Exodus 20:12

“Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”

After looking at the early childhood stage of “enforced obedience” and the youth stage of “willful obedience” we now come to the:

• Adult stage: “mutual obedience”

This stage is the result of successful navigation through the first two stages. And how well we do in each stage will dramatically determine how well we do in the next stage. This is the point here about children “honoring father and mother” To honor means to “RESPECT” their position and authority. And much of the way children feel about God is modeled on how they feel about us as parents! When children “respect” and “honor” their parents they learn to respect and honor God. Why does it matter because God is the ultimate authority figure. No matter how old your kids get, God will be the authority in their life and if they are always fighting Him instead of trusting Him, they are going to have a rough life. We are not our kids’ friends we are their authority figure called to model God’s love and authority in the right way, so that we enable our children to honor God as they honor us. Which brings us to the question what are we modeling? Do our children see us as parents obeying or objecting to God’s authority? The way we honor our heavenly father will influence the way our children honor their earthly father and mother.How we respect authority will determine how we:

B. Respond to Authority

It’s here in Luke 2:41-52 that we see Jesus successfully moving into the adult stage of willful obedience:

⁴¹ Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. ⁴² When Jesus was twelve years old, they attended the festival as usual. ⁴³ After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn’t miss him at first, ⁴⁴ because they assumed he was among the other travelers. But when he didn’t show up that evening, they started looking for him among their relatives and friends. ⁴⁵ When they couldn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem to search for him there. ⁴⁶ Three days later they finally discovered him in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions. ⁴⁷ All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.⁴⁸ His parents didn’t know what to think. “Son,” his mother said to him, “why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.”⁴⁹ “But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”^[a] 50 But they didn’t understand what he meant.⁵¹ Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart.⁵² Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.

Your respect for authority will determine your response to authority.Here we see the story on Jesus’ BAR MITZBAH. The act of being declared a ‘man’ in Jewish culture demonstrates the transition of authority in a healthy way. Jesus had gone through the “enforced obedience” stage as a child, now as a youth he transitioned from “enforced obedience” to his earthly parents to “willful obedience”. His statement in Luke 2:49 was not a response of disrespect, rather Jesus was expressing His surprise that his parents had been frustrated when they found Him where they had taught Him to be as an adult, in His Father’s house! Jesus was simply making reference to the lessons He had been taught by them as His parents to make God the Father a priority. Now as an “official man” in Judaism (he was now 12) he was doing what he had been taught, only now it was not “enforced” it was “willful” on His part. I hear a lot of parents who say I’m not going to require my kids to be involved in spiritual things like youth group or church because I don’t want them to resent it and run from it later in life. But isn’t it interesting that we give them the choice when it comes to spiritual things but not to school? Why don’t we apply this same philosophy to school and let them choose whether they want to pursue their schooling like we do their spiritual education? Because we know given a choice most kids would quit school and it would have serious consequences on their life. But let me ask you, what’s more important their spiritual education or their secular? While our schooling is important someday, we will retire from secular learning but not from the spiritual. One is earthly the other is eternal. It is a grave parenting fail when we make succeeding in the secular more important than the spiritual. As parents we can be in danger of making a bigger deal over grades than we do God. I want you to notice the obvious transition here from childhood’s “enforced obedience” to the “willful obedience” of youth in Luke 2:51 “Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.”Following his BAR MITZBAH he willfully submits to their authority.Jesus passed through the 3 stages of healthy authority as all humans must.No doubt the transition was harder for Joseph and Mary than it was for Jesus, which explains their reactions here! Often growing our kids through these stages is harder for us as parents. Sometimes that’s because we want them to be dependent on us. When we do, we cripple them. I have watched a lot of moms fail to cut the apron strings and limit their sons from becoming men. God gives us kids and they come to us 100% dependent on us, but the goal is to transition them into being 100% dependent on Him. After all they are His kids not ours. Sometimes we miss the stages because we are busy. Speaker and author Carol Kent was on the fast track to being an absentee parent until her young son, Jason, made a simple observation. She recalls: “We were eating breakfast together, and I had on an old pair of slacks and a fuzzy old sweater. He flashed his baby blues at me over his cereal bowl and said, ’Mommy, you look so pretty today.’ I didn’t even have makeup on! So, I said, ’Honey, why would you say I look pretty today? Normally I’m dressed in a suit and high heels.’ And he said, ’When you look like that, I know you’re going someplace; but when you look like this, I know you’re mine.’ “His words were like an arrow piercing my heart. I realized I might fail at being a godly Christian mother because I was saying yes to so many speaking engagements. I got on my knees with my precious appointment book and offered it to God.” What about you are you sensitive to the stages your kids are passing through so that you deal appropriately with each one?

Exodus 20:12

“Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”

Ephesians 6:1-3

“Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. ² “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise: ³ If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.”

 As we continue in our series relationships not rules, we come to the fifth command and the first commandment revolving around our relationship with others. Remember the first 4 revolve around our relationship with God, and how we respond to God will determine how we respond to others. If we don’t respect God and His authority, we won’t respect any other authority. It’s not a coincidence that the first commandment began with our relationship to our heavenly father, and the first command that revolves around our relationship with other people begins with our relationship to our earthly father and mother. So why when it comes to our relationship with other people does God start with our relationship with our parents. It’s our first real relationship and it sets the stage for all our other relationships. How you relate to your parents will impact how you relate to other people, your spouse, kids, your boss so on and so on. Just as the 1st commandment sets the stage for everything spiritually in our relationship to our heavenly Father, so this 5th commandment sets the stage for every earthly relationship we will have. If we fail to honor authority in the position of earthly parents, we will fail to be honorable as earthly parents! Just like the last command keeping the Sabbath holy and working 6 days had 2 parts, worship and work so this command also has 2 parts. It’s about both children honoring their parents as well as parents being honorable. This message of responding with respect and reflecting respect goes contrary to our current culture. Instead we have a culture that encourages us to respond with rudeness when we don’t get our way. Because many of us have experienced pain either from our parents or pain as parents I want to start with pray. Father I know there are those reading this who carry father wounds from men who chose to parent according to the world and not the Word. I pray that you would heal the deep hurts of their heart by lavishing your love on them so that they would know the love of their heavenly Father. I pray for us as earthly fathers who are not only disrespected and laughed at by the culture, but who often feel like failures as fathers that today would not be just another chiding but a challenge for us to be the mighty men you have called us to be. Help us to face our fears and be the kind of fathers and mothers that model your grace and goodness. We pray all this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ. The two parts to this commandment revolve around children honoring their parentsand parents being honorable!The Bible teaches us that God places a high value on the institution of the home, and that much of what we become in life is influenced by the early years and how we respond to our parent’s authority. This commandment speaks to both children and parents and to our society as a whole.When it comes to God’s Word our tendency is to focus on what others are called to do not what God has called us to do. That’s why when we come to messages like this, kids tend to focus on parents being honorable instead of on honoring their parents. Parents are also prone to focus on their kids honoring them instead of being honorable.

1. THE HONORING STAGE

A. Respecting Authority

The first authority we encounter in this life is our parents. Their first act of authority is to name us. But they are not just called to name us but to teach and train us how to navigate this thing called life. There are 3 stages in our life we must navigate successfully in order to become healthy adults:

• Early Childhood stage: “enforced obedience”

This is where we set boundaries for our kids that will become a blessing, but don’t be surprised if your kids view them as a burden. What they may view as a parent being a pain is actually a parent protect them from pain. This stage can be exhausting because it takes time for kids to learn. The key is to be consistent and caring. Grace based parenting recognizes that God doesn’t just punish bad behavior He rewards good behavior. Notice that this command comes with a promise. Long life, which is what adults spend billions of dollars trying to achieve today. But the key to a long life is not lotions and potions but to obey the Lord of life. So, parents do you tend to lean toward reward-based parenting or punishment-based parenting? We are called to Faith based not fear based. Some of you will argue but our kids need a dose of healthy fear, I agree that’s called reverence. But there is a difference between reverence and fear, fear focuses on rules, reverence revolves around a relationship. This simple statement by Paul in Eph. 6:1 “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”reflects this early stage, Paul does not elaborate on the philosophy of it, just the simple truth of it! Paul reminds us of and important point, that it’s not just about the rules it revolves around relationship. Enforced obedience with love and good balances makes the next stage, willful obedience not only more acceptable but a more natural progression.

• Youth stage: “willful obedience”

Our problem as parents is, we want willful obedience without ever having provided enforced obedience. Paul’s point here in Ephesians 6:2-3 about the 5th commandment and ‘honoring’ parents so that blessings may come indicates this second phase. Willful obedience in youth matters because it helps produce a healthy adult who can exercise authority and mutually submit to other authority. One of the reasons we have such a problem with police today is because we have thrown willful obedience out the window. Rebelliousness at this stage often makes for a rough transition later to adulthood and the dynamics of authority. But again, cultivating willful obedience involves not just consequences but rewards. I want to challenge you as parents to try and catch your kids doing things right not just wrong, and then reward them. Several years ago, one of my daughter stood up for another student who was being picked on. A teacher saw it and shared what happened with me at a parent teacher conference. So, I wrote her a note thanking her for caring for others, I gave her a gift card and encouraged her to take her friends out. I rewarded her with more responsibility. Why because I recognized she wasn’t just being responsible she was living right. And so, I gave her the greatest treasure I could, trust. Some of you are fearful that your kids will fail, you believe the worst not the best. You say you want them to make good decisions, but you don’t believe they will. They ask to borrow the car you tell them they need to be back by 10pm but you don’t think they will. You ask your friends to pray saying you want them to be responsible, but the truth is you need your kids to fail in order to justify your feelings. Because if they succeed you were wrong. Many parents are projecting failure on their kids because their feelings and their fears have become more important than their call. Give your kids grace, because grace gives them room to grow. Don’t treat them like they are 6 when they are 16. Many parents never move past the enforced obedience stage and so when their kids leave home for the first time and no one is enforcing obedience they fall apart and fail. Parents learn to pick your battles, major on the mountains not the mole hills. Is a clean room important yes but not as important as a clean and caring heart. Be wise in your decisions not worldly. In the honoring stage are you teaching your kids to respect authority so that they we reflect God’s authority?