God's Plan for Honour // How to Get More Out of Your Parents, Part 3

It’s an amazing thing – but God places a very high premium on children honouring their parents. And that’s not always easy. I mean for starters – what does “honour” actually mean here in the 21^st century, mm?

I asked my 16 year old daughter Melissa, the other day what she thought the word “honour” means. She immediately responded, "It means obedience." "Mmm," I said, “That's part of it but not the whole lot." "What do you mean?" She asked, "Well," I said, "Your Mum and I honour you, don't we?" She hadn't quite thought of it that way. She looked around the room and said, "You're right, you do."

Honour is a two way thing, parents honour their children by loving them and caring for them and doing things for them and driving them to where they want to go, providing for them. The list is as long as your arm and children are supposed to honour their parents but exactly what does that mean?

We've all heard of the Ten Commandments I guess, it's an interesting list. Moses, in the Old Testament, (you can read about it in the book of Exodus) went up to Mount Sinai and received the Law, the Jewish Law from God. And the Jewish Law is the first five books of the Old Testament; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and there were 613 commandments and prohibitions in the Jewish Law. And I guess the Ten Commandments that Moses received up on Mount Sinai are kind of like an executive summary of all of those 613. You can read the Ten Commandments in Exodus, chapter 20. Now let’s just take a moment to go through the list.

The first commandment is that:

You shall have no other Gods before me.

That’s fair enough.

The second commandment says:

Don't make any idols.

The third one is:

Don't use the Lords name in vain.

And the fourth one is that:

The 7th day, the Sabbath, is a day of rest, and you have to set that apart for the Lord.

Now you think of those first 4 commandments and they're all about our relationship with God. They're about loving and honouring God and resting in Him. Those first 4 commandments define our relationship with Lord our God. Okay, what's the fifth commandment? The very next one is:

Honour your Father and your Mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord has given you.

Isn't that amazing? The very first thing He does after defining our relationship with Him, the very first thing is to say, "Honour your Father and your Mother." And it's the only commandment with a blessing attached to it. "Honour your Father and Mother so that you may live long in the land that the Lord has given to you."

Mmm! And this one comes immediately before the ones that we might consider to be the real biggies.

Don't murder.
Don't commit adultery.
Don't steal.
Don't lie.
Don't be jealous of what your neighbour has.

Do you think that God thinks this is important? There are 613 prohibitions and commandments in the Jewish Law. The executive summary is the Ten Commandments, the first 4 of those is about us and God, number five is about honouring your parents and there's a blessing attached. Mmm, I think God's got it very high on His priority list.

Well, what does it actually mean to honour your parents? Let’s just unpack this commandment, this 5th commandment just a little bit. What does honour your parents actually mean? Well I guess there are 3 dimensions, firstly to prize them highly. If you read Proverbs, chapter 4 and verse 8 it uses this word honour, it says:

Wisdom when sought above everything else and prized more highly than all else will bring honour to its seekers.

You know, as kids often we, I know as a teenager I didn't prize my parents highly, I didn't value them and parents do so much for their children. When the kids, just kind of in their hearts, are grateful and value and prize them that brings honour to the parents. I just wish someone had told me that when I was a teenager.

The second dimension is caring, showing affection for them. If you read psalm 91, verse 15:

God's honouring of individuals is shown by His care in being with them and delivering them from trouble.

You know something I never did as a teenager; I never actually showed affection to my parents. I never actually cared for them, I never actually looked and said, "You know something, my Mum is tired, I might make her a cup of tea." I know when my daughter, Melissa, sometimes she'll say, "Can I make you a cup of tea?" and I think that is SO nice that she sees that I'm tired and that she offers to make me a cup of tea. What is says is she