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 6:4

⁴ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.

After looking at the honoring stage we now see:

2. THE HONORABLE STAGE

Just as we saw two parts to the honoring stage, we also see two sides to the honorable stage:

A. Responsible Authority

While Paul is quick to point out how important it is for children to obey and honor their parents, he is equally quick to point out how important it is for parents to be honorable in their dealings with their children! Our use of authority as parents can have a dramatic impact on how our children navigate the stages of “enforced obedience” and “willful obedience.” Here Paul in Ephesians 6 takes time to talk to parents as he instructs fathers not to exasperate their children. That is not be unreasonable with their children. As godly parents we are to exercise authority in a responsible way, not a reactionary and emotional way. Our authority should be based on principles from God’s Word not our whims or personal wants. Are you parenting based on God the Father or your feelings?Are you basing and building your parenting on the Word or on the world? Unreasonable demands in childhood usually mean rebelliousness in youth, and unreasonable demands in youth mean angry adults that do not respond to authority well. A study was done of ninth and tenth graders where they were interviewed and asked this question: “What comes to mind when you think of the word ’dad’?” Answers came immediately from both ends of the spectrum. One end of the spectrum said, “I think of the word jerk” others thought of the words angry, mad, and absent. On the other hand, some of the young people said, “I think of wholeness, kindness, security, safety.” Dad is an immensely powerful word. Dads what do you want it to represent to your kids? Parents are we being responsible in the use of authority and reflecting God’s presence in our lives because second we see:

B. Reflecting Authority

Paul indicates here that if we bring up children in the training and instruction of the Lord, we will not exasperate them why because God’s ways are good as Psalm 18:30 declares, “God’s way is perfect.” But this requires more than just preaching the bible to our kids but practicing it before our kids. The best way to tell them is to show them.  As parents we can’t just mouth the message of respect, we have to model it. Because the model we set will probably be the mold that shapes them.  One thing I find interesting as I interview the older generation about marriage is that I find that most of them only met with the pastor 1 time prior to getting married and yet most of them have had marriages that lasted their whole life. Yet today because the divorce rate is so high, we have couples go through 10 sessions of pre-marital counseling in our church to prepare them for marriage and we have seen the divorce rate drop for a 50% to 15%. So how did the older generation do it on only 1 session, they didn’t. They actually had 18 years of pre-marital counseling because their parents were modeling marriage not mouthing it. Life is like a mountain, it’s hard because much of it is uphill and if we want our kids to successfully scale it, we have to point out the path. Like a father and son mountain climbing team, where the son calls out to his father ahead of him saying, “choose a good path dad, I’m right behind you”. What you practice today will most likely be the path you put your kids on tomorrow. As parents we need to ask ourselves are, we being obedient or obstinate with our Heavenly Father? What model are we setting for our kids? Because it will not only affect the relationship, they have with other people, but it will have a dramatic impact on their relationship with their heavenly father as well. One study revealed that if both Mom and Dad attend church regularly, 72 percent of their children remain faithful in attendance. If only Dad attends regularly, 55 percent remain faithful. If only Mom attends regularly, 15 percent remain faithful. If neither attend regularly, only 6 percent remain faithful. Stay at home parents do not produce go to Church children. It’s not about your attendance it’s about your adoration and allegiance to the Almighty, remember its relationship based not rule based.The way we reflect God’s authority in our lives can have a dramatic impact on whether our kids love the Lord themselves! As Billy Graham’s daughter Gigi once said “The only thing that parents can take to heaven is their children.” As parents we want to receive respect but are, we reflecting respect? If a son grows up with the model of an unloving father who is mean to His mother and is allowed to trash her instead of treasure her how do you think he will treat his future wife?  If a daughter grows up watching a mom treat her man with constant criticism and disrespect how do you think she is going to respond to her future husband. Men don’t let your sons be unloving and disrespectful to their mom. Ladies don’t let your daughters be disrespectful and roll their eyes as they say whatever to their dad’s. Parents you are the pivot because you not only point your kids to God vertically, but you set the stage horizontally for how they will relate to others. Contrary to what the culture is communicating, you are the most important person in your kids’ lives. You are not just the pivot you’re the anchor to authority. While there can surely be exceptions to the rule, the fact is that most honorable parents will have children that grow up to honor and even emulate them! What we do as parents both by talking and by walking can have a dramatic impact on our children’s lives. Don’t despair mom and dad if you are living honorably and your children are struggling through the stages of obedience, keep praying for them and doing the right things!

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?