#136: Honor - Commandment 5!

On episode 136, Tim discusses commandment 5 - Honor Your Father and Mother

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome into episode one hundred and thirty six of Bring
Heaven Down. My name is Tim and I'm the host
of this podcast. If you have a question, a common
a topic, suggestion, I take all of it. If you
have a disagreement, I might be the most unoffendable person

(00:20):
in the world. So I'm open to any and all
of it. You can email the show Bring Heaven Down
number seven at gmail dot com. That's Bring Heaven Down
number seven at gmail dot com. We are in our
Ten Commandments series, which actually came from an email. A

(00:45):
listener asked me to go through the ten Commandments, and
we started this series on episode one hundred and thirty two,
So if you want to go back, we've done the
first four and now we are on the fifth commandment.
And the fifth commandment says honor your father and mother.

(01:07):
And what's so interesting about this particular commandment is that
this is the first commandment with a promise to it.
So the reason why we should honor our parents is
that God commanded us to do it. But there is
also an additional motivation. When God gave the law, he

(01:30):
promised to lengthen the days of obedient children, so there's
a promise attached to the commandment. Here are some of
my thoughts on this particular commandment. You think about this
commandment and you think of yourself as little children looking

(01:54):
up to your parents that are twenty to thirty years
to forty years older than you. And this commandment, although
it applies then, it also applies to me now as
a thirty four year old man. My dad is seventy,
my mom is sixty two, and the application of honoring

(02:20):
my father and mother still applies. It might look differently
because I'm not under their household anymore. I'm not under
their rules anymore, but this commandment still applies. I must
still have a respect for them. I should be there

(02:41):
for them in a different way that I couldn't be
there for them in the past. So this commandment still
applies no matter the age that you are. And now
that I'm a dad, I also view this commandment a
little differently than I used to when I wasn't a dad.

(03:05):
In Ephesians chapter six, verses one through four, it says, children,
obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.
Honor your father and mother, that it may go well
with you, and that you may live long in the land. Fathers,
do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them

(03:25):
up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. So yes,
it is commanded that we honor our parents, but we also,
as fathers and as mothers, we are responsible for disciplining

(03:54):
and instructing them to know and father the Lord, and
also to not provoke them to anger. Yes, they should
honor us, and we should honor our parents. However, we
must act in a way that deserves honor respect. Fear So,

(04:22):
as much as this is an instruction on our children,
it is also an instruction on parents to live godly
lives that deserve our children's respect. I have no issue

(04:43):
respecting my seventy year old dad and sixty two year
old mom because they did a great job disciplining me,
instructing me to know Jesus, and they deserve that respect
the way they treated me my entire life, for being

(05:04):
there when I needed them to be there, for being
a great example every single day. And I just wanted
to leave you with this last note. My wife's grandma
passed away a few years ago, and I won't forget

(05:28):
what the priest said at the funeral, and he said this,
when you're little, you need your parents for everything. When
you're a teenager, you think your parents are right about nothing.

(05:49):
You think they know nothing. When you get into your
twenties and thirties, you look to your parents for advice,
for wisdom on how to handle life circumstances or situations.
And then when you're older and your parents have passed on,

(06:11):
you wish you could have one more conversation with them.
If you are as blessed as I am still to
have your parents alive, I just want you to think
about that, and if your parents have passed on, I'm

(06:33):
really sorry, and I hope that you can remember all
of the good memories and the great moments you all
have had together, and that you can remember these conversations.
And this is gonna sound really lame, but there's a

(06:55):
TV show called Boy Meets World, one of my favorite
TV shows of all time. It's like a nineties early
two thousands TV show, and there's a scene during the
show when one of the characters, Eric Matthews, is talking
to his dad, and his dad says something very serious.

(07:19):
He says, you can't rely on me to do everything
for you, because there's going to be a day when
I'm not around, and you're going to have to do
it for yourself. And then Eric thinks about that, and
then he comes to him a little bit later on
in the episode and he says, Dad, you're always going

(07:42):
to be around even if you're not because the things
that you taught me, I'm going to get older and
teach my kids, So you're always going to be around.
So anyway, just some thought what it looks like, what

(08:02):
it means to honor our parents and to also teach
our kids in a way that deserves honor and respect.
Thank you for joining the show today and I hope
this was encouraging for you.