Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Catechism 2021. It's the 40th Lord's Day. And before I get started on this, let me just say that I do apologize and confess I forgot to do the confession of faith this past week, which would have been week 39. I made it. to the end of September, which without forgetting one, and that was the first one I completely forgot because of different things going on. There's been some I was late on for one reason or another, but this one just completely slipped. So tomorrow I'll double up and do last week's confession and this week's confession. But for this morning, the 40th Lord's Day, which is the fifth commandment, let me pray for us and we'll get right into it. Father, we praise you for your infinite power. You brought all things into existence. You brought us into existence. You have a purpose and a plan that you are working out, and we're thankful to be a part of it. Thank you for making yourself known to us. Thank you for your transforming grace that's changed our hearts and changed our minds to live for you, to honor you, to worship you, and to love you through faith in Christ. Father, bless us today, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, Lord's today, number 40. What is the fifth commandment? The fifth commandment, here it is from Exodus 20, verse 12. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Question 118. What is God's will for you in the fifth commandment? That I honor, love, and be loyal to my father and mother and all those in authority over me." So now you see here what the catechism has been doing with all the commandments, and it comes from the way Christ treats the law and treats God's commandments in his teaching in the New Testament, in the Sermon on the Mount, centrally, but not only, where there's a spiritual essence of each commandment, and each commandment is representative of a much larger issue. The issue here is authority. being submissive and being obedient to the authority structures that God has put in place. And so that's why I go so quickly from this first line, that I honor, love, and be loyal to my father and mother, and all those in authority over me, that I obey and submit to them as is proper, when they correct and punish me, or discipline me, correct, punish, discipline, and also that I be patient with their failings. So be patient with the failings, mother and father because they like all of us are sinners and If you're a parent like I'm a parent, I know I'm a sinner. I'm an imperfect father. You are an imperfect parent But to be patient with their failings For through them God chooses to rule us and so these authority structures in society and centrally here the family Are to order life on earth and we need to be submissive and obedient. So what is God's will for us in the fifth commandment? Well, first and foremost, exactly what it says, honor father and mother, but then getting to the heart, the spiritual essence of things to be submissive to the authority structures that God has put in place for life on earth, even though they are imperfect. Exodus 20, 12, commit to heart, honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land, that the Lord your God is giving you. None of us, naturally speaking, wants to submit to God as God. We need to receive new hearts to do that, and that happens through the preaching of the gospel, the life of Christ, the death of Christ, the sacrificial death of Christ where He bore our sins on the cross, the glorious resurrection of Christ where He conquered death, and gives us the hope of eternal life through the preaching of the gospel and the power of the Spirit. God gives us new hearts, new hearts that want to submit to Him first as the authority over all authorities and then in a proper way to obey other authorities He has put in place. Father, we thank you for, again, for making yourself known to us, for bringing us into a relationship with you through Christ. Christ is all we have, and we praise you that Christ is all we need to dwell with you, to know you forever. It's in His name we pray. Amen. God bless you. Thanks for joining, and thanks for your patience on me with that blunder, missing confession week 39, but I'll get it to you tomorrow, Lord willing, and I'll get you week 40 also. Until then, see you next week.