Children

So today is our last sermon, uh, in the sermon series Family Ties. It's always bittersweet because I love these sermon bumper videos, and so that was the last time you will ever see that again.

Um, but we will conclude our time together in this series with Children—what it means to be daughters and sons and what it means to honor our parents. And I know, I think 99% of you guys are 18 and older, and so you might be thinking, "Well, this doesn't apply to me." Everything about this sermon applies to you, and I think you'll see that as we go through this sermon today.

So today we're talking about children, and the main passage will be from Exodus chapter 20, verse 2. Exodus chapter 20, verse 2. Oh, and then lastly, as a pastor, I want to just encourage you—please come join us for morning prayer, and so it will be this Friday at 6 am upstairs.

And I know, I noticed that people clapped, right? They're like, "Yes!" It’s those people that don't come, right? They're like, "Yes! You guys go right, enjoy it. I'm going to be sleeping in bed." And for those that do come—hopefully you're blessed when you do come. So please, please come join us as we pray for ourselves, for our families, and for our church and our nation.

Alright, so though we are going to focus on just one verse, let me tighten this... I might need that mic. Yes, that mic would be good.

Okay, so though we're going to focus on just one verse this morning, this verse is actually one of the Ten Commandments that we're most familiar with. It's going to have a profound and deep meaning for what it means to be children. It's going to be more than just cleaning our room or remembering our parents' birthdays. It’s going to have an eternal impact that’s going to reverberate not just for our lives here on Earth, but for all of eternity.

Now, these seem very out of place at first reading though; if you actually read from Exodus chapter 20, the Ten Commandments, right? Because if you actually look at the Ten Commandments, all of them kind of make sense. The first four commandments are about God—our vertical relationship with God: loving God, honoring God, worshiping God, not having idols before God. So that makes sense.

And then, actually, there's six after and then five of them make sense too because we need to love God and to love others, right? In the greater community, so what does that mean to honor and love our community at large so that we can honor God and love God? So all of that makes sense, but then right smack dab in the middle of all of that, there's this very personal and family-centric commandment, and that's commandment number five, and that commandment is to honor our father and mother—our parents.

So you have the first four: honoring, loving God, worshiping God—that makes sense. And then you have the five: you know, what does it mean to honor and love the community so that we can honor and love God? But then you have right in the middle honoring our parents.

In God's wisdom and providence, He’s actually elevated a command about honoring our mother and our father to one of the highest places in the whole Bible. I think we, as a society, don't really understand the significance of that because we think, especially in American culture, once we're 18, what happens? We're adults. So we think that our honoring, respecting, and obeying parents is over. That’s kind of how society communicates to us.

And that's why, even I shared this a couple weeks ago, our daughter turned 18 on October 1st, and she was like, “Appa, give me my own Apple account!” Because we all shared it. “I don’t want you to look at my pictures without my permission!” She was giving me a hard time, and I'm like, “I’m paying for this mortgage! Right? Do you want to still live here?”

So even in her mind, she’s like, “I’m an adult now, so my relationship with you is radically going to change.” But the Bible communicates that that's not necessarily how God intended it to be.

And how do we know? Because the order of the commandments tells us that, right? The first commandment out of the ten is about—this is what it says—"Have no other gods before me." Have no other gods before me. So this is foundational for our relationship with God. We have to love and honor God above all things, above anyone.

And then He goes on—how do we do that? How do we do that? And then the fifth commandment, before we talk about the other five commandments about how we’re supposed to love and honor and respect the larger community, God says in the first commandment of the horizontal relationships that we’re supposed to have with others, and He says this: "Honor your father and your mother."

Why? Because this is foundational to the functioning of relationships in society. It all starts with that principle and truth, so it comes ahead of "You shall not murder," "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not lie," "Steal,"—it comes before any of those.

So learning how then to relate to others, including those in authority, begins at the home in our relationship with our parents. For a while, especially when we’re young, our parents stand in for God. They are pseudo-gods for us for a time, right? Their word is final authority. So if—for example, my son wanted to have a sleepover last night, his friend's parents said yes, but who has the final authority in my son's life? We do.

So even though everyone said yes, if we say no, we are a god to him—he cannot go. And that's not just in the area of sleepovers, but in all areas. For a time, especially when we're infants to toddlers to adolescent teenage years, that’s more the case that our parents stand in for God.

So in the home is where we learn about authority, about respect, about honor, and about responsibility. It’s where we first learn right from wrong and where we first feel what it is to be valued, cherished, and loved unconditionally, and it’s where we feel safety and security. This is how important it is.

Of course, a lot of what we're going to see up here is about how children can honor parents, but parents, as we’re raising our children, this is the mindset and framework by which we are supposed to lead our children. They don’t know these things; they don’t know that we are God to them, but we want to be friends with them more than this authority figure that God has ordained and given us the privilege to have.

And because of that, all hell's breaking loose! Your relationship with your parents has a profound impact on how you view God and others, especially people in authority and institutions that are over us.

So you see, the family is the fundamental unit of society, and if it is healthy and intact, the community will be healthy and intact. And that’s why—what does Satan do? Now he’s attacking the family. Do you guys notice that? He’s attacking marriage—he’s redefining marriage, what marriage really is. He’s defining what it means for parents to be parents over their children, what it means for children to honor parents.

We just got to note that because our daughter is now 13, the hospital sent this to us—that we don’t have rights to see certain information about her. So if she wants to seek certain treatments, we have no right to say yes or no to that. That’s scary.

And so little things like that—was actually a big thing—like that is Satan, Satan trying to subvert God’s ordained order of the family unit, especially when it comes to parents and children. And this is why, as children to our parents, we are called to honor them because of the great impact it has not only on a personal level but on a community level, as a nation and as a country as well.

So much so that disobedience to it was actually considered a capital offense! Do you guys know that? The people of God were to take the commandments so seriously that public and open disobedience of children to parents was to bring more than a timeout or more than just a cursory “go to your room and think about what you just did.”

No, look what it says in Exodus 21:17: "Whoever curses his father or mother shall be put to death." Some parents were like taking notes for the first time: “Let me share this with my kids after church.”

Look what it says in Romans chapter 1—you might be thinking, “But that’s Old Testament! Come on, God didn’t really mean that!” Okay, let’s go to the New Testament: Romans chapter 1, verses 28-30. Paul’s listing out all the things that lead to hell—all these egregious and grievous sins.

So let's read it together: "And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness."

You’re like, “Woo! I am so glad I’m not on that list!” But look what it says: "They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil." And then look what it says: "Disobedient to parents."

Hey, um, so what did you do? “I murdered; I, you know, burglary!” All these things. "What did you do?" “I didn’t clean my room; I disobeyed my parents! I didn’t eat my vegetables!” Everyone would laugh. But God's not laughing; He put this there! Isn't this fascinating? Disobedient to parents—this is serious! Maybe not to the world, but in the eyes of God, and He lists it with murderers! It says here, with strife, deceitfulness, maliciousness, malice, covetousness, evil.

So let me ask, who would still be here this morning if Exodus 21:17 were in place? This would be an empty room, right? I wouldn’t be here either, and that’s why we have the grace of God. We have the grace of God.

And so as we learn to honor and respect our parents in this or in our homes, what happens is we learn to honor and respect other people who will be in authority over us at school, at church, you know, in our workplace—even in our families.

And we talked about there is hierarchy even in our families. And so society only works well if people are prepared to submit to appropriate authority, and we first learn how to do this in the home by honoring our parents.

So I want you to—there are a lot of 18, 19, 20-year-olds here, and then we have much older here. This applies to all of us. I don’t want older people to think, “Well, this doesn’t apply to me!” No, I think it applies to us especially now in our old age because I think I disrespect my mother more than ever because now that I’m 49 and my mother’s 82, I think I know better than her, that I know more than her. And because I am more powerful than her, I have more income than her, I have more influence than her—she no longer has the respect or authority over me as she did when I was 10.

And God says, “John, you are forsaken, brother!” And so we’ve been humbled greatly, actually, these past few years.

For the old and for the young, this applies to all of us. The same! Amen!

And so with all that being said, it’s just going to be one verse. If you can stand with me for the reading of God’s word, this is from Exodus 20:2.

Exodus 20:2— the fifth commandment says this: "Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you." Amen! This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may have your seats.

So the first point I want to make for us this morning is this: by honoring our parents, we show respect to God’s institution for family and we give dignity to our parents.

Okay, so by honoring our parents, there are two things that happen: we show respect to God’s institution for family, and we give dignity to our parents. Now you may be asking yourself, "What does this actually mean? What does it mean to honor our parents? What does that look like?"

Does it mean we always do what they say? Once again, 99% of the people here are of legal age—we’re adults! Doesn't mean we have to do everything that they say. Now, do we have to obey them as if we were still kids for all time? What if they don’t approve of who I want to marry or what I want to do with my life or how we’re rearing our children? What does honoring mean in these situations?

So I want you to first notice the command here. What does it say? Honor! Right? So it says honor—which is not obey. But if you actually go to Ephesians chapter 6, it says "Children, obey your parents.”

Okay, but there is a difference here. So we can argue that honor includes obey, which I think it does, but we should not limit it to only mean obey—it’s very nuanced, it’s multi-layered. So I think honoring does include obedience but not only obedience and not for all times. We’ll talk more about that, but we should always try to obey our parents because that shows honor.

But as our relationship with our parents change and as we become more autonomous and as we move more towards independence, there might be times when obeying our parents might not be in line with obeying God because obeying God is number one, and it might not be what's best for us and our family.

But honor for our parents is always expected, even though obedience will look different for each family. But honor is required and is expected for all children to their parents.

So in other words, when you live at home as a child, you obey them, right? You obey them. Even if you think they’re wrong—you obey them! “I don't want to eat this!” No—you obey! “I don’t like to eat at 5:00 p.m.” You obey them! “I don’t want to sleep at 9:30!” You obey them.

And then for the rest of our lives, as we get older, as we get more independent—like my mom doesn’t tell me when to sleep or what to eat—so my obedience looks different. But we are to honor and respect them and to show them dignity for all the days of their lives.

I know many of us are thinking that they don’t deserve our honor and respect, right? Some of you guys are thinking, “My parents? If you only knew my parents—if you only knew how selfish they were, how abusive they were—maybe not physically, but emotionally, mentally. If you only knew what I had to endure! Now that I’m 18 and I have my own life and my own family, I don’t want anything to do with them.”

You may be thinking how your parents are maybe even now still bad and manipulative and controlling. And even if these things are true of your parents, we can still trust God and respect the institution our parents represent.

You might be thinking, “Pastor, that’s easy for you to say because you’re a pastor!” No, I’ve shared with you that my family was completely broken. I haven’t shared this, but I feel like God’s timing is perfect, so I will.

I’ve been estranged from my dad for about 14 years—never heard one thing about him or from him. And that wasn’t our choice; it was his choice. They divorced then, and then he remarried. I heard bits and pieces from others. He wasn’t the best father; he was there physically, but not there emotionally, mentally, spiritually.

And then three weeks ago, I hear that he passed away. And then the first thoughts that came to my mind weren’t how bad of a dad he was, but how bad of a son I was and that I wish I could have done all this. So even though it was true of my dad—and I’m sure of many of your parents—no, we are called to truly, truly trust God, even though it’s hard, even though we don’t want to, even though our parents are undeserving.

That we’re trusting and respecting the institution that our parents represent, which means we don’t always have to approve or condone everything that they do. We don’t have to always submit to what they tell us, especially if it will be detrimental or not in our best interest.

And we can certainly not allow them to dominate or control us or abuse us, but we can still show a level of respect to the office they hold.

And because when we honor our parents, ultimately, we are showing honor to God behind our parents. We’re showing honor to God behind our parents.

And that’s why we can say the things that we say: "Husbands, die to your wives." Why? Because the God that we love and trust—hopefully, our good, good Father is the God of our wife. Even though our wife might not be worthy of dying for, we do.

And wives, submitting to your husbands—your husbands might be knuckleheads—most likely knuckleheads. I’ve heard that! You don’t know my husband—God does! And God’s behind your husband!

And so ultimately, all of these things we do because we’re honoring God behind your husbands, wives, and even our parents.

So this means that we never age out of honoring our parents just because we graduate high school, just because we graduate college, or because we get married. It doesn’t mean that this stops applying to us.

This applies to us even more, I believe. And the biblical commands and biblical examples show that we should honor our parents into old age, into old age. Granted, our relationship to them and their direct authority over our lives will change as we become adults.

We see this in one instance as Jesus confronted the Pharisees. Remember, Jesus was about 33, but he lo, Joseph—scholars believe he passed away—that’s why he isn’t mentioned again after, you know, in the beginning of the gospels, the Christmas narrative. But he honored his mother greatly.

Remember when Jesus is dying on the cross? He’s almost breathing his last. What does he do? Does he think about his life and “woe is me, I can’t believe this is happening to me?” No, he looks at John and says, “John, this is now your mother; take care of her.” In his last moments on Earth.

And before Jesus goes to the cross, he actually confronts the Pharisees. You see, as a group, they were so obsessed about keeping the law. They were so obsessed about being Pharisees. They were so obsessed about doing the right things, that they actually forgot to do the most important thing, and that was to honor their parents.

So they were honoring everyone and everything else except for their parents! And so God doesn’t say, “Okay, you do everything right, so this is fine.” No, Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees how they were disobeying the fifth commandment while at the same time saying they were honoring God.

Look what it says in Matthew 15: 4-6: “For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.” But you say, “If anyone tells his father or his mother, ‘What you would have gained from me is given to God,’ he need not honor his father.”

So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. Basically, what was happening was they were making an excuse: “I am serving God and the church; I’m giving so much to God in the church that I don’t have time to honor my parents; I don’t have time to give them yon—yon is like allowance—to make sure that they’re financially taken care of. I don’t have time to visit them even though they’re visiting people in the hospitals and babies being born.

They’re visiting them, they’re doing all these things while neglecting their parents! And Jesus says that’s not how it should be.

It says here, “So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God.”

So here are a few then practical ways to make sure that we don’t void the word of God in our lives. And this is so important because, yes, we want to love our wives and our spouses well, and our children well, and serve in the church well, but it doesn’t have to be an either/or—it can be a both/and, amen?

That’s what we—never, I don’t know what this idea is that we leave and cleave, right? That yes, you leave, you know, your identity as the only child, and now you have to cleave to your... but you don’t leave your parents. You leave that season of your life, but you still honor them.

And so these are some practical ways that we can honor our parents.

One, listen to their counsel and wisdom. My mom is not college educated; you know I have a college degree, a master’s degree. I’ve read probably more books than she could ever not have read, but she is still filled with wisdom. She has street cred. You know, I say like she was a gangster in a very endearing type of way.

And so even now, she gives me beautiful insight and wisdom that I can't glean from books or other men or women my age or younger. There’s something about, you know, a woman in her 80s that has gone through what she’s gone through, and she shares so much wisdom that I’m so appreciative of.

And maybe not sometimes, but be open to hearing and considering their perspectives—honor their experience and wisdom, especially when they share advice for your well-being. Our tendency is like, “What do we... yeah, yeah, okay, okay, whatever” and we roll our eyes. No, but seriously, genuinely listen to their counsel and wisdom. Even as adults, we should consider their counsel seriously, though it doesn’t mean that we always have to do what they say.

Secondly, express gratitude, appreciation, and thanks. Don’t just assume that they know because they don’t. I call my mom a lot. I tell her I love her and then a week and a half goes by, and I don't call her, and she thinks I’ve adopted another mother! Right? “You don’t call me! You don’t love me! How dare you?!”

Parents are very forgetful of our love and appreciation for them, and so instead of reviling them for it, just remind them of it regularly! Thank your parents for their sacrifices, for their care, for their support.

Simple gestures like saying "thank you," remembering their anniversaries and birthdays can go a long way and make your parents feel loved and appreciated.

This might be the most difficult, but this is something that I want to share, especially as an Asian community—many of us need to forgive our parents.

You see, the reason many of us can’t forgive our parents is because we’ve made an idol out of them. And I know you’re thinking, “What? I hate my parents! I don’t respect my parents! What does that even mean?”

And what I mean by that is we made an idol out of them in that we demanded from them what we can only receive from God. And because we haven’t received the things that we can only receive from God, we have bitterness, and we hold a grudge, we blame everything that goes wrong on them—that who we are. My anger issues, my selfishness, my complacency, my shortsightedness—it's because of my parents!

And so you live with so much hatred and anger and victimization mentality. And so then our parents—on the—and I want to validate, like all of that might be true. That they probably did truly hurt us, and they will continue to hurt us and disappoint us, but they were only a temporary and a fallen shadow of God.

Only God will never disappoint! Only God will never hurt! Only God will never do things out of selfishness! In Him and Him alone will we find the tenderness and affirmation that we’ve always craved from our parents.

And that’s why, you know, as I mentioned, we had a broken family—my parents were not the best of parents—but I hope that you know that I respect them and love them. That’s why I don’t usually share anything disparaging, any details because ultimately the hatred that I had for them God replaced with this forgiveness.

And that’s why I’ve said many times they did what they could with what they knew. And what I wanted so much from my parents, I found in God. And so because God is perfect in His parenting of me, though my parents fell awfully short, I could honor them and bless them and try to love them to the best of my ability.

And so we are not going to be healthy; we’re not going to be able to free ourselves from bitterness, and we're going to continue to blame everything on our parents unless we can find and long for all of these things that we’ve sought in our parents and realize they can only be found in Jesus—amen?

Only in Jesus. And in that is the miracle of grace; in that is the miracle of forgiveness. So then when you look at your parents, you don’t see all the things that they’ve done wrong. You see your parents, and then all the bitterness, grudge, hurt, pain.

I’m not going to say it melts away, but it’s not at the forefront of your mind always so that you can forgive and love them. A lot of you need to maybe for the first time or in a long time forgive your parents.

And then lastly, we can honor our parents by caring for them in their old age. And you might be thinking, “Well, yeah, I do that!” But I think there’s so much more than just financial care.

Man, you know what angers me the most in my old age? Here I have friends and even family members—they do such a good job! They’re good citizens, good deacons and elders, even pastors—horrible, horrible children to their parents! Horrible! They allow the government to take care of them, you know, other family members to take care of them, even the church to take care of them, and they do the bare minimum.

And these are elders and pastors, and I cannot respect that! People lift them up, love them; they have thousands of views on YouTube and are horrible sons and daughters to their parents.

We are to honor our parents by caring for them in their old age. See, honoring our parents means we understand that there is a cycle to life. But we are so fixated on our cycle, meaning that when we were born we were so utterly dependent on our parents that without them, we would not be here!

You guys know that, right? We would not have survived! For some reason, we have this attitude of entitlement or we think that that's a right that we should have had. And so we focus on that life, meaning that during our infancy and during our most vulnerable seasons and times of utter dependency, our parents sacrificed and they gave so much to us. And we’re like, "Okay, yes, but guys there’s another cycle of life!"

As we were dependent on our parents utterly, do you know that as they get older in age, they will revert to how we were when we were babies where they will become more dependent?

As we grow in independence, our parents will become more and more dependent as they continue to age. We honor our parents by caring for them in their old age as they cared for us in our young age—amen?

It’s the God-ordained cycle of life! Don’t focus and be so fixated on just your cycle of dependency now! When it's time for your parents, you love them and care for them.

So listen, please don’t think you have more important things to do than care for your parents because if you don’t, who will?

Look what it says in 1 John 4:20: “If anyone says, ‘I love God’ and hates his brother”—and you can put a parent there—especially when they are in need—and you say you hate your brother, he is a liar! For he who does not love his brother”—put your parents in there!—“whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

Honoring our parents means making sure that in their old age, they are in a comfortable environment, that they feel a part of the family, and that you communicate over and over and over again to them that they are loved, that they are not a nuisance.

My mother—she doesn’t mean it, but she always says that I have to hurry up and die! “I don’t want to inconvenience you!” You know? “I don’t want—we give Yon; we don’t make a lot of money—Yont is allowance to my mom and my mother-in-law. And so she’s like, ‘You don’t have to do that for me!’”

And so if I said, “Yeah, do you think she’ll be like, ‘Oh, I’m glad you don’t?’” No, she’ll be devastated! So what do I have to say? “No, mother! I want you to live as long—live to 120! Live as long as you can! Where do you want to go? What do you want to see? Do you want us to buy your ticket to Korea even though we can't afford it for ourselves? Do you want to do—what do you want to do?”

Like, this is the mentality and mindset that we need to have because they do start to feel a burden and a nuisance to our families.

It doesn’t mean that you just put up with them or do the bare minimum, right, to appease your guilty conscience or abdicate responsibility to honoring them by, you know, giving that up to another sibling or another family member who might have more time or resources.

No, we have to honor them as best as we can with the time and resources that we have. And what it does mean to honor then is to care for them is to show great respect and deference to them so that they can live the remaining time that they have on Earth with much dignity and respectability until God calls them home.

There are things that I don’t even do in my own house, but when I go visit my mother, she’s legally blind. So when I go, sorry. When I go there, it’s a mess. She can’t see things; there are crumbs and spillage—you know, all toilets.

So then I go there and I try to clean as much as I can. She shouldn’t be living like that; we try to tell her not to, you know, put—she has soap from when I was a kid, you know! She never threw those away. She would always just roll it up in a ball of the other soap!

So I would throw that away, change out her towels. And that’s not much, but I want her to live with as much dignity and respectability as possible. So we make sure that she’s taken care of, that the friends that she’s around can make sure she’s checked up on, and things of that nature.

And even now, I have to translate things for her, right? Forge signatures pretending I'm her with my left hand, but I try. I’m not perfect, and I sometimes I do get frustrated, but I never want her to think that she is a nuisance or a burden!

That this is what we’re called to—to care for our parents in their old age. So I want you to realize that honoring in these ways, even when we may feel like they are undeserving, shows more about what we believe about God than about what we believe about our parents.

And I truly believe that what comes around goes around! Your kids see—that’s right, your kids see how you treat your parents. And for those that don’t, your kids will see.

So if you want your kids to love you in these ways, to honor you and to treat and show you dignity and respectability when you get old, you have to do it for your parents.

And then lastly, honoring your parents will lead to a blessing and flourishing. So it’s not only good for them; it’s good for us. Look what it says in Exodus 20:2 again: "Honor your father and your mother."

Yes, for them, for their dignity, for their respectability, so they can feel loved! But look what it says: “That your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

So that your days would be long! See, it’s important to know that God attaches a promise to those who obey this commandment, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

So listening to and honoring your parents not only pleases God, not only is a blessing to your parents, but it is also good for us! It’s good for us! This is God’s promise! God’s a promise keeper. So when He says this, He’s going to follow through with it!

And this is important because I’m sure there are personal blessings, right, that come with honoring our parents, but there are benefits that go way beyond just me or you as an individual.

See, this promise is about the people of God being blessed in the promised land, and there are even hints of the duration of God’s blessing for all of eternity.

So for Israel, God was reminding them that obedience to this command would lead to prosperity and longevity in the promised land which God was giving to them.

So He’s telling essentially the whole nation of Israel that if they honor their parents—get this—their community will flourish! Their families would flourish! Their nation will thrive.

Don’t we see that our nation is in shambles right now because of the condition and state of our families? Do you know our daughter’s school was on the news? I don’t know if you guys watch the news—Cedar Park Middle School—because this young man threatened to shoot up the school. He actually came to school with guns, and they caught him, arrested him, and so they diffused the situation.

But this is the reality that we live in! And I would be, once again, I don’t know, I’m not saying all parents, you know, they could do to follow everything, you know, in the Bible to the T and maybe not have the children of the families that we think they should have.

But I think this is a general eternal principle that if we follow what God says, our communities, our schools, our churches will be a lot healthier, more stable, and more blessed!

And that’s what God promises here for Israel. So then, what about us today?

And as we wrap up, what about us today? See, it's helpful to apply this in two ways. First, there is a blessing for people of God to live according to God’s commandments, which leads to human flourishing.

You see, the family is the fundamental unit of society, and if it is healthy and intact, the community will be healthy and intact.

Second, there’s a deeper promise hinted at here of eternal blessings from God in heaven as well.

So God says to honor your father and mother because from the family unit, I’m going to teach you about myself. You’re going to learn my love and about my authority.

And through strong families, I’m going to make you strong! And I’m going to make you a community that flourishes and thrives. I’m going to make you a family that continues to grow like a fruitful vine, where the husband and wife can love each other the way God’s called us to, for children to honor their parents, for parents to raise up their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

So that they could know this true and living God, and then ultimately, the nation will be blessed! And this will reverberate for all of eternity! It’s all interconnected.

And so we see that honoring our parents is not merely just a moral obligation, but we also see that it is tied to the broader promise of God’s provision and protection for His family and for the people of God.

[Music]

So know and believe that this is a promise from God. So yes, honor your parents for their sake and to thank them—show appreciation and because of the institution of parenthood—to honor and respect God.

But also know that God doesn’t just haphazardly say things just for the sake of saying things; it’s for our good, and He promises us that we will be blessed!

I think on personal levels—think about where we would be without our parents! “John, get away from that edge!” “John, don’t eat that!” “John, study hard!” “John, do you sure you want to marry that person?” “John, do you sure?”

Think about on a personal level—I am here because of all the things that our parents, my parents—though they were flawed in many ways—were trying to be the best parents that they could be, so I was blessed personally.

But my family now is blessed! And then think about it—we have four children! They’re going to marry four, hopefully, Lord willing, they have two, three kids—think about that!

Four, three, four—12—that’s about 20 people and 20 families that will be altered and blessed because we’re trying to live this out.

So I want to encourage you: trust in God! I know these all seem unattainable, impossible, but with God, all things are possible! Amen?

Let’s pray.

And so, Father God, as we conclude this series, Lord, I pray that you would help us in faith—more than trusting our parents or our spouses, our children, [Music]—even that we would trust in you because you’re the one that’s ordained all of all things! That you’re the one that has instituted all this! And because you are a good God, because you are a perfect God—though we might not trust the people—Lord, help us to trust you and give us faith to love in these ways!

Give us faith to fulfill our duties, though it’s difficult, though we may not want to, though even though it might seem impossible. Lord, what ties all of us together is not because we’re good dads or moms or husbands or wives or children—it’s you! Family ties together because of you!

And so, Lord, I pray that you would be the foundation of our families. And as we honor you, help us to honor our parents, help us to honor our spouses, and help us to love our children as you’ve loved us.

We thank you; we love you. We pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.