Child to Parent Relationship: Why should we obey our parents?
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Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
What are some words or phrases that you would use to describe your relationship with your parents?
What are some words or phrases that you think the bible uses to describe how a child should act toward their parents?
1. Honor
2. obey
3. listen
4. don’t reject their teaching
What Does the Bible Actually Say About This?
What Does the Bible Actually Say About This?
Old Testament
Proverbs (Wisdom Literature)
Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching,
My son, keep your father’s command, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching.
Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old.
New Testament
Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.
We will be looking at two other passages as our main texts for tonight.
Please open your bibles to Eph. 6:1-4
We are going to read this then we will break this down verse by verse to understand this better.
To give you some context of this passage Paul is writing to the Ephesians to encourage them to hold onto the truth of the gospel of Jesus while they lived in a society that believed many different religions. At the end of the letter, where we find our passage that we read, we see Paul give a practical how-to guide on representing Jesus in any situation. Paul talks about how to represent Christ in relationships with other Christians, between a husband and a wife, between children and parents, and between co-workers. With this in mind let’s read our passage.
Read Eph. 6:1-4
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 6
6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, because 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 have a long life in the land.,, 4 Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
v. 1- because this is right- this word right is referring to righteous or something that is deemed good in the eyes of God. This week, we will have Tim Franks as a guest speaker and he will dive into this topic of why obeying your parents is seen as righteous in God’s eyes. For tonight we are just setting a foundational framework for what the bible says, so there is my plug for why you should come back next week. Let’s keep going through this passage.
v. 2-3 - First commandment with a promise. This verse is quoting Exodus 20:12 so let’s go back in Exodus to read this verse in context.
In this part of exodus we see Moses giving the ten commandments to the Israelites.
Summarize the first part of Exodus 20.
Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
What do you think it means to honor means?
I think of high respect for someone who has the status of a king or queen.
Honor as defined by Mariam- Webster’s Dictionary
Honor -
to regard or treat (someone) with admiration and respect : to regard or treat with honor
What are some ways that you can honor your parents?
Listen to them when they ask you do something
Speak highly of them when talking to your friends (not in an arrogant way)
Compliment them (not in a sarcastic way)
Let them know that you are grateful for them
Let’s go back to this verse in Exodus. Back in Israel’s time, how would honoring your father and mother help you be well and have a long life in the land?
The assumption to this command is that the parents in Israel are teaching and training their children in the ways of God. Which would result with children obeying God’s word because that is what they would be learning from their parents. As a result you would have an entire community of people following God’s word and being faithful to God. As long as the people of Israel were following God, they would prosper in the land. This is where we get the promise from the command to honor your father and mother.
Let’s go back to our passage in Eph. 6.
6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, because 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 have a long life in the land.,, 4 Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
In our last verse of our passage, we see scripture staying constant with this principle that parents have a duty to train their children in the ways of God so therefore children should obey them because as a result they will be following God’s instruction.
But this raises a question..
What if my parents aren’t teaching me God’s word?
The reality is that some of you don’t have parents who regularly go to church or who teach you about the Bible, so what then?
As long as your parents are not making you sin or disobey God’s commands, you obey them in what they tell you. But as soon as they tell you to do something contrary to what God’s word says, then you have an obligation to follow God’s commands over what your parents say.
The one who loves a father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; the one who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
We should always put following God above our desire to please our parents.
So wether we have parents who follow God’s word or not, we see that it is important that children follow God’s word. In order to follow God’s word we need to know what the Bible says.
A challenge that I have to you is not just read the bible more, if you don’t all ready have a pattern of reading the bible, I challenge you to read 3 chapters of the gospel of John per week.
So as we obey and honor our parents, I want us to remember that we are ultimately obeying and honor God.
Let’s pray.