Thus Sayeth The Lord - Honor Thy Father and Mother

This week, Shandi unpacks the fifth commandment and what it truly means to honor your father and mother, even when family stories are complicated or broken. Through Scripture, practical wisdom, and compassion, she explores how honoring our parents reflects our love and obedience to God, and how this command shapes both our homes and our society. 

Transcript

So we are in commandment number five tonight. So if you have your Bibles or if you're using your phone, go ahead and open to Exodus chapter 20. So the other commandments that we've talked about, I would say, are a vertical commandment. It is about our relationship with God, right? So we have, wow! We had no other gods before him. We have no graven images. We have not to take his name in vain and to honor the Sabbath day and to keep it holy. And tonight we are shifting into what I would say are the horizontal commands. The commands that talk about how we are supposed to relate with one another. But I want to ask, as we're in Exodus chapter 20, verse 12, it says, "Honor your Father and your Mother, that your days may be long in the land, that the Lord your God is giving you." And I know that it's a little bit of a landmine in this room because some of you come from a really healthy family. Some of you have really amazing parents and a really great dynamic at home and then some of you, that's not your case. And that's not the story. So regardless of what it is, I want you to know that I see you, that I care for you and that God's Word has a message for you. So before we talk about that, how many of you have I taken to get coffee before? That's a lot of coffee. How many of you have just even seen me at coffeesmiths at some point? That's a lot of you. And also half of the city of Raleigh, because I'm in coffeesmiths a lot. If you ever want to go to coffee, let me know. I'll be happy to treat you or a muffin or tea or something like that. I'm here a little bit about your story and share a little bit about what God's doing in my life, because I just think that's awesome. But let's just imagine, I'm sitting at that big table in the back room with some of my friends. And I just want to tell you a little bit about the diversity of our family dynamics. So as we're reading this command, this command that has spoken to people with all these different backgrounds, because one of the people sitting at this table has a parent that has passed away. How do they fulfill this command to honor their father and mother? Or one whose parent moved away along distance? Or another person at the table whose parent has Alzheimer's and dementia and no longer even recognizes their child? How do they honor their parent? Another person has a parent who was emotionally abusive. Someone else has a parent with a long-term illness. And then we have another person at the table who has like the perfect parents right there together. They're super involved and they're super present. Sometimes they might feel like they're too present and too involved. And then you've got another person at this table who is adopted and has no relationship with their biological parents. And then there's other people at the table like myself that come from a divorced home. And then there are others that come from single parent homes, where others where adultery was a part of their family story, or maybe violence, or they had parents that were workaholics, or there was parents with depression, or addiction, or maybe their parents, they were great, or they weren't great, but they weren't Christians. Or maybe they said they were Christians, but they were really kind of fake Christians, you know? Like I'm going to claim the name, but it doesn't actually impact how I live my life. All of those different people are represented in my life. And I have the feeling all of those people are also represented in this room. But this is one of the ten that God says honor your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land, that the Lord your God is giving you. So then how does each of these people apply this command in their life? So one thing that I want to communicate first is that God desires the ideal. The ideal is to have a whole and a complete family that love and honor God and love and honor one another. That is the ideal. And if that is the home that you come from, I celebrate that. And I think that hopefully it's really easy for you to honor your father and mother. But also I understand that we live in a world that is broken and the ideal is under attack. Because families are faltered and they're filled with faltered people. And even the healthiest and the best family dynamic has its own faults and issues as well. And also a healthy society begins in the heart of the healthy home. And a society in disrepair begins in homes that are also broken. I want to look at just one portion of a family dynamic specifically with fathers and some of the statistics that are true of a family that is fatherless, where there is not a present father in the home. Did you know that in a family where a father is not present that there are four times more likely to be in poverty? Did you know that 71% of high school dropouts come from a fatherless home? Did you know that people that are experiencing a teenage pregnancy are seven times more likely to be from a fatherless home? That 85% of incarcerated youth grew up in fatherless homes. That 90% guys, you hear that 90% of runaways and homeless children come from fatherless homes. That 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. And I don't say this to diminish mothers, right? I'm a mother, right? I feel like the role of a mother is extremely important. But just to highlight that God created parents to be team and part of a whole. And when that suffers, when that dynamic in the family suffers, the whole family unit suffers. And when the whole family unit suffers, the society as a whole suffers. And so when God's saying that it will go well with you in the land that your days will be long, I think that he's speaking to the significance of the healthy family dynamic, impacting your society and your culture as well. There's a quote by a commentator that says honoring our parents is an essential building block for the stability and health of society. But how does this fit when our stories are complicated? And I want us to look at that together tonight. Exodus chapter 20 verse 12, I'm going to read it with you again. It says honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. We do better. At first, for those of you that aren't from an American culture, I celebrate that because you probably do better at this than Americans do. We do not live as Americans in an honor driven culture in society. Okay, we're pretty selfish people as a culture and not very honor driven. If anything, disrespect is seen and celebrated as thinking for yourself. And undermining authority is seen and celebrated as independence, almost any kind. Yes, it is important to think for yourself. And yes, it is important to have some independence. But do we have to sacrifice honor in order to do so? And this command here refers that appropriate honor of our parents is the path to long and blessed life. Now, I'm not saying that it means that you're going to be prosperous, but again, I'm speaking to the ideal. Okay, typically when you have this healthy family unit and you honor your parents, you are likely to have a life that is long and blessed. This is the norm. This is the ideal. And one of my favorite books on the Ten Commandments is Ten Words Delivered by by Jen Wilkin. And she's talking about how this is the only command that specifically states the word honor, but the honor is inferred in every other command. And specifically, it quote says, "The Ten Commandments deal with matters of heavenly submission, of earthly submission, and also of mutual submission in that order within the commandments." But then continuing on, in Mark chapter 12, the end of verse 28, 331, "Jesus is talking to these scribes." And they ask and they say, "Jesus, which of the commands is most important?" And he said, they say, "Which command is most important of all?" Jesus answered, "The most important is here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than this. And when Jen is writing in her book, she says, "I want to challenge you to take out the word love and put in the word honor and see if the meaning changes at all." And so if you read that verse, it says, "You shall honor the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." You shall honor your neighbor as yourself. It's the same. And really, it's a summary of the 10 Commandments. And I feel like in many ways honor and love need to go hand in hand with one another. If you refuse to honor someone, can you truly love them? If you choose to love them, you really need to also honor them. What we love, we honor and what we honor we should love. And this love, this honor that we show for others, it is our obedience to God and our love for him, made manifest in our earthly relationships, specifically in our relationship as children with our parents. First John, chapter 4, verses 7 through 11 says, "Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. And this, the love of God was made manifest in us, the God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation and the forgiveness for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. It is out of our obedience and gratitude to God for the work that he did through Christ on the cross that we love others. And our love is made manifest in active devotion, sacrifice, and honor with others." So there's two categories that I really want us to work through together. And the first one is the theology of honoring our parents. Really, what does God think about honoring our parents? Honor in the context of the Hebrew word here is defined as heavy, weighty, burdensome, as well as, like, honored and promoted. I don't know that I would have initially thought that it was something burdensome when I was coming up with a description of what the word maybe meant, but that's what it means here in this text. And I think part of that is because he's saying that honor is not always easy. To honor our father and mother is not always easy. I have a feeling I'm not the only one who is a child of parents in this room that is sometimes found it difficult to honor my parents. To want to speak snarkly, right? And to speak disrespectfully back to them or about them because of some situation that happened, right? But honor may not always be easy. And it is to be taken seriously. I mean, guys, it's number five. It made the list for the top 10, right? These are the things that it looks like to be a follower of God. Here's what it looks like in a relationship with God. And here are the six about how it looks in a relationship with others. And the first one on that list is to honor your father and mother. And I don't know about you, but oftentimes when we look at the 10 commandments, this is seen as the one that's like, if it fits, right? If it fits your situation, if it fits you, if it fits your circumstance, if it comes naturally or easy, is that a caveat with any of the others? You shall not kill. If it makes sense, if it is naturally and easy for you not to kill, don't lie. Don't commit adultery. Honor your father and mother. It's not any more optional than any of the others. And to show honor matters to God. Now, if we look in the English dictionary, when it's talking about honor, it's esteem, it's respect, it's recognition, it's credit for someone to be exalted to give them deference. But I want to ask something too, because so often what my mind jumps to is all the reasons why I don't need to honor my parents. I have a feeling for some of you that's the case too. Here's the reasons that I could get away with like just maybe like at least being neutral, Shandy. Like, I don't have to go above and beyond to honor them, but I'm not going to be intentionally disrespectful. I'm just going to be neutral here, right? Because of what happened. You don't know what was said or what they did in this particular circumstance or situation. Or they don't listen to me. So why do I need to listen to them? I'm an adult. They don't respect me enough to hear my opinions. Why are they trying to force theirs on me? Don't they know that I'm 18, 19, 20, 21, 38? Romans 12, 9, 3, 18, it says, "Let love be genuine. Of who or what is evil hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful and zeal be fervent and spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. We pay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable and the sight of all. And on this verse, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. And I think when it says, "Let love peaceably with all your parents are not a hyphen note of an exception to seeking to live peaceably with all," he says, "So far is it depends on you." When God gives us commandment to Moses to give to the people who is he telling has the responsibility in this command. He doesn't say, "Parents be honorable therefore your parents, your children will honor you." He says, "Owner your parents, honor your father and mother." That's what text says to do. You are accountable to God for you. You are not accountable to God for your parents' choices and decisions, whether they were good or bad, or whether they reacted to the things that they found out that you did behind their back or whatever. Like, you are accountable to God for how you honor your parents. You are not accountable to God for their decisions or their actions. Thank the Lord. I have enough sins of my own. Back to Exodus 20, it is our choice to honor because God has told us to. So the theology of honoring our parents, we honor our parents because we're obeying and honoring God. Put succinctly, we do this because God told us to. Our perfect Heavenly Father has given us imperfect earthly parents. And we already talked about how this Hebrew word says it is something that sometimes burdens them and not easy to do. We honor our parents because God told us to. We honor our parents and it's not simply about them, it is about God. You honor their parents not because they're worthy in deserving. The hopefully many of you have parents that are, but because God is worthy in deserving and He has told us to. The later commands not to kill or covet or lie, they matter because God cares how we treat one another because we have value as people that are created in the image of God. And to disregard one of his commands about the people that God loves and died for is to disregard God. God takes this honor of our parents seriously. I want to share three verses with you and increasing degrees of intensity Proverbs 2020. If one curses his father or mother, his lamp will be put out in utter darkness. God, my parents didn't quote that to me when I was being disobedient. In a description of what it means to curse, that it means a heart that is so settled against your parents as to call a death curse upon them. I wish you were dead. Leviticus chapter 20 verse 9 for anyone who curses his father, his mother, shall surely be put to death. Guys, there was a death sentence associated with this. Now I'm not talking about for a minor infraction. Again, it's if you were calling down a death curse, I wish you were dead to your parents. You could be killed in ancient Israel. He has cursed his father, his mother, his blood is upon him. Proverbs 13, 17, probably the most graphic of them all. The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother. Also, do you do you catch that? The eye that mocks the father. It's not just your words and not just your actions, but also your facial expressions. Whether they're looking at your face or not. The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey his mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by vultures. When this is the contrast to if I honor my father and mothers and my days will be long upon the land, it's an easy choice. I want my days to be long upon the land, not my eyes to be picked out by ravens and fed the hungry vultures. Right? Augustine says if anyone fails to honor his parents, is there anyone he will spare? If you're going to have an attitude and a heart of hate for your parents, then all the rest of the commands you're likely to break, because honor of others begins with our parents, our choice to honor others begins in the home with our first earthly authority and our first earthly family. Okay, so that's fine. The theology of it, but let's get practical. The practicality of honoring our parents. There's a sermon that I was listening to in this or reading. It was really interesting. It was talking about as a child, at first, we idolize our parents. And how many of you had those playground arguments or classroom arguments with your friends? Like, my dad is stronger than yours. My mom's faster than yours, but also my dad could bench press for 20s. He probably actually was stronger than yours. It was like, yeah, well, my dad, you know, and then you like start making up all the things they can do, right? Because like, you idolize them and they can do no wrong. But then as we transition, we get to an age and we start to demonize them in our adolescence. You're ruining my life. Why is this my curfew? Why can't I watch the show? Why can't I X, Y, Z to infinity and beyond? We demonize them. And then we move to this sweet stage of utilizing them. Oh, I need some gas. Can you help me fill out my taxes? My fafsa? I'm not saying that's wrong, but I'm saying we're like having a parent is very nifty. Here's all the ways that I need help. How about laundry and food? Right? Like, so we start to utilize our parents, and then as you get older, I feel like we shift into this, this age where we humanize our parents, and you start to see their cracks and their flaws. Oh, they're not perfect. After all. And I feel like sometimes in that humanization, it's really easy for us to flip the switch of disregard and disrespect, right? Because we're like, why do I need to listen to them anymore? Because you see all of their humanity and all of their mistakes and all of their flaws. But honor looks different in different ages and stages in our life. Because you guys are in this weird transitional stage, right? And there's often tension in the stage because you are moving from adolescence into adulthood. Yes, I know you're technically adults, okay? But you're in this place, so you still kind of need your parents for some things. Like I said, like, fafsa and like, hey, can you help me with like this, this, and this, right? And you guys are in this stage of increasing independence that you're growing into. And so sometimes this question of what does it look like to honor my parents now that I'm not living under their roof and completely under their authority? Like, I don't have to ask them if I can go to waffle house at two in the morning, right? And they're not going to tell me no if I decide to eat like all of the chocolate chipwaffles. Bless the Lord. They're so good. I'm with all of the syrup and the butter because my mom's not there like, hey, did you have carrots earlier, right? Like you were making your own independent decisions, but there's still this connection. So I would challenge you if you're like, I don't even know what that looks like or what they expect of me. Maybe ask that. Maybe call your parents or talk to them at some point, hey, like we were talking about this. What do you think it looks like for someone that's transitioning into adulthood to honor their parents? Chances are they maybe haven't specifically thought it out before either. So it could be a really beneficial conversation for you guys to have. Now, like I said earlier, the reality is some of you will have amazing relationships with your parents. You are best friends with your parents. But some of you, there might be a lot of layers of issues and challenges in your relationship, not unlike the things that I mentioned earlier. But I think we can still fulfill this command because if all the 10 commandments are for all of us, that includes this one, regardless of your situation and regardless of your age. And I think sometimes when we read this, we automatically interpret honoring your father and mother as children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. While that is an accurate and a true statement, I think that is a subset of honoring your parents, not the entirety of honoring your parents. So what does that look like? Let's talk about it. Even if your parents aren't a part of your life, you have no shortage of parental people in the family you've got. So even if for you, you're like, I don't really have those people in my life, you do have parental figures and a parental figures, you've got somebody that feels some sort of role like that in your life and it's not contact me. I'm happy to help you find one. But God doesn't call us also to submit or obey in ways that violate his will and his commands. So that's important, I think, to know there's people in your life that fit that bracket, no matter what your family dynamic looks like. But also, when God calls us to honor our parents, and even when he tells children to obey their parents, never in direct opposition to God's will. So if they're telling you to do something that is sinful and disobedience to God, God trumps parents every time. But there is a way to obey God while still honoring your parents, even if what they're asking of you is in direct opposition to him, but hopefully most of you aren't going to find yourself in that particular pickle. So what is the first way that we can honor our parents? And I would say you honor your parents with respect. But what is respect? I'm so glad you asked. I think respect is how we respond to, how we treat, and how we speak to or of someone. Respect is how you respond to them. When your parents are communicating with you about something, how do you respond? That can be respect. How do you treat them? How do you speak to them? How do you speak about them? I think that is how you honor your parents. And this is not always because they deserve it, but because God asked it and commanded it of us. Proverbs 23 verse 22 and 25 say, "Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old. Let your father and mother be glad. Let her who bore you rejoice." The way that you treat your parents should make them rejoice. So three things that do shift is you're in this age that I would almost call no man's land, right? Like I don't know how to do this. There was no manual or no class or no workshop on how to have the healthy relationship to your parent as you are now an adult and not under age. And also too, like as you're growing and then as you move into adulthood and independence or even into marriage, your allegiance shifts, right? Like the first priority when you are eventually like a married couple shifts. And so the first person to say what's happening for things giving isn't always the winner. It's your spouse, right? You may take like what your parents are asking and requesting into the conversation, but your spouse is the person that has your primary allegiance and loyalty, but you can still do that in a way that's honoring your parents. So what are the three things that shift at your age? parental authority is not absolute. And I think obedience isn't a good illustration for that because the way that an adult is obedient to their parents is different than the way that an adolescent child is obedient to your parent. So three things that shift the first is obedience. I will tell my children, go make your bed. I will tell my children, go close your dresser drawer, go clean your room. I'll load the dishwasher earlier today, go clean the bathrooms, then I go check and like go do it again, right? That is obedience. And I think that as they get older, that obedience to instruction becomes more advising, right? Because that shifts. And so it's not like your parents coming in and they might, I mean, they might tell you if some of your rooms are disaster, you need to get that cleaned up, right? But it's a different dynamic than when you are a young child living in their home. Obedience shifts, but so does submission. And I would say submission is all about trust, but submission to your parents as a child versus adult is different. I'm the one who schedules my children's orthodontics, dental and doctor's appointments. I'm the one who says what vaccines they are and are not getting and when. They're not excited about our flu vaccines. We go as a family, make it fun and then get ice cream. But I'm the one, my husband and I are the ones that make those decisions for our children. We are the ones that buy the groceries. We may take into consideration their requests, mega-stuff Oreos, occasionally making appearance, but not always because we are the ones making that decision and they submit to us whether they want to or not. We're the ones that pay the taxes and we are the ones that pay the utility bills and put the gas in the car and take care of them. They're submitting to that. But also there is deference and our kids talk this about situations with their friends. And that is one thing I think even though it shifts, it's still applicable regardless of your age with your relationship with your parents. You can seek their advice and their counsel. What are two things that absolutely do not shift as you age? The first, you can honor your parents with respect through grad day and father's day are all about. But also if you're like, I could do better than that. Then don't wait. Call them afterwards. Send them a text. I actually texted all my parents beforehand like, hey, I should actually just tell them, thank you. They weren't perfect, but they were great parents and I know that they loved me. So gratitude for who they are and what they have done for you, but also in our speech. Guys, I think this is one that we take far too lightly. How do we speak about our parents? When we're talking to our friends, do we just get on that harping train of all of their flaws and all of their failures? I'm not saying you can't be honest, but do you actually speak well of your parents? Is the only thing that other people know about your parents, the trash and the garbage because that's the only thing that you have to say? That's not honoring. Also the way that we speak to them, where are your manners? But I mean truly, like, do we have manners? Do we speak kindly and well to our parents? And guys, this one doesn't change regardless of the health or life of your parent. If they are sick or if they are dead, this still applies. You can still speak well of them to others and honor them even when they are no longer in this life. Now, I know sometimes in a relationship with our parents, there needs to be some boundaries, right? Like, you don't know my mom, she's so invasive, and she will come over and like, take over my life or whatever the dynamic that fits the scenario. Boundaries sometimes have to be put in place. However, having boundaries does not mean that you need to disrespect or dishonor them. There is a way to have boundaries in your life that is not also coupled with disrespect or dishonor. And as the relationship with your parents changes and there's this demand for affection or respect or care, those don't shift. So honor your parents with respect. The next thing, honor your parents as they age. A commentator Cole says, honor our parents is not a popular doctrine in our modern world. Where youth is worship and old age is dreaded or despised. And I think as there's aging, which most of you, your parents are probably fairly young, so you can think of your grandparents, but you will age and get old. And then your parents are going to continue to age and get old. And I don't know why it was this weird thing like my parents stayed the same age for like a decade or more. And then all of a sudden they age like 20 years over night. It's like my mom was 40 for a long time. And then all of a sudden she was like almost 60. I was like, what happened? And then I realized I was the age that I thought my mom was. I was like, that's really weird. I like caught up with her. But so the thing is your parents are going to age, right? And it's not a popular doctrine. Because I don't think that we want to look aging in the face. And we would rather just ignore it. First Timothy, chapter 5, verses 1 through 2, and then verse 8. Verse 8 is a verse that has really like stomped my toes. Do not review an older man, but encourage him as you would have father. That means you need to be encouraging to your fathers. Younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity. But if anyone does not, his worse relatives and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Say what? This verse is following a discourse about the care of widows, but then Peter is he is tall, he's talking to Timothy, is saying at the core of the message, God cares about how we care for our family, biologically and within the body of Christ. Leviticus 19:32, it says, you shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man. And you shall fear your God, I am the Lord. Now I love the double edged implication here and the challenge for us as the older people in in a situation with the younger people that the way that we are with the younger ones should bring them to the fear of God, not because we're terrifying, but because we love Jesus and want them to love Jesus too, right? The way that we are with them should bring them before the throne of God, right? But also that there needs to be this respect. And so there's not a lack of verses about parents and how they are supposed to react or interact with their children. There's a lot of that. But the command we're looking at is how you're supposed to honor your parents. Guys, we live in a culture that generally hates aging. They try to avoid it or ignore it or make fun of it. I know sometimes we make fun of things that we're uncomfortable with, it's fine. But how do we celebrate an honor age instead? The first thing is to provide comfort. Do we make their process of aging easier? And as I was kind of thinking about what that looks like, my mom, she lives in Rolla and it was time for her to get a different car. So my husband and I were helping her with the process. What does it look like to sell your car? Okay, you're going to get a new car. What do you do? Who do you talk to? What are the decisions that you need to make? Walking alongside her with these things and helping to make the process easier by helping her make some of these decisions that aren't as easy for her to make anymore? How do we help them with the process of aging? And I think of my mother and mom Molly. She's absolutely an amazing woman. And her mom, we have everybody called her boots. And her husband was buck. It was so cute, right? Boots and buck. Anyway, boots was aging and had dementia pretty badly, but Molly every day had lunch with her mom. Do you know what a sacrifice that is? Especially when your mom doesn't even know who you are all the time, but she went every day and had lunch with her mom because she loved and honored her mother. And she wanted to make the process of aging easier on her mom. Also, do we support them as best as we're able? My mom has a very minimal income. She's got multiple sclerosis, so she can't work full-time. And so when she moved to Rolla, she had a set amount of funds that was disappearing because of a rental property. And we had a pole bar and we just had a lawnmower parked in. And so Ben and I talked were like, you know what? She should use her finances to renovate this, make it handicapped accessible. So it's a place that she can live in, but also has security so that even if she has no income, she knows she has a home. And also so that as she ages, she's in close proximity so I can help her. Currently, it's like chasing down mice and things. But eventually, you know, she needs help with laundry, or she needs help with making her bed, or she needs help with bathing. This is in close proximity so that we can do that and do life with her. My husband, I made this decision because we took first Timothy, chapter 5, verse 8, seriously, to care for members of our old household, own household. Because if we don't, it's like we've denied the faith. Because it's important to care for and to honor our parents, to provide comfort as they are aging, but also time. Do we prioritize time with and relationship with our parents? Sometimes it's as simple as a phone call or a text. Eventually, when you're older, when you consider taking a vacation with your parents, or using your limited vacation time to go see your parents, including them in things in your life or inviting them to things that are important to you, communicating about the things that are happening and sharing your life. Guys, I know when I went to college, it was so easy for me to get so caught up in what I was doing that I forgot to ask about what was going on with them. And because I knew that I was so likely to forget to call, I set a specific time on my calendar that that was my time set aside to make phone calls to home, to make sure I was making a priority of communicating with my parents because I love and I honor them. Do they know what's happening in your life? Who your friends are? The things that are important to you, the decisions that you're making, the things that are stressing you out. Do you make time for them? But also advocacy. For a lot of you guys, this is probably much later in your life, as you may have to intervene and help advocate for them and on their behalf, as you're sitting in a hospital room or having conversations with them as they're considering maybe moving out of a home into a nursing home or something like that. Age and its progression is reverting to a stage of greater dependence. As you guys are increasing your independence and sometimes you struggle to navigate that to your parents will also struggle to navigate their increasing dependence. If you think it is awkward to try to grow up and figure out how it is to do things like your taxes and stuff on your own, how uncomfortable and difficult do you think it is to know yourself and others less and less? To be increasingly more and more confused about things and to lose your autonomy. My grandma, thankfully, is not driving anymore. The one that lives in Utah, I don't even want to try to pass her on a mountain pass. But guys, that's hard to lose your independence and your autonomy. And I mention this now because I know that for some of you that may be a long time down the road, but it is important for you guys to be empathetic and present and supportive for your parents in that process. Jen Wilkins says aging is among other things, the study progression of relinquishing one's decision-making authority. It requires deep courage and can cause strain and even the healthiest of families as the dignity of the aging parent becomes more challenging to preserve. If you can't honor your parents now when they're maybe just a little bit annoying and obnoxious, how do you think you can possibly honor them well later when it gets even more complex and difficult and inconvenient? It is so essential that we practice honoring our parents well now so that we can continue to do that throughout our lives. So we honor our parents as they age, we honor them with respect and lastly we honor our parents with those of you who have parents with a great spiritual legacy that they have handed you. There is no better way for you to honor that and to celebrate that when you continue the legacy that you have been given. I think that's awesome and I can think of nothing more than I want in the lives of my children than for them to be devoted to God. That would honor me more than anything I could possibly imagine but for those of you that were not handed a good legacy you get to rewrite the script and to choose a different story for your future and for future generations and that too honors your parents even what they handed you was trash because you can honor them by choosing and doing and living different. Not only your legacy but you can break generational chains. My grandfather beat my grandmother badly and my father was witness to that and my grandfather did those things because he saw his father do those things and you know what my father is a gentle man. He never acted on the legacy that was given to him because he broke those generational chains and wrote a different story in our family. He redeemed the name. He changed the identity and guys if the heritage that you are given is one riddled with divorce or faithlessness or unbelief you get to write a different story and to change the patterns in your life. But you can also honor your parents with your character in your spiritual life. Regardless of their spiritual state are they drawn to Christ by the way you honor them. Do they take note of Jesus in you because the way that you interact with them? You honor your parents with your character also with your integrity. If you sit for five minutes with a parent you are going to hear them start bragging on their kids. They took a step. They lost a tooth. We just love to be proud of our kids guys and we love any opportunity to brag on our children and their integrity and their character and I'm going to brag on mine because I am so proud of them. Darcy she has this friend that has special needs to a degree and it makes her difficult to understand sometimes when she's speaking but my daughter loves her friend and she is so intentional about always including her and doesn't even think about it. She doesn't see the disability she just sees her friend and because of that the people around her accept this girl too and they don't even think about it because she's just their friend and I mean with pride whenever I see my daughter including this person that a lot of society would say is other and my daughter says no she's my friend and she's going to sit with me every Sunday my daughter wants to sit with with her not with us but with her friend because her friend matters to her and standing alongside her matters to her and guys I get so excited when this girl's friend bomb or my daughter's friend's mom when she contacts me she says you have no idea the difference that your daughter has made in her life. I'm so proud of my daughter and then Harley she will give me hugs all day long but she does not want to hug just everybody else she's not my like touchy kid okay she's a mommy's girl it's like I always get the inside but nobody else does right Darcy wants hugs all day long and to never let go but because Harley loves her sister and because she has character and integrity do you know what she made for her sister for Christmas last year hug passes ten of them ten hug passes for ten second hugs and then one passes as you get one ten second hug every day Darcy wanted to use them all on one day because that's who she is and then do you know what Harley gave Darcy for her birthday because she'd spent all the hug passes ten more because she's awesome and because she loves her sister and because she has character and integrity and I could not be more honored as her mom to see who she is and who she's becoming and what she does when my children have character and conduct I beam with pride for my children I'm proud when they just learn to poop okay it was the best day when they learned to wipe their own butts but how much more proud of them am I when they show the character of Christ in their life we're going to land this plane for those of you you're like saying this is tough we love a god and have the heavenly father that wants to restore and redeem the broken places in your life and I hope that you hear that and if you need to talk with us about that then please let us because we want to hug you and tell you how much you are left and how much we have a god that sees you all of God's commands are for the benefit of his people both those that are in relationship with him and those that are out of relationship with him his commands are going to benefit everyone none of these commands are optional and that includes honoring our parents and I know that sometimes this command is complex for the context of broken people and broken families but there is still a way that we can fulfill this law so as we pray and as we worship and as we go out into the rest of our evening or if you're going to after caddy prayer you've just got homework to do I want to challenge you to be thinking about what can you do tonight or this weekend to honor your parents whether it's praying for them setting them a text a phone call writing them a note giving them a 10 second hug even if you don't want to what is it that you can love you to obey this command that God has given you pray with me Jesus we love you God I'm so thankful that you love us perfectly and completely and then even when our earthly parents make mistakes that you're there to bridge that gap God I thank you that Jesus modeled what it looked like to honor parents when he was the son of God that he chose to do so anyway God I ask that you would convict us where we need to be convicted that you would encourage us where we need to be encouraged and that you would help us to choose honor the same of your son Jesus Christ we pray amen