How Do You Honor Your Parents?

I want to speak to the children here today. Of course, all of us are children of somebody, right? But I really want to speak to the young people today.

And I want to tell you something, and this is where we start with what I want to talk about.

I don't care if you're five years old, if you're eight years old, if you're 12 years old or 15 years old. If you're still young and in your parents' house, God wants to give you a blessing. Now, if you remember last week, I started, we're going through this series on the Ten Commandments, and I went through the Commandments to honor your father and your mother. But I started with, how do we as parents teach children to do that? Because we can come into this Commandment saying, okay, I'm going to command my children to honor me.

But actually, they don't know how to. We have to learn to honor our parents. So we talked about how do we teach them that? How do we teach them that Commandment? What I want to talk today to the young people is, okay, what does that Commandment look like in your behavior? Because if you really understand it, you're going to struggle sometimes with honoring your parents. It's like they struggle sometimes with teaching you that. Well, how do you honor your parents? And do you want the blessing? Because there's a blessing attached to it.

And if you remember, we started with Ephesians 6. Well, I'm going to start with Ephesians 6 for this sermon, too. So let's go to Ephesians 6, because the Apostle Paul is going to quote the Fifth Commandment, and he's going to make a very important point about it. Ephesians 6. My grandkids are here today, and I said, listen to this, because I'll be quizzing you afterwards to see if you remember anything. Which I think the young one really got scared, because she took me serious, and it was like, oh, no. So, verse 1 of Ephesians 6, verse 1 of Ephesians 6, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Now, that's a very important point. This is right. This is good. Obey your parents in the Lord. Obey your parents as they teach you about God's way. Now, it's very hard to obey your parents when they're not teaching you God's way. I mean, I know I've had people call me. I've had 14-year-old boy one time call me and say, my parents won't let me obey God's way, because they're not in any church or religion.

They don't believe in the Sabbath. They don't believe in all these things I believe in. And here he was. How do I obey my parents in the Lord when they make me disobey all kinds of commandments? But that's not what you're in here today. The children here today, your parents are trying, or your grandparents, are trying to teach you in the Lord. And then he says, now he quotes the actual commandment, Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you, you may live long into the earth.

In other words, there's a promise that you have a better life if you do this. There is a benefit. As I said last time, thou shalt not murder has an obvious benefit. Honor your parents may not have an obvious benefit at the time. It may feel like the best thing to do is not honor them. But God says there's a benefit that comes from him.

There's a blessing that comes from him that he wants to give you. But you have to do something to receive the blessing. You have to honor your parents. Now remember, if you were listening last week, and hopefully the older, the parents and adults were listening, we talked about how honor means to hold someone in high value. They have value to you. And that's why we talked about how in order to teach kids, teach children value, you have to also value them. That's one of the ways they learn.

You have to primarily value God. If you value God and you honor God, and you honor your own parents, children start learning how to honor. And then you have to value them. So for young people, once again it doesn't matter if you're a teenager. It doesn't matter if you're eight years old. So if I'm eight years old or seven years old, I can't understand what he's talking about. I know that's not true because you see, I was seven years old when I sat in a congregation and I understood what the minister was talking about. You can. You have to, if you're going to honor your parents, that means you have to really think they're important.

You have to believe your parents are important to you.

Really important that you value them. And you can say, well, I love them. You know it's actually possible to love somebody and not truly honor them. Actually, if you don't honor them properly, you're not showing love towards them either. But it is possible to feel love towards somebody and not honor them. So we're not just talking about loving your parents.

We're talking about honoring them. So what's that look like? We're looking at three ways that young people can honor parents. And then I'm going to give you some simple things you can do, simple actions you can take to begin the process of honoring your parents. The first point is what we just read, where Paul says, obey your parents. And then ties it in, this is honoring. The first way you honor your parents is you obey them. But it's not easy to obey, is it? Sometimes you don't want to obey. You don't want to go to bed at a certain time. You don't want to share your toys with somebody else. You want to go out on a date at 14 and dad says no. And the feeling is I do not want to honor. You have to understand something. And this is very difficult because there are so many emotions involved.

Your parents actually don't want to ruin your life.

Your parents aren't out to get you. I used to tell my kids after a while as teenagers, they'd say, but dad, they'd say, look, an old man like me, the only pleasure I get in life is making you teenagers miserable. Then you go, oh, dad. Because that is not our purpose in life as adults. What we want is for you to be happy. We actually want you to have good lives. Your parents want you to have a good life. They also know that that has to be a learned process. You have to learn how to have a good life. It doesn't come natural. If you do what comes natural, you'll end up with a bad life. And they know that because why? Well, they made a lot of bad mistakes themselves and they've had to learn it along the way. The earlier you learn that, the better your life will be. The earlier you learn that a good life is learned, it's not natural. The better your life will be. So you have to understand that your parents do not have an arterimotive to ruin you. It's the exact opposite. They actually have a motive to make your life better. Look at Proverbs chapter 1.

You say, okay, I have to obey them, but I don't feel like always obeying them. I actually didn't say that you honor your parents by feeling like obeying them all the time.

I said, you do obey them. You understand. Sometimes you have to go against your feelings. Sometimes you have to go against what comes natural to learn how to have a good life. Look what it says in Proverbs chapter 1, verse 8.

My son, hear the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother or the teachings of your mother. For they will be a graceful ornament on your head and chains around your neck. You might say, okay, big deal. I don't want an ornament on my head. The point he's making here, it'd be like owning some jewelry, maybe a nice big ring with a million dollar diamond in it. I wouldn't mind a nice big ring with a million dollar diamond in it.

He says that's what it's like when you have parents trying to teach you God's way and you listen to them. Notice the point he's making. It's valuable. There's value.

Value is a simple concept. If I had a penny and a $50 gold piece, $50 gold piece is about an ounce of gold, which is worth about $1,200. And I said, which one do you want? Maybe you should ask for a show of hands. How many of you under the age of 20 would want the penny? How many of you would want the $50 gold piece? Go ahead, raise your hand. Okay, I think it's unanimous. Even people who are like 80—you're not 80—older people raise their hands. Of course, you want the gold piece. Why? It has more value. This is more important. I can throw the one away, but I'm going to keep this one. It all comes down to my parents have value to me, so I want to keep this relationship. I want to keep them into my lives. I want to keep them helping me and guiding me. Obedience. Now, I want you to really, really listen to this because this is hard, because it goes against your feelings sometimes. We all understand.

Every one of us, there were times when our parents told us to do something and we felt differently. Obedience means listening to their instructions and doing their instructions in the way that you were told to do the instructions. And guess what happens when you do that? Your feelings change. But your feelings only change when you do the actions. Think about it. If they ask you to clean your room and then you don't do it for an hour, what usually happens to you from most of that time? You're angry, you're frustrated, and you're thinking about, they're going to come in and chew me out. But I really want to get my lego man built, okay?

For us guys. Well, no, some girls do. I really want to do this. I want to get this done.

And what happens is you'll forget about it for a while, but then you'll go back and say, oh, I should have done my room. Oh, no, here comes mom. And you'll jump up and start cleaning your room, and she walks in, and you think she's not going to know that you've only been at this for 47 seconds. What's funny is, if you listen to what they say, do it in the way that they say it. You're free now to be happy. You're actually free to be happy. Oh, no, I can do what I want to do.

So obedience doesn't mean you say, well, I'll do this when I feel like it, because then you won't do it. Halfway obedience. Halfway obedience isn't obedience. You know, clean your room. I used to do this. You just throw everything under the bed, as if they're not smart enough to look under the bed.

So we have to realize halfway obedience is not obedience. I'm going to show you something. I'm going to show you a group of people in the Bible that are famous for one thing. Because their children listened to their parents. And they didn't do it just for one generation.

They listened to the next generation, and the next generation, and the next generation. They listened to their parents. And so they're famous in the Bible for that one thing. Let's go to Jeremiah 35. Jeremiah 35.

God comes to Jeremiah, and the people of Judah won't turn to God. They won't obey God. And so Jeremiah gets these very strange instructions from God. Verse 1. The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoah came, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, Go to the house of the Recabytes. This was a family who goes back to a great-great-great-great-grandfather named Rekab. Speak to them and bring them to the house of the Lord, to one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.

That's probably the only time in the entire Bible where a prophet is told, I want you to give a wine party. I want you to go get this family, and I want you to bring them into the temple, bring them into one of the side rooms here, one of the big rooms of the temple, and I want you to get out your best wine and serve it to them. And that's exactly what Jeremiah did. He went and he got some good wine, invited all the... Of course, the family came and here a prophet of God invited them to come to the temple, and they go in and they sit around. He probably had some hors d'oeuvres, some... You know, I'm going to have a wine party for these people. And then he offers them some wine. Notice what happens in verse 5.

Generations before, one of the fathers set down all the people in the family and said, you know what? We are better off not living in the towns. So we're going to stay nomads.

So the family needs to stay nomadic. So we're going to live in tents. We're going to use our flocks. They would have been very wealthy. And we're going to travel through the land with our flocks from well to well where there's good feeding grounds. And that's the way we're going to live. But also, we're not going to drink any wine. Probably the reason why is because they saw so many people who had ruined their lives through drinking too much. They said, guess what? In our family, we're just not going to drink it at all. Now, you get a wonder. Jeremiah, at this point, is thinking, God invited and wanted me to invite in a family and tell them to drink wine.

Now, their argument could have been, well, I guess we have to. Jeremiah has told us to drink wine. But the leader of the family stands up and says, well, you know, my father and his father and his father and his father, we don't drink wine because people get drunk. It's bad for you. Now, we all know that drinking a little wine is not forbidden in the Bible, but I've also known families that they just don't drink because they see the bad results on people. It happens to people.

So they say, but we've done this for generations. Let's pick it up in verse 8. Verse 12. Then it came the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Will you not receive instruction to obey my words? says the Lord. The words of Johnadab, the son of Rechob, which he commanded his sons not to drink wine, are performed. To this day they drink none, and they obey their father's commandment. But, O they, I have spoken to you, rising early, you do not obey me. God said, here's why I had you do this, Jeremiah. Don't make them drink wine. I want you to get up at the temple now when all the leaders and all the men of Judah come in, and I want you to say, let me tell you about the Rechobites.

These people teach their children, and their children obey. And then they teach their children, and their children obey. And they teach their children, and their children obey. And he said, what a great example! You won't even obey me, and I'm your God!

So here, the fact that the children obey their parents becomes an example that God uses. This is good. You know, a little later if you read the whole chapter, he finally said, you know what, to the Rechobites, you know, bad things are going to happen to Judah, but you'll always have someone before me. You all, your family, somebody of your family is going to survive, and there's always going to be someone in your family I'm going to be working with because of this commitment they had. So how important is it? You say, well, yeah, but my dad says, I can't date 101 until I'm 18.

And that's the rules he has there. Other people have different rules. I'm not making up the rules. I'm saying whatever your family rules are. What I'm saying is, when your family makes those rules for your good and you honor them, God sees it. Remember, the promise of the blessing is that I will bless your parents. The promise of the blessing from God is I will bless you.

I will bless you when you do those things. And here he uses a family as an example. Now, I know it's easy to say, yeah, but my parents aren't perfect. I've seen my mom and dad have arguments. I've seen them make mistakes. I've seen them, you know, punish me for something I didn't do. So how can I honor my parents when they're not perfect? Remember, it doesn't say honor your parents if they're perfect because there are no perfect parents. There have never been perfect parents in the history of humanity. So why should you be different?

There's never been a perfect parents. Every set of parents struggles with, how do I fulfill my command from God? Because remember, I told last time, parents are commissioned from God. Just like that's the whole point of the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not commit adultery, says, means that marriage is holy. Honor your mother, your father means, or father and mother means, the authority given to parents is holy, is commissioned by God. So us parents have a commission by God. But the promise is to you that we may not be perfect, but you have, even as a little child, you have a responsibility to honor your parents. You say, wow, I'm going to show you the hardest situation of honoring your parents in the Bible as far as perfect parents. Luke 2. You know who I'm turning to? How many know who I'm turning to?

Hey, Luke 2.

We know that Jesus came from heaven. We know that He later would say that He is the Son of God. Not the Son of Joseph, but the Son of God. He had two physical parents, Joseph and Mary. Jesus never sinned.

But His parents did. They weren't perfect.

His parents weren't perfect. Jesus was perfect.

Now, that would be easy to say, you know what? I don't have to obey you. You sinned. I don't have to obey you. I've seen you do wrong things. I don't have to obey you. I came from God. You say, well, He didn't know that maybe. Now, let's look at the story. We're going to pick this up.

Mary and Joseph and Jesus just went to the temple to worship at one of the Holy Days. Verse 41, His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.

Verse 42, and when He was 12 years old, 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. And when He had finished the days as they returned, the boy Jesus lakored behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother did not know it. But supposing Him to have been in the company, they went on a day's journey and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances. See, they'd gone in as a whole caravan of people. Friends and relatives have all got together. They went in to keep the days of Unleavened Bread. They're now going home. Oh, it's time to go pack up. They packed up their animals and packed up all their belongings, the things they would have taken with them to keep the Holy Days. Now they're going home. And Mary and Joseph didn't worry much about Jesus. He's probably with his cousins or, you know, somebody, some of the friends. But they'd go a whole day and it comes time for probably dinner or time to go to bed. It's like, well, get Jesus. It's bedtime. And they can't find Him.

They left Him in Jerusalem. Now that may not seem like much. Oh, well, they left Him in Jerusalem. It is estimated by most historians that Jerusalem at this time had about 600,000 people living in it. There's a little under there's about 680,000, I think, in Nashville.

How would you like to be lost in Nashville? And your parents left you.

That'd be tough, wouldn't it? You're lost in Nashville and your parents left you. Now, you can imagine the panic of the parents. The boy was left in Jerusalem, so they hurry back.

So when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking Him. Now, so it was that after three days, could you imagine your parents combing Nashville for three days? Mom and dad wouldn't be sleeping. They'd be worried you were kidnapped. They would be anxious. They would be physically ill. They would be crying. All the relatives would be there. They'd all be crying. They're looking for Him. He's lost. They left Him. They're panicked. It's my fault.

You can imagine all the things that are going on in these people's minds. So it was, after three days, they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. After three days, they find Him in the temple with the greatest Jewish scholars of the day. He's 12 years old, and He's spending His days there waiting for them to come back and pick Him up in debates with the greatest biblical scholars of the day.

What do you do? Do you run up and spank Him? Do you yell at Him? What do you do? I mean, you can imagine what are we supposed to do now? Go drag Him out of the temple?

What are you doing here? Your father and I are just sick over what happened. You can imagine what they're about to say, and here He is. How do you handle that?

And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. So when they saw Him, they were amazed, and His mother said to Him, Son, why have You done this to us? Which is what almost every mother would say. Why did You do this to me? I haven't slept for three days. I haven't eaten. I've been sick at my stomach.

You know? Aunt Betty over here has been throwing up.

Why did You do this to me? Or to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously. We've been looking for You for three days. I mean, we thought we might find You dead in the gutter someplace or kidnapped and sold as a slave over to the Ishmaelites or off to Egypt. We didn't know what happened to You. And here's what Jesus says to them. Why did You seek me? Do You not know that I mustn't be about my father's business? It's like, do You forget who I am? Remember, I'm a miracle. I was conceived in You while You were a virgin, Mom. No, He didn't say that, did He? Did He see what He could have said? He could have been condescending.

He had to feel a little frustration here, too. But this is why I'm here for.

What is the commandment? Because He had to keep all the commandments. Honor Your father and Your mother. And He had to—I imagine this was a strange feeling. He had a feeling like, what's your problem?

You ever say that to your parents? What's your problem?

And yet He could not act on that feeling because, wait a minute, they're my parents. I value them. These are the two people picked by God to be my parents.

And so what does He do? Verse 50 says, but they did not understand the statement. They're like, what does that mean? You've got to be about your father's business. He could have explained. He could have said, but don't you remember the angel that came to you and said, you were with child? And don't you remember who I am? But He didn't. Verse 51, then He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them.

But His mother kept all these things in her heart.

The perfect child with imperfect parents, and He obeyed them because it was the right thing to do. This is what He was supposed to do. This is good. He didn't say He went down and there was like mad at Him all the time. Okay, I'll go with you, but I'd rather be in the temple.

Why can't I have fun like the other boys? Yeah, how many boys in 12 are in the temple?

Why can't I have fun like all the other scholars? All the other rabbis get to go in there. That's not what He did. Yes, I must obey. I will come. I'm sorry I caused all this trouble. This is what her mom remembered. Wow, this is why He's here. His mom said, yeah, she knows. This is why He's here. So when you say, well, nobody's had to put up with parents like mine. Remember Jesus? Yeah, perfect child. So unless you're a perfect child, you can't really say that.

Perfect child and perfect parents.

So we have to realize that we must honor them by obeying them. And we have the perfect example there in Jesus. Second, honor your parents by doing what is right even when you're not around. Honor your parents because you can say, well, good, my parents aren't around. I'm free to do what I want. Remember, honor is about what you value the most.

If they are teaching you God's way, if they are teaching you the way to have a good life, if honoring them will get a blessing from God, then the question is, what do you value more than your parents and the promised blessing from God? Because you may give up God's blessing. Dishonor your parents and you may not get the blessing.

And that's the reality. If you're 19 years old and in jail, because you dishonored your parents, didn't do what they said, and got out with a group of guys and robbed a convenience store, and you're in jail, you've lost a certain blessing, haven't you? You've lost a blessing.

So what do you value the most? Your relationship with your parents or close? What do you value most? The blessing from God or your immediate friends? Friends are important. They're very important. In fact, the Teen Bible study, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about friendship, the importance of friendship.

But what do you value the most? Here's what we have as a human tendency.

So you children listen to this because this is what we tend to do. When something goes bad in a relationship, we tend to believe all bets are off and we can do whatever we want. You know, a couple can have a bad problem in their marriage and decide, well, we don't really have to do what's right and stay married. Well, my parents are treating me poorly or my parents made a mistake. Therefore, I am free to not honor them. See, that's what we do. Once something doesn't work out right, we believe it gives us a freedom to do what's wrong. Remember, you honor your parents by doing what is right when they're not around.

But boy, you know, my parents have been really mean to me, so I'm going to sneak out tonight. I'm sneaking out because they have been mean to me. Well, maybe they are being mean to you, and maybe they're wrong. But when does that allow us to break the commandment?

I mean, that would be like saying, if you want to use that thought process, my neighbor is really mean to me, so I can go kill him. Well, no, you can't. Well, my parents are all mean to me, so I can dishonor them. No, you can't.

You have to realize you have to become people who carry out what is right, even when your parents aren't around. And that's the whole point of parenting, by the way. The older you get, the more and more freedom you get, until one day we give you a hug and you walk out the door. And then we cry, and you're all happy. Oh, good, I'm free, I'm out of here, and we're crying. The purpose of parenting is to prepare a child to walk out the door, right? That's what we're doing. We're preparing children to leave us.

That's what we're doing, so they can stand on their own two feet.

So at that point, what we're hoping is you do what's right without us.

We actually now believe and hope that we've done our jobs, and you are prepared to do what's right without us. And you can't say, bad things are happening, so that takes away my responsibility to do what's right. There's a well-known story in 2 Kings, but I want to show you something that is usually not even noticed in this story. Go to 2 Kings, 2 Kings, chapter 5.

2 Kings, chapter 5. Okay. When bad things are happening, I don't have to do what's right.

You know, we have to be as adults, we do the same thing. When bad things are happening, we decide that we really don't have to do what God wants us to do. How many times have we excused bad behavior? Because, well, God didn't help me out of this mess.

We actually excuse our bad behavior, or not obeying God, because, well, you know, why should I tithe? God didn't get me that new job. So before we look at kids and say, yeah, they do that, we do the same thing. We do the same thing with God. It's a human tendency. So what happens with children and teenagers, we get to the place where we feel like there's something bad between us and our parents, so that gives us the license to not do the commandment. This is a famous story about a Syrian general named Naaman. Naaman was famous because not only was he a great general for Syria, but he had leprosy. And he went to Elisha, and God healed him. So the whole story here is about this man who was not in his relight, who was healed by God because he did the right thing. Great story. But there's another person in this story that is almost never thought of. Verse 1, 2 Kings 5, Now Naaman, commander of the army and the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor but a leper. He was a great leader, great general, great fighter, famous. The king of Syria held him up in great honor. All the people of Syria thought he was the greatest general on earth, but nobody could touch him because he had a terrible disease. Leprosy, you sort of rot from the outside in. So your skin is just... you're rotting.

And the Syrians had gone out on raids, had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel, and she waited on Naaman's wife. Now, here is a girl, a young girl, I don't know, 10 years old? I don't know what she is. Now if anyone had the right to say, my parents abandoned me. Maybe they were killed. She was kidnapped on a raid. The Syrian army ran into Israel, probably grabbed as many cows and horses as they could, grabbed as many sheep and little kids as they could and ran off. Why? Why would you grab kids? Because they made good slaves, that's why. She could say, you know what? God abandoned me, so I have the right not to obey God. My parents, I don't know what happened to them, I lost them. I have the right to disobey them. I have the right to disobey God. I have the right to do this. I don't have to do what's right. Look what bad has happened to me. Look how poorly I'm being treated. I'm a slave.

Pretty bad time, isn't it? I don't even believe in God anymore. I'm not going to do what my parents told me. They told me all about God and they told me all about Elisha and the prophet of God, but I don't believe in that anymore. One of the things we have here in this story is, I want you to listen to this, even little girls can be used by God to do great things.

Verse 5, and she said to her mistress, if only my master were with the prophet who was in Samaria, for he would heal him of the leprosy.

She goes to the woman who owns her and says, you know, the God of Israel could do this. This is a little girl. The God of Israel could do this and his prophet could do this, but you have to go to Israel to have it done. Your gods can't do this.

See? You have to go to Israel to have this done.

She's doing the right thing in the worst situation. And she's a little girl. Don't think because you're little, your responsibilities to your God don't matter.

They matter to him.

The next verse says, And Ayamid went in and told his master, saying, Thus and thus said the little girl who was from the land of Israel.

So he goes to the king and says, you know, this little girl from Israel told me that their God could heal me, but I have to go to this prophet. On the word of a little girl, the king of Syria said, you'd better go.

Probably didn't see that part of the story before, did you?

This whole story is down on the word of a little girl who did good when nobody else that taught her good was around. I got a ladybug.

I didn't kill it.

Amazing little story, isn't it? But remember that your responsibilities, if you're 10 years old, are still the same to God. Honor your father and your mother, and I'll give you a blessing. Now I don't want a blessing the little girl received. I do know this.

I do know this. Almost 3,000 years later, we still read about her. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? I'd just like people to read your story 3,000 years ago now. It's pretty amazing.

God was with her, and He accomplished that through her. Let me give you another case in the Bible of someone God used because of what they did as a child. 2 Timothy 1 and their relationship with their parents. Now this one is also not a very good situation. 2 Timothy 1. I should have killed the ladybug. He just flew into my hair.

3 Timothy is a young minister who Paul really likes and Paul has taken and trained him to be a minister, and he writes him this letter. Notice what he says to him in verse 5.

He says, When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, and your mother, Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. Now what's interesting is when you read the life of Timothy, his father was not a Christian. His father was not a Jew. His father was a Greek. His father probably worshiped Zeus. Or he may have been a Stoic and believed in this ambiguous God that nobody could know. He might have been an atheist. We don't know. Greeks, some of them were atheists. But understand, his father did not believe what his mother taught him. But Timothy saw the value of God, the value of his mother, and he listened to what his mother taught him. And notice it went from generations, just like in Recabytes. Generations later, Paul says, I see in you what I saw in your grandmother, and I see in your mother, and I see it in you. And that is you have faith in God. You honored them, and therefore you honor God. Look at chapter 3, verse 15. Chapter 3 of 2 Timothy, he says, and that from childhood, we're breaking the middle of a sentence here, but he's telling him, from your very childhood, you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wiser for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. He said, Timothy, you are the man you are today because you honored your mother and your grandmother, even though your father did not agree. But you saw what God was doing, and you honored God, and you honored the scriptures. You learned the scriptures, and because of that is what produced the man that God used. See, don't forget, at 13, what is being produced in you now is what God will use when you're 23, or 33, or 43. What God is doing in you now is produced and comes to fruit later in your life, just like with Timothy. So you honor your parents when you do what is right, when they're not around, or they're not perfect, or when you're in a situation where everything's going wrong, and you do what's right anyways. You honor your parents.

And as parents, you know how proud you could be when you find out your child in a difficult situation did what was right. You weren't there, and they did what was right anyways.

As a parent, there's nothing that makes you more proud. There's nothing that makes you more proud, because you know they honored you. You know they honored God. But you know something else you know. You honor them. You honor them, because they did something of value. They did something important.

The last point is honor your parents by honoring God. That's an obvious one. Now we talk about the promise that's made in the commandment. But I really, if I could get your attention again, all the kids here, all the, I don't know if you like being called kids, all the children here, all the teenagers, I want your attention again, because I want to tell you another promise that God has offered to you. Now, like all these promises, you don't have to take them. Now, God offers the blood of them. Now, God offers a blessing. You don't have to do it, and you don't get the blessing.

Acts 2. Acts 2.

Because this is actually a blessing that goes beyond the blessing that is offered in the Ten Commandments.

And this has to do with honoring God. In Acts 2, we have a sermon given by Peter to a whole large crowd of men and women who were Jews and proselytes, people who had converted to Judaism, and he tells them about Jesus Christ. He tells them how they need to repent. He tells them how they need to honor God. And a large number of these people say, well, we didn't know that. What are we supposed to do?

How do we honor God? Because they thought they were honoring God. And notice what it says in verse 37, so we can pick up the context here. Now, when they heard this, hundreds of people respond. Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brother, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, So he tells them, all these adults, these are adults who are responding, and he says, you repent, because to truly repent you have to be at a certain level of maturity.

So he tells them, you repent, and God will forgive you, and God will give you the Holy Spirit. The fifth commandment, by the way, does not promise eternal life. It promises a blessing in this life. This is a blessing to have a relationship with God as your father, and Jesus Christ as your brother forever. And then I want you to really notice verse 39.

For the promise is to you, those adults, and to your children, and to all that are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call. The promise made to the ancient Israelites was passed on from generation to generation. Now, many of the times they didn't obey that commitment to honor their father and their mother, and they didn't get the blessing. It all depends on whether they wanted the blessing or not. For all the children in this room today, you weren't just here because, well, my parents dragged me here. God doesn't really care. The promise He made to them is made to you. It just depends on whether you value it enough.

Do you honor God enough to take Him up on His promise and receive His blessing? I can't answer that question for you, and your parents can't answer that question for you. Only you can answer that question. The promise is made to you and your children. You are here today on this Sabbath day in this church building because you were invited by God just like the adults were. You say, well, I'm only nine years old. Yeah, you were invited here by God. You and your children. Now, whether you want to honor God and honor your parents is your choice.

The invitation was from God. It's just not, oh, we go to church today. It's something we do. I hope I hurry up and get over so we can go eat some food.

I feel that way sometimes, too. Now I'm the one who gave me the sermon. It has to do with you are here because you were invited to be here. And whether you want it, do you value it? Do you honor God?

Is He that important to you? Is He that important to you? Or do you value everything else above Him? If you value everything else above Him, then you will not receive this promise. But it's already offered to you. So let me wrap up with five things. Okay, I want to make this now very simple and practical. For all the young children out there, here's five things that you can actually do that you can actually do because honoring your parents has to come in action. If you wait until you feel it, you won't do it. Remember, honor has to be in action because it goes against your feelings sometimes.

It goes against your feelings.

I mean, there's times I get up and say, oh, I'm tired and I get two services to do today and I don't want to do it. My wife says, but you have to. You're giving the sermon, right? Oh, yeah.

And then you're always happy. When you step out of bed and start doing it, you're happy. It's the action that changes the emotion. You don't wait until the emotion changes. We'd never get out of bed some days, would we?

Some days you just never get out of bed if you wait for the emotion to change. It's the action that changes the emotion. So here's actions that can help you honor your parents because you can simply do these. You honor your parents when you don't run and play in church. When you don't run around here, we ask you not to do that. You honor your parents. Because if you do, and someone, what do they do when they catch you? They take you to your parents.

And now you've dishonored your parents.

So when you do that, you honor us, you honor God, you honor your parents. You know, you honor your parents when you let older people go in line first at the meal.

You're honoring your parents when you do that.

You know, I've been in lines before, and you look, and here's all these older people. And we're honoring them. We're honoring who they are, and they're first. And if you see kids trying to push them out of the way and get in between them, what do you say? That child needs to be taken to their parent.

Why do we say that? Because it's the parents' responsibility. You've now dishonored your parent.

You've actually dishonored your parent. You honor your parents when you don't interrupt them, when they're talking to other adults. You know, when you come up and let down... I'll say, if it's an emergency, it's different. But when you come up and you grab your mother's sleeve, bum, bum, bum, and she's talking to other adults, that's dishonoring her.

Because all the other people around notice that. Now, if it's an emergency, you have to say it's an emergency.

It better really be an emergency.

Okay?

Mom, mom, it's an emergency. It's an emergency. What is it? Can I have this lollipop?

Eh.

All the kids are going to laugh like, I've tried that one. That's a work.

It better be an emergency. Because if you come up to me and say, if a kid comes up to me and says, it's an emergency, I'm going to stop and say, tell me what it is. You know, the kitchen's on fire.

So, if it's an emergency, it better be an emergency. Otherwise, you have to wait your turn.

Or you publicly dishonor your children. You honor your parents when you show honor to other adults. This is why it's important. You know, if you have an adult you don't know, and it's not a close member or a family friend, you call them Mr. and Mrs.

If you're seven years old, you don't run up to someone you've heard your dad say, well, this is Bob. He says, hey, Bob!

Mr. and Mrs. He seems like little things, but they change as you do them. They change who you are.

A fifth point, you honor your parents when you don't take and destroy other people's property.

You know, when the police come to your house, because you've been riding around with the other guys using a baseball bat to see if you could drive down the street and knock mailboxes off.

All the women are going, what?

You have dishonored your parents. I won't ask how many guys did that.

I didn't do that, but I have other things I would not confess. A bunch of guys get together. Boys get together. 60-year-old boys together can do the craziest things, especially if they start challenging each other.

Now, five ways. That's just five ways. Five ways that you older, especially you teenagers, can show honor to your parents. You honor your parents when you fulfill your family obligations by whatever it is doing your chores, by taking care of your room and your possessions, mowing the grass when you're asked to do it. You honor them by simply fulfilling family obligations because you say, this family is important to me and I honor the family. This relationship is important to me. Therefore, I sacrifice that of my time, my energy, my feelings for the good of the family, for the good of my parents. I honor them. Two, you honor your parents when you respond the first time to a request and still waiting for number two, three, four, and five.

The more times a parent has to ask you to do something, the more dishonor you're showing them. Most parents will say, well, they didn't hear the first time or they forgot. But once they ask you the second time, they're starting to realize, wait a minute.

So you dishonor your parents when you do not respond to the request the first time. You also are a lot happier when you do because you hate to have that cloud handing over your head. Oh, no. They're going to ask me the third time to go mow the grass. And then you realize if I'd have mowed it at the first request, I'd be done by now.

I'd be done by now.

Number three, you honor your parents when you keep your word to them.

By being home when you said you would be home. By being where you're supposed to be when you tell them where you are.

I'm at Bob's house. Well, yeah, but Bob wanted to go over to Jim's house. Jim went over to Mary's house and you're an hour late. Where are you? Well, I want to call you. I'm going to be late. Wait a minute. You're an hour late and you haven't called me. I've called you. Yeah, but we're at Mary's house. But that's an hour from our house. Yeah, so I'll be two hours late now. But you know, it's just the way it happened. We're just... You may not even be doing something wrong. That's not the point. The point is you dishonored them. You showed them dishonor. That their thoughts, their feelings were not important to you. Had no value to you.

Remember, Jesus submitted to his parents, even though he realized, I'm the Messiah. That had to be a real awakening one day to figure out, wait a minute, you know who I am?

And then said, do I got to submit to these people? That's my mom and dad.

A fourth thing, you honor your parents when you don't talk to them in a hateful and disrespectful manner. And that's hard.

You know, in a lot of that, especially the teenagers, it's easy to be very disrespectful and say very hateful things. Then you feel bad later. I really don't hate you. I don't really wish I had another mother, you know.

But you say them. The important thing is go show respect and fix it. Go say you're sorry. Because your parents, if you say, I want another mother and I hate you, she's not going to say, okay, well, good. I'm going to go sell you on the black market.

She's going to feel terrible and want to restore the relationship. Why? Because you have value your herd daughter. That's why. She's hurting because of what you said. And maybe you're hurting because of what she said. The thing is, if you value each other, you'll want to solve the problem because you, hey, you're an important person to me.

And then the last point, you honor your parents when you're honest and trustworthy. So there's five things for the younger kids to do and five things for the older kids.

So that you could receive the blessings. First blessing is a happy life. God has made a promise to you to give you a blessing. Honor your parents and He'll give you a happy life because they'll help teach you how to have a happier life. I say happy life, it doesn't mean everything goes just right. Remember the little girl captured by the Syrians who did the right thing and God did a great thing to her. She was having a rough life, but she did what was right anyways. But God does give you a blessing and God would bless that girl. I don't know what the blessings were. I can tell you He blessed her, though, because that's what He promised. And that's what He did.

This blessing is so important, He made it as part of one of the Ten Commandments. But the promise made to you is more than the promise of the Fifth Commandment. The promise made to you is that if you respond to His call now, He will be your Father. But you pray to Him now, He will listen to your prayers.

Because He's called you and revealed Himself as a Father, revealed Jesus Christ as your brother for a reason.

Because He wants you to be in His family forever.