THE PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Holy Father, good and gracious and full of love: we thank You that You have redeemed and adopted us to be Your children, through Your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ. In His name, and for His sake, we pray that You would send forth Your Holy Spirit to illumine our minds and to enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we would be filled with spiritual wisdom and discernment as we hear Your Word. Give us understanding, and we will keep Your law and obey it with all our hearts. Direct us in the path of your commands, for there will we find delight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE ASCRIPTION OF PRAISE 

Unto Him who loves us, and has freed us from our sins by His blood, to Jesus Christ, be praise, now and forever! Amen!


THE SERMON 

As we continue this sermon series through the Ten Commandments, I want to emphasize again something very important. None of us is saved by keeping the law of God, and none of us earns the love of God by keeping the law of God; for we all have already broken the law of God, and so we cannot be saved by it [Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:16]. We all are in desperate need of God’s sovereign, saving mercy through Jesus Christ. None of us lives up to the standard of God’s moral law. The law shows us our need for a Savior, and points us to the Savior, Jesus Christ, whose perfect righteousness is infinitely sufficient to cover all our insufficiency. Jesus Christ freely offers great grace to great sinners.

And so, I plead with you: if, as we go through this series, your conscience is awakened, and you feel the weight of your guilt under the law — do not strive to remove your guilt or to pay for your guilt, or to make yourself right with God, by "trying to be better." That’s legalism! Or, don’t simply get down on yourself as a hopeless, helpless sinner. That’s despair, and despair itself is sinful! If the preaching of the law of God convicts you of your sin, do not focus on yourself: turn, turn to Jesus Christ, confess your sin and guilt, and believe the gospel that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and believe the gospel that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all iniquity, and believe the gospel that the righteousness of Jesus Christ — the covering of the sinless perfection of Jesus Christ — is offered to you, freely, to be received by faith in Him. Place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ — not in yourself.

And, standing on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, knowing that His death and resurrection is your exodus out of the slavery of sin and out of the dominion of the devil, offer yourself to the LORD your God, and seek, by the power of His Spirit, under His mercy, to live a life pleasing to God, walking in His ways, keeping His commandments. Strive to obey God’s law more faithfully, not in order to "make up" for your sins, but because your sins have been completely, freely forgiven, washed away by the blood of Christ shed on the cross for you. The law of God is not the way of salvation, but it is the way of life for those who have been saved by Jesus Christ, for those who know they have been bought with the precious blood of God’s own Son. That’s what this series is all about.

Today, we come to the fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you." I want to acknowledge that, in this sermon, I will not be able to cover every application of this commandment. For example: some people find it difficult to honor their father and mother because of parental abuse or neglect which they may have experienced. But the commandment still stands, and still applies. And so, as Christians, growing in grace and following Christ means working through that painful stuff, and letting go of the anger and bitterness, and forgiving our parents, and, by the grace of God, honoring them for the sake of honoring God. That’s a big issue, and a deep issue, but I’m not going to address it any further today. I simply want to acknowledge it. But remember, Jesus said, "... if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father (in heaven) forgive your trespasses" (Matthew 6:15).

Another application of great relevance and importance has to do with honoring our father and mother in their old age. Today, the adult children of elderly parents have a great responsibility, and are often faced with difficult decisions, and it is often hard to know what’s really right and best in specific situations. The fifth commandment teaches us that as Christians we are called to honor and respect our parents throughout our lives and theirs; and just as we stand for the sanctity of life in the womb, so also we stand for the sanctity of the life of the elderly, even if they are incapacitated.

But this morning I am choosing to focus on the most basic application of the fifth commandment: the relationship between parents and their dependent children. As the Children’s Catechism says, the fifth commandment teaches us "to love and obey our parents and everyone in authority over us."

Our Reformed catechisms — The Heidelberg Catechism, The Children’s Catechism, The Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms — place the fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother," at the top of the second tablet, concerning our love for neighbor. It is the first of the laws dealing with human relationships. Don’t miss the point: in God’s ordering of His world, in God’s rule over His creation, in God’s design for human society upon the earth, the family is the foundational unit, the foundational building block of all human relationships, the building block of human society. And for the sake of the strength and peace and harmony and fellowship of the family, God has spoken the fifth commandment: "Honor your father and your mother." This is the commandment which is at the very foundation of a healthy and strong and peaceful and happy human society, upon which all the other commandments of the second tablet are built. And if a child does not learn to honor his or her father and mother, if a child does not learn to live in a proper, healthy, loving relationship with his or her parents, with respect for, and obedience and gratitude toward father and mother, then what sort of an adult with that child turn out to be? And what sort of effect will that have on human society in general? And so we think of the fifth commandment as being at the top of the second tablet.

But, also, think about this: In Jewish tradition, the fifth commandment is often listed on the first tablet, concerning our relationship with God, in order to emphasize the sacred duty of honoring father and mother. In this way, the fifth commandment applies to our relationship with God. Parents are the representatives of God to their children. Parents stand in God’s place in relation to their children. Thus, to honor one’s father and mother is to honor God. Indeed, to honor one’s father and mother is an obligation to God and, most of all, an expression of gratitude to God because each one of us has received our very life from God through those whom He ordained to be our parents. If we dishonor our parents, through whom by God’s providence we have received our very life, then surely we dishonor God our Creator. As one verse of Jewish wisdom puts it: "To curse one’s mother is to infuriate one’s Creator."And so it would not be inappropriate to think of the fifth commandment on the first tablet of the law.

And so, the fifth commandment connects the first tablet with the second tablet. The fifth commandment is the link between those first four commandments having primarily to do with God, and the last five commandments having to do with our neighbor. And this works itself out in very practical terms. As children, we learn to honor God by honoring our parents; and likewise, we learn to honor our neighbors, treating them with respect, by honoring our parents. As children, we learn to obey God by learning to obey our parents; and, likewise, we learn to obey other rightful authorities (teachers, other parents, the laws of the land, etc.) by first of all learning to obey our parents. As children, we learn to be grateful to God by being thankful toward our parents; and we learn to be thankful toward others by learning to be thankful toward our parents.

But if a child does not learn to love, respect, and obey his or her parents, the chances are very great that that that child will never learn to love, respect, and obey God. If a child does not learn to love, respect, and obey his or her parents, the chances are greatly increased that that child will never learn to love others, nor to respect and obey any authority. Both the health and peace of human society in general and the health and peace of God’s people, the church, in particular, are directly related to the fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother." All of this shows us from God’s Word that parenting — the rearing and nurturing and teaching and disciplining and discipling of children — is a holy task, a divine calling, a spiritual duty and mission, for the glory of God and for good of His people and for the blessing of the world.

Listen to the way in which the fifth commandment is repeated in the New Testament, and applied to the Christian community:

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he gave the same instruction using different words: "Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged." So you see, parents, and specifically fathers, that this fifth commandment applies to us as parents in relation to our children. We are not to be harsh and arbitrary with our children. This will only "exasperate" them, confuse them, discourage them, and ultimately feed that seed of rebellion which is already in them by their sinful nature.

Yes, we are commanded by God to teach and to require our children to honor, respect, and obey us; that is our sacred duty as parents under God, and not to do so is sin against God. God loves our children, and because He loves our children, He will be sorely displeased with us as parents if we do not bring our children up "in the training and instruction of the Lord." From earliest childhood, our children must be taught immediate obedience, first-time obedience, and happy obedience. From earliest childhood, our children must be taught that there is a "zero-tolerance" ("zero-tolerance") for words, actions, attitudes, facial expressions, and body language of disrespect and dishonor for us or for anyone else. Why a "zero-tolerance" for disrespect and dishonor toward parents? Because we love our children. Listen to Proverbs 30:17, the Word of God:

If we love our children, we do not want the curse of Proverbs 30:17 upon them; therefore, if we love our children, we will not tolerate dishonor and disrespect toward us or anyone else in authority. But we must be careful to teach, nurture, and discipline our children with an abundant expression of steadfast love and tender mercies and deep affection for them. In all our teaching, and correction, and discipline, we must communicate our love to our children.

You know, fathers, being the "disciplinarian" in the home does not mean being merely, only, the "big heavy," the "enforcer." Think about it: if we are disciples of Jesus Christ, then who is our "disciplinarian"? Jesus Christ. He is our model. You see, to be the "disciplinarian" in the home means, fathers, to be the teacher, the nurturer, the shepherd, the guard, the guide. Yes, "the Lord chastens those whom He loves" (Proverbs 3:12; Hebrews 12:6), and, yes, chastening, that is, painful discipline and corrective punishment, is one duty of the "disciplinarian," but it is not the only one by far. The fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother," places upon parents the sacred duty of living honorable lives as examples to our children and the responsibility of relating to our children in godly, honorable ways.

And we must positively teach our children and youth how to show honor and respect to us and to others in authority. This does not come naturally. Don’t expect it to come naturally. And the world in which our children are growing up, the popular culture in which our youth are living, certainly is not going to teach them how to show honor and respect to parents or to anyone in authority. Many children and youth today simply do not know what it means, do not know how, to show honor and respect to their parents, other adults, and others in authority, because they haven’t been taught or required to honor authority. It’s up to us as parents, or grandparents, and the community of the church, to teach our children and youth how to show honor to us and to others: things as simple and basic as, for example, how to greet adults, to rise in their presence and to speak to adults with a pleasant voice, and to listen to other adults attentively with respect. It’s up to us to teach our boys how to look a man in the eye and shake his hand, how to show respect both with body language and verbal responses, how to show honor and respect by being considerate, helpful, and kind to older adults, how to show respect for their teachers, or their coaches, or the parents of their peers, or the adults who live next door.

Now, am I just teaching "manners" from this gospel pulpit? God forbid! God forbid! Dear friends, it is the church’s calling — by that I mean it is the Christian community’s call as the Body of Christ on earth — to show the world how to live as a peaceful, ordered, happy, holy society, in which children, youth, and adults live together and relate to one another in a beautiful harmony. This is part of our evangelical mission! I know of families that have been brought to Christ because of the quality of family life which they observed in Christian families — because of the way in which Christian parents and their children related to one another in love and respect, and lived in peace and happiness. And those non-Christian families were drawn to that way of life and therefore were drawn by the Holy Spirit to Christ Himself.

And, finally, to the youth, I would say: remember, you don’t have perfect parents. Nobody does. But if you have parents who love you enough to set some boundaries around your life, and to discipline you if you disobey, and who love you enough to lead you in the path of righteousness following Jesus Christ, then you have a lot to be thankful for. Now, your parents are going to make some mistakes, and they are going to need your forgiveness sometimes. But if you forgive them the way that you want them to forgive you, and if you’ll honor and respect your parents and obey them because you love them, and because you are thankful for them, and because you want to honor God and do the right thing, then God will honor you and bless you. And one of the greatest blessings that God may give you, is the blessing of one day raising your own children to know and love the Lord, and teaching them to honor their father and mother.

To God be the glory! Amen.