Sermon Tone Analysis

#. *Who made you?*

What are you like to your parents?

What are you like as a parent, if you are one?

They are some of the questions we need to think about as we come today to the 5th Commandment – honour your father and your mother.

Before we start thinking in detail about it, let’s go back to the beginning.

Your beginning that is.

Who made you?

Each one of us has or had a mother and a father in some shape or form.

Normally they are or were our parents.

But is that really who made you?

David writes in the Bible in Ps 139:13-14 – ‘you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful I know that full well.’

Who is David talking about?

It is God isn’t it?

Ultimately God is the maker of each one of us.

Sure God uses fathers and mothers as his instruments to bring us life, but ultimately he is our maker.

And he makes each one of us in his image.

So who made you?

God did, that’s who.

God in his wisdom and love gave you life!

And that makes you rather special doesn’t it?

#.

*Why did God give us parents?*

Because we are special God cares for us by putting parents in authority over children, although of course ultimately parents are themselves under God’s authority (although sadly in a sinful world this is always seen).

Why does God see parents as important?

3 reasons…

-                          The parent~/child relationship is modelled on God’s own relationship with his children – that’s us.

So in Is 63:16 Isaiah writes ‘you, O Lord are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.’

-                          Secondly, families are needed, as the marriage service reminds us, for the good order of society.

Families are the building blocks of society; in OT family seen as a miniature of the nation of Israel;

-                          And finally, so children can learn what it means to know God.

God sees parents as his representatives to their children.

They are charged by God to bring up their children, so the children will know God’s love, grace and mercy.

While children are indeed seen as a blessing from the Lord, children are not given to parents for their benefit, amusement, pleasure or use or abuse.

Rather parents are there for them, to bring them up in the Lord.

That is our responsibility.)

So parents should provide for them, love them, nurture, instruct and discipline their children, in ways that reflect how God does these things.

ILLN – Here’s a few reflections I found on the internet.

What does a son learn from his father?

Simply: Whether to love women, or hate them.

Whether to take pride in his work, or shrink shamefully from creative endeavour.

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And what does a father learn from his son?

Whether he is capable of warmth and nurturing, or fearful of intimacy.

Whether he is a generous teacher and mentor, or an authoritarian.

A father transmits to his son his vision of what it means to be a man.

A son teaches his father humility.

What does the Bible tell us parents are to do with these children God has given them?

Not necessarily to be friends, but to be parents – to parent their children.

Verses on outline, but just a few now …

Teach them God’s ways – Deut 4:9, 6:2-7, 11:19, 32:46; Ps 78:5; Joel 1:3 – so eg Deut 6:6 – ‘these commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

Impress them on your children.’

Prov 22:6 – train a child in the way he should go

May be times when discipline is needed, loving discipline – so Prov 13:24 – ‘he who loves (his son) is careful to discipline him.’

cf Prov 23:13, 29:15

Interesting that in 1 Tim 5:10 no widow was to be put on the list unless she met certain criteria including being well known or bringing up children.

But we need to parent carefully, especially us fathers.

So Col 3:21 – ‘fathers, do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged.’

Or Eph 6:4 – fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.’

In summary I suggest parents are to bring their children up to know and love the Lord.

#.

*How are children to respond to their parents?*

But it’s not just one way traffic?

How does God want children to respond to parents.

a)      Submissively: Christians are always to respond submissively to the authorities God institutes.

So 1 Pe 2:13 ff – Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men, which goes on to include the king, governors, masters, husbands; and I would take it parents.

b)      Obediently: Eph 6:1 – ‘children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.’

Or Col 3:20 – children, obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord.’

This is the ideal, but what will happen in a sinful world?

Rom 1:30 sinful people disobey their parents; 2 Tim 3:2 – in the last days people will be disobedient to their parents;  and for Christian parents in some countries it may be as Jesus says in Mark 13:12 – children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.

c)      Lovingly – so 1 Tim 5:8 – ‘if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for his immediate family he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

d)      Respectfully – so in 1 Tim 3:4 the overseer must ‘manage his own family well, and see that his children obey him with proper respect.’

a)      Which leads us on to Commandment #5

Ex 20:12 ‘Honour your father and your mother’

First of second bracket of commandments.

First 4 focussed on duty to God, these last 6 look at our duty to other people.

You may remember Jesus sums up these 6 commandments as ‘love your neighbour as yourself’.

What does it mean?

b)      What does it mean?

a.       Firstly we need to remember the context.

God’s word comes to all Israel, and primarily those of age.

The adults who have come out of Egypt.

We tend to think of it as young children, but it is more likely I think to be adults in view; caring for their older parents.

Esp in subsistence culture, with no government pensions or dole, etc.

I wonder whether we apply it only to our children and the way they treat us, so we can avoid our own responsibilities and obligations

            ILLN – so many stories of mature adults shunting their parents off to a nursing home because they want freedom.

May be a good thing, many nursing homes and so on do a  fantastic job, and offer care that we cannot provide at home.

But.

We need to look at our hearts, our motives.

Eg what to do with my dad.

Eg Gill’s mum in Canberra – would she move, as a widow with 4 kids?

We then are to honour our parents.

b.

And we need to remember that God takes this seriously.

Wilful disrespect of parents lead to the death penalty – so in Ex 21:15, 17 – ‘anyone who attacks his father or his mother must be put to death.

And ‘anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’

(cf Deut 21:18-21)

            ILLN – I read that in 1971, President KoBassa of the Central African Republic honoured Mother’s Day by rounding up all the men who were in jail for committing crimes against their mothers.

Then he executed them.

Why so serious?

i.

God’s word – disobey God’s word is to dishonour God

                                                                         ii.