Honor Your Father and Mother

Again, Mr. Call? I wonder... Many of you have been in a situation, I've been in a number of times, where you have something you need to accomplish, and you might... you'll want to get it done, but you're just not sure what's the best way to go about it.

You know, it's like, this is where I want to be, but how do I get there? That used to happen to me in my previous job, it seemed like all the time. You know, working with grants and public education programs, my boss had come and said, okay, we need to do this. And I said, okay, I'm for it. How do we do it? Well, that's for you to figure out. That would be a little, you know, frustrating sometimes. I remember not that long ago it happened. We said, oh, the 150th anniversary of the Civil War is coming up. It'd be great if we could get all the county historical societies around the state to do programs on how the Civil War affected Ohio. Yeah, that's great. That'd be something if they all did that. Well, get them to do it. Somehow.

Now, sometimes he'd ask me to do something, and I, you know, he would know, but he'd, you know, well, I'd think that he knew, and really, he had no idea either. So, sort of, let those creative juices flow and try to figure something out. Or sometimes he'd know of at least one way, but he's hoping maybe if he let me go, I might even think of a better way, or we'd put our heads together and come up with something.

Now, a lot of times we're in those situations. One of the first things you do is you go ask for advice. You ask someone else, well, how do you think we could do this? And, of course, I hope as Christians we all think, well, is there something in here that'll help us? And we look there. There is an interesting story from the Bible that gives an example of this happening, and I want to go there partly, well, it is instructive.

It's partly entertaining also. It's in the book of Esther. So if you want to turn to the book of Esther, we'll pick up in chapter 6. But the story I want to look at is somewhat parenthetical to the main story of Esther, which, of course, we know God moves Esther into the palace, and when the time comes, she has to take a stand to help save the Jewish people from annihilation.

But in the course of things, of course, we know Esther has a cousin named Mordecai. I always want to call him her uncle, because he was more of an uncle. I'm guessing he was significantly older, but he helped raise her, and he was a somewhat minor official in the king's court. And at one point there was a plot to assassinate the king, and Mordecai learned of it, and he sent a warning that saved the king's life.

And of course, it was recorded in the records, but it passed without incident until one night when the king couldn't sleep very well, and he was having probably a clerk read through some of the records, and he came across that. So that's where we'll pick up in Esther 6 and verse 3. The king has that red joint, and the king said, Well, what honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this? The king's servants, who attended and said, nothing's been done for him.

So the king wants to figure something out. Here he's got this goal. He wants to honor a Mordecai. But how do you do it? He decides, well, I'm going to ask one of my top advisors in verse 6.

So Haman came in, and the king asked him, What shall be done for the man whom the king delights to honor? Now Haman thought in his heart, Who could the king delight to honor more than me? Haman thought pretty highly of himself. So Haman suggests this plan that he thinks is going to really lift him up in the eyes of the people.

So Haman answered the king, For the man whom the king delights to honor, let a royal robe be brought out, which the king has worn, and a horse which the king has ridden, which has the royal crest placed on its head. Then let this robe and the horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that he may array the man whom the king delights to honor, and parade the horse, parade him on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.

And the king said, Hurry, do it just as you've suggested, take and go do it for Mordecai the Jew. Can you imagine what Haman's face was like? Because he's probably thinking, I'm going to get this. Because remember, well, I shouldn't say remember, we didn't read it, but Haman was waiting out in the court to come in and ask permission to kill Mordecai. He hated him. And now suddenly he's got to go and do this honor to him.

Well, I love the irony in that. And sometimes I wonder, because it's sort of incidental to the story. But Haman has not included it just so we could look at it. I mean, if you want a definition of irony, that's there. And there's some lessons we can learn from it, though. One is that it's not a good idea to seek for your own honor. Haman really thought this was all going to be done to him, and it turned around he had to do it for someone else.

But there's also, even though Haman didn't give the best suggestion, looking for how to do something, including how to honor someone, getting help from someone else, getting ideas, not a bad way to start. But maybe not from Haman. His suggestions aren't the best. Looking past that, though, we should get some good advice on how to honor someone, because we do have a command to do so.

Without even turning there, I'm sure if you want to jot it down, Exodus 20 and verse 12, and Deuteronomy 5 and verse 16, among the Ten Commandments is number 5. Honor your father and your mother. Interestingly, this stands out as one of only two commands that are proactive. Many of the commands say, thou shalt not. Don't set up an idol to worship it. Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't kill. It's easy to know how to not do something.

Just sit on your hands if nothing else. Don't do that. But when you're told to do something, you might be like me when my boss would give me an assignment and say, okay, I'm ready to do that. How do I do it? The first one that's proactive is the fourth. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Okay, that sounds good, but we've all wondered, well, how exactly do you do that?

And there's debate and discussion in the church sometimes. Can you do this? Can you not do that? And we've probably read many articles. I know there's a lot of experience in this room. Over the years, you've heard a number of sermons on how to keep the Sabbath holy, and you've read articles. The next command is the other proactive one. Honor your father and your mother. I haven't heard as many sermons on that. I've heard some, but not as many.

And so I thought, you know, I haven't heard as many, so I'm going to hear the one that I'm going to write on how to do that. So I had to dig in and do some research. But I thought it was interesting. Okay, I want to honor your father and mother. Okay, how do you do it? Now, we think we know what honor means. I'm wondering if you're like me, where if you hear someone use it in a sentence, we're doing such and such to honor this person. Yeah, I know what that means. But if you have to decide what to do to honor someone, it can get a little more vague. One thing I'm pretty sure that God does not expect us to do is put a royal robe on our parents, put them on a horse, and lead them through the town saying, Thus shall be done to the parents that I delight to honor. I really thought I'd get more chuckles out of that. They didn't laugh this morning, but... Well, I think we do need to look for ways to do it. And of course, I'm going to suggest instead of asking Haman or whoever happens to be outside our door, we look to the Bible. And that's what I did. As I said, I can give you some insight. I was looking for sermon topics, and I said, You know, the Ten Commandments are always a good basis, and I've never spoken on this. And I've had parents like most people... Maybe I should say like all people. So I did some research, and I looked, what does the Bible say about honor? What actions are connected with it? And there's where it gets a little ironic again, because I called it all out and organized my points, and I found I had seven points. And I thought, that's funny, Frank, because you more than anybody I know has made fun of the tried and true method of the seven-point sermon. But if that's what you got, that's what you've got. So I do want to break these down by seven points, but also arrange them somewhat chronologically. Because there are some things you have to do when you're younger, and then as you age, you might still do some of those, but you change, and you honor your parents throughout your life. But how you could do it does change as you age and as your mother and father ages. And I'm fully aware some of you are not only parents yourselves, but grandparents. So I'm not going to presume that I'm teaching you something necessarily new, but we can look in the scriptures together to learn these things. And of course, throughout, who knows, the next several thousand years, we'll be teaching others about these principles. So let's look at us exploring the Bible together to draw some points out of this.

Now, the Hebrew and Greek words, I thought it interesting in both languages, the words that are translated into English as honor also have the meaning of heavy or numerous. Interesting. The word instead of honor, it could have been translated as heavy. Now, it doesn't make sense to say, make your father and mother heavy, unless you're baking a lot of desserts for them, but that's not the meaning. But if I translated it this way and said, give weight to what your parents say or think, now that means something. Or I could say, we could interpret it as, highly value your parents. That's also an accurate translation. And you might wonder, as I did, how can this word mean weight and mean value at the same time until I thought about going to a marketplace thousands of years ago, if you wanted to buy something in the market, and nowadays they put something on electronic scales and go beep, beep, beep, and it prints out a receipt and you owe so much. But back then they had a balance scales, like two big plates or whatever with a fulcrum, and you'd put what you want to buy here, and then they'd put weights on the other side to balance it out, to see what was the value of what you were buying. So value would be determined literally by weight. So if you think, say in the marketplace of ideas and opinions, the opinion and the values of your parents should outweigh most other things. You should add weight to the opinion of your parents. That's a way of honoring them. And when a person's very young, that comes pretty easily. When you're small, your parents literally outweigh you by quite a lot. Although I found that that ratio starts changing rapidly. You know, I can remember when I could pick Connor up like this and it was nothing. Now it's both hands and you can feel it in the back. But still, that's leading up to my first point. I want to turn to Ephesians 6 to make that. But I'll say the first point that I want to make is simply, when you're young, to honor your father and mother, you will obey them. Do what they tell you to, and do not do what they tell you to not do. Ephesians 6, verse 1, the Apostle Paul says exactly that. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. And then he quotes that fifth commandment, honor your father and mother, the first commandment with promise. It is nice. This is one commandment where it not only says to do something, but it says you're going to get something in return. You're going to live long on the earth. And he follows with some very good advice for the parents. Don't provoke your children to wrath. Bring them up properly. But I think it's interesting. Paul was saying that these two phrases, obey your parents and honor your father and mother, mean the same thing, especially when you're very young.

Paul did include one condition on that, which I think is worth us noting. He said, obey your parents in the Lord. Now, if your parents would tell you, okay, I want you to go in and knock over that liquor store and bring me the money. I'm using the slang. Your parents want you to lie, cheat, steal, break the Sabbath. God doesn't want us to obey them if they tell us to do that.

Your parents should outweigh almost everything in the scales of life, but they don't outweigh God. God's the heaviest of all. We value what He tells us most. But that's usually not an issue, right? Our parents aren't usually telling us that. When you're young, our parents are giving commands like, put your dirty clothes in the hamper, or go wash your hands so we can come and eat lunch. That's one we go through every day.

It's amazing how much little boys don't want to go wash their hands before lunch. Or eat your carrots. Simple command. And do it. Get ready for bed. Be home by 9 o'clock. Those are all easy to grasp. And in such cases, honoring your parents means, do what they say.

Now, I included that last one, that be home by 9 o'clock, because I want to start making that transition. Well, actually, a couple weeks ago, Connor and I were out walking the dog. The dog gets a walk morning and evenings to take care of certain things we don't want her to do inside. And, you know, this time of year, as we were going around, the street lights were coming on. It was getting dark. And I told Connor, I thought, saw this as a teachable moment.

Connor, for the next many years, this is going to be a sign to you. When the street lights come on, you go home. And I was passing on what I had been taught when I was a little boy. I lived in a suburban neighborhood, and our rule was, street lights are coming on, you've got to go home. I said, that's a rule. It's going to be a rule for a long time. But what I wanted to make the point, as we get older, we start getting our own sense of what we think is a good idea or not. So if you're, say, 16 or 17 years old, and the parents say, be home by 9, you might not like it.

And you might be pretty sure that getting home by 9.30 would be just as good. I know I was when I was that age. And at times like that, you might say, I know why they want me to go home by 9. And I can accomplish those same reasons by being home at 9.30. But I would say, until you're of a certain age where you're free to make that decision, obey still applies.

Paul said, honor your father and mother. That's when you just do it, because they said so. I want to go to Proverbs. Proverbs 23, verse 22. And by the way, I think I might sometimes inadvertently slip into that phraseology where it seems like I'm saying, I know all this stuff because I've experienced it and I'm talking down to you, but I'm still learning these things, too. So please, even if I sound that way, that's not what I meant.

And we're going to come back, even though we're going to leave, I want to come back to Proverbs several times. So I don't usually have to stick a mark in my Bible to find Proverbs, because it's right in the middle. But if, for some reason, Proverbs isn't easy to get to, stick something in there. Proverbs 23, verse 22 says, listen to your father who begot you. And when you're young, a lot of times, listen means do what you're told, and don't despise your mother when she's old.

So that's something, you know, we see that's when people are young, and that's one of the primary ways to honor. And of course, a good parent will work to give orders less and less, and start letting their children make more of those decisions on their own, assuming that they've learned good values from the things you did tell them earlier. But still, even when you're older, sometimes you need someone to just tell you what to do. A thought popped into my mind when I was working on this of a time when I'm pretty sure I was 20 years old, supposedly old enough to have good sense.

I said supposedly. Because I remember this is a time I was primarily working nights, and so I was used to staying up late, and a friend of mine came over, and it was, I think, late spring, beautiful weather outside, and we were outside in front of the house just talking and joking around, having a good time, and not realizing it was getting later and later. Finally, I remember as we were doing this, and not being careful to be quiet, upstairs window popped open, and my mom's voice came out and said, You boys quiet down right now!

It wasn't a suggestion or a thought, it was a, You do this! And you know what? We did. I'm glad she didn't say, you know, she didn't tell us I had to come inside and go to bed, but it's, you gotta be quiet right now. We didn't realize what we were doing, and we needed to be told. And that was not a bad thing.

Now, generally, though, as kids do get older, they're no longer little children. Parents start making suggestions, and their children honor them by giving weight to those suggestions.

Jesus did that in the famous story in John, Chapter 2. I'm going to turn there, but you might know this so well that you don't need to turn. It's the time when Jesus attended a wedding where some of, many of his family members were. We know his mother and his disciples were there. And, of course, the wedding feast then could go on for several days, and they consumed a lot of food and apparently a lot of wine. In John 2 and verse 3, when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. Jesus said to her, woman, what's your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. What has Mary said? Well, she didn't say anymore to Jesus. She turned to the servants and said, well, whatever he says, do you do it? Now, she didn't make a strong argument, at least not one that was recorded, but we know she was implying pretty heavily, making a strong suggestion of what she thought he ought to do. But it's interesting, here's the case where Jesus wasn't wrong. His time had not yet come. He should know. He was a grown man, and, by the way, he was God in the flesh. So it was not like they were debating something and she knew better.

But she also knew that he would highly value her opinion and what she desired. So, if you continue the story, which I'm not going to read, we all know he went ahead and made some water into wine. So I want to consider this as a transition from the first point, which was obey, to the second point. Give preference. Honoring a person often is done by deferring to what that person wants. We can see that turning to Romans 12. Romans 12 and verse 10.

You'll see, and for each of these points, I had one or two scriptures where it basically equates honoring with a particular action that you do or don't do.

Romans 12 and verse 10 says, Now, this isn't written about our parents. It's about giving honor to each other, our brethren in the church. Which tells us our parents aren't the only people that we should honor. There are a number of people we should honor. But if giving preference to each other in brotherly love is a way to show honor to our brethren, certainly it is for our parents as well.

Because we have a command to honor our parents, spoken by God Himself. So we should be very alert to the fact that one way to show honor is by deferring, giving preference. Now, to be able to give preference means you have to have a choice. I think of that. I was thinking of something I'd either sue or I do with Connor every day. He gets up in the morning, he's in his pajamas. At some point after breakfast, the pajamas are coming off and he gets dressed in his play clothes. Now, he has no say whatsoever on what those play clothes are. We pull something out of the drawer. A lot of times I have no say in it either.

It's, Sue, what do you want him to wear today? Get the red shirt. It's getting more and more. She's allowing me to have a little input in this. But the kid doesn't have any choice when they're real little. They just wear what their parents put on them or lay out for them. But as they get older, the children start making choices.

But often the parents will express a preference. And the thought that comes to mind is teenage girls getting ready to go out somewhere for the evening. And sometimes their parents will say, well, I'd prefer that you change into something a little different. I'm guessing some of the teenage girls might have had that experience. Teen boys, usually mothers, I'd prefer you to leave sooner. Maybe that's, well, maybe that was only my experience. So, like I said, it's sometimes saying, you still have a choice, but I'm expressing a preference.

Some parents might be a little stronger. I know Sue shared the story that sometimes her dad has told her, no, you're not going out in that. But he still didn't go author to the closet and pick something else out. Now, a parent's preferences could be expressed for a lot of things, though. When in high school and then in college, what classes do you register for? A parent's preference could be very valuable there.

Who are you going to spend time with? Who are your friends? Now, I can say I've learned this both the hard way and the good way, but a young person would often save themselves headaches and sometimes great heartaches by listening closely to their parent's preferences and who they should devote their time to.

Parents have been through that. They've learned a lot of lessons that way. Another way, of course, that we show honor to our parents is giving them preference in how we spend our time. Next week, we've got the Winter Family Weekend, where there's lots of people we want to spend time with and hang out. But it's always good, especially for people in that teenage and young adult. If you spend some time with your parents, not necessarily the whole time, because they want to spend time with other people, but it's a great point to deliberately spend time with your parents. The Winter Family Weekend is one example. Feast of Tabernacles also. Since your life is made up of your time, devoting some of that to your parents, preferring to spend some of it with them is a great way of showing honor.

And then even as you get older, where you go to the feast altogether. Do you always want to go to the most exotic or most exciting site? Or choose to go to a spot that your parents can conveniently go to so that you prefer to spend some time with them? Once again, I'm saying you and them. That's something that comes up with Sue and I a lot. We want to spend time with her parents, and so instead of going someplace like Alaska or Scotland or something, we go to Cincinnati for the feast.

Had a good time there, though, actually. But there can be times when there's disagreements on matters of preference. If there's a preference, it means there's a choice, and that's leading to my third point of how to show honor. Now let's go to Proverbs 20, verse 3 to lead into that one. Proverbs 20 and verse 3... I'm looking two different places at once. Hmm, yeah. I don't think I typed it out in my notes exactly the way I wanted to say it, but... Proverbs 20 and verse 3 says, It is honorable for a man to stop striving, striving or arguing, since any fool can start a quarrel.

So anybody can start an argument or quarrel, but it's honorable to stop. And if it's honorable to stop striving, certainly it's even more honorable to not start an argument in the first place. We think back to that example of Jesus with his mother. He did express some disagreement. Maybe even a little dismay. It's like, Woman, what's your concern have to do with me? You know, it's not my time yet. But that's all he said. He stopped.

He didn't argue and get into a knockdown drag-out, even though, as I said, he was right. It wasn't his time. But he cut that off, and then he made the choice to defer to her. Well, I've got a less lofty example, because it comes from my own life. And whereas Jesus always did the right thing, I personally have not always done the right thing. But I do remember this, because it popped into my head of a time when I should not have been arguing with my mom.

And somebody showed enough love to point it out to me and correct me. I remember this incident pretty clearly, even though it happened more than 30 years ago. I was 18 years old. It was in the spring, and it was graduation time. And there were two other teens in the Columbus congregation that were graduating that year, so we decided to have a joint graduation party. So it was going to be at our house. We had a nice lawn and a back porch. I think we were expecting 50 or 60 guests, at least.

It's one of those where, you know, who knows how many people are going to show up. So we got a lot of food. We got cake. And, you know, the people are getting ready. They're going to come over. And we made a decision in advance, deciding, okay, we've got to have a lot of pop. We're going to have beer. And I'll remind you, at that time, the drinking age in Ohio was 18 years old.

So even those of us graduating, it was okay. And it was especially okay, because back then we had what they called 3-2 beer. I don't know if any of you remember that. I think maximum 3.2 percent. And I'm not sure what the minimum was. Probably just the .2 percent. They might have just called it near beer. But I point that out because we thought, we're going to have all these coolers with cans and bottles and all this trash. But some company had come out with what they called a beer ball.

It was this plastic ball that held maybe like 2 gallons of beer, which seems like a lot, except for if it's 50 or 60 people. So we said, we'll get one of those. And we'll get one of our trash cans. I worked at Wendy's at the time, and they said, oh, you can come and get a bunch of ice out of our ice maker. Great! So the plan is, we pour a bunch of ice in the trash can, have the beer ball there and the taps there, and everything's fine. I was getting ready to put this plan into motion.

My mom sees me getting ready to pour ice in the trash can. And now, this is my perspective. She goes into a fit and a fury totally unjustified because I hadn't scrubbed out the inside of the trash can. And I said, what do you mean scrub the inside of the trash can? I'm going to put ice in it, and nobody's going to touch the inside of the can. That's ridiculous. Now, I'm making up—I don't remember my exact wording, but I know I wasn't tactful, and I might have implied that she wasn't showing a great depth of intelligence here. Because, as you know, 18-year-old boys know everything, and their parents usually know nothing.

I don't mean any insult to 18-year-old boys here. I know some of them know something. Anyway, so I was quarreling with my mother, and I'm very glad that almost nobody was there. Most of the guests had not yet arrived. But one of my best friends was there in his family. And as my dad was—my parents divorced when I was fairly young, so my dad wasn't there. But my friend's dad came over, and he took me aside, had a little heart-to-heart man-to-man talk with me. And he firmly explained to me that this was not the right thing to do.

No 18-year-old boy should be talking to his mother like that. He didn't quote Proverbs 20, verse 3, but what he said was right. Any fool can start a quarrel. You need to honor your mother, not argue with her. And he was right. I learned my lesson, and I shouldn't have been there in the first place. Properly honoring her would have been to give preference. It's funny, I still don't remember the details. I'm pretty sure I ended up scrubbing that trash can and not liking it at the time.

But, you know, in the long run, I was arguing over something that didn't matter. It was my own vanity and pride, and I should have—one way to honor your parents is not argue with them. Even if you think you're right, you know, it doesn't matter. And there's where it doesn't matter if I was 18, 25, 50, 70. You don't need to argue.

Now, we're already moving into ways of honoring our parents that come into play more when we are older. And so, let's consider some points that do seem more relevant as we become adults. Because it's good for us to remember that command to honor your father and mother doesn't come with an expiration date. It doesn't say until you're 21 years of age, or even until you're out on your own. But there are different ways that we honor them. You know, we less and less obey, and they don't ask us to obey our commands as we turn into adults. But there are other things we do. Let's start by looking at another proverb. And if you'll turn to Proverbs 11 verse 6.

There are a couple of scriptures I want to look at here. Because it might not seem as clear as I want at first, but I'm sorry, it's Proverbs 11, 16.

Proverbs 11, 16—I only want to read the first part of this because it says, A gracious woman retains honor. Solomon was leading into something different about how, you know, someone who's not gracious, not retaining their honor. But I want to make the point that graciousness is equated with honor here. And the Hebrew word that's translated as gracious is khen, with that kh sound in the back of your throat. It's very closely related to the khesed, which means kindness. In fact, khen is sometimes translated as kind. And that makes sense. Kindness and graciousness are similar and go together. So it shouldn't surprise us that my fourth point is that treating a person kindly or with graciousness shows them honor. Showing graciousness, kindness, is a way of honoring someone. And to sort of put the other side on that, let's turn to 2 Samuel chapter 10.

2 Samuel 10. This is from the story of King David, which fits in well with the sermonette. And I don't think Mr. Evans touched on this particular point, because it's really kind of a side point. But we'll see something interesting in this. This is after David's established on the throne. He's at peace. 2 Samuel 10 says, David got wordy, he said, Remember, we talked about kindness being equated with showing honor. So David sent by the hand of his servants to comfort him concerning his father. And David's servants came into the land of the people of Ammon. Now, here's where the problem developed that we don't want to get into, but it's interesting. The princes of the people of Ammon said to Hanun their Lord, Do you really think that David really honors your father because he sent comfort as to you? Hasn't he really sent his servants to search out the land, to spy it out and overthrow it? Now, it turns out David was not sending spies. His intentions were legitimate and true. And I don't want to get into that because these princes convinced the king that David was operating some subterfuge and they ended up having to fight. But the point is, they saw that the intent would be comforting someone, showing kindness as a way of honoring a person, which fits with what I've already said. And that opens up a wide area to consider of how a person can honor his or her parents, because it can and should include being gracious and kind. Before I leave this, though, I want to mention another point from the story in 2 Samuel, that it shows honor to a person to imitate his or her good qualities. David wanted to show honor to the son of the king of Ammon because the man who died had showed kindness to him. So he said, I want to do the same thing he did. Now, he did it for me. I'm going to do good for someone else. There's a phrase in today's society we use for that called paying it forward. You do a good thing for you, don't worry about paying them back. Pay it forward to someone else. I don't know what the king of Ammon did to show kindness to David. It's not really recorded. But if we think of our parents, not hard to think of kindnesses that our parents have done for us. Look at my own mom. I've told you that story. She just put up with me. And sometimes that's a good one. Putting up with you making a mess, saying dumb things, having their friends hanging around. Parents show a lot of kindness. And even the things that you don't remember. Wasn't until I became a parent that I realized what goes into being a parent of a baby. How many times in the middle of the night you're up and rushing to the crib because of coughing or crying. And I don't remember my mom doing that for me. Or my mom and dad. I'm sure they did. It's just the memory's not there. And Connor probably won't remember it when he gets older. But now I understand that being there for someone, that's showing the kindness. Let's turn over to Proverbs 27 in verse 10. See another example of that paying it forward, so to speak. Proverbs 27, 10. I just want to read the first part of this.

Proverbs 27, 10 says, Do not forsake your own friend or your father's friend. So I said, your parents show kindness for you. Showing kindness and graciousness to your parents' friends and acquaintances is also a way that you honor your parents. By being kind and gracious to the people that they like to spend time with, even if it turns out you don't much care for those people. And I wanted to introduce that point because one of the most difficult ways it comes up for people sometimes is involved if a parent remarries. Now, sometimes one of your parents dies and the one who remains marries again. Showing kindness and love to that new spouse is a great way of honoring your parent, especially if they're not someone you care for that much. It's even harder, of course, if it wasn't a case of death but of a divorce. Then, you know, it's not uncommon for people to say, I just, you know, I can't believe he's marrying her. What's wrong with him? Well, it's natural to have those thoughts, but honoring the parents means showing the kindness. I speak from experience somewhat in that. My father remarried, and when I was a kid, I wasn't all that honorable. But later on, I realized, you know, she's not a bad person, and we get along pretty well now. But I had to learn and grow as a Christian to reach that point. There's where I think it's worth saying sometimes honoring someone is something you push yourself to do even if you don't feel like it. There's lots of good things that we have to push ourselves like that. And in cases like that, you know, remember, the command to honor your father and mother was not given conditionally on them doing what you want them to do. For that matter, fifth commandment doesn't say to like your father and mother. You might not like them, but we are commanded to honor them. And that can mean sometimes the things that I said, showing graciousness, giving preference, going that extra mile. Now, I'm straying a little bit from my main point, but I think there is something to add to that because I'm looking at it as we're adults. And, you know, sometimes, as I said, if a parent remarries someone, you might have a little friction and have to force yourself to be honorable. And it can go the other way, of course.

If there's a conflict between a person's spouse and his parents, it's good for us to remember, as it says in the creation account in Genesis, in Jesus Christ quoted, He says, that a man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. So you become one with your spouse, but you honor your father and mother.

So in some senses, that relationship with your husband or wife does supersede that with your parents. But it does not cancel the obligation to honor the parents. It never, you know, that never stops being there, but you have to be one with your spouse. You know, you leave your parents to be with your spouse. Usually, it's not that much of a conflict, but there are times people are put in difficult situations.

I want to turn away from that because I feel like I'm trying not to say anything that's... Well, I'm not thinking of any situations with anybody here, so if anybody thinks I'm talking about you, I'm not. I'm not honest. But there is a way that all of our actions, through our reputation, can either honor or dishonor our parents. And that's leading up to my fifth point.

Now, I want to get... Oh, yeah, okay. I want to read a story, or part of a story, to get to that. It's in Judges, Judges 13. I want to make a note here. This is leading in, and Judges, it's leading into the story of Samson. But the backstory there is Samson's parents didn't have any children, and they'd been wanting to have children. And so they were surprised one day when an angel appears to the woman that's going to be Samson's mother and says, Oh, you're going to have a child, but there are certain things here.

He's going to be special. All of his life, he's going to be a Nazarite. And so he tells her all he has to do. Can't eat anything made from grapes. No, don't drink. Can't cut his hair. And then he disappears, and of course, she goes and tells her husband, Hey, this is great. The husband and the man, well, I'm not sure if he believed her.

So he prayed that the angel would come back and see him again, and the angel actually did. And he explained all this to him, and then he had an interesting request. That's where I'm going in Judges 13, verse 17. Not man, Manoah. Manoah said to the angel of the eternal, What's your name? That when your words come to pass, we may honor you.

So he's saying, basically, we want to name this child for you, to show honor to you. The angel of the eternal said, What are you asking my name for? Seeing it's wonderful. Or some translations say it's hidden. The angel, I'm not going to tell you my name. I don't want you to honor me.

This is coming from God anyway. So I have no idea where they got the name Samson from, not from the angel. But this is an interesting point. One way to honor a person is to name someone or something for him. Or to take his or her name for yourself.

And if that's true, the converse must be true. If you already carry a person's name, you can honor that person by enhancing the reputation of that name. Or, of course, you could bring dishonor by bringing dishonor to the name. I'm going to turn back to Proverbs 23. Proverbs 23 and verse 24. I want to read a couple of scriptures here that don't necessarily mention honor, but I think they show how we reflect on our parents.

Proverbs 23 and verse 24. Because the father of the righteous will greatly rejoice. He who begets a wise child will delight in him. Let your father and your mother be glad. Let her who bore you rejoice. That should be our goal, to make our parents so glad that we're carrying on their name and enhancing that name. A couple pages over. Proverbs 28 and verse 7. Proverbs 28 and 7. Whoever keeps the law as a discerning son, but a companion of gluttons shames his father.

There are many other Proverbs like this that demonstrate that we represent our parents. Our actions reflect on them. And that's not always fair, but it does happen. And I've become more conscious of that in the last couple of years, directing one of the summer camps. Because I'll get applications in from all over the country and all the kids, often young people that I don't know. But it's not uncommon for me to recognize the names of the campers' parents. And I say, oh, okay, this is his or her son. I know kids don't necessarily like being compared to their parents, but often works in their favor.

Last summer, I remember in particular, a couple of girls' sisters applied from outside of this region. And they had a not real common name. I was, oh, that sounds kind of familiar. Then when I had to communicate with the family, I realized, oh, I went to college with their dad. Well, he was a good guy. I'll bet they'll be good girls. I'm not sure if I, in those terms, but...and they were. You know, I thought, well, he's a good guy.

He'll bring up his kids in the right way, and they were outstanding campers. Now, unfortunately, it could go the other way. If a teenager or a young adult starts messing up or becomes a troublemaker or a bad influence, even if you don't know their parents, you start thinking, I wonder if there's something wrong with those parents. And as I said, that's not really fair, and it's fortunate that God promises us...promises us.

You know, the son will not be put to death for the sins of the father, and the father won't be put to death for the sins of the son. So we don't suffer the consequences, but it can affect the reputation. And so, again, my fifth point to state it clearly, we can and we should honor our parents by maintaining, and if possible, improving the reputation of our family name. Let me read one more scripture from Proverbs while we're there. Proverbs 10 and verse 1. Proverbs 10, 1, A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the grief of his mother. I think of that every now and then, and that hits me in a particular way, because sometimes, especially since I don't live that far from my hometown, if I'm traveling in an area, I might meet someone that knew my mother fairly well.

And every now and then I've had a person tell me, your mother would be proud of you. That just...you can't imagine what that does, you know, that lift me up, because I think if she would be proud of me, it means I'm reflecting well on the family. So that's one of the things I want to have happen. You know, I want to make her glad, not have grief. And the point I'm making there is she hasn't been around to see the ups and downs of my adult life, but I know in the first resurrection, you know, when we get together, she'll hear the whole story.

I want it to be one that makes her glad, not one that brings grief, as it says in Proverbs 10, 1. I can think of the opposite, and fortunately, this hasn't happened in a long time. I don't remember the particulars of when the last time was, but there's one person that can tell me something that will always bring me back to ground, and that's if my sister would see me doing something and say, if Mom saw you doing that, she'd be ashamed of you.

That's something, you know, that makes you stop and think, and many of you might have a similar feeling. That makes me want to straighten up and do better. Now, there is a closely related way that we may be able to honor our parents. Now, I want to be quick to say this is not always in our control, so let me, to introduce this point, go to 1 Chronicles 17. I'm going to again look to the story of King David. 1 Chronicles 17, beginning in verse 11. Again, we know David very much wanted to build a temple for God.

He said the Ark of the Covenant is being intense. You know, he should have a nice house made of cedar. And God told him, you did well that you wanted to do that, but too much warfare, too much blood on your hands.

Sorry, David, you can't do it, but we'll see something in verse 11. God said, basically, I'm going to take care of your dynasty. And he says, it will be when your days are fulfilled, when you must go to be with your fathers, then I'll set up your seed after you, who will be one of your sons. And I'll establish his kingdom. He will build me a house, and I'll establish his throne forever. He'll build me a house, and I'll be his father, he shall be my son. I won't take my mercy away from him, as I took it away from him who was before you.

Now, you might be wondering, but remember, I said each one of my points, I've got a place where it says something that's an honor. Over in verse 18, David responds and basically says, well, okay, God, if that's what you want to do, okay. Verse 18, what more can David say to you for the honor of your servant? For you know your servant. David is saying, you're promising to give me a son and an ongoing line in my family.

And he said, that's an honor. An honor to King David. So my sixth point is that we can honor our parents by having children of our own, continuing their family line for at least one more generation. Now, there are some things that we obviously cannot promise. We can't promise that our children will be good and serve God. We certainly can't promise that they'll be on the throne of Israel as God promised David. And that's what we normally look at this promise, and we talk about that. And it's a strong sense of knowing what's going on in prophecy.

But I just wanted to point out the fact that that's one way of showing honor. It honors our parents when we ourselves become parents. I think of that, and I would say, ask any grandparent. We've got a number in the audience. How does it feel when your kids have kids? I'm not sure if honored is the first word that comes into your mind, but I know it's something special. I'll never forget the first time my sister went into labor.

She ended up having four kids, but I was there, and they're getting ready to go to the hospital. And my mom was, like, bouncing off the walls, and she said, We're going to go get us a baby! You would have thought she was going into labor. But she was so excited. Now, I want to make the point, of course, I said, this is one way that we might honor our parents. Not everybody wants to have children, and that's not a black mark if someone just feels like they're not cut out to be a parent.

Not everyone's able to have children, and I remember what that feels like. That's not necessarily any sin or mark of God's disfavor. But, as I said, if we are able to have parents and continue that line, our parents will consider it an honor. But there's... I've got six other ways in just this sermon, and other people might dig some other ones out. Matter of fact, I did debate, should this be a separate point, because you could tie it on to passing on the family name. But since I had seven, you know, in that whole seven-point sermon thing, I haven't done that too many times.

But, you know, in my particular case, that's one of the reasons we gave Connor the middle name of Ward. We wanted to show honor to suicide of the family. That was her maiden name. We didn't choose a first name from the family, but we thought we would do that. I'll bet you there are many people here who are named for a parent or grandparent, or you've named your children for a parent or grandparent.

And of course, I want to add that not only having children honors our parents, of course, the other side of that is letting them spend time with our children. Proverbs 17, verse 6. Let's read that, if you will.

One of the best ways, I think, to honor your parents when you have children is to let them enjoy what this describes. Proverbs 17, verse 6, and this is one you'll recognize, of course, right away. Children's children are the crown of old men. It's like a crown, that mark of honor. And of course, the glory of children is their father. Now, it might be sad to think, you know, there might be some grandparents out there that would be a bad influence or perhaps harmful to kids, but that's very rarely the case. Generally, grandparents are very good for their grandchildren, and they're delight in spending time with them. And so one of the ways we honor our parents is by bringing their grandchildren to them and making sure they get to spend time with them. And of course, as I said, many of you are grandparents that get to spend time or have been grandchildren. You all know how that works.

But I wanted to make the point, even sometimes it's inconvenient or difficult, but it's something that should be done.

Of course, there's a converse. We should bring our grandchildren to spend time with our grandparents. We shouldn't expect the grandparents to raise them for us. Now, there are times when you have to live with your parents, and that's good and right when it's necessary. And then when you're able, you do as God said with Adam and Eve, you know, the man joins to his wife and leaves his parents.

And that brings the other point, of course. I think it's not one of my main points, but a sub-point of this. It's an honor to our parents when we find a good mate and build strong marriages of our own. I can think of very little that makes a parent happier than to see their children form a good marriage and start their own family.

Let's move on to my final point. The seventh one I wanted to give a little extra time to. And I'll give a little story to lead into it. I'm not sure if this was a couple weeks ago or a month or so. I was changing Connor's diapers. Sorry, I guess if I'm talking about honoring parents, I can't help but mention Connor a lot. But, you know, I was changing, and we talk about taking good care of his skin. We have to put on diaper cream or whatever. And it's like, oh, Connor, we always want to take good care of you. And in his little voice, he said, and when I get big, I'll take care of you. Now, I should mention he didn't just make that up out of the blue. As long as he's been able to listen, we've been telling him, we take good care of you, and then when you get big and we're old, you take care of us. It's partly a joke, but partly not. The way the economy is going, who knows where we'll be. I know when we were expecting, and we started learning how expensive baby equipment is. I don't know if you've looked and bought a brand new car seat. Boy, all that stuff is pricey. But I calmed down and I said, it's okay. We're putting money in our retirement account when we buy this stuff. Connor is sort of our retirement plan. Sort of, but sort of not. But as I said, it's sort of jest. With that in mind, though, before I talk about children taking care of their parents, I want to refer to a couple of scriptures that show what it should be like. Proverbs 13 and verse 22. Proverbs 13, 22. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. And the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. But so the ideal is we're leaving an inheritance for our children and even for their children. We can see something likewise in 2 Corinthians 12 and verse 14.

2 Corinthians 12. I want to read just the last part of this because the Apostle Paul is using this to support something else he was saying, but I want to use it as the main point. So the last part of 2 Corinthians 12-14 says, For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. So that's the idea. The parents are amassing wealth and passing on to their children. And not necessarily the parents taking care of their... or the children having to support their parents. But it doesn't always work out that way. And when our parents, if they reach a point either through age or infirmity where they're not able to take care of themselves and they need to be taken care of, that's one of the major ways that we can honor them. By providing what they need. And often it's not money, it's physical service and time. I'll just cite Proverbs 3 and verse 9. That's where it says, To honor the eternal with your possessions, with the first roots of your increase. That's the point of showing that giving your stuff is a way of showing honor. It's an honor to God when we give offerings. Now God commands us to give offerings because He wants us to become like Him to be giving. But He doesn't order that because He needs it. But there could be times when our parents do have a need. And we should honor them and provide for that need. As I said, my seventh point is we can honor our parents by providing and caring for them when or if they can no longer provide and care for themselves. Jesus Christ discussed that in Matthew chapter 15. Actually, it's almost a side point, but He was having a strong disagreement with the Pharisees about where they ranked the commands of God next to their traditions. And He was making it clear that they had things out of order. They had their priorities wrong. Matthew chapter 15, we'll begin in verse 3.

But you say, that is, you Pharisees say, whoever says to his father or mother, well, what profit you might have received from me as a gift to God? This is saying the Pharisees had a rule saying that if you were going to devote something to the service of the temple financially, then you didn't have to worry about providing for your parents. They were letting that tradition, sort of this loophole they made, so that they didn't have to provide for their parents.

He says, you know, if you tell them whatever profit you might have received from me as a gift to God, then you don't honor his father or mother. You've made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. I thought it was interesting. Jesus doesn't introduce the idea of saying, well, you should provide for your parents if they're in need. He takes that as a given. It's an assumption that that's part of that fifth commandment. Jesus wanted to make clear the point that even giving to God doesn't supersede that requirement.

You give your parents what they need and you give gifts to God, and that's not talking about tithes necessarily, but what you would give extra. So if we put this with those scriptures that we read about parents laying up for the children and even their grandchildren, it seems to imply that we try to do that, but if it doesn't work out, then grown children might provide for their parents.

Now, in some ways that puzzled me because I thought, really, how often did that happen back then? This sort of implies it's going to be one way or the other. There's this transfer of wealth that has to go one direction or another. And then I thought, you know, in an agricultural economy such as in Christ's Day, which was not that long ago in our country, it wasn't one or the other.

In some ways it was largely both. You know what? The parents had usually land. They owned a farm and they were developing it and working it, hopefully improving it, and they would pass it on to their children and their children's children. And then when they got old and no longer able to work the farm, they still lived there, and they didn't survive getting a Social Security check or a pension check. The children were operating the farm and then providing for their parents.

So the whole family lives and works together. So really both things happen. You know, the parents laid up an inheritance for their children and their grandchildren, and those children and grandchildren provided for their parents when they were old and in need. In some ways it makes that agricultural economy seem a lot better. That just makes a lot of sense to me. We don't have that here and now, but we want to keep in mind, even though we live in a different culture, a different society, a different economy, that commandment to honor our father and mother and honoring with our substance still applies when it's needed.

We'll refer back to King David one more time. If you'll turn to 1 Samuel 22. I said, Mr. Evans and I were thinking sort of along the same lines today and referring to King David. But here's an example, not exactly in the same way, but when one could argue David was on the run for his life, as Daniel said, like those deer with shots all around him, you know, keeping their head down, you know, never knowing when you were going to get killed, you could say, well, David had his hands full. He had to take care of just him, but he paused to take care of his parents as well.

1 Samuel 22 and verse 3. I said 1 Samuel, but I was looking in 2 Samuel. Let me get there. There we go. 1 Samuel 22 and verse 3. David went from there to Ms. Paul of Moab and he said to the king of Moab, Please let my father and mother come here with you till I know what God will do for me. So he brought them before the king of Moab and they dwelt with him all the time that David was in the stronghold. So David's running for his life, living in caves and hiding out, and whatever things are safe for his mom or dad, or mom and dad. Because, you know, King Saul seemed like the type that might take things out on the family if he couldn't find David.

I think that's a...like I said, I don't know how many of us will ever be in that situation, but it's a good example of somebody honoring his father and mother by making sure they're provided for physically in a way they couldn't do for themselves. I don't think they could have rung up the king of Moab and said, you know, I'm going to have to work on the humor.

So I've got seven points, but before I wrap up, I want to add a sort of another type of point that's not derived from Scripture, but it comes from my personal experience. And it's not a different way to honor father and mother, but it's a reminder that I'm going to have a little bit of time to talk about it.

And it's not a different way to honor father and mother, but it's a reminder of when and how important it is. So in some senses, it applies to all seven points. And no matter what our age or situation, and that's...I want to say it should start...actually, I put in my notes, honor our parents now, but it shouldn't start now. It should have been going on for a long time. But I say, don't wait for tomorrow, because you never know if there will be a tomorrow. We all know accidents can happen at any time and change our whole world.

And when it happens to you or someone you love, it makes things seem a lot more urgent. And that was a message years and years ago...I guess not that many years, but I wanted to share with my fellow students at Ambassador College. I found this in one of the boxes in my closet. This is Ambassador College Portfolio. The campus newspaper we published back then, it's yellow because it's about almost 30 years old. But I was a part-time staff writer back then, especially my second year.

Actually, I'm in one of the pictures here. But, you know, it was about this time of year. We weren't reporting on world news, we were reporting on campus events. And you get in the latter of December, there just aren't a lot of campus events. So the editor called in the staff and said, I want each of you to just write a story on whatever you want to write about. It could be some amusing anecdote or something information you know about.

And we've got a different variety. And I think I might have surprised him and some of the student body in what I wrote. So I thought I'll share it with you. Now, I'll remind you, this is from the perspective of a young college student writing to other college students.

So it's written in here, but I typed it in my notes so it would be easier to read. So it says, it was pitch black at 5.30 a.m. I rose early, ate a quick breakfast, and packed my motorcycle quietly. I would ride a thousand miles before the day was over. I moved quietly so as not to wake anyone still sleeping, except just one person. I crept downstairs, slipped into the last bedroom, and gently touched my mother's shoulder. She instantly awoke. I'm ready to leave, I whispered. I had much to do that day, many things on my mind. The next day I would go to work in another state. But Mom specifically asked me to wake her and say goodbye before I left. And she was not well. Often she slept until almost noon. And she staggered slightly, walking to the door with me. But Iron Chains wouldn't have held her back. Be careful, she said, as she hugged me, I love you. And I muttered something as I put my arms around her, hugging her gently so as not to crack her delicate ribs. And with that short goodbye and a deep look into her tired eyes, I walked outside and rode off into the dim sunrise. Now, this scene could typify many goodbyes for young people returning to college. But this one was special. This was the last time I ever saw my mother alive. So early in the morning, it would have been easy to just let her sleep in. And easy for me to let that happen. But she wanted those few moments with me before I left, just as she did each time I left. Do your parents ever want a few moments of your life? Remember, I was writing this to college students. Think about this. You have many years and hours to spend with those who brought you into the world. But don't overlook or take for granted those brief, special moments. So often, we don't realize how valuable something is unless we have it taken from us. You have your parents, most of you, and you have a certain amount of time. But time keeps moving, and it never comes back. Some say when you become a parent, you finally appreciate your own parents. But I say, don't wait. Learn to appreciate your father and mother now. It won't hurt to call mom on the telephone just to say hi. Even consider spending an extra evening at home next time you're there on break. Instead of going out with your friends, your parents will be glad you did, and take my word for it. You'll be glad, too. As I said, that's the perspective. And I didn't read it to stir up emotions or to gain sympathy. It happened a long time ago. But I want to make the point of the perspective of a 22-year-old college student saying, the time is now. When you have all those other things on your mind, don't think, when I get older, I'll think about honoring my father and mother. Or it was only for when I was a kid. It's always there. We're commanded to honor our father and mother. We shouldn't put it off. We shouldn't find excuses to not do it.

Now, it's still clear that even with that clear command from God, and with my reminder to do it now, we could still struggle in thinking about how to do it. We don't have to ask around, though. And it's good, because you might get advice like Haman gave to Hasu-Iruz that didn't work out so good. We've got God's Word. The Bible gives us some clear direction.

We can honor our parents by obeying, by not striving with them when we're younger. And as we grow older, we can be gracious, comforting to them, giving them preference. And the preference, it's really their due. They've earned it. And in the long run, as our parents grow older, we honor them by maintaining their good name and passing it on to future generations. And lastly, sometimes we're called on to honor our parents by physically providing for them, either sustenance or care.

And when you think of it that way, it's not all that complicated. There are certain steps. And as I said, I think Connor helped me sum it up very well. Our parents take care of us when we're young, and we can take care and honor them as we get older.