Honoring God by Honoring Parents

Since moving down here to Palm Beach County, I have noticed a certain impatience some folks have in traffic. I have especially noticed that some people, within a millisecond of a traffic light going green, expect the car in front of them to speed off like a rocket, and if this does not happen, then immediately they are laying on the horn. Now, I’ve been told by what I think is a reliable source that the ones who do this primarily come from two states. Two states that have had a lot of people move out of in the past years and who have moved down here to FL.

Now, I don’t want to call out or embarrass those two states, in case anyone here comes from there, but let it just be sufficient to say that the names of those two states both start with word New. Just a few days ago, I witnessed this phenomenon of impatience at the intersection of 441 and Forest Hill Drive, when the guy in the truck next to me, the very second the light changed, was leaning on his horn. If that were not enough, he added to the insult by screaming an obscenity out of his open window at the driver of the car in front of him.

Now, I am pretty sure the driver in front of him did not hear this insult, since the windows were up, but I got to hear it. And it frustrated me but also saddened me, because it is sad to see a person receive an insult like that, especially since their only offense was not having their car shoot off like a rocket the second the light changed. It is sad to say that the mistreatment of people is very common in our world. Last week at the hospital, one of the doctors who was overseeing my care commented to me that I was so nice to work with. He told me that many people treat hospital staff, even the doctors, with disdain. He said they think they are better than you. He also mentioned people from two states that start with the word New.

Now, I realize that we cannot blame all this on people from two states. What I am getting at is that all people have an obligation to each other to treat each other with civility. And this especially true for those called by God. As we continue our look at the Ten Commandments this morning, I want us to be reminded of something we may be quite familiar with, the understanding that the ten commandments give us rules to live by in two major categories: The first category is our relationship with God, which is regulated in part by the first four commandments, and the second category is our relationship to society or other individuals.

This is why Jesus answered the question , what is the greatest commandment? by quoting from the shema (sh’ ma). Which is located in Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

And then Jesus immediately followed by saying the second commandment is like it. listen to what Jesus said: Matt22.35-40

Matthew 22:35–40 ESV

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

The greatest commandment is the shema, and the second is like it. And on these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. And this also sums up the ten commandments. 4 commandments that help us love God and 6 commandments that help us love neighbor. This morning we are going to begin to focus on the commandments that help us to love neighbor. Let us remember that Jesus said that the command to love neighbor is like the command to love God.

So let us not separate the commandments into the two categories so strongly that we forget that really the obedience of all of the commandments are about our love for God. After all, you cannot separate these commandments. For if you love God, you will love your neighbor, and if you do not love your neighbor, you probably don't really love God either.

Another thought I want you to take away this morning is that God has set an order through these and other commandments. His order is the perfect order. Sin perverts the order God has determined to be right and true. Where God’s order says that one of our illustrations for the bond with believers and the Lord is marriage, and He gives us a glimpse of the perfect to come in marriage in our own time, as imperfect as it is, then sin perverts that. God’s order is marriage between a man and a woman, and in most cases this union produces children, but sin perverts this and says marriage can be many other things than what God said.

In God’s order, he made them male and female. Sin perverts and says gender is meaningless. In God’s order, government is to be made up of true servants who do all they can to benefit the people they serve. Sin perverts so that many politicians are completely unable to resist the temptation to use their power for personal gain. God has ordered that in our lives, there are proper authorities. In a town, the mayor and the police and code enforcement officer are all proper authorities, to whom we must submit and pay proper respect. In a state, we have a governor and an attorney general and many other officers we must submit to and have proper respect.

In our federal government, we have three branches. If we would desire our government to function well, we should pray for righteous leaders at the Supreme Court, in the White House, and in congress. We must respect these various proper authorities, and each of those also must respect the other branches. Each branch must stay within its own scope of responsibility.

To prepare children to become adults who respect God’s order for things, God’s people are to teach their children what proper authority is in the home. So when we arrive at the 5th commandment, we can see that part of God’s order dictates that children are to honor their parents.

Deuteronomy 5:16 ESV

“ ‘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.

It may seem short and to the point, but there is actually a lot here for us to learn from. And by the way, you have something to learn from this even if you no longer have your parents around, or if your kids are out of the house and you think this doesn’t apply. It does apply, because in this commandment we can see that while the focus is on children and parents, its scope goes beyond the family and shows us how we are to interact under all the authority figures in our lives. It starts at home. We learn the respect for proper authority as children, when we learn to honor our parents, and this makes it easier for us to honor and respect other authorities in our lives as we go about becoming adults.

Let us first look at the word here translated for us into the English “honor”. What does this mean? to honor, to respect, to glorify. Think that over for a moment. We are to honor, respect, even glorify, our parents. Now, I have seen at times where this is slightly reduced in its power when people quote Eph6.1

Ephesians 6:1 ESV

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

I have heard this verse taught all by itself, really out of context, to children. To take the commandment of honoring parents and making it only about obedience is to cheapen it greatly. Why? Because we can be obedient to a proper authority in our lives and still not give that authority and respect, or honor. A student may obey his teacher when she tells him to take off his hat in class, but at the same time think hateful thoughts about her, or wait until her back is turned and make an obscene gesture.

An employee at work may come off of break when the boss says its time to go back to work, but inwardly be committed to laziness for the next hour because they felt they deserved a longer break. And a child at home may go to bed when the parent told them to, but secretly stay awake playing or reading for hours after the door was closed. You see, obedience all by itself is not the same as honoring. And Paul did not say children obey your parents for this is right and leave it there, so why would we teach it that way? Let’s look at what Paul wrote in full to the children of Ephesus:

Ephesians 6:1–4 ESV

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

So when Paul wrote about obedience, it was in the context of loving relationships. He had written to wives and husbands right before this and right after wrote about slaves and masters. It is a whole section on Christian relationships. There is great guidance there. So Paul writes to children to be obedient, and then he also quotes from the commandment, Honor your father and mother. So there are two imperatives, or commands, Paul gives to children here. Obey and honor. Honor implies obedience, but obedience by itself is not necessarily linked to honor, but Paul does link it so that it is clear to all.

Paul points out this is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. In this phrase “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land”, there is both a practical and a spiritual element to this promise. Practically, if you honor your parents, and you live this out as individuals and as a society, your society will do well.

On Mother’s Day, I preached a sermon titled “God’s church is Pro Life”, and I mentioned this is not only about pro life for the unborn, but pro life for the handicapped, and pro life for the sick, and pro life for the elderly. And when a society practices this attitude of honoring others, and especially honoring parents and others in authority, that society will flourish. If you model honoring your parents to your children, doesn’t that make it more likely that your children will honor you? And who among us does not hope for our children to pay us honor, especially as we age and find ourselves in need of physical help?

So the promise is practical. If your society chooses to love neighbor over self, the society will be healthy and flourish. The opposite can happen as well. A society that does not learn to respect parents will not respect any other authority either, nor will it respect the person in front of us at the traffic light whose foot is too slow to hit the gas pedal when the light turns green. That society will also not respect the police, or the government. It really becomes like the hell of C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, with people avoiding each other more and more because they can’t stand each other. In that story, Lewis imagines hell as a place where people move further and more remotely apart, desiring loneliness over the company of the miserable. It’s the opposite of misery loves company, it is that misery is lonely...

The promise is also spiritual. You see, it is an act of spiritual worship to be obedient to God, and when we are obedient to God, that comes with spiritual rewards. So the society that teaches its children to live in respect and honor of parents and others will have spiritual blessings.

Really this command is meant to be expanded beyond children and parents, in my opinion. I believe it can be expanded to respect for one’s elders in general, as well as respect for proper authority. Remember that it is in God’s order of things that we find the traditional family. He ordained marriage, he ordained that children would be raised to love him by their parents.

Let’s think for a moment again about that word honor: Brevard S. Childs summarized the range of meaning for this context:

To honor is to “prize highly” (Prov. 4:8), “to show respect,” to “glorify and exalt.” Moreover, it has nuances of caring for and showing affection (Ps. 91:15). It is a term frequently used to describe the proper response to God and is akin to worship (Ps. 86:9). Moreover, the parallel command in Lev. 19:3 actually uses the term “fear, give reverence to” which is otherwise reserved for God (The Book of Exodus, pp. 418–419)

Moreover, according to the interpretation commentary, it goes beyond just one’s own parents:

Deuteronomy (Fifth Commandment: Honor Parents (5:16))

The Westminster Larger Catechism states, “By ‘father’ and ‘mother’ in the Fifth Commandment, are meant not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts; and especially such as by God’s ordinance are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.” Martin Luther, in his Large Catechism, states it explicitly: “Out of the authority of parents all other authority is derived and developed.” […] But it is the case that the filial responsibility to honor and respect parents is in some sense the starting point of the human experience with persons who exercise a proper authority over others by reason of relationship, wisdom, and experience. These may be teachers, employers, or civil authorities. Recognizing the need for proper respect of parents can at least open up in the community of faith a conversation about what sorts of relationship merit similar attitudes of honoring and exalting other persons and what is the content and manifestation of such serious respect.

Now, we must understand how serious God was about honoring our parents. He was so serious that the punishment for rebellion against a parent could ultimately be the death penalty: Deut21.18-21

Deuteronomy 21:18–21 ESV

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Note this isn’t saying a child is to be killed the first time they lip off. This is speaking of a chronic rebellion in the heart of the son. Unrepentant. But note the responsibility of the parents. “Though they discipline him” So this is not a punishment for a child who was never corrected and turned out bad, these parents would have to demonstrate that they had tried to discipline. And after this, they would turn him over to the men of the city, who would stone him. I don’t know if any parents ever actually brought their child to the elders of the city like this. It would have to be a pretty extreme case. However, we can see from this statute that God took very seriously the requirement of a son to respect and obey.

The relationship between parents and children is only below our relationship to God in his order of things. All other relationships come after. It is a parent who is supposed to raise their child, not the government. It is a parent who is to teach their child about God. It is a parent who is responsible for their child learning how to live well in the society. In our fallen world, many parents have given that duty over the the government, trusting the schools and the system to raise their kids to fit into the society. But God’s order of things is that the family is the primary place of all learning. Learning about God, learning about how to live with other people. Learning to love God and love people. That is a lesson best left for parents to teach. The consequences of this not happening? Well, just look at the news and you will see.

Well, you may say, the example of the rebellious son is so extreme. Perhaps, though, it is not simply the very rebellious son who God puts in danger of losing his life. Ex 21.17

Exodus 21:17 ESV

“Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.

Whoever curses, or dishonors his father or mother shall be put to death.

But that is just there in Exodus, you may be thinking. Deut 27.16

Deuteronomy 27:16 ESV

“ ‘Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Leviticus 20:9 ESV

For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him.

In fact, if a child even were to hit their parent, this penalty would apply:

Exodus 21:15 ESV

“Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.

You can see then that this commandment was not a mere suggestion, or some ideal to believe in. It was to be practiced and enforced. 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.

How different our world would look today, if every son and daughter knew and kept this commandment. If they took it seriously and realized the implications, like Luther said, go far beyond just the family and extend to all those in proper authority over us. If we learned to honor our parents, and then learned to honor our teachers and the principal at school in the same way. If we then learned to honor our employer and the manager. If we then learned to honor the police officer and and those in elected office, and learned to honor judges and the judicial system. If we learned to honor every proper authority, including in the church. And the bible has much to say throughout about honoring those in proper authority.

Romans 13:1–7 ESV

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Hebrews 13:17 ESV

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

I think I shared this with some of you, a couple of months ago I attended my first HOA meeting. And there I saw, being mistreated and berated, several people who were voluntarily serving on that board. They were being accused of malice because some people didn’t agree with a decision they had made. They were called names, yelled at. And yet, I believe, even on the HOA board, those are leaders who deserve respect, even when we disagree with their decisions. And Hebrews tells us this about leaders in the faith. Let them do this with joy. Do what? Keep watch over your souls. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be no advantage to you.

In other words, If there is someone in proper authority over you, do you want them serving with constant frustration or anger because they are always being mistreated and maligned? Or would you want them to serve with joy. So we submit to godly leadership in the church, even when we may not agree with every decision. We submit to all authority, because no authority exists other than what God has instituted. And the first institution where we learn to be subject to authority is in the home, and thus we have the fifth commandment, to honor our father and our mother.

I must briefly mention where obedience to parents may not always honor them. Just as the apostles of Christ said they must put obedience of God ver that of men, so it is clear as well that obedience to parents ends if that obedience puts us at odds with God’s law. If your parent demands you do something that is clearly against God’s law, you cannot comply. Better to obey God and suffer the consequences from your parents than obey a parent’s sinful command and suffer the wrath of God.

Furthermore, a parent must realize the limits of the honor they expect to receive. A parent has primary responsibility for a child while they are a child, but when the child becomes an adult, the parent no longer can dictate what they do. The parent cannot force marriage, or career, or geography on their adult child. However, in honoring our father and mother, we should give due attention to their advice or guidance, since most parents truly have the best interest of their children in mind. But hopefully, if you have been raising your child to love God and love neighbor throughout their life, they will not depart from it when they become adults.

So let us commit to obeying the fifth commandment, and being sure to raise our children to know it and obey it. As Paul pointed out, it is the first command with a promise. Not only will your family benefit from obedience to this command, the entire society would greatly benefit.

This is God’s order of things, that children should honor their parents. This is yet another points of Gods order that is perverted by sin, that our society today often tells us the very opposite. Instead of children honoring the parents, it has become the parents constantly honoring the children. I continue to be impressed by the many new creative ways people have found to constantly honor their children. There used to be, for most people, only one or two graduation ceremonies in their lives. High School, and for some, college. But now, there are not only graduation ceremonies for kids at every grade level at some schools, but additional awards ceremonies throughout the year.

At many levels, we are encouraged to place children at the top of the honor in our world. Do it for the children, let’s make sure we are honoring the children, because their precious self esteem may suffer if they go to long between public recognition ceremonies. What do we teach our children through this? That they should expect to be honored, even for minor accomplishments. And what happens when they become adults and find out that there isn’t so much honor to go around? They fall apart.

Yet, if we kept the fifth commandment, children would grow up properly honoring adults and those in authority, and they would find in this a stability in the world they are part of. They would not see people disrespecting the police, or disrespecting other authority figures. Or if they did see it, it would be a horrible thing in their eyes, and something unusual or even crazy, but certainly not normal.

So how are you and I doing with this command? I mentioned earlier that one of my doctors was thankful that I treated him with respect. Is it possible he took a little better care of me because of that? I think it is very likely. Do you think it is also possible that someone being very rude and condescending may not be taken care quite the same? I know the doctors have an oath to treat all fairly, but they are human.

So if we want to live long and be well, we honor our father and our mother. This week, take care to consider this commandment, and how you may need to learn better obedience to it, in your respect for your own parents, but also for others. Remember that these commands, while they do relate to our relationships with people, ultimately our obedience to them reflects our love for God.

So love God, and love your parents, and love the people you have the privilege to interact with in your life. Honor those in proper authority, knowing that when you do, you are honoring the God who commands it.