FAMILY FIRST: Honor Your Father and Mother 6-16-24

FAMILY FIRST: Honor Your Father and Mother 6-16-24

 

INTRODUCTION

 

FATHER'S DAY VS. MOTHER'S DAY

 

One little boy's definition of Father's Day went like this: "Well, it's just like Mother's Day, only you don't spend so much."

 

Well, we fathers can concede that. Someone said, "A father is someone who carries pictures where his money used to be." And the phone company tells us that calls on Father's Day are not as high in number as calls on Mother's Day, and most of them are collect.

 

A month ago I had the privilege of speaking at my dad’s celebration of life.  I was not the only one who spoke that day.  Others would talk about the “good man” that my dad was.  On that occasion I used a passage of Scripture as my text that I had never considered for a celebration of life.  I used one for the Ten Commandments.  This is one of the first Bible verses I remember memorizing.

 

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

           Exodus 20:12 NIV

 

I believe there is something in us--a law written on our hearts--that says, "Honor your father and mother." That’s how it’s stated in the Bible, but you’ll find it in all of the world’s religions. The ancient Chinese Analects advise, "surely proper behaviour to parent and elder brothers is the [tree] trunk of goodness."

 

We must consciously attempt, first of all, to find the good in our fathers, no matter how badly they seemed to have fathered us. To put a spin on Marc Antony’s cry: "We have not come to bury our fathers under the dirt of our accusations; we’ve come to praise them for what we have discovered in them, and for what they have given us." What our fathers did right is every bit as important as what they did wrong.

 

If, as C.S. Lewis wrote, "fatherhood must be at the core of the universe," then disrespect for a father means engaging in some very dangerous vandalism. That is true culturally, but also personally. Gordon Dalbey writes, "We had better teach our sons mercy. A man who curses his father...curses his own manhood."

Ken Canfield, PH. D. The Heart of a Father. Chicago: Northfield Publishing, 1996, p. 30.

 

The word honor has many important concepts contained within it.

 

Let us pray.

 

I.  HONOR

 

“You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”

           Luke 18:20 NIV

 

“Cursed is anyone who dishonors their father or mother.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

Deuteronomy 27:16 NIV

 

       1.  Inward

   2.  Outward

 

“This one guy seemed to be very concerned about pleasing his dad. The story goes like this…

One day a young boy was driving a load of hay to the market. He came around a corner too fast and his trailer load of hay tipped over. The young man stopped the tractor, jumped out and began to frantically try to reload the hay. A neighboring farmer who had witnessed the event came over and told the young man to slow down. The boy answered, “My Dad wouldn’t like it.” The neighbor said, just leave it, take a break, relax a bit. The young man said, “My Dad wouldn’t like it.” The neighbor invited him in for lunch and told him it would not take too long and afterwards he would help this boy reload the grain onto his trailer. The boy finally agreed and went into the house for lunch.

 

The lunch was wonderful and was exactly what he needed. When the farmer and the boy went out of the house, the farmer asked why the boy kept saying that his dad would not like it.

 

The boy replied, ‘Well, my father is under the trailer!’”

           Loyd C. Taylor, Sermon Central, May 27, 2024.

 

A promise

 

“. . . so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”

           Exodus 20:12b NIV

 

II.  OBEY

 

“Frankly, when I was a little guy I had my own ideas about that business of honoring parents so my days would be long upon the earth; I thought it meant that, if I didn’t honor them, Dad would kill me!”

           Russell Brownworth

 

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “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 the earth.””

       Ephesians 6:1-3 NIV

 

          1.  Carry out a command or instruction

     2.  Behave 

 

“Nearly thirty years ago, I was a middle school teacher in Kenya. One day I took 20 students, and I told them: "I will do my best to teach you and train you. If you obey me, you will be the best students of this school." They were excited.

 

In a short time, I realized that only some of them were willing to keep up with my training. Some of them said, "It’s too difficult." Some said, "We have more important things to do." Some of them said, "You see other students are having more fun than we do." When they graduated, 2 of them were the best students of the school. Only 2 out of 20.”

           Dr. Nicholas M. Muteti, Sermon Central, June 15, 2011.

 

III.  REVERE

 

"Reverence is the very first element of religion; it cannot but be felt by every one who has right views of the divine greatness and holiness, and of his own character in the sight of God."

           Charles Simmons

 

“For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’”

        Matthew 15:4 NIV

 

“Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.”

           Exodus 21:17 NIV

 

“Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head.”

         Leviticus 20:9 NIV

 

“If someone curses their father or mother, their lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness.”

         Proverbs 20:20 NIV

 

     1.  Respect

2.  Admiration

 

CONCLUSION

 

Victor Frankl was a survivor of the holocaust. His famous book is called "Man's Search for Meaning."

 

“The reader may ask me why I did not try to escape what was in store for me after Hitler had occupied Austria. Let me answer the question by recalling the following story.

 

Shortly before the United States entered WWII, I received an invitation to come to the American consulate in Vienna to pick up my immigration Visa.

 

My old parents were overjoyed because they’re expected that I would soon be allowed to leave Austria. I suddenly hesitated, however. The question beset me: Could I really afford to leave my parents alone to face their fate, to be sent, sooner or later, into a concentration camp, or even to a so-called extermination camp?

 

Where did my responsibility lie?

 

Should I foster my brainchild, logotherapy, by emigrating to fertile soil where I could write my books? Or should I concentrate on my duties as a real child, the child of my parents, who had to do whatever he could to protect them?

 

I pondered the problem this way and that but could not arrive at a solution; this was the type of dilemma that had made one wish for a “hint from heaven,” as the phrase goes.

 

It was then that I noticed a piece of marble lying on the table at home. When I asked my father about it, he explained that he had found it on the site where the National Socialists have burned down the largest Viennese synagogue. He had taken the piece home because it was a part of the tablets on which the 10 commandments were inscribed.

 

One gilded Hebrew letter was engraved on the piece; my father explained that this letter stood for one of the 10 commandments.

 

Eagerly I asked, “which one is it?”

 

He answered, “Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land.”

At that moment I decided to stay with my father and my mother upon the land and to let the American Visa lapse.”

           Viktor Frankl, “Man’s Search For Meaning”, pp. xv-xvi.

 

Honor your father and mother.  Honor.  Obey.  Revere.

 

INVITATION

 

It is our custom to offer an "invitation" following the preaching of the Word.  You may want to follow Jesus.  You may want to proclaim your faith.  You may want to repent (stop doing ungodly things and start doing Godly things).  Perhaps you want to be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Possibly, if you have already responded to God’s call in these ways, you would like to become a member of Kenwood Church.  If you have been moved by the Holy Spirit to make a decision in your life, you can come forward now.  If you would like, I would be honored to speak with you following the service about what God is doing in your life.