The Fifth Commandment
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The Commandment, why does it matter and what does it look like?
The Commandment, why does it matter and what does it look like?
1. It Matters Because The Position of Your Parents is Serious
The word for honor in our text today in other places is used to emphasize the glory of God and can also be understood as “heavy.” In short, the position that your parents hold is to be viewed with weightiness. Sure, they might love to joke with you, but they have the authority. They might do things that bother you, but they have the authority. You might think that they just don’t get you, but they have the authority. The reason that our obedience to our parents matters is because God gave them a position that matters. This is one of the most important relationships you will ever have.
2. It Matters Because Obedience Encourages Your Parents
6 Children’s children are the crown of old men, And the glory of children is their father.
15 My son, if your heart is wise, My heart will rejoice—indeed, I myself;
In honoring our parents, their hearts will be filled with joy and praise to God. In our obedience, our parents are encouraged and our God is glorified!
3. It Matters Because Disobedience is a Serious Sin
In 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 who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. 20 And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.
9 ‘For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him.
Now, we live in the New Covenant today and fortunately this means that death is no longer the result for disobedience to our parents. However, this doesn’t mean that the sin is no less serious and angering to God. As a matter of fact, in 2 Timothy 3:1-5 Paul writes that it is one of the signs that we are in the last days and lists it among horrible sin.
1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
To summarize this part, honoring our parents looks like having reverence for their position, being obedient to their commands, and having gratitude for their investment in our lives. This looks like happily obeying when they ask you to do the dishes, it looks like speaking highly of them behind their backs, it looks like taking what they teach you to heart. It’s not just obedience on the outside with anger on the inside, it’s genuine honor for who they are and all they do.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture where even cartoons show parents to be idiots and it’s seen as normal to disrespect our parents. But it’s not just our culture, it’s our souls corruption. We all have dishonored our parents which means we have to face the God whose command we broke.
Christ, The Commandment Keeper
Christ, The Commandment Keeper
As you guys know, I have a young family. We are still figuring out which punishments fit and flow with which act of disobedience. Perhaps my favorite, not that I enjoy it, but my favorite in that I think it is the best, is that when Ella directly and willingly disobeys, I will take her to her room and shut the door for 5 minutes.
Now, her room is full of toys, but the fact that she can’t get to me seems to really tear her apart. I believe this shows something of the gospel in it. She wilfully sins and is separated from her Father. Although she has all the toys she could ever want in there, all she wants is to be back together. But the thing is, it doesn’t matter how much she tries. No one is opening that door except for me.
This is how our disobedience is towards God. We have disobeyed His commands and there is no way that relationship is being restored unless He does the work. And this is why Christ Jesus came and did you know that He obeyed His parents perfectly? Luke 2:51
51 Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart.
But this isn’t the only place, remember when Jesus was dying on the cross? How He looked down and saw His mother? What did He do when He saw her? John 19:26-27
26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” 27 Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.
Even in His dying breathes, He wanted to honor His mother and see to it that she was taken care of. You see, Jesus didn’t just die for murderers and thieves, He died for people like you and me who think we just commit little sins. Whenever we think that dishonoring our parents isn’t a big deal, just remember that Jesus thought so highly this command that He was committed to it in His dying breath. Jesus was not only totally submitted to His earthly parents, but to His heavenly Father. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane where He prays, “Father, not my will but yours be done!”
If you have sinned, you need this Christ who died for sinners and if you have Him, you have forgiveness and strength to obey.
The Consequence
The Consequence
In Ephesians 6:1-3, Paul brings up the fifth commandment and tells the people of Ephesus that this is the first commandment that comes with a promise attached to it. He writes,
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: 3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
What I find interesting here is that God is aware of how difficult it is to obey. In a fallen world, we all want to do our own thing, we want to think our own thoughts and be our own bosses. God is aware of the difficulty that children face in being sinful children of sinful parents and so He lovingly attaches a promise to this commandment to encourage obedience. Now, some people take this promise to be that if you want to live a really long time, you better obey your mom and dad. In some sense that may be true. If your parents give you commandments that keep you safe and you disobey them, it could end up in a serious accident or something along those lines. However, we need to be careful with saying that this text teaches that if you’re obedient, you’ll live long since there have been godly young people who have died young and disobedient people who lived to be old.
I believe that this text is promising a life of abundance. Exodus 20:12 says,
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
Remember, this is a group of Jews who have just been freed from Egyptian bondage and God has promised them a land flowing with milk and honey. I take this promise to be teaching us a few things. First, it teaches us that the family is the supporting institution of a nation. If the family crumbles, the nation crumbles with it.
The second thing I believe we find from this promise is, as I mentioned before, blessing from God. God delights in our obedience and blesses us for it.
Maybe one important way to view this is that the people who teach us almost everything we know as children are our parents. And most important of all the things they teach us is the gospel. If we despise them, dishonor them, and devalue everything they say, then we will not take the gospel that they teach us seriously either. 2 Timothy 3:14-15
14 But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Lesson:
What does it look like to honor our mom and dad?
Are there limits to this?
Does this still apply to me if I’m not living at home anymore?