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But I want to read, just to give
us a focal thought, from Exodus 20, 12. This will be a familiar
passage, one of the Ten Commandments, where it says, Honor thy father
and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which
the Lord thy God giveth thee. May God bless the reading and
hearing of his word. Well, today I want us to focus
on the question, what are the biblical duties and obligations
of children to parents? And as I said this morning, children,
next or week after next, we're going to talk about the duties
of parents to children. You see, these instructions to
households are never one sided. It never says just this is the
way wives are to respond to husbands, but it also says this is the
way husbands are to respond to wives. And it never just says
this is the way children are to respond to parents, but it
also says this is the way parents are to respond to children. Now,
we're going to focus today on the duties of children to parents,
but never you worry. We're going to talk also about
the duties that parents have towards their children. Certainly, there are some universal
elements in the duties that children have to parents. I think that
God is woven into life. So even if you're not a Christian,
even if you don't know the Lord, there are some duties, elemental
duties that children, even who aren't Christians, ought to bear
towards parents. But I think these duties are
particularly applicable, children, if you say that you're a Christian. It's very interesting when Paul
wrote to the churches in Ephesus and Colossians and he gave what
is called the household code, which we'll read some later on. He addressed specifically children. And I think he was particularly
speaking to Christian children who were in those local churches
and telling them about this particular duties that as believers they
had towards their parents. And he usually, I think, is anticipating
a situation where Christian parents and Christian children, what
are their mutual obligations and duties one to another? I want to trace five duties that
I think children have toward parents, and Christian children
particularly have toward their parents. The first is this, children
have the duty of honoring and respecting father and mother. Children have the duty of honoring
and respecting father and mother. This is, of course, the essence
of the fifth commandment, which I just read from Exodus chapter
20 and verse 12. And you'll notice that in the
ten commandments, this commandment has a pride of place. The Ten
Commandments generally are divided into two tables. The first table
has to do with man's responsibilities toward God. We have no gods before
God. We're not to make any graven
images. We're not to take God's name in vain. We are to remember
the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Those are man's obligations
to God. But then the final six commandments are man's relationship
to his fellow man. And you might think that perhaps
the first of those would be you shall not murder. That would
seem to be fundamental, right? The respect for life. But that's
not the way that the Ten Commandments are ordered. In the second table
of the law, the one that has the pride of place is that children
are to honor father and mother. Why is that? Well, I think it's
because the Lord has given a priority, is spelling out a priority in
human relationships and within the family that is for the spiritual
good of children. And then for the spiritual good
of families, and for the spiritual good of churches, and for the
spiritual good of society at large, that children would honor
their mother and father. And that becomes the groundwork
for all the other duties that we have to our fellow human beings.
That will flow from this then, don't kill, don't commit adultery,
don't bear false witness, don't steal, don't covet. All these
other duties will flow from the fountainhead of there being honor
and respect for mother and father. Of course, the principle embedded
in the fifth commandment goes beyond our duties within the
family. As the Catechism points out,
this fifth commandment requires the preserving the honor and
performing the duties belonging to everyone in their several
places and relations as superiors, inferiors, or equals. And so
it thus calls on not only a proper disposition of children towards
parents who are your superiors, who are older than you, who are
the ones who are responsible for you, it requires a proper
disposition of children towards parents, but also the principles
in this commandment also govern the attitude that people who
are employees should have towards their bosses and employers, the
attitudes that church members should have towards the officers
in the church, The attitudes that citizens should have towards
those who are in civil authority, the magistrates. That's why even
children, if we don't like our president, we don't agree with
his political positions. We should still honor and respect
him. Even if we don't agree with him.
And children, sometimes with your parents, even if you have
a disagreement with them. You're still under obligation.
from God's law to honor and respect them and to treat them honorably
and respectfully. Children, again, are to show
honor in, I think the bedrock is a respectful attitude toward
their parents. They are to speak respectfully
to their parents. One way this is evidenced is
by saying sir and ma'am. when addressing parents. They
ask a question. I think the answer ought to be,
yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. That's
not just a Southern gentility, but it is based on an intentional
way reflected in your language of showing honor and respect. And that also probably ought
to be governing the way we speak to all who are elders. We also, I think, embedded in
this commandment, this idea of honoring, respecting parents
is that when we listen to our parents and when we speak to
them, we should do that in a respectful way. How do you listen to and
speak with your parents in a respectful way? Well, you do that the way
you respectfully listen and speak with anyone. You face them. I'll take Grace as an example
here. You face them directly. You have an open posture. You're
willing to make eye contact. You're willing to listen. In
a child's case, you're willing to be deferential. Compare this
with this. Turning, arms crossed. I'm not
going to listen to you. You can't tell me what to do
or how to behave. One way we show honor and respect
is through honorable speech. through honorable posture, honorable
response to our parents. We are not to speak ill publicly
of our parents or I think publicly to disagree with them. Though
a child certainly might seek privately to entreat the parents
in cases where there might have been injustices or disagreements
or misunderstandings in order to seek further understanding
But I think publicly, children should respond respectfully and
not attempt to disagree publicly with their parents. In the Old
Testament, perhaps the premier example of a child dishonoring
a parent is the rebellion of Absalom against his father, David. And Absalom, some of you know,
was David's son, and he rebelled against his father. And he even
wanted to depose his father from the throne. And in some ways,
it's a parable of a child wanting to dishonor and remove of the
parent from their position, God appointed position of authority.
It's interesting, though, even though Absalom did this, David
still had a great love in his heart for his son. And when Absalom
dies in battle, a Cushite brings news to David that Absalom has
died. When the messenger comes, the
first question David asks is the second Samuel 1832 is, is
the young man Absalom safe? And the Kushite answers, the
enemies of my lord, the king and all that rise against thee
to do thee hurt, be as that young man is. You might remember his
long hair. He had gotten caught in the bough
of a tree and he had been killed. And instead of David saying,
well, that guy got what he deserved, that rotten child got what he
deserved. What's the heart of the father toward even the son
is who treated him dishonorably? It says the king was much moved
and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And he went
and as he went, he thus said, oh, my son Absalom, my son, my
son Absalom, would God I had died for thee, oh Absalom. My son, my son. As how many times
five times over he repeats, my son, my son, my son. When you
have children, when you have the worst disagreement with your
parents. I can tell you that your parents love you. They have
a heart for you. They don't want to be there to
be a tear in your relationship. And if you treat them honorably
and respectfully, we're going to talk about their duties to
you next time. And they're not exasperating
you. I believe that you can have a relationship as wonderful as
what God designed for you to have for your good. A child can
bring a parent great joy or they can break a parent's heart. And
what I want to suggest to the children, I really want you to
hear this, is I think one of the things you need to do to
make your life gold is to be a joy to your parents. Make it
your life's goal to be a joy. Make them proud of you. Make
them glad for your behavior. Let them see the strides that
you're making and your honorable behavior. And be a joy to them. John Wooden was a basketball
coach at UCLA years ago. He's probably one of the greatest
basketball coaches has ever been at any level. It's really amazing
how the number of years, I think it was 10 years in a row, they
won the NCAA championship at UCLA. But in his autobiography,
he tells a story about once he went to visit a recruit and this
guy was the number one recruit in the nation. Every college
in the country wanted this guy to come and play for their school. and went into the young man's
home to visit him. And he came into the young man's
home ready to offer him a scholarship to play at UCLA. And at that
time, every basketball player wanted to go to UCLA. It's where
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar went. It's where Bill Walton went.
It was the quickest way to get into the NBA. And so everybody
wanted to go there. But Wooden tells a story. He
went into the young man's home. And the young man was so disrespectful
to his mother. His mother tried to ask him questions
and the young man put his mom down. Oh, mom, you don't know
anything about this. And he was he was just rude to
his mother. And Wooden in the autobiography
says that he completed the visit. He had come in with a piece of
paper in hand, ready to have this man sign a letter of intent
to play basketball. And he said, after the visit,
I did not offer the scholarship to that young man, even though
he was the number one recruit in the nation. And it would have
seemed like he would have wanted him to come to UCLA. And Wooden
said in his autobiography, he said, if that young man would
not honor and respect his mother, He would not honor and respect
me as a coach. And he would cause more problems
on my team than he would help. Well, that's a parable, isn't
it? Do we want to be the kind of person who's known for having
a respectful attitude towards those that God has placed in
authority over us? We're not. So the first thing
is children are to honor and respect their parents. Secondly,
children have the duty of obeying father and mother. Now, in the
Household Code, as already mentioned in the New Testament, Ephesians
and Colossians, obedience is the operative term that is used
to describe the appropriate disposition of a child to a parent. In Ephesians
6.1, Paul writes, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for
this is right. And the verb for obey in Greek
is hoop-akuo. It's a combination of a prefix,
hoop or hype, hyper, over, and akuo, we get the word acoustic
from that, which means listen. So obedience means be a hyper
listener. a hyper-obeyer of your parents. Likewise, Colossians 3.20 says,
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing
unto the Lord. Again, it has rightly been said
that delayed obedience is disobedience. Maybe when your parents ask you
to do something, you do it, but you do it in your own sweet time.
or you drag your feet, or you do it with complaints, or you
do it explaining all the reasons why you shouldn't do it. By the
way, this is the problem with the modern disciplinary method
of counting to three. Rather than do it now, because
I asked you to do it, instead do this, okay, I'm counting,
one, two, what does that teach? Well, I've got to three, so I
can delay the obedience a certain amount of time. I think we should
teach our children from an early age quickly to obey. And again, we do this imperfectly,
but I'm talking about when they're toddlers, that we should teach
them, obey me when I ask you to do something, do it, do it
without fuss, do it quickly. And we're going to talk about
discipline later on in the series, and then I think appropriate
discipline can be applied to teach that. As a child grows
older, into the teen years in particular, I don't think it
is inappropriate for a child respectfully to seek explanation
and reasoning on any command that they do not understand or
that they need to clarify. Because developmentally, when
they hit that age, they're in that debate mode. And I don't
think there's anything wrong with them saying, OK, you want
me to do this. Can I respectfully explain why
I might need a delay to do that? You asked me to do item A, but
I need to complete B first before I do A. I don't think that's
inappropriate. And there's a difference between
respectfully asking about that and arguing about it or being
blatantly disrespectful in that. Anyway, a parent can deal with
that if, from a child, it comes with a spirit of, yes, I will
do what you ask because you are my parent, but I would respectfully
seek this clarification. Note that in Ephesians 6.1, Paul
says that the child's obedience to the parents is to be, and
this is a very important phrase, in the Lord. Children, obey your
parents in the Lord, for this is right. Just as a wife is not
called to submit to a husband in unlawful and ungodly actions,
so a child is not bound to obey parents in unlawful and ungodly
actions. Many years ago now, when I was
a college student, I spent three summers working in a boys, a
Christian boys camp. And I'll never forget one year,
I was a counselor for 12 year old boys. And we had, there were
large groups of kids that would come from all over the state
of North Carolina. And that we stayed with us for
a week. And we would often have churches that would bring kids
in part of the ministry. There was one week there was
a child in particular didn't come from a Christian home. And
as we were teaching them throughout the week. This child one evening
was sharing with me and some of the other counselors that
his father would ask him to get on his bicycle and ride to another
trailer in the trailer park they lived and pick up drugs and bring
them back. And he was asking us, do I have
to obey my father? When he asked me this, the Christian
teaching is children obey your parents. Do I have to obey my
father in this? And, you know, our counsel to
him based on scripture was no, you have to obey your parents
in the Lord. But they asked to do something
that is unlawful or ungodly. You are not bound to obey them. And we were able to share that
with our director of our camp was able to share that with the
leaders in the church. who were able to reach out in ministry
to that family. And so again, children are to
obey parents in the Lord. Perhaps the most vivid scriptural
picture of a child's lawful, unconditional obedience to a
parent is in Genesis 22. It's when Abraham tells Isaac
to gather the wood for the sacrifice. And Isaac keeps saying, but where's
the What are we going to sacrifice? But even though he didn't understand
the purpose, he obeyed even to the point of being bound on the
altar. Trusting his father the whole
time, even probably while Abraham raised the knife. As we know
in the story, the angel of the Lord intervened and stayed Abram's
hand And there was a sacrifice provided in the thicket. The
Lord will provide a lamb. Of course, that story anticipates
the obedience of Christ, the Son, to the will of His Father.
Being obedient even to the point of the death on the cross. So
first, children are to honor and respect their parents. Secondly,
children are to obey their parents in the Lord. Children have the duty of listening
to the counsel of father and mother. It has often been said
that once parents get wiser and wiser, the older you get, right?
They say there's only one time in your life when you know everything.
It's when you're about 16, 17, 18 years old, 19. And then all
of a sudden, your great confidence in all the things you thought
you knew get less as you have more life experiences. And all
of a sudden, you're like, hey, my parents weren't so stupid
after all. They actually knew a thing or
two, and all the adults are laughing at children because they've gone
through this. They've gone through the same
things you've gone through. And so a child, a wise child,
will realize that he has much to learn. She has much to learn
from the counsel of his or her parents. This is a setting for
the entire book of Proverbs, which begins in Proverbs 1.8.
with Solomon writing, My son, hear the instruction of thy father
and forsake not the law of thy mother. The Book of Proverbs
generally affirms the wisdom of seeking many counselors. Proverbs
1114 notes that in the multitude of counselors, there is safety.
A wise child will seek the counsel of his parents in his education,
in his vocational calling, in his finances, in his marriage
prospects, etc. And I'm not saying that they
dictate what you do in all those things. They can't dictate for
you in all those things. But they can be your prime ministers,
your counselors, to help you in decision making. Of course,
when a man leaves his household of his father and marries, he
establishes his own household. And then he seeks the counsel
of his own wife, even over that of his own parents. Still, even
after marriage, he can see his parents as a valuable resource. And certainly in the best circumstances,
the parents are to be a spiritual resource and example to the children. And we'll talk about the duties
of parents of children later. Fourth duty. Children have the
duty of caring for father and mother in their old age. The
Bible was, of course, written before the days of the social
safety net and for social security. The burden of care for aging
parents from a biblical perspective is not the duty of the state,
but of the children. We are to do this to the degree
that providential circumstances will allow. Think about what
Paul taught in the pastoral epistles in first Timothy five. He's describing
how the church is to care for widows and listen to what he
says. First, seventy five, three honor widows that are widows
indeed. But listen to this. First, seventy
five, four. But if any widow have children or nephews, let
them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their
parents. For that is good and acceptable
before God. Who is to take care of the widows?
Their children, and even their nephews and nieces, their extended
family, ought to care for them. Then later in that same passage,
in 1st Timothy 5.8, Paul says, But if any provide not for his
own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied
the faith, and is worse than an infidel. When you become a
parent, you realize how much your parents did for you. Children,
even the adult children that are in this room, think about
the number of times your mother and father changed your diaper.
The number of times they had to feed you. The number of times
they woke up in the middle of the night to take care of you,
lost sleep. The number of times they had
to deny themselves and make sacrifices for you. And then in the good
providence of God, very often as they age, you will have the
opportunity to do some of the same for them. And the Bible's
perspective is that this is your Christian duty and obligation.
So children are to honor father and mother. They are to obey
father and mother. They are to listen to their counsel. And they are to care for them
in their aging. And then fifth and finally, where
there have been failures and breaches, children have the duty
of understanding and forgiving father and mother. When there
have been failures and breaches, Children have the duty of understanding
and forgiving father and mother. Part of personal, emotional,
and spiritual maturity is coming to the realization that your
parents were not perfect. And perhaps they did not do all
perfectly in your upbringing. And yet part of personal, emotional,
and spiritual maturity is extending to them forgiveness and grace. Now, this is certainly not to
whitewash the experience of some who have gone through real abuse. Real abuse. Sometimes full reconciliation
cannot be achieved because of real abuse that takes place.
But in ordinary circumstances and even sometimes in extraordinary
ones, The disposition of children toward their parents should be
one of grace, even in the face of their faults. In 1 Peter 4,
8, Peter said, And above all things have fervent charity or
love among yourselves, for charity or love shall cover the multitude
of sins. I think he was talking primarily
about brotherly love within the church, but it certainly is applicable
to Christian love and all of its applications, including applications
within the home. Think also about what Christ
said in Luke 637. Judge not and you shall not be
judged. Condemn not and you shall not
be condemned. Forgive and you shall be forgiven. Do you want to? If you're an
adult and you have difficult upbringing, your parents didn't
do everything you think they should have done. Do you want
to go through life harboring a root of bitterness about that?
Or do you have a sense that maybe you ought to extend forgiveness
and grace because you expect people to extend the same to
you? In some circumstances. And so this is the disposition
that children should have toward their parents. One of the best
examples that I have seen of this is in a book by a woman
named Faith Cook. She's a pastor's wife in England,
and she's written a lot of good books. I commend her work to
you. She writes a lot of biographies
that are published by Christian Focus, good works. But one of the books, and I think
this one might be from Banner of Truth, I forget the publisher
is called Troubled Journey. And in this little book, it's
not long. It's only about maybe 100 pages long. But she shares
about her own childhood. She grew up as a child of missionaries
to China. And her childhood was the backdrop
of World War II. Her parents were serving with
the China Inland Mission. And her parents were driven by
the old missionary philosophy that was popularized by Hudson
Taylor. which sort of romanticized sacrificing all the needs of
your family so that you could serve the Lord. And so her parents
were very pious and they were very godly and they wanted to
serve Christ. But essentially what happened was they ended
up sacrificing a lot of things for their family. They put the
children in boarding schools when they were very young. They
sometimes went years without seeing them. I'm talking about
in their childhood. Because of that, she and her
siblings were exposed to difficult treatment in some of the boarding
schools, even ones that were Christian boarding schools. And
some other things that happened that were just difficult. In
fact, they were home on a furlough and one of her brothers died. And her parents didn't respond
to it in a very, I don't know, loving way. They didn't spend
time adequately to grieve, but sort of had this triumphant faith
that sort of ignored what had happened. And they put her in
a boarding school and not long after the brother had died, they
left and went back to China and left her in a boarding school
and didn't see her for, I think it was five or six years. And
so she went through high school, her college years with almost
no contact with her parents. This is some of what she wrote.
She wrote, her father's commitment to mission work was all-consuming,
at times almost obsessive in character. She adds that to understand
her parents' decision, one must realize the ethos in which it
was made. An immense value was placed on this sort of sacrifice
by the Christian community in general, and it was viewed as
honorable and highly commendable. She reflects, these men and women
felt they were offering up to God their Isaacs, their most
valued possessions, as indeed they were. But sadly, the question
they did not address was whether God required such sacrifices. As she completes the story of
her childhood, she relates how she tried to develop still a
long distance letter writing relationship with her parents
and had infrequent contact with them. She notes that her unsettled
childhood sheltered school environment, and now the loss of any stable
home base left her, as she says, quote, ill-prepared for the cold
realities of the adult world, end quote. Here's a good thing
about the book, though. Despite describing all these
difficulties, if you read the book, Cook also conveys a deep
admiration and respect for her parents. And it also conveys
a spirit of grace and forgiveness toward them. I'd commend the
book for anybody who's had a difficult childhood. She's able to do that. She went on to marry. She was
resilient by God's grace. She's become a pastor's wife,
an author, and has raised her own Christian family. In the
conclusion, Cook writes this. She wrote, quote, It had indeed
been a troubled journey for both my brother and me. But as I look
back over the path I have traveled, I can now see that despite the
undoubted sufferings through which we had both passed, unnecessary
sufferings in many respects, God has supported, protected,
and added unexpected provisions for our needs along the way.
Even the sufferings themselves have proved to be a part of God's
design for my life." And I think she was modeling
here that the biblical attitude that a child, even an adult child,
is to have toward her parents. Not whitewashing or excusing,
but honoring, respecting. And this is the attitude that
children are to have toward their parents. Let me invite you to
stand together. Let's pray. Father, we are thankful for the
relationships that we have within our homes and our families. Father,
help us to have Christ-centered homes. Homes where you are the
honored guest and the honored resident in our family Lord,
help our children who are here to be respectful and honoring
of their parents, to have that relationship as the years go
by, become deeper and stronger and more encouraging one to another. And Father, help us to honor
you in all of our relationships. We pray this in Christ's name.
Amen.
The Duties of Children to Parents
Series Christian Family
| Sermon ID | 56121815368 |
| Duration | 35:47 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Language | English |
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