Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Amen. Father, we ask that we would understand the profundity of these words, of this fifth word, and that, Father, we would take heed to how we are called to honor our father and our mother, our parents, Father, and by extension, all authority, and Father, of course, especially to honor you, that, Father, we would not only understand the depth of our obligation, but also, Lord, do your word and do this commandment. Father, however imperfectly, Lord, that we would seek to obey you and live in the way of your commandments for you promise life and blessing to all who do. Hear us for these things in Jesus' name, amen. You can't tell me what to do. You can't tell me what to do. This is the dominant attitude. This is the dominant action of our hearts and of our society. Our society and our heart have a certain kind of anarchy built into them because we have rejected God's law. Satan, if you think about this, Satan was the first revolutionary in the Garden of Eden who said, well, even before the Garden of Eden in heaven, before he was cast out, he tasked away God's authority from his life and all the fallen angels did as well. And as a result, he fell from his glory and he led us, he instigated our disobedience and our fall from God's glory. And so we have followed Satan ever since. This primeval revolutionary. And all of mankind, every person, whether they be old or young, from the earliest days of their existence, carries within them a revolutionary fire that would consume us and would destroy the world. So we need to realize what we're talking about here in terms of, again, broad principles in terms of God's law. If God's law is good, and if God's law is wise and right, and if his law is his divine design, and it is all of those things, If God's law is what God made us for in the beginning, if God's law is what God is remaking us for in Christ, if God's law is how we're reconciled to God and to neighbor, how we're made whole and complete, if God's law is the only way to live, what does this then mean for you in the fifth commandment? It means that we are called by God to live in submission to God by submitting to our parents, by submitting to our father and our mother from our earliest days. And even as older children, we are called, maybe not to obey them, right? We're adults, we have our own lives, we have our own families, but we are nevertheless called to honor, to love, and to be faithful to our parents. And this obligation doesn't cease. It doesn't cease when we leave the house or when we get married or when they get older and sick. No, we are obligated to our father and to our mother, both equally, our mother and our father, our father and our mother, all the days of our lives. And we're gonna see that. We're even obligated to them even after they die. All right, more on that in a moment. Not only are we called to live in submission to God by submitting to our parents, by honoring, loving, and being faithful to them. We'll talk about what each of those means in a moment. But by submitting to those authorities that God has established over us. Of course, we begin with our parents. That's right, good, and proper. But it's really all authorities, whether it be the police, civil government, our teachers, authorities in the church, the pastor, the elders, and so on and so forth. To reject human authority is to reject God, because as the Heidelberg Catechism says, quoting Romans 13, by their hand, God wills, in some translations of the Heidelberg, it says, God is pleased to rule over us. Conversely, we are accursed of God if we curse our parents. Proverbs says this very clearly in Proverbs 20. God will snuff out your light if you curse your father and your mother. But what's the blessing when we follow God? When we do His commandments as believers, long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. These are, of course, signs and seals of a material blessing. I'm sorry, this is a material blessing that is a sign and seal of an eternal life that is promised to God's people, right? In any given Christian's life, they may or may not live a long life, but in a very real sense, in an ultimate sense, they do live an eternal life, an eternal life, a life of communion with God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in that new creation that He will bring on the last day. That's really the way to read every kind of material blessing in the Old Testament. It's a sign and seal of something spiritual that is of eternal life. Three points then. Parental authority, all authority, and then training in obedience. So, parental authority. What does God require that we do with our parents? That we would honor, that we would love, that we would be faithful to our mother and our father. To honor means to recognize their weightiness. Honor in Hebrew is Kabod, which is translated both as weight and glory. C.S. Lewis' book, The Weight of Glory, is a play on the Hebrew. We are to honor them by recognizing their significance. Children, your parents are not insignificant. You can't ever despise your mother, your father. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you disagree with them. It doesn't matter if you're having a bad day. You can't stick your tongue out and reject them. No, you're called to honor them. You're called to treasure your mother and your father. You are called to esteem them highly, respect them to the uttermost. You are, as we get older, guard their reputations, defend them always, and never ignore them or treat them as insignificant. You are to honor them because that, children, adults, teenagers, is what you owe your father and your mother. You are to love, not just honor, but to love them. You are to be affectionate to your mother and your father. Love, of course, is an action. It's a verb. You are to sacrifice. You are to be self-sacrificial. You are to, in many ways, serve them. You are to be inclined to them. You are not to be cold or detached or cruel. You are to love them. They are to have, in many ways, after God, and then later on, if God is pleased to bring you a spouse, for those of us who are married, we know that our spouses, that marital relationship is the most important human relationship we have. But after that, you are to esteem highly and love your father and your mother. It's one of the most important relationships that you can ever have here on Earth. And then, of course, you are to be faithful to them. You are to be loyal to them. You are not to betray them, but there is a sense of glue, of adherence. You are to stick close to them, not be consumeristic, right, and think that you can dispense with your parents. No, you only get one mother. You only get one father. And you are to be faithful to them even when they're older, even when they get sick, even perhaps if they are difficult to deal with. Proverbs 23, 22 says, listen to your father who gave you life and do not despise your mother when she is old. So interesting, in scripture, we're obligated to our parents even when they pass from this life into eternity. We are to speak well of them. We are to speak well of our father and of our mother. Joseph, in the book of Genesis, said to his children, he obligated them. He said, you are to carry my bones into Canaan. You are not to leave me here and leave me buried here in Egypt. This isn't the promised land. You are to take my bones into Canaan. They were obliged to their ancestor, even after many hundreds of years of him being dead. You are to care. for their dead bodies and for their reputations. We are to honor, to love, and to be faithful to our father and to our mother. And of course, it's not hard to understand why. It's not hard to understand why God commands us to honor, to love, and to be faithful to our father and to our mother. Look at Hosea chapter 11. Hosea is after Daniel, after the major prophets in the Old Testament, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, and then comes Hosea, Hosea chapter 11. Hosea uses a lot of domestic familial language in his book, and notice what he says in Hosea chapter 11. In some copies of your Bible, it's page 757. This is what God says, when Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt, I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. Of course, this is God revealing to us in the imagery of father to child, father to son, his relationship to Israel. God is comparing himself to a father, but his comparison only makes sense when we understand all that a father and a mother do for their children. Right? This is an argument that God is using from the least to the greater. Right? As fathers care for their children, so Yahweh has cared for you to an infinite degree. Father and mother are not dispensable. You cannot switch them out for new ones. They gave birth to you. They begot you. They fed you. They clothed you. Your father and your mother taught you how to walk, how to read, how to sit at the table, how to speak, how to think. They taught you right from wrong. They taught you manners. In many ways, because of the fall into sin and disobedience, we begin as little barbarians. Our parents civilized us. And more than this, if you had Christian parents, they taught you God's word. They showed you Jesus from the Bible, and they showed you Jesus in their lives. They taught you how to pray. They connected God's word to your life, and they connected your life to God's word. They brought you to worship. Every Sunday, they exposed you to the Christian faith, however corrupted or perverted that may have been. In other words, they nurtured you in love. They brought you into this world for, crying out loud, your DNA is half of your father and half of your mother's. So what do you owe your father and your mother? You owe them your life, humanly speaking. You owe them, in the words of the catechism, your honor, your love, and your faithfulness. This is how we are to consider and think about and treat our parents. This is how we are to live under their parental authority. But secondly, in scripture, parental authority is representative of God's authority and every authority God establishes over us. You think of all the different aspects of authority, different kinds of authority structures we have in this world. Husbands leading their wives in marriage. Pastors and elders leading the church. You have supervisors at work. You have teachers at school. You have the police. You have civil government in public civil society. Love, honor, faithfulness. Notice what the Catechism says is what you owe your father and mother and all those in authority over you. This is what you owe all those who lead you. Of course, this is expressed in a different sense, in different forms, in different spheres, right? The way we treat the police is not, of course, the way we treat and honor and love and be faithful to our parents. And yet, in a certain sense, it is the same responsibility. We need to clarify here why God uses parental authority as a template, as a model. God uses parental authority as a template to understand other human authority, not because it's the most important, right? A lot of times we kind of fall into that trap or maybe even thinking in terms of the cult of the family. You can easily think of many other instances where other authority structures supersede the parent-child relationship. For instance, husband and wife. A newly married husband and wife are not anymore, they don't anymore belong to their parents, but they belong to each other. The natural family, we're told in the Gospels, when it's hostile to Christ, to the kingdom of God, to the spiritual family of the church, is subordinate to Christ and must give way to Christ and the church. So we don't subscribe to the cult of the family, right? Family above all. My parents above all. We don't worship our ancestors. No, God uses parental authority as a template to understand human authority because the parent-child relationship is the first structure we enter into. It's the first authority structure we learn and we grow up in to be born is to enter into a family, into an authority structure of father, mother, or some other kind of guardian. The parent-child relationship is the most important relationship in the early years of a person's development because it is the training ground that teaches us how to relate as we get older to authority in human society, to authority at school, to authority at work, to authority in the church, to authority in society, to God himself, to his divine authority. And when a parent-child relationship is off, so much of life will go wrong. I'm sure adults, men and women here, brothers and sisters, you've seen this. For you who are teachers, you've seen this, I'm sure. Show me a boy or girl who refuses to pay attention or follow directions at school, who acts the fool, and I will show you a child who acts the same way towards their parent at home and worse. It's oftentimes a mystery why a child at school acts a certain way until you meet their parents, right? Until you meet their mom or their dad. Many times they don't have a father presence. Show me a Christian who struggles with submitting to elders in the church, and I will show you someone who had a tumultuous relationship with their father or mother at some formative period in their life. Show me a criminal who does not care and who has disregard for human life, who can just so coldly shoot others. And I will show you a person, usually a man, not a woman, usually a man who was taught from the earliest years to hate authority. Conversely, show me a Christian who had an absentee abusive father and I will show you a Christian who struggles to understand the fatherhood of God. How God is Father, how he is, yes, all-powerful, but he's also all-good. He's not only all-knowing, but he is also wise, just, and merciful. When you have a parent-child relationship that is off, you see, So much of life goes wrong. And that's why God says to honor your father and mother, that it would go well with you, that you may live a long life in the land that God has given you. Because as you treat your father and mother, so you will treat others in society, in the workplace, in the church, so you will relate well or poorly to other human authorities that God has established over you. So, how then, thirdly, are we to be trained in our obedience? How then are we to live? We are to honor, love, and be faithful to parents, and by extension, all those in authority over us. But, as the Catechism goes on to say, two things, we are to submit with proper obedience to all their good teaching and discipline, and secondly, we are to be patient with their failings, for God is pleased to rule us by them. We are to submit, first of all, with proper obedience to all their good teaching and discipline. The pedagogy of our parents is not just inclusive of words they speak, right, their instruction, but it includes discipline. It includes punishment. It includes correction. It includes chastening when you break what they say, when you break their directives. And this is true not only of parental authority, but this is true of other human authority, obviously, Other human authorities don't spank us, right? But they discipline us, they chasten us in other ways. Note what it says, we are to submit with proper obedience, with proper obedience. Proper because it's warranted, proper because it's good. Proper means from the heart, joyfully, completely, without delay. but we are to submit to all their good teaching and discipline, right? Good is the operative word here. Those in authority have an obligation to make sure their teaching is good, that their discipline is good. Parents, your teaching and your discipline must be good. It may not be unjust. It may not be cruel. It may not be arbitrary or whimsical, right? You make up rules, you make up punishments kind of out of the whim, or because you're angry, or you're in a bad mood, or because you were embarrassed in public by your children. No. Ephesians 6, Colossians 3 makes clear, fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, that which God reveals in his word is what we are to do. Other translations of Ephesians 6, Colossians 3 say, do not exasperate your children lest they become discouraged. Our teaching and our discipline must be spiritually sound. It must be morally straight. And even if it's a familial custom, it ought to have some sense to it. Our families are full of customs, full of traditions, full of different things that are kind of house rules, right? And your children can't say to you, well, show me in the Bible where it says I have to clean up my room before dinner at 6 p.m. There's no law in the Bible that says that, but it's a familial custom. And it's coherent, it's reasonable, and it's connected with the rest of what Scripture teaches with the rest of your family life. So if you have house rules, make sure there's a principle behind them from Scripture, that they are informed by what is good and not by what is unjust or cruel or arbitrary. Submit with proper obedience to all their good teaching and discipline. But secondly, be patient with their failings. Look at Proverbs chapter 30 verse 11 through 13 here. Proverbs 30 verse 11 through 13. Proverbs 30 verse 11. There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers. There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth. There are those, how lofty are their eyes, how high their eyelids lift. Look at verse 17 of Proverbs 30. The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures. Those eyes that are haughty, those eyes that are proud, that countenance that despises father and mother will be judged, God says. And in our generation, isn't this one of the perennial sins that we find? We know better. than our parents. We are better than our parents. Our parents didn't have what we have. We know it all. And we will do better than they. And yet God says how proud we are. We have committed the sin of patricide. We love killing off our fathers and our mothers. We curse our forefathers. We treat them with discontentment and contempt. We dishonor them. It's a common sin in society. It's a common sin within the church to kill off our fathers and mothers in order to gain fame, in order to make a name for myself, in order to become my own man. And yet God says, what? Be patient with the failings. of those in authority over you, be patient with the failings of your father and mother. Do not lift up your eyes, do not lift up your countenance against them. We may think we know better, but do we? We may think that we are superior to them, but are we? Listen, did you know that God never commands you to submit to sinless people. Did you know that? Did you know that God, in other words, will always place you under the authority of sinners? To add insult to injury, did you know that God commands you to submit to people who may be morally inferior to you, who may be spiritually more deficient than you. They may even be younger than you. They may even be more inexperienced than you. So what are you going to do? Will you not submit until they become perfect? Will you not submit to your parents' children until they're more righteous than you? Will children not submit to father and mother? Will wives not submit to their husband? Will a Christian not submit to pastor and elders? Will a worker not submit to their boss, right? Will we not submit to our governing authorities in civil society until they become better than us? God calls us to submit to sinners. Calvin says, and I'm paraphrasing, if God would have wanted us to be ruled by perfect creatures, he would have sent his angels to rule over us. And so this is a word not only for those who lead, but for those who are called to follow. For those who are called to follow, your leaders, you need to know, have failings. Your mother and your father, when you get older, you start realizing, oh, wow, of sinners that they were. Wow. Yeah. Duh. But your leaders, your parents, your boss, your pastor, your elders, the governing authorities in civil society, people just like you, they're fallen and in need of grace. So what are you called to do? To be patient with them. To pray for those in authority over you. to still honor, to love, and to be faithful to them, to your parents, your mother, your father. They weren't perfect. They may have even been cruel. They might still even be abusive. And yet, you need to discern, you need to be wise. How can I still honor them? How can I still love them? How can I still be faithful to them? of course, need to preserve myself. I don't want to put myself in a place where I'm going to be harmed or injured physically or spiritually or emotionally, and yet I'm still called to honor, to love, to be faithful to them. You're called to be someone who is patient with the failings of those who lead you. This is a word for those for all of us who are called to follow authority because that's true of all of us. We're all in one way or another followers under the authority of some human authority. But this is also a word for those of us who are called to lead by God, for those of us who have been placed in authority over others, husbands, parents, mothers over your children, pastor, elders, over the church, teachers, anyone in authority, we have failings. You need to recognize that. I have failings as a pastor. You have failings as someone in authority. And you sin, and you need the grace of God. And you need to realize that you sin not just generically, but particularly in your calling, in your vocation, in your office. Right? As a pastor, I can sin in a way that no one else can who's not a pastor can. Right? I can sin from the pulpit. I can be angry. I could say things I shouldn't say. Mothers, you can sin as mothers, and you do. Your sins are not unique to others, but to you, husbands. Your sins are unique to you. Wives can't sin in the way you can. Single men can't sin in the way that you can. The sins of company managers are not unique to those lower down in the workplace hierarchy. What we need to know is that when we lead, we can sin. We fail. We fall short of God's standard in one of two ways. We can either be cruel or we can be indulgent. We can abuse our authority. We can be overbearing. We can micromanage. We can go beyond the limits of our authority. Or we can abdicate. We can become indulgent. We can abdicate our authority. We can refuse to step up when we need to. We can delegate too quickly. We can neglect our vineyards. People of God, we need the grace of God. For any in authority, we should be moved to cry out to God, oh Lord, have mercy on me. Husbands, cry out to God, say, Lord, have pity on me. And have pity on my wife. Have pity on my children. I say to God, have pity on this congregation. You have to live with me. You have to live with my eccentricities, with my sins, with me. Have pity on my workers if you lead or supervise others. Have pity on my classroom if you teach others. Have pity on my children, mothers. This is to be your prayer. We need the grace of God to help us, to bear us up, to fill those cracks in our lives where we are broken. And we need to look to Jesus, who led with humility and not only led with humility, but he learned, we're told in Hebrews 5.8, for our sake, to submit to the Father with humility. Hebrews 5.8, although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. Christ was loved by his Father, and yet Hebrews 12 tells us he was disciplined by his Father. Although he was sinless, loved by the Father, disciplined by the Father and submitted himself to the Father and now leads his people to do the same. May God help us. May God give us his transforming grace and his strength to lead with humility and to submit with humility as is proper unto the Lord. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, easier said than done, help us, we pray, Father, help us where we have fallen short. Lord, and we ask that you would create in us new obedience. Father, a love and honor, faithfulness and loyalty, fidelity to our earthly father and mother. Father, we only get one. Father, we only get one mother. And even now, Lord, we pray that you would grant us such disposition that pleases you in our hearts and in our minds. And that, Father, not only being well disposed to our earthly parents, that, Father, we would also be well disposed to all those who govern us and have authority over us. That, Lord, we would submit with all proper obedience to their good teaching and discipline, that we would be patient with their failings. And that, Father, for those of us who do lead and are called to authority, that Lord, we would recognize our shortcomings, recognize our sins, recognize our failures and our failings. And Father, bind us together and make us one in Christ. We ask these things now in Jesus' name, amen.