Christ Church

Older Children and Honoring Parents (Practical Christianity #7) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

As we continue our series on Practical Christianity, this is a message for older teens, young adults, and college students about honoring parents. It is natural for this phase of life to present challenges because you are launching into adulthood, and your parents are just old enough now to not remember very well what it was like (ha).

There are responsibilities assigned to parents (like not being exasperating), but this is a message aimed at young people, and it is particularly aimed at this coming summer. Some of you will be going home for the summer, and on top of the ordinary growing up challenges, changes in proximity, time spent together, and different routines are new opportunities to practice honor.

The Text: “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD” (Lev. 19:32).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The central command of Scripture for young people is to honor their parents, which is the first command with a blessing (Ex. 20:12, Dt. 5:16, Eph. 6:1-3). This honor is tied specifically to the fear of God, and failure to honor the age, experience, and wisdom of your parents, grandparents, and other older authorities in your life is to dishonor God Himself (Lev. 19:32). Here, the command is to “rise up” before those with grey hair (Lev. 19:32). It is still a sign of honor in culture to stand when someone of importance enters a room. This is a practical way to show honor to the “face” of elders. This requires respectful words, facial expressions, and tone of voice. All sarcasm, eye-rolling, and dismissive or disdainful talk is a direct assault on God Himself, whose law included the death penalty for reviling parents (Mk. 7:10).

Scripture ties honor and fear together in a number of places: “The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom; and before honor is humility” (Prov. 15:33). This means that humility is central to showing honor. You can’t learn wisdom if you don’t fear the Lord, and you can’t show honor if you don’t have humility. Humility means being teachable, being eager and willing to learn from your parents and elders, seeking their wisdom and counsel, listening carefully to them.

“Wherefore the Lord said, forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men” (Is. 29:13). Here the prophet describes how people are fully capable of superficial honor and fear. This is a form of flattery and manipulation: it is not from the heart, and it is only the bare minimum and perfunctory. It has the attitude of “I did what you said; now get off my back.” But God sees such insolence, and He is not mocked (Gal. 6:7).

WHEN YOU’VE LEARNED A BUNCH OF NEW STUFF

Part of growing up is figuring out that your parents don’t know everything and aren’t right about everything. And when you go off to rigorous Christian high schools and colleges or just adulthood, you will often find that you learn new things that you were never taught by your parents or maybe your parents even disagree with (e.g. Calvinism, baptism, eschatology, worship). The temptation is pride and/or resentment. But if you just learned it, and you really have grown in wisdom, part of what you also need to learn is humility. Do you now know everything? Are you now right about everything? Not hardly.

Also, remember that there’s nothing quite so rhetorically ineffective as a know-it-all sophomore. Humility is far more persuasive than haughtiness. Some of the stuff you learned might be worth sharing, but you should share it like some fantastic new food or game you discovered. Share it with love and joy. And if your folks aren’t into it, be gracious and patient, not surly.

GETTING ALONG

A lot of the challenges during these years swirl around freedom. If you lived away at college for the year and you go home for the summer, you will have had the freedom to set your schedule and make many of your own choices for 9 months, and then you might suddenly find yourself back home with your mom asking how late you plan to be out or your dad wondering why you’re sleeping till noon. (And just for the record, your pastor back at college is also wondering why you’re sleeping till noon.)

First off, if you’re going home for the summer, then prepare your heart to be under more authority for the summer. They will probably be paying for a lot of your food, not to mention a bunch of other stuff. If you’re living in their house, you need to submit to their house rules. If you’re still in high school and your parents basically provide everything, your central heart attitude needs to be deep gratitude. Don’t be a Dudley Dursley fussing about only having 36 birthday presents.

Second, the path to true freedom is taking responsibility. Freedom is not doing whatever you want whenever you want. That’s actually a form of tyranny: “As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people” (Prov. 28:15). Someone who insists on doing whatever they want regardless of how it affects themselves or those around them is a roaring lion or a ranging bear. We might also call you a Democrat. Taking responsibility means using your time wisely, fulfilling your obligations (chores, jobs), thinking about how your actions/plans might affect those around you, and serving your family gladly. “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13).

Third, after getting your heart right and embracing your responsibilities, if your mom is still asking if you brushed your teeth, try having a cheerful (not exasperated) conversation about it. Remember, parents are people too.

CONCLUSION: MY LIFE FOR YOURS

The gospel in action can be described as “my life for yours.” Jesus is emphatic: “This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you” (Jn. 15:12). And how has Christ loved you? “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Christ displayed God’s love by laying His life down for sinners like us.

And the thing to note here is that the gospel is entirely one sided. You weren’t a worthy recipient of any of it. It was all grace. This is Christian love. “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Mt. 5:46 ESV)

“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Pet. 3:8 ESV). So the charge is to honor your father and mother, and so be a great gospel blessing to them this summer.

This is not just “what you’re supposed to do,” it is a great blessing to them and that will be a great blessing to you.

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Ship and Tabernacle (Christ Church)

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INTRODUCTION

Isaiah prophesied from around 740 to 687 B.C. during the reign of four kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Ahaz was a wicked king who locked up the doors of the temple in Jerusalem, burned his sons in fire, cut the vessels of the temple to pieces, and made Judah a vassal state of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser by paying him for protection (2 Kings 16:8, 10). Ahaz’s son, Hezekiah, came to the throne at twenty-five years old and called for a recovery of the Passover festival in Jerusalem. That assembly of joy was so grand the like had not been seen since the days of David and Solomon (2 Chronicles 30:26). But the Assyrian threat was looming. They took Samaria in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign. And by the fourteenth year of his rule, the Assyrian king Sennacherib had come against Judah and Jerusalem.

THE TEXT

“Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us. Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail: then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the prey. And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity”(Isaiah 33:20-24).

SURVEY OF THE TEXT

In the face of the Assyrian threat, Judah must look upon Zion, the city of their festivals. It will be a place of peace, a tabernacle that will not be folded up. Not a single tabernacle peg will be removed; and unlike the cords on the Assyrian war ships, not one of her cords will be snapped (v. 20). The tabernacle of Zion will remain because the LORD Himself will supply it with streams of water that no Assyrian oars will touch (v. 21). The LORD, Judah’s Savior-King, will not permit their ships to come upon His holy habitation (v. 22). Their cords will forsake them, not supporting their mast. Their sail will not be spread to catch the wind. And the result will be that the predator becomes prey The lame inhabitants of Zion will plunder them (v. 23). Those inhabitants will not say that they are weak because their sin is forgiven (v. 24).

A PLACE OF STREAMS AND FESTIVALS 

Jerusalem was a festival city, a place of bread, meat, and drink. And this meat and drink was the very thing Sennacherib threatened to cut off, “Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, ‘Whereon do ye trust, that ye abide in the siege in Jerusalem? Doth not Hezekiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by famine and by thirst’” (2 Chronicles 32:10-11)?

But these threats fall flat when God feeds His people with bread from heaven, when He satisfies their thirst with water from a Rock. Isaiah’s prophecy was not only that the LORD would give them rivers, but that the LORD would be unto them a place of rivers (v. 21). Sennacherib laid siege, but he could not get to the Rock from which the water flowed. The Gihon Spring has its source in the City of David. Water still flows out of the rock that is Zion.

STAKES AND CORDS

The stakes and cords of the tabernacle speak to its stability, contrasted with the faulty tacklings of the Assyrian ships. The same Hebrew word [hevel] lies behind the tabernacle’s “chord” in verse 20 and the ship’s “tacklings” in verse 23. Not one of the tabernacle’s hevel will fail but the Assyrians’ hevel will forsake them.

The tabernacle cords tied down the different parts of the tabernacle to the stakes. These cords are a reminder of feminine glory, which has a way of holding things together. It was the wise-hearted women who wove the cords of the tabernacle, “And all the women that were wise hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen” (Exodus 35:25).

The stakes of the tabernacle were of brass (Exodus 27:19). And those stakes, Isaiah prophesied, would be driven in as sturdily as Jael drove the stake through Sisera into the earth.

SAILS IN THE WIND

Zion’s tabernacle is contrasted with the Assyrian ship. What you want is wind in your sails but the Assyrians would have their sails in the wind. Their sail would not spread. This sail not only served the practical function of moving their ships. It was also a banner or a sign. The word for sail is nēs, which often means sign or banner. When Moses grew tired lifting up his arms at the battle against Amalek, he was assisted by Aaron and Hur. After the victory, Moses built an altar and called it Jehovah-nissi, “The Lord Is Our Banner” (Exodus 17:15). The pole that held up the snake in the wilderness was a nēs.

But while Moses’ raised hands and the raised snake did not fail, the banner-sail [nēs] of the Assyrians would. And so those who sought to spoil would be spoiled (Isaiah 33:1). The lame plunder the plunder.

THE INHABITANT SHALL NOT SAY

The payout of this deliverance is that even the beleaguered inhabitants of Zion will not say, “I am sick,” which includes “I am not wounded. I am not weak. I am not famished and I am not thirsty.” For those inhabitants have their sin forgiven by the King of Zion. He was bound with cords but broke their bonds apart. He was pierced with stakes only to become “a nail in a sure place” upon which all of God’s promises are secured (Isaiah 22:23). For “he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed”(Isaiah 53:5).

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