Let’s begin with a little review today. We are currently studying the Ten
Commandments that God gave to His people in Exodus 20:1-17, which we said summarize
God’s moral standards for humanity.
Jesus said that the point of these Ten Commandments, as well as the rest
of the Law and the Prophets, is to call God’s people to love God and to love
their neighbor (Matthew 22:40). So far we have mainly seen what I’ll call God-ward commandments (those that call
us to love God), but today we are going to begin looking at man-ward commandments (those that call
us to love our neighbor). That does not
mean that commandments five through ten are not God-ward. All of these commandments are God-ward
because God is giving them! However, the
first four commandments are exclusively vertical,
while the last six are also horizontal,
dealing with how we treat others.
This brings us to the fifth commandment (Exodus 20:12), where God commanded His
people to honor their parents. It is no
accident that this is the first horizontal
commandment that we have. It’s
placement shows us is that the home is
the basic social and spiritual unit of any society. Dysfunctional homes will result in a dysfunctional
country and world. Therefore, God’s
people must take this commandment seriously to honor their parents (and others
in authority as well) throughout their lives.
My prayer is that we would take this commandment so seriously that we
are led to look to Jesus Christ as our model,
substitute, and source of empowerment to honor those in authority.
“Honor
your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the
LORD your God is giving you.” (Exodus
20:12 ESV) As we have done with the
other commandments, we want to examine what this commandment requires and why
God says to obey it here.
I.
The Meaning of the Fifth Commandment (20:12a)
a.
This Commandment is an Issue of Honor
We are to “HONOR” our
father and our mother (20:12). The
Hebrew root for the word, “honor,”
here literally means “heavy” or “weighty.” In other words, honoring our parents means
that we should give them their due weight
throughout all of our life in appropriate ways.
Our parent’s positions, reputation, counsel, commands, expectations,
etc. should carry a great deal of weight with us. At a very basic level, it means that we
should obey them (we should do our chores,
keep our curfews, etc.), but it also means that more than mere obedience, because we can obey in ways that are not
honorable. Honoring our parents also
means showing them respect and seeking not to dishonor them in any way
with our words or with our actions.
Also, this command spans all of
our lives: it’s not just for children (note that the word “children” is not
found in the command). We are still to
honor our parents as grown ups, especially by providing for them later in life.
Both Jesus and Paul made this application: [1] Then Pharisees and scribes came to
Jesus from Jerusalem and said, [2] “Why do your disciples break the tradition
of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” [3] He answered
them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your
tradition? [4] For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and,
‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ [5] But you say, ‘If anyone
tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to
God,” [6] he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you
have made void the word of God. [7] You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of
you, when he said: [8] “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart
is far from me; [9] in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the
commandments of men.’” (Matthew 15:1-9 ESV) The
apostle Paul also said that we should provide for widows in our family as they
get older (1 Timothy 5:4,8) and that
we are actually worse than an unbeliever if we don’t.
b.
This Commandment is an Issue of Authority
All of us are creatures under authority. Scripture
teaches that all authority comes from God and is ordained by God (Romans 13:1-2; 1 Peter 2:13). If we do not learn how to submit to
authority, we cannot be happy, healthy creatures in God’s world. The home is the first place we learn to live
as creatures under authority.
Let me point out two things about the fact that
all authority comes from God and is ordained by Him. This first means that submission to any
horizontal authority is ultimately a vertical
issue. Honoring mother and father is
ultimately a matter of honoring God (Colossians
3:20). We should honor our parents
because we want to honor and obey God, not because our parents are always
honorable. Sometimes it is hard to honor
our parents, not just because we are sinners, but because they are too! The answer to questions 104 in the Heidelberg
Catechism says that the fifth commandment requires “that I show honor, love, and faithfulness to my father and mother and
to all those who are set in authority over me; that I submit myself with
respectful obedience to all their careful instruction and discipline; and that
I also bear patiently their failures, since it is God’s will to govern us by
their hand.”[1]
Remember that you are always ultimately honoring your Heavenly Father in
honoring your earthly father and mother.
The second thing all
authority coming from God teaches us is that God’s authority is always ultimate. This is important to understand because there
may be times where honoring your parent’s wishes is not possible. If your parents tell you to disobey God, then
you are no longer obligated to obey them.
Also, honoring your parents does not mean that you subject yourself to
physical abuse (in such a situation, you must honor your Heavenly Father and
uphold the sanctity of life). Also,
sometimes following Jesus will cause tension between children and parents who
are not Christians and parents who are phony Christians. Whether you are someone without godly parents
or whether you are someone without parents at all, let the words of Psalm 27:10 be an encouragement to you
if you are a Christian: “For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but
the LORD will take me in.”
c.
This Commandment is an Issue of Love
This commandment is not only an issue of honor and authority; it is
also an issue of love. Remember that the
point of the Ten Commandments is call God’s people to love God with all their
heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love their neighbor as their
selves. Maybe you’ve never thought about
this, but loving your neighbor starts at
home! Actually, if you can’t love
your parents, how are you going to love your neighbor? This is why Augustine said, “If anyone
fails to honor his parents, is there anyone he will spare?” If you really want to love your parents,
honor them and be a joy to them. Proverbs 10:1 says, “A wise sons makes a glad father, but a
foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.”
Or consider the words of Proverbs
23:22-25: [22] Listen to your father
who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old. [23] Buy truth, and do not sell it; but
wisdom, instruction, and understanding. [24] The father of the righteous will
greatly rejoice; he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him. [25] Let your
father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice.” Listen to what the apostle John said in 3 John 4: I have no greater joy than to hear that
my children are walking in the truth. Love your parents and be joy to them by
honoring and obeying them!
II.
The Promise of the Fifth Commandment (20:12b)
a.
This Commandment Promises Blessing to Those
Who Obey
God says the reason people should honor their parents is so “THAT your days may be long in the land that
the LORD your God is giving you” (12b).
Deuteronomy’s version of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:16 adds, “that
it may go well with you.” This is
Old Testament language for an abundant
life, a life of blessing in the land.
The point is that those who honor
their parents will have an abundant and blessed life. That doesn’t mean that God will never take
someone home early who has honored their mother and father, but I think it does
mean that they will experience a long and abundant life either in this life or
the next. Paul actually reaffirms this
promise in Ephesians 6:1-4: [1]
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. [2] “Honor your
father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), [3] “that it
may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” [4] Fathers, do
not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and
instruction of the Lord. I could show you this in the Old Testament
too, but I want to you notice that this commandment assumes that the parents
being honored will teach their children about the Lord. That’s why I can say that this is a promise
of eternally long life to those who
honor their parents. I don’t mean that
we get to heaven by honoring our parents.
What I mean is that honoring parents as they teach us about God and
Jesus’ work on the cross for our salvation will lead to eternal life as we
learn to trust Christ ourselves. So this
is not just a promise of temporally long life in the land, but of eternally
long life in heaven!
b.
This Commandment Promises Cursing to Those
Who Disobey
This promise is also a veiled threat. In other words, if
one does not honor their parents, they will NOT live long in the land, and things will NOT go well with them. Did you know that there were some pretty
serious consequences to breaking this command in the Old Testament? Deuteronomy
21:18-21: [18] “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, [19] 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, [20] 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.’ [21] 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. I hope you see that it is a big deal to God
for you to dishonor and disobey your parents.
In two lists of wicked behavior in the New Testament, we find people who
are “disobedient to their parents” (Romans 1:30; 2 Timothy 3:2). The point is that this is how people who don’t know God live.
Let’s close with a few introspective questions
today: Does our relationship with our parents bring glory to God? Do you talk back to your parents? Do you speak well of them to your
friends? Are you hiding anything from
them? Do you ever silently curse them? Are you giving them the care they need? Do you really want to love them and bring
them joy?
Also, this sermon would not be fitting without a
closing word to parents. Your children
are commanded to honor you at all times, so BE HONORABLE. Again, the big idea in this command is that
the parents being honored and obeyed are instructing their children about God (Deuteronomy 6). That’s one of the biggest reasons they are
supposed to listen to you: because you are supposed to be showing them God and the
way to eternal life!
I want you to know that there is good news for
those of us who have failed to honor our parents as we should, and there is
good news for those of us who have failed to be the kinds of parents that we
should be. The gospel of Jesus Christ is
the good news that Jesus, the perfect child, is our model, our substitute, and
our source of empowerment in honoring our parents. “When
Jesus died on the cross, he paid the penalty for our breaking the fifth
commandment as much as for any other sin.
But Jesus has done more than that: He has also kept the fifth
commandment in our behalf. It was not
enough for Jesus to pay the price for our sin; he also had to offer God the
obedience that his law demands. And
Jesus did that. He honored his
parents. The Bible says explicitly that
Jesus ‘went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them’
(Luke 2:51a). The only times their
relationship was strained were when Jesus stayed behind at the temple in
Jerusalem (Luke 2:41-50) and when he kept preaching instead of stopping to
visit with his family (Luke 8:19-21), but even then he kept the fifth
commandment by honoring his higher commitment to his Father in heaven. And Jesus honored his earthly parents right
to the very end of his life. He was not
able personally to care for his mother in her old age, but he provided for her
in his dying moments by asking his friend John to be like a son to her (John
19:26-27).
From the manger to the cross, Jesus was an
obedient son who brought honor to his earthly parents and his heavenly
Father. In respecting his parents’
authority he is more than our example: He is the perfect child God demands that
we should be. Everyone who trusts in
Jesus has offered perfect obedience to the fifth commandment, because when
Jesus obeyed his parents, he was keeping God’s law on our behalf…One of the
reasons he was the perfect Savior is because he was the perfect child.”[2]
Will you look to Him today as your example, as your substitute, and as your
grace to keep this command now?
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