1. teaching to children, 2. integrated family fellowship, 3. history of Sunday School, 4. biblical preaching, 5. adults must honor parents.

God Wants Me to Honor My Mother and Father

Ephesians 6:1-3 & Colossians 3:20

Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church

In your Bibles, please turn to Ephesians 6:1-3. Bookmark Ephesians 6:1, and then find Colossians 3, which is two epistles over from Ephesians.

In a moment, I want one of the parents of each family to bring your children up here to the front for about 10 minutes. I have a special sermon I am preaching this morning. What I am preaching applies directly to children, so I want to talk directly to the children this morning for the first 10 minutes. Afterward, I will ask you to take your children back to where you were sitting beforehand. In the meantime, let us read our two passages, starting with Ephesians 6:1-3, where Paul says,

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, because this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3 so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth."

Now the parallel epistle, in Colossians 3:20,

"20 Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord." Colossians 3:20

Please prepare your heart to go verse to verse with me in the sacred preaching of God's word this morning, in this sermon titled,

God Wants Me to Honor My Mother and Father

Parents, one of you, please bring your children up here to the front at this time, where they can stand, or sit with you. [prayer]

Boys, and girls, please look up here at me. I've got some important things to tell you. We all know that there are wrong things that we should not do, and there are right things that are good to do. How many of you also know that God is the one who tells us what is right and what is wrong? The Bible says that God is the one who tells us what is wrong, and what is right. God doesn't like it when we do things wrong. God wants us to do what is right. God always does what is right. God never does anything wrong. But sometimes we do things that are wrong, don't we? Older people sometimes do wrong things. Boys and girls sometimes do wrong things. Sometimes boys and girls don't tell the truth. Do you remember some time when you didn't tell the truth? I remember some times when I didn't tell the truth. God didn't like it when I did that. Jesus always tells the truth, so Jesus wants us to tell the truth. Sometimes boys and girls take things from other people that are not their own things. God doesn't want us to take other people's things. Sometimes people make other people feel bad. God doesn't want you making other people feel bad--like your friends. God doesn't want you to make your brother, or sister, feel bad; even people you don't like a whole lot. Can you think of someone that you don't like? God wants you to treat people in a nice way--even people that you don't like a whole lot. He wants you to treat them like you love them. God knows that we all do bad things. He sees every bad thing that you do. Do you know what God calls doing bad things? God calls doing bad things, "sin." This morning we see that the Lord has something to say to boys and girls in His Bible. It is something that God wants to tell you that is very important to Him. It is something that Jesus really wants you to do. God says that it is the right thing to do. Here is what God says,

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, because this is right."

God wants boys and girls to obey their mommies and daddies because He does not want you to do something wrong. So, first God says that obeying your parents, is right. There is another thing that God says about why He wants you to obey your parents. God says that it is very pleasing to Him. Whenever you obey your parents, and you do what they say, then you are making God very happy. So you need to make God very happy, and do what your parents tell you to do. When your parents tell you to be quiet, then it pleases God for you to be quiet. When your parents tell you not to go some place, or they tell you not to open something, then you need to obey your parents. It pleases God when you don't go where your parents say, "don't go there." It pleases God when you don't open something that your parents tell you not to open. This is what God wants, and it makes Him happy. When you ask your parents for something and they say "no," then you obey your parents. Don't keep trying to get what they don't want you to have. If your parent tells you that they want you to wear certain clothes, or if your parent tells you not to wear a particular clothing style, then you need to obey your parents. If your parent tells you not to wear makeup, then you obey them at all costs. God does not want you to go over to a friends house and then try on makeup after your parents have told you not to wear makeup. If your parents tell you not to watch certain movies, or go to certain websites, or read certain books and magazines, God wants you to obey your parents. Sneaking off to someone else's house, or into a hiding place to look at things that your parents told you not to look at is sin. It is sin. It is not good, and it is not pleasing to God. When your parents tell you to be home at a certain time, then God wants you to do everything you can to be home on time. When your parents tell you what to do, you need to do it right when they tell you to do it. If your parents tell you to throw away trash, or clear off the dinner table, or to take a bath, brush your teeth, get ready for bed--all the things that you should do, then do not grumble and complain about what they say. Do not roll your eyes. Do not throw a fit, or make a noise. God wants you to do what your parents tell you without grumbling and complaining. When you do this, you please God and you honor your parents. There is one last thing that God is saying that He wants you to do in this Bible verse. God wants you to honor your parents. Honor is a big word. Let me tell you what God means when He says He wants you to honor your parents. God wants you to think that your parents are very, very, important--even more important than the president of the United States. God wants you to treat your parents like they are the most important people in the whole wide world. God says that you are to think about your parents as being better than you are. God tells us in the Bible, in Philippians 2:3, to think of others as more important than yourselves. When you think of others as being better than yourself, you are honoring them. That is how you honor your parents. Are you pleasing God by thinking that your parents are better than you? Are you treating your parents like they are better than you are? This is what God means when He says that He wants you to honor your parents. When you treat your parents like they are the most important people in the world, then you listen to them when they talk to you about things. God wants you to listen to your parents. God wants you to thank your parents for everything they do. When you are not thankful for everything your parents do for you, like give you food to eat, a place to sleep, and all the other things, then you are not honoring your parents, and that means you are not doing what God wants you to do. So boys and girls; what have we learned today about what God wants us to do? We have learned that the Lord wants us to obey our parents. We have learned that when we obey our parents we are doing what is right. We have learned that when we obey our parents we please the Lord. We have learned that when we obey our parents, we are honoring our parents the way God wants us to honor our parents. I want all of us to pray together right now. Bow your heads and close your eyes as I lead us in prayer:

God, I want to obey my parents more.
Help me to do what is right.
Help me to please you.
Help me to honor my parents,
Help me to think of my parents as being better than myself.
When I mess up, I know that you forgive me because of my faith in Christ Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
Help me not to mess up--amen.

Now, go hug your parents, and tell them you want to honor, and obey them.

I want to speak to all of us now. As I continue with this passage, I want to start out by getting us all to recognize something about what Paul is saying that has to do with our worship style that we practice in the local church. Paul starts out this section addressing wives in 5:22, where he tells wives to submit to their husbands. Then Paul moves to addressing husbands. In the congregations of Paul's day, as today, both the men and the women would gather to listen to the public reading of God's word, and they would listen to Pastors who would exhort them to love, good deeds, and sound doctrine from the same Scriptures being read. The reason why I point all of this out is because in Paul's flow of thought, he goes from the wives, to the husbands, and then Paul addresses the children in such a manner as if he is speaking directly to children. Notice where Paul turns the attention in Ephesians 6:1. Paul says,

"Children, ..." Ephesians 6:1

And then Paul continues on with his instruction. Paul follows the same pattern in Colossians 3:20. Paul addresses a specific audience. He switches over, and says,

"20 Children, ..." Colossians 3:20

This is important because Paul does not say to the parents here that he wants them to instruct these things to the children in such as way that is as if the children are not going to hear these instructions being taught directly to them in the church context of the local assembly. Of course, God wants parents to teach these things to children, but this is not the point I am bringing out here at this time. Paul is talking directly to the children because Paul expects the children to be there among the adults receiving the same instruction that the adults are receiving. In other words, this demonstrates a list of things.

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First of all, it demonstrates that the original church structures were integrated family worship structures. This is so hard for many people in the contemporary culture of our day, to understand. According to the mind of the modern day culture of our society, there should have been, and there must have been, a separate Sunday School section for children. People today, naturally think that there must have been special care takers who oversaw the children over in another place, or the mother was supposed to be out with the children in another separated area from the congregated saints. But, there is no place in the New Covenant Scriptures that indicate that this was the historic practice. There were no Sunday Schools that divided up everyone by age groups. There was no children's church. There was no special youth church that catered to the culture of juvenile cool. Everyone fellowshipped together, just as everyone fellowships together at celebrations like Christmas. If a child was unruly, like a crying infant, the baby would be tended to in the natural way that babies are attended to. If the child needed to be moved out of the immediate area to take care of the problem, then the parent would do so. Common sense tells us that children are, and were, dealt with in a disciplinary manner if they do, and did, get out of hand in these kinds of contexts.

Now let me share something with you that is truly amazing. What I just described to you concerning the gathering of the saints, was the common practice in practically every local church fellowship for 1800 years. This is the way it was until the invention of something called Sunday School. The whole invention of Sunday School began in England in the late 1700's, at around 1780. Sunday school originally had nothing to do with the church. It began as a secular education program. It was a program designed to educate poor people on their one day off, which was Sunday. The whole idea blossomed and spread into the United States, going into the 1800's. By the 1820's, Sunday School was considered a very pragmatic way to do things. Consequently, churches picked up the idea and ran with it. By the late 1800's, most churches incorporated Sunday school into Sunday morning schedules. It was considered the most beneficial thing to do. In fact, a cliche' arose among churches. People would say,

"Sunday School is the West Point of the Church."

As one Pastor said in commemoration of the Sunday School system being implemented in their church in 1881,

"It is here that children receive the teaching and training which molds their young lives for future service."

Really? According to God, this is the responsibility of the mother and father, and it is the responsibility of God's called and anointed pastors who are charged with oversight in the body. But, as the 1900's were coming into history, the underlying force that made Sunday School even more desirable became evident. What happened is that Sunday school became known as an evangelism, and church growth method. E.W. Mullins, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary made an amazing statement in 1902, He said,

"Sunday School is the chief and almost only hope for church growth."

With this kind of belief being prevalent, churches eager to grow, promoted the tradition. What happened is that it became normal for families to willingly allow their children to be seperated from them. It was normal for children to be taught, and disciplined in another place under someone else's supervision. Consequently, anyone who thought differently was considered to be the one who was abnormal. One problem with this whole system is that integrated family worship, which is good, and beautiful, and godly, and pragmatic from God's perspective, has become looked upon as something inferior, distasteful, and somehow wrong from the perspective of many people in our modern culture. In fact, many, if not most, Christians in our contemporary world culture, have never imagined that there is such a thing as integrate family worship, also called combined family fellowship, or combined church community, and a host of other tags. This is a shame, because what is indicated in the Bible, and preserved and practiced in the following generations, is that the first Christians partook in integrated family worship, where the children were taught the word in just the same manner that the parents are taught the word. If the children did not understand something thoroughly from the church Pastors, then it was the responsibility of the parents, to make sure that the child understood by continuing to teach the child the precepts of the Lord. The parent would also bring the child to the Pastor, so that the Pastor could explain things more thoroughly to the child if there was difficulty in comprehension. The principle then, is that Pastors who are called and gifted by God to preach and teach every member of the body of Christ, exhorting in sound doctrine, and the parents, who are called and gifted to raise and teach their children, are both ordained by God to build up--equipping children, in the faith. But there is specific honor that goes to parents. It is honor that is ordained by God, and comes from sons and daughters. The special honor is that the parents have authority over their children. This same special honor is reflected in Paul's command to children to honor their father and mother. So that is the first thing that Paul's address to children demonstrates. Paul's directives occurs in integrated family worship.

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Secondly, Paul's address to children also demonstrates that children are expected to be able to

learn to learn

from this type of teaching method. I use the phrase, learn to learn purposefully, because learning to learn is one of the most important foundations for acquiring information that we must nurture. If we do not learn to learn, then we will hardly learn, and we will not acquire information as effectively as we could. We must learn to be attentive when we do not want to be. We must learn to see a need to be learning at the moment we are called to do so. We must learn to be able to follow the flow of logical thought. We must learn to learn. So, when Paul addresses children, he shows that when it comes to apparent linear Biblical teaching, (as we see here in this Ephesians flow, as is demonstrated and ordained in all the Bible, where we find reading from the very difficult flow of thought in certain Scriptures, and preaching verse to verse directly from the same, to people from every age, background, and learning aptitude) that God considers it to be,

a) effective,

b) anointed,

and

c) Spirit filled.

Paul told the young man Timothy how to teach the word of God that Paul had taught to Timothy. Paul also taught Timothy how to learn, when He said,

"11 Prescribe and teach these things.

[What things?--Paul is talking about all the things he just wrote in the first 4 chapters of 1 timothy, and on. Continuing]

12 Let no one look down on your youthfulness, ... 13 Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching." 1 Timothy 4:11-13

The method that Paul tells Timothy to use, is to prescribe and teach the things that Paul just wrote to Timothy as linear, point to point, teaching itself. Likewise, the method that Timothy continues to learn and be established in God's word, is to listen to public reading of linear, point to point, teaching from Scripture, to exhortations from Scripture, which is general preaching where you urge someone to act, to do, and to believe certain things, and also to teaching, which is to impart God's precepts for living, and sound doctrine. In Paul's second epistle to Timothy, Paul says,

"15 ... from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:15-17

Here again, we see that Paul is concerned with teaching, and learning directly from the Scripture itself. Paul says that Scripture itself is what is profitable for teaching precepts and doctrines. Scripture itself is profitable for reproving people for wrong doing. Training in righteousness, from Scripture itself, is what makes a man of God adequate and equipped for every good work. Later in this same Scriptural epistle, Paul taught Timothy how to preach, saying,

"1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires," 1 Timothy 5:1-3

Paul is clear on both what to preach, and how to preach. Paul says to preach something. It is not something clever. It is not something from a fertile imagination. Paul says to preach the word itself. Paul says to reprove people, which means to correct them. Right correction comes from the word--backed and proven by the word. We rebuke from the word; We exhort from the word; We instruct from the word. Everything must be backed and proven from the word of God when we speak with our own mouths, as if we are speaking the oracles of God.

The point is that when we, in our contemporary culture, read both letters to Timothy, and we read Ephesians, we find that they are difficult, and heavy letters. They are not light and airy pieces of literature. So, knowing this, we may be tempted to think that our children are not able to learn from teaching directly from these Scriptures (the word of God) as Paul clearly instructs (the word of God), and demonstrates; which may lead us to further think that our children need to go off somewhere else to learn from someone other than us, their parents, and, the pastor--like sending them over in another place, manner, and system, that downgrades to another kind of level. But the Scriptures demonstrate that children are expected to be able to learn to learn from this type of teaching method--from the Preaching-teaching of the Pastor, and the godly instruction of the parent.

This is why Paul addresses children directly in His teaching.

I hope you see how important it is to get these points out of the way, because they are very important doctrinal considerations in understanding the elements that comprise the very biblical practice of integrated family worship. It also leads us right into recognizing something about the immediate instruction that Paul gives that has to do with the spiritual substance of the parents who make up integrated family worship. Notice that Paul tells the children to obey your parents "in the Lord." The fact that Paul clarifies by saying in the Lord, is helpful to us in understanding the Christian context. It also helps us to understand how far, and in what manner children should obey. In other words, Paul isn't telling non-Christians what to do to please God--except for one thing--receive the Gospel of Christ. Here it is no different. Paul is talking to Christian children in the Lord, in respect to proper response to authority in the Lord. What Paul means is that when children obey parents, the children are obeying the Lord who commands it. Okay, this lead us to consider a very important thing. Paul never says that Christians, whether children or adults, must do every single thing that a so-called authority commands. This is another reason why Paul's language is so important. To obey your parents in the Lord is to make sure you do not do anything sinful. If a child has a parent who is a non-Christian, and the parent tells the child not to obey God, then the child should not obey the parent in that area. Why? Because such a thing for the parent to say is not of the Lord. The parent is telling the child to sin. Think about this. If the parent tells the child to sin, for example, by allowing some sort of sinful act, or partaking in some sort of sinful act, then the child should not obey such unchristian, and ungodly directives. To obey, would be not to obey in the Lord, but rather, would be to obey, in the flesh, in sin. You see, Paul assumes that after all he has just taught, and also based upon the rest of Christian discipleship, that the parents who are in the Lord, will not tell their children to do ungodly things. Paul assumes that the parents believe and teach everything he just laid out in the first five chapters of Ephesians. At this point, I want us to notice that Paul leaves this clarifier off in Colossians 3:20. Paul says,

"20 Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord." Colossians 3:20

Paul says that the children are to obey in all things, and that this type of obedience is well pleasing to the Lord. But, it is not well pleasing to the Lord to sin, so we recognize that the all things in Colossians must be interpreted in light of the rest of Scripture. Paul's main point is that it is godly for Christian children, to obey their parents in the Lord. It is an eternal principle that is even found back in the Law of Moses. In the Mosaic Law, the commandment has a beneficial result that rewards the one who practices righteous obedience. It will be well with you, and you may live long on the earth, which leads us to consider who the actual people are that are supposed to honor parents.

It is true that Paul is addressing this command to children. But what is equally true is something that is becoming just as lost in our contemporary culture as the practice of integrated family worship. What is becoming lost is that this command applies to all ages. We know that this command applies to all ages because of the full revelation that God has given us. Paul references the Old Covenant Law of Moses to accentuate his point. This is a clear example of where, according to Apostolic revelation, the Old Testament informs our understanding of certain aspects of the New. But, what I want to bring to your attention is the fact that in the Old Testament, the command to honor your father and mother is not something that is commanded merely for little children. It is a command for everyone. God has always ordained for our parents to be honored by us throughout our whole lives. Toward the end of the Old Covenant age, Jesus confronted the sinful Jewish teaching that had developed. Some adult Jewish people began seeking an exception clause to honoring their parents. Jesus called it sin, as we see Jesus speaking to the Pharisees,

"3 ... 'Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, 'honor you father and mother,' and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.' 5 But you say, "Whoever says to his father or mother, Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God, 6 he is not to honor his father or his mother." And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 "You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: 8 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. 9 'But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'" Matthew 15:3-9

What was going on at the time was that selfish Pharisees had become so sinful, that they were trying to figure out ways to get out of helping their moms and dads when they needed help. If parents, would come to the adult son for help, the Pharisee thought they would be justified to get out of honoring their parents by giving the excuse that the money was given to God in the traditional practice called corbin. In selfish sinfulness, this became an excuse to be greedy, and also, to dishonor parents. But, God wants men to make sure that they honor their parents. To teach otherwise, is to teach doctrines and precepts of men. So, we see that we should be honoring our parents while we are adults. But, what about the obedience part that Paul talks about? Are older children supposed to obey their parents?; or is there an age in which the relationship with parents is severed, and the parents are no longer to be obeyed? The Scriptures proclaim that a man leaves his father and mother to cleave to his wife. It is then that the two join, and become one flesh. Leaving and cleaving creates a distinct household of distinct responsibility. The new husband must make his own decisions to lead and guide his family. This is clear. But what about before marriage? What about older children at this time? Paul says something about this in 2 Timothy. There, we find Paul speaking of men in the last times. Paul uses the Greek word for adults, when he says,

"2 For men [andropoi in the Greek] will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ..." 2 Timothy 3:2

This particular Greek word can be a generic term that is often used in the Koine Greek to apply to both men and women. The point is that Paul is identifying a sinful trait that marks out ungodly people of the last times. He says that men and women will be disobedient to parents. We also find in Romans 1, where Paul describes people that God gave over to a depraved mind. Paul describes them as unrighteous, wicked, greedy, evil, murderous, deceitful, gossips, arrogant, and also disobedient to parents, Romans 1:28-30. In 1 Timothy Paul explains that if a widow has children or grandchildren, they must practice piety and make some return to their parents. Then Paul says that if a man does not provide for his own widowed mother, or grandmother, then he is worse than an unbeliever. He dishonors his parents, and grandparents. These things are really significant for us to recognize. We live in an age, and culture, where honoring parents at any age, is becoming something that is often ridiculed, or is just simply ignored, or is thought of as being something smaller than it actually is.

Another way that parents are being dishonored is that parenthood itself is being dishonored. Parenthood is being attacked on many fronts. One attack that has occurred in our culture is to think that having children is something that is a second rate goal, or activity. Having children is despised by huge numbers of married couples and unmarried people who see children as a curse, rather than a blessing. This attitude is fed by a world that sees parenthood in general as being a curse rather than a blessing. But according to the Bible, parenthood is a high honor in God's design for humanity. It is a privilege for Christians to be blessed with the opportunity to raise children in the Lord.

Another way that parents are being dishonored is in the way the legislators of this fallen nation keep trying to push for equality in the family, where children are declared to have the right to ignore their parents authority. We find extreme examples of this, where children are suing parents more and more in civil suits. What is happening is that the authority of parents is being undermined, and so parents are being dishonored. Boys and girls are being encouraged by government school counselors, and other people who undermine parental honor, to become sexually active if that is what they prefer. The parent may disapprove, but huge segments of our culture don't care what the parent's will is on the matter. The parent is being dishonored. Then, if the child gets pregnant, which is called a mistake, and a nuisance, the same people encourage the child, who is now a parent herself, to murder the baby by abortion. It is gross dishonoring of parents, parenthood, and children. If the daughters parents disagree with their daughter murdering a baby, the culture seeks to dishonor the parent by helping the child have an abortive execution against the wishes of her parents. While working on this sermon, I noticed a new report. The Headline caught my eye. There in bold letters, were the words,

"Prosecutors see 'scary' rise in child attacks on parents"

It goes on to describe the increase in sons and daughters assaulting parents. The article goes on to explain how a special division in one city has been formed to deal with what it calls,

"child on parent violence,"

But law enforcement officials are worried, because they say that this is only a small segment of what gets reported.

"'It's scary,' added Kris Moore, a juvenile prosecutor ... I don't know if it's media or television or violent games or what. You've got so many parents out there working their butts off trying to make ends meet, and it's harder for them to supervise their kids. If you get into a situation where parents aren't in control of their kids, they're going to get into trouble. ... It used to be that we never had an assault on a parent,' ... 'Would you have pushed your mother down the stairs? Would you have stabbed your grandmother?"

Finally the article ends with the typical humanistic angst that points out the perceived problem, yet reveals the utter loss to understand the root cause;

Experts say there is no single answer to why children hurt or kill their parents,

"Experts say ..." We know that the real expert tells us that there is a single answer to why children hurt or kill their parents. The single answer is sin that comes from the fallen nature. Sin is manifested in many ways. The futility of the Gentile mind permeates the world, and bolsters all kinds of manifestations. Violence against parents is the sin of dishonor that is stacked upon multitudes of other manifestations, and consequences of sins that permeate human lives. On other levels, the sin is manifested when parents are talked back to today as if they are just another peer that is expected to serve the child by paying the bills, feeding the mouth, and providing a bed. Today, parents are treated like hotel employees. There is a great dishonor when children begin acting like equals in the family. Total disregard for parental rules shows dishonor for parents that is based in pure rebellion against God and His will. All of these things are manifestations of sin. To battle this trend in our own lives and families, folks, we must do three things.

1) We must recognize that God demands obedience and honor of parents.

2) We must treat our parents like they are better than ourselves.

and

3) We must, teach this to our children.

I urge you to take up the banner in our generation to start honoring parents. God demands it. Listen to my questions:

Are you angry at your parents?

Have your past experiences coaxed you into building walls of separation from your parents where you are not honoring them the way God wants you to?

The only way to break down those wall is to think of your parents as being better than yourself. As long as you are on the throne, where you place yourself above your parents, then you will not think of them as being better than yourself. As long as you think your relationship with your parents is one where you are equals, then you are not honoring them. Ask yourself;

are you having a hard time with this?

Let me give you a really good starting place to help get you back on track in honoring your parents;

Pray.

Ask your parent in heaven for forgiveness for not honoring your parents on earth, and then ask God to help you forgive them. Lack of forgiveness will keep you from the honor that God demands. Seek Christ to help you love and honor your parents. From there in your position of prayer, ask God what else you can do to show honor to your parents. Finally,

What are you teaching your own children concerning God's will in this matter?

Are you exposing them to the philosophies of this world in movies, in education systems, in friends that do not give proper honor to parenting, and to parents in particular?

Folks, the traditions of men are powerful. The traditions of men became resources for the Pharisees to dishonor their parents. The traditions of the world culture are relentlessly growing around us. We see the symptoms everywhere--even in the church. Be a tradition breaker by being a godly family builder. I urge you to do this by honoring God in honoring godly parenthood, amen?