SPEAKER_00: Alright, well, we are continuing our way through the book of Colossians.
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't been with us, we're gonna do a little bit of review uh just to catch you up.
SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting, you just showed up, or you got dragged here by somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the rest of you, this this will really be review because you've been hearing it for, I don't know, five, six, eight weeks at this point.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so chapters one and two of the book of Colossians are all these promises of God to us.
SPEAKER_00: They're just it's just one after the next about what God has done for us and how much he loves us and how we are beloved in his sight, not by anything that we have done by, but only by what he has done for us.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just chapters one and two are just full throttle promises.
SPEAKER_00: These are called the indicatives.
SPEAKER_00: Very good, three of you.
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
SPEAKER_00: We're doing great.
SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of chapter two, there's a shift from chapter two to chapter three, and it's pretty immediate.
SPEAKER_00: And you see there's a shift from these indicatives and these promises to things we should do, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like Christian living.
SPEAKER_00: And these are called the imperatives.
SPEAKER_00: That's better.
SPEAKER_00: Very good.
SPEAKER_00: So uh here's here's what we've been talking about.
SPEAKER_00: What we see in the book of Colossians is we see how the Christian life should be lived.
SPEAKER_00: And what we tend to do is sort of like just skip over chapters one and two, like, oh, that's how that's how I became a Christian, that's like the way in.
SPEAKER_00: But now I'm just going to I'm gonna live in chapters three and four.
SPEAKER_00: And if you do that, if you do that, you're headed down a path toward what would be called moralism or legalism.
SPEAKER_00: You're headed down a path that is not toward freedom and joy.
SPEAKER_00: And so how this works out is it works out that you live out three and four of Colossians by living in chapters one and two and rooting in and remembering and going back, and out of that route comes all these things we should do.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this week we're out of the landmine topics for me, so I'm feeling I feel pretty relieved.
SPEAKER_00: We made it through uh racial and socioeconomic different groups and how we should view each other.
SPEAKER_00: We made it through uh parenting roles, we made it through marriage roles, and this this week it's about how children uh should should relate up to parents.
SPEAKER_00: And so this isn't a landmine topic, but I I think it's a pretty sensitive one.
SPEAKER_00: So uh Colossians 3 verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now that that's pretty quick, it's pretty clear.
SPEAKER_00: Um Paul in Ephesians 6 he takes it and fleshes it out a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: So Ephesians 6 1 through 3.
SPEAKER_00: Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
SPEAKER_00: Now, children in that in that verse is talking about non-adult children, meaning kids.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We're all children, right?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's a child to somebody.
SPEAKER_00: But this is talking about non-adult children.
SPEAKER_00: So a kid, somebody living in the house of their parent.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, obey because it's right.
SPEAKER_00: But there's more.
SPEAKER_00: Paul roots this in something else.
SPEAKER_00: He roots it, we get to see in verse 2, honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I was 19 years old, I went to college at Barrie College my freshman year, and I transferred, at the end of that year, I transferred to Georgia.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you may have heard this story, it's a good story.
SPEAKER_00: I I'm gonna repeat the story over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: It's so good.
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of that freshman year, one day, uh a couple a couple friends, a couple girlfriends of ours, there's there's a group of guys, there's six of us, we lived on fourth Dana.
SPEAKER_00: So we come back from class one day, and Phil and Jeff's room is covered in rabbit food.
SPEAKER_00: And when I mean covered in rabbit food, I mean it's an impressive feat that's had to be wheelbearers involved.
SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't even know the logistics, but it is covered, floor, beds, drawers.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see this, the six of us, because you don't just do that, Phil and Jeff.
SPEAKER_00: If you do it to Phil and Jeff, you do it to all of us, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like we're a unit.
SPEAKER_00: And we go, well, this is not, this is not okay, right?
SPEAKER_00: This kind of thing toward us is not, this is this is horrible.
SPEAKER_00: And we decide we're not gonna retaliate right away.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna gather ourselves, we call a pet store, we order uh a thousand crickets.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we should have stopped, by the way, but kids.
SPEAKER_00: This is where you just let things go because you've stepped into territory where you're you're you're headed down a bad path.
SPEAKER_00: We order a thousand crickets, we say, hey, can you just collect your dead fish for a week?
SPEAKER_00: So they collect their dead fish for a week, we get sand, we get wet mulch, we uh borrow a master key to the girls' dorm, dress in all black, face paint.
SPEAKER_00: They came into our dorm in the middle of the day, we're going into their dorm, middle of the night, while they're asleep.
SPEAKER_00: Thousand crickets, twenty fish, sand, wet mulch.
SPEAKER_00: It was awesome for us and horrible for them.
SPEAKER_00: So you would think that would be the end of it.
SPEAKER_00: But the next day I get back from class and all of my belongings are out on the lawn.
SPEAKER_00: Like my whole room, right?
SPEAKER_00: Another impressive feat for the girls.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is the place you should stop.
SPEAKER_00: But yada yada yada, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: And here we have a whole nother mission the next night, and we're taking their tires off their cars, and we're gonna chain them in a tree in front of the dining hall.
SPEAKER_00: You know, like it's just one after the next thing, but we're about halfway through this, and we see the cop car from the guard station, the front.
SPEAKER_00: It's headed down the road toward us.
SPEAKER_00: A couple friends take off to the field, cop car jumps the curb, chasing them through the field.
SPEAKER_00: Couple friends just disappear into another set of woods, and then me and another friend, we end up in in the courtyard, and we reason horribly.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna leave campus.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we're gonna get out.
SPEAKER_00: And so we had stashed a car up there for whatever reason we need it.
SPEAKER_00: We get in the car, and we're we figure there's only one car, one cop car on campus.
SPEAKER_00: So we're good to leave.
SPEAKER_00: And so, again, right, like should have let things go a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: Because you know the storyline here.
SPEAKER_00: We get to the guard station, and another guard just steps out of the guard station.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, uh, what are y'all doing?
SPEAKER_00: All black, face paint.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing, doing nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And the whole conversation changed really, really quick.
SPEAKER_00: Because all of a sudden, you are authority over my life.
SPEAKER_00: You can ruin my life, and all of a sudden, everything just became I'll obey whatever you say.
SPEAKER_00: I need to get the back of the car, I'll obey.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna drive me up there, I'll obey.
SPEAKER_00: We need to put the tires back on, I'll obey.
SPEAKER_00: It became obey, obey, obey.
SPEAKER_00: The next day, when I'm in the dean's office, it became obey, obey, obey, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because you have authority over me, you can ruin my life.
SPEAKER_00: So, lots of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: But I never honored them.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have to honor them.
SPEAKER_00: See, you can you can obey without honoring.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of that long story.
SPEAKER_00: I can find a million different points coming out of that one story.
SPEAKER_00: But you can obey without honoring.
SPEAKER_00: But see, the Christian faith calls us to something that's much deeper toward our parents, much more profound, and that's more than a self-preservation obedience.
SPEAKER_00: It's an obedience that comes out of honor.
SPEAKER_00: So, Ephesians 6, 2, Paul quotes that fifth commandment for us to honor our parents.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the point kids, you have to obey.
SPEAKER_00: You should obey your parents because all children of all ages should honor their parents.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's clear, we can go ahead and put the caveat in here, is if your parents ask you to do something morally wrong, you don't have to do that.
SPEAKER_00: We can go ahead and say that and get that question out of the way.
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember my parents ever asking me to do something morally wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I was never faced with that.
SPEAKER_00: I never remember a moment that I was not loved.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even in my family's own set of tragedies and difficulties, I never remember a moment not being loved.
SPEAKER_00: That was never in question.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you don't know that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're still wondering because dad never showed up or never showed up at your games, never showed up in your life.
SPEAKER_00: He never spoke those words he should have spoke, or he drank, or she drank, or he left, or she left, or because of that secret life he had or she had, or maybe you were abused, or you were called a name, or you were forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: Now, others of us maybe had a good family.
SPEAKER_00: But you were just always sort of, look, you go, I was always fifth or sixth on the list of important things to do that day.
SPEAKER_00: And you you just you knew it.
SPEAKER_00: You were never quite enough.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you were overly hounded, overly shielded, overly protected.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you came out of a great family, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like you have a few scars.
SPEAKER_00: But even then, you may not agree with all their advice.
SPEAKER_00: You may not agree with their lives, you may not agree with what feels like their judgment toward you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's easy to think, how could I honor them?
SPEAKER_00: You can get your mind to obey them, but how could I honor them?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer, the answer, it just always begins with grace and forgiveness toward them.
SPEAKER_00: There's no other way.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does the fifth commandment actually say?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that word honor is a Hebrew word.
SPEAKER_00: It's basically the word glorify.
SPEAKER_00: It means we attach value to our parents.
SPEAKER_00: It means we care for them and provide for them.
SPEAKER_00: And as you age and as they age, right, they're gonna be in the way.
SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna understand everything.
SPEAKER_00: It might slow you up, they're gonna take your time.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a decision to treat them with dignity and long-term loyalty to their good.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to honor.
SPEAKER_00: It's a decision to treat them with dignity and long-term loyalty to their good.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean they have to live in your den.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean you have to build a bedroom on the back of your house.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't mean that.
SPEAKER_00: But it means that if they will receive your help, that you help them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe your parents aren't admirable.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your parents aren't trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, hopefully, if you're a kid here, um hopefully your parents sit next to you is that somewhat, on some level.
SPEAKER_00: But all parents aren't, you know, uh June and Ward Cleaver, Jim and Cindy Walsh.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody, another reference?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone with me?
SPEAKER_00: You're my age, is what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh all parents aren't Mike and Cindy Brady, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like you're like you're you're you're watching the show and you see these parents, they love each other perfectly, they listen to each other, they instruct their children, they love their children, they listen to their children, the children are so important to them, important to the family, and then you look over to dad in the recliner, and he hasn't spoken to you yet today, and he's stressed out, and there's tension between dad and mom, and you go, uh, honor?
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: But the thing on the TV is just a is it's a it's a show, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like Mike and Carol Brady in real life is a totally different story.
SPEAKER_00: And here's my point.
SPEAKER_00: You probably won't admire everything about your parents.
SPEAKER_00: And what that means is you'll eventually see them as people.
SPEAKER_00: Like you are.
SPEAKER_00: See, but the call isn't for you to admire them.
SPEAKER_00: It isn't even for you to trust them because maybe they're not trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: But you can honor them even if you never admire them, and even if you never can trust them.
SPEAKER_00: Right now I'm watching my mom care for my granny.
SPEAKER_00: My granny's about 92 years old, 92 or 93.
SPEAKER_00: I can't, she's 92 or 93.
SPEAKER_00: 92, great.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so she's 92 years old.
SPEAKER_00: And my mom, who is 64, uh, she is now parenting her mother.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: My granny lives in assisted living, and we're fortunate she can be there and they help take care of her.
SPEAKER_00: But my mom, you know, takes her mail, deals with all her finances, makes all the decisions.
SPEAKER_00: Uh my grandmother is is losing her memory, so she can't remember everything, which is frustrating to her.
SPEAKER_00: It's frustrating to my mom.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, my mom takes her to get her hair done, which is often, but she goes and gets it set, you know what I'm talking about under the big thing, helmet.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just watching my mom do this, and it takes time, and it can be a nuisance, and the world says move on.
SPEAKER_00: Give them a TV.
SPEAKER_00: Like get them set up, just and then you can move on.
SPEAKER_00: They can play bingo in the lobby.
SPEAKER_00: But Christianity offers something different for us as we age.
SPEAKER_00: Because what it says is children honor them.
SPEAKER_00: Honor them.
SPEAKER_00: Right, and there's a second part to that, Exodus 20, 12.
SPEAKER_00: As you honor your parents, here's what that promises that you're gonna live in good conscience and peace toward them, at least on your side.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what they did toward you, you can live in good conscience and peace toward them.
SPEAKER_00: And your children see this.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm watching my mom do this, and you know, you know what it's teaching me?
SPEAKER_00: It's teaching me how to do this for her and how to do this for my dad.
SPEAKER_00: So let's kind of be clear.
SPEAKER_00: Let's break it down.
SPEAKER_00: How do we do this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, as kids, we honor and we obey, we cooperate in the family.
SPEAKER_00: So what we're called to do is what we should do.
SPEAKER_00: We give respect, we esteem them, we obey them, as long as it's not morally wrong.
SPEAKER_00: But man, it's easy as a kid to just say, you know what, they really don't know what's best for me.
SPEAKER_00: They don't understand me, they don't understand my world.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you just say, I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: It's just sort of like blatant rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: And what you're doing, you don't realize it.
SPEAKER_00: What you're doing, you're shooting yourself in the foot and then blaming your parents for the pain.
SPEAKER_00: You don't see it at that.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you see it at that eventually, but that's what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Shooting yourself in the foot and then getting it angry at your parent.
SPEAKER_00: Then as we grow, we become adults.
SPEAKER_00: Honoring is about leaving our parents but not disowning them.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't do well at this.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that freshman year where I went to when I went to Barrie, I I I can't remember the amount of times I called home.
SPEAKER_00: Not a lot.
SPEAKER_00: I I I've gotten better at it lately.
SPEAKER_00: Christy helps a lot.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a whole realm for me to I can I can do I can do a lot better here.
SPEAKER_00: But to remember them, to to to include them, to to let them see a little bit of them in you, to thank them for something uh that they gave you, that doesn't mean you're condoning all the bad.
SPEAKER_00: But that's part of honoring.
SPEAKER_00: And then we become adults and we know about 401ks and PMI insurance and strollers and 529 plans, and we know about our own kids moving out.
SPEAKER_00: We know about them getting older, and we know about grandchildren.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, Christy and I came in from a date, and uh we had gone to see Selma, and so afterwards we're just we're talking, right?
SPEAKER_00: Lots of discussion after that movie, and so we come back in, and my mom grew up in Atlanta in the 50s and the 60s, and so we came home and I was just like, Mom, what you know, what was life like in the 50s and 60s growing up?
SPEAKER_00: What do you remember?
SPEAKER_00: And and she was she was just honest.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, I don't remember much.
SPEAKER_00: I lived in my little white world, and and that was it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember anything else.
SPEAKER_00: And somehow the conversation went from that to uh that my grandfather was an alcoholic for a season, which is crazy to me because the grandfather I knew was so loving and gentle and um never saw a drink in his hand, but he was an alcoholic for a season, and so my mom started talking about that, and then Christy, thank you, Christy, she asked, Hey, what are the most what are the most devastating moments of your life that y'all remember?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, great discussion, you know, it's 10 PM, um appreciate this, and so we're but we we're we're buying into it and we're talking and we're you know like crying, Christy's counseling, and you know, and we we script my mom I walked my mom out to her car, and um somehow we had started talking about parenting a little bit, the conversation transferred, and and I just said and I don't say it enough, I said, Mom, you did a really good job.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Like it just one sentence.
SPEAKER_00: And I I don't know, like it's not like it was some huge moment.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it was life-changing for her or not, but um man, I can't imagine that when I'm 64, I have my one of my kids just say, Dad, you did a really good job.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how much that would fill my heart and honor me.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we see.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we see as we get into this, this idea of honor your parents.
SPEAKER_00: What we do see is we see it breaks us as much as it questions how honorable our parents are.
SPEAKER_00: Because you get to this fifth commandment, if you read the four in front of it, you read the you know, the um the five after it, uh, did I do the math right?
SPEAKER_00: The the four in front of it, the four after the five after it, four in front of it, the five after it.
SPEAKER_00: The ten commandments, not just a guide, but of the these laws, they break you.
SPEAKER_00: You go, ah, not me, not doing that well, not doing that one, not doing that one well, not doing that.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see with this is we see, not only are our parents not perfectly honorable, we see we are not perfectly able to honor them.
SPEAKER_00: So we're also not perfectly honorable.
SPEAKER_00: We're not perfectly honorable as parents, as children, as people.
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel is this.
SPEAKER_00: This is the difference between the law and the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: What we see in the gospel when God comes to rescue us from trying to live up to the law is we see Jesus was perfectly honorable for us.
SPEAKER_00: See, all our imperfections and our sin are put on Jesus on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: His righteousness and honor is given to you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was the perfectly honorable son to the perfectly honorable father for you.
SPEAKER_00: So you're in the family.
SPEAKER_00: This is a different family than you grew up in, whether it was that family that was, you know, manipulative and destructive, or whether it's a good family or a great family.
SPEAKER_00: You're in a new family, in a family that has a perfect father with perfect love that is not conditioned upon anything.
SPEAKER_00: And we are sons and daughters to this father.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this, and I'll kind of tie it all together.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8, 15 through 17.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, the spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.
SPEAKER_00: And by him we cry, Abba Father, the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we are children, then we're heirs.
SPEAKER_00: Heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings, in order that we may also share in his glory.
SPEAKER_00: See, one day, my three little girls, they're gonna see me for what I am.
SPEAKER_00: They're already starting to see it, the six-year-old is.
SPEAKER_00: And they will have to stop trying to get all of my affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: And they're gonna have to start to receive this from God.
SPEAKER_00: And if they don't, they're headed down a path of frustration and burden because I will not live up to that.
SPEAKER_00: I am not perfectly honorable.
SPEAKER_00: And then they're free, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like then they're free.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see this?
SPEAKER_00: Do you see it?
SPEAKER_00: Do you do you know this?
SPEAKER_00: Because if we know this love, this new greater family, then we can give our parents the freedom to just be people.
SPEAKER_00: You can stop being controlled by their constant approval and affirmation, or or constantly being controlled by their judgments, or being controlled by the lack of any of that.
SPEAKER_00: See, you can be free to honor them with your own identity.
SPEAKER_00: You can be free to listen to them and not agree and smile.
SPEAKER_00: You can be free to honor them with as many boundaries as you need in your family.
SPEAKER_00: You can be free to forgive the past and still give a compliment to them about something good they gave to you.
SPEAKER_00: So you can only allow them to return to be imperfect people as you live in the perfect family and begin to receive the affirmation and the acceptance you need from the perfect father.
SPEAKER_00: And that we would know this unconditional love that God gives it to us in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is enough.
SPEAKER_00: That means that you are free from your parents.