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SUMMER OF LOVE:  Love Your Parents

Exodus 20:12

A little girl asks her mom how people were made, and her mom says God made Adam and Eve. A few days later she asks her dad how we were made; he tells her we evolved from monkeys. Confused, she asks her mom which story is correct. Her mom replies, “I told you about my side of the family, and your father told you about his.”

This summer we have been exploring the topic of love in Scripture. In these 16 messages we have learned about how we should love ourselves, our neighbors, our spouses and we are even to love our enemies.

It is only logical that somewhere in there we can deduce that we are to love our parents. Seems logical, right?

Now, you might be surprised but no where in the Bible does it say, “love your parents.” It didn’t need to. It was implied that if you love your neighbors and your enemies that your parents are in there somewhere. And in Jewish society we see great respect and care being given towards one’s parents.

That said, the Bible is also very specific on how we are to treat our parents and that is what we will explore today.

First, let’s look at the 10 commandments. The first 4 commandments deal with our relationship to God and the last 6 deal with our relationship to one another. The first of those 6, the 5^th commandment says this:

Exodus 20:12, “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”

Paul reflects on this in:

Ephesians 6:1-3, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

This is the only commandment that provides a promise if obeyed. A promise of long life.

So, we are to honor our parents and to obey them.

Now, to be clear, if your parents direct you to disobey God, we are free to disobey. If they direct you to break the law, you are free to disobey. There is a hierarchy of authority which may rule over our parents.

But what does honor mean? Too honor someone means that we:

1. We demonstrate deep respect.

We do this by holding them in high regard and with dignity. We demonstrate politeness in everyday actions. As they get older, we don’t treat them with impatience as they struggle with ordinary tasks.

2. Provide open praise.

We praise them openly in front of others. We express sincere appreciation for what they have done for us to make us who we are.

3. We value their position.

We acknowledge their authority over us as our parents. Placing ourselves under their authority willingly and with joy.

Proverbs 23:22, “Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.”

We see 2 principles here. The first is a simple acknowledgment that your life came from your parents. If there is nothing else, if they were the worst parent ever, they still gave you life.

Second, there is the warning about despising your mother when she is old. This happens as the mother slows down and the child is being selfish resulting in impatience. It’s not hard to imagine this. Just as parents can get impatient with their children, so can children, when the roles are reversed, can become impatient with their parents.

Solomon is telling us not to go there. Hold a place of honor for the man and woman who gave you life.

Just a couple verses later Solomon goes on by saying:

Proverbs 23:24-25, “The father of a righteous child has great joy; a man who fathers a wise son rejoices in him. 25 May your father and mother rejoice; may she who gave you birth be joyful!”

Not only should we treat our parents with kindness, but when we live righteously, we will provide them with reasons to rejoice and have joy.

That is how we want our children to live, isn’t it? We want them to walk in righteousness bringing us great joy. We must do the same for our parents.

Colossians 3:20, “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”

Do you want to please God? You see, a person who obeys their parents is more likely to obey God. To obey your parents means you have a character that values respect.

This respect is demonstrated in:

1 Timothy 5:4, “But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.”

Notice the word, repaying. We all have a debt to our parents for their care for us as infants and beyond. No matter how good or poor they were as a parent. If you are still alive apparently, they fed and sheltered you well enough for you to survive.

This is not to diminish the fact that some parents have done some hideous things to their children. We know this by simply turning on the evening news. Regardless, the norm is that our parents have done enough to get us to the point we are at today and for that we owe them something.

This brings us to one simple question, why?

There are several reasons we should honor our parents.

1. They gave us life.

No matter how our lives have been they have value, great value. They gave us this life.

2. They raised and protected us.

Our simple presence is proof they did something right. It is not an easy job and if you have raised children yourself you know that it isn’t easy.

3. They made personal sacrifices for our well-being.

Someone paid for our food, our diapers, our toys, our clothing, our rent…for years. They did that at a cost of thousands of dollars. Lending Tree estimates the cost of raising a child from 0-18 to be $303,418.00. So, yes, they sacrificed for you.

Family is the primary building block of our society!

Solid families will stabilize the community. Do you believe this? Look at communities with intact families and you see strong, clean and safe places to live.

When you look at communities in which the family is shattered, what do you see? Crime, violence, lower educational accomplishments.

Now, throw on top of this the absence of fathers and you see a drastic rise in illiteracy, childhood hunger, crime. Dad’s make a huge difference.

The strength or lack of strength of the family will establish how people fit in groups and defines the social norms of the community.

The family provides our very first lessons in human behavior. Those lessons are what will pass along our social values either for good or bad.

So, how are you doing honoring your parents?

If you are honoring them, showing respect and care you’re doing great, keep it up.

If you are having a problem honoring them, what should you do?

Now, you might say to me, “you don’t know my parents, what they did to me.” You’re right, I don’t know. But God didn’t make it a commandment so that we could find some loophole to ignore it.

You may need to start with forgiveness in order to move on to honoring.

Oh, remember, when you honor you have the promise of longer days. So, will you choose long life and choose to honor your parents?