RECIPROCAL HONOR

PASTOR RYAN LADEN – DEVOTIONALS

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The fifth commandment calls the children of God to show honor (addition of weight,  substance, or respect) to their mothers and fathers. True. We have spoken about that in the past two devotions. Today I want us to hear how God’s word calls children to share honor with their parents while also calling parents to share honor with their children. 

We can hear more about this calling in the following passage:

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” 

4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.

(Ephesians 6:1-4 NIV11)

Affirmed

Here we have an affirmation of the principle found in the fifth commandment within the context of the new testament church. This is one of the ten core values of the Lord our God that were given out in the ten commandments (Exodus 20:12).

The command given by God to his people is affirmed here as being in full effect for those under the teaching and authority of Jesus Christ. Unlike many of the dietary, religious, and customary regulations presented in the message of the Hebrew law, this commandment is reinforced as applying directly to the follower of Jesus Christ. 

All children are to show honor toward their parents. In the previous devotion, we looked at the difference between honoring and obeying your parents (find it here). So it is important that we recognize the fact that all of God’s people are called to add honor to our parents. 

To the Children

As we heard in verse 4, the Holy Spirit, speaking through the Apostle Paul, tells the church that there is more to this calling. Not only are children called to show honor to their parents, parents are called to show honor to their children. 

I want us to look at the two sections of this calling as heard in Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.”

Do Not Provoke

The first idea given here is a caution against intentionally “provoking your children to anger.”

If you have kids, you know what this is about. As imperfect and fallible parents, many of us cross the line when disciplining or correcting our children. We can take things too far, be too harsh, make demands without explanation, or be unreasonable when dealing with our fallible and imperfect children. 

Fathers

Paul specifically singles out the fathers in the church in this portion of his teaching. If you are a father, or if you had a father, you can understand why the dads need a bit more encouragement to be more encouraging. It seems that fathers have struggled with speaking to our kids in a loving and healthy way for a long time. 

But just because we have had a problem since the Garden of Eden does not mean that the Lord wants us to embrace this point of failure as normal or expected. The followers of Christ are challenged to be different. 

Repeat

Often, we parent our kids in whatever way we were parented ourselves. I know I have heard some lines come out of my mouth that I swore I would NEVER say to my kids that I have heard from others while growing up. It seems inevitable. 

For the believer in Jesus Christ, we are called to allow the Lord to work in us to help us be better with our kids. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to teach us and mold us into Christ-like parents. 

Alternatively

This leads me to the second part of verse four which said, “Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.”

Just because your parents might have struggled to lead you in a Christ-like manner does not mean that you are fated to follow in their footsteps.

Thanks to the work of Jesus Christ, we have been set free from our sin and shame. We are no longer bound by our pasts. We have been given new and eternal life thanks to the gift of Jesus’ death and resurrection. 

As a result, we will find that the Lord has a wealth of help available for those willing to turn away from their sinful and fleshly natural instincts as parents. 

Instructions

In fact, one of the parts of this teaching from verse four that I love is the idea that we can look to Jesus Christ to learn how to lead and instruct wayward and hardheaded people. 

Think about the ways in which Jesus led his disciples:

•   When they acted in violence, he restored and called them to peace. 
•   When they lashed out at one another, he taught them to be servants. 
•   When they made demands on Jesus, he sent them out to learn on their own. 
•   When they were hurting because of their own mistakes, he spoke words of correction and peace to them. 

Jesus loved his disciples too much to allow them to live in their bad habits. He challenged and confronted them in ways that spoke to their hearts. He did not yell at them or throw around his authority over them to get them to do as they were told. 

We can and should look to Jesus to see ways that we can show honor to our children, even when they are acting in ways that lack honor. 

In Christ, 

Ryan Laden

PASTOR RYAN LADEN

Works at MTN. CHURCH

Former Senior pastor at Warnbro Community Church

Studies at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

Studied at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

Studied at Baylor University

Studied at Texas Tech University

Went to Castle Hills First Baptist

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