Community & Discipleship

Honoring your Parents (Exodus 20:12)

2016.01.24Stephen Cha

Honoring parents means treating them as weighty, important people, the same way we honor God as the weighty center of our lives. When our parents fall short, we receive the unconditional love and grace of God, our perfect Father, and extend that grace to our families.

Honor means treating parents as weighty and important (v. 12)

The word honor carries the sense of weight, so God asks you to regard your parents as weighty, important, and significant people in your life. The same word describes how we glorify God, because God is the weighty center who gives our lives direction, purpose, and reason. To dishonor parents is to treat them lightly, as if they were unimportant or not worth listening to, even when they are weak, old, or less capable. God takes this command so seriously that he places it in a different category from ordinary courtesy.

Honor takes different forms as we grow

When you are young, obey your parents in the Lord, as Ephesians 6 teaches. As an adult, respect them, ask for their opinions, and do not treat them lightly even when your understanding has grown. When they grow old and need help, care for them, because neglecting your own family is worse than the failure of an unbeliever. Honor also means forgiving parents for their shortcomings, since they did their best without always knowing what they were doing, and thanking them for who they are.

Honor those whom God has placed over us, even when it is hard

Rebelling against authority is easy today, but every authority is an extension of God's authority. David refused to touch Saul, the king who sought his life, because God had placed Saul over him. Jonathan kept showing respect to his father, staying with him and speaking to him even while Saul cursed him. Jesus submitted to Mary and Joseph as a teenager and cared for his mother even while dying on the cross. Honoring those God has placed over us is honoring God himself.

Bring the brokenness of our family history to Christ

Many of us have parents who walk with God, yet what we receive from them is a mixed bag. Abraham lied about his wife, Isaac repeated the same sin, and Jacob became a compulsive liar, so the family inheritance carried both blessing and brokenness. Only when we bring this brokenness to Christ and the cross can Jesus do a deep work and end the cycle of sin. At the same time, we should tell our parents how much we are blessed by their faithfulness, as the speaker's brother did.

Meet God as our perfect Father and extend his grace

David was overlooked by his father Jesse, yet he wrote that even if his father and mother rejected him, God would receive him. When our parents fall short, we go to God in worship and meet him as our perfect Father, whose unconditional love and grace enable us to forgive and bless our family. Our parents could never be God enough to give us what we need. We come to God first to receive his love, and then we learn to extend that grace to our family members.

Apply to Life

  • Let us honor our parents by obeying, respecting, and caring for them according to our stage of life.
  • Let us forgive our parents for their shortcomings and thank them for who they are.
  • Let us bring the brokenness of our family history to Christ and the cross.
  • Let us receive God's unconditional love as our perfect Father and extend that grace to our families.
  • Let us grow together in small groups so that we can become a blessing to others.

This summary was made automatically from the sermon's captions and may differ from the sermon.

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