonight that you would hear that he loves you

That you would hear that he died for your sins and Rose again on the third day to give you new life. I pray that you would hear these things.

I pray that you WON’T just throw them to the side and disregard them

I pray that you would listen attentively to what God has said tonight and that you would have a relationship with him…

With all of that said let’s pray