Honor Your Mother…

A Mother's Day Sermon by Jim Hammond from Ephesians 6:1-3

Moms are wired differently than dads. They have the ability for multitasking in ways dads do not. Even so, you know mom is too busy if she begins multitasking like this…

Though pictures are better than a thousand words, to tell you the truth, I’d be surprised if this picture was really the picture of a mother’s work. More than likely dad is working feverishly to get everything done before mom comes home after being away for a while.

Why Honor My Mother…

A. BECAUSE SHE DESERVES IT

I received the following as a forwarded email. I do not know who authored it.

Positions Open

POSITION: Parenthood

JOB DESCRIPTION:
Long-term team players needed for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, including evenings, weekends, and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight
travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in faraway cities. Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
For the rest of your life must be willing to be hated at least temporarily, until someone needs $15 to go to the movies. Must be willing to bite your tongue repeatedly. Must also possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets, and stuck zippers. Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects. Must also be willing to work without supervision or aid of any instructional tools. On the other hand, must be willing to take constructive or mean-spirited criticism of your parenting skills from any number of people including the children themselves (see reference above to biting your tongue). Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable one minute; and an embarrassment the next. Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap plastic toys and battery operated devices. Must be able to assemble any item using badly translated directions supplied by any number of non English speaking designers, and get it right. Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product. Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.
POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT AND PROMOTION:
Virtually none. Your job is to remain in the same position for years without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
None required, unfortunately. On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis. Advanced degrees in medicine, law, accounting, meteorology, teaching, art, psychology, history, engineering, physical science, English, chemistry, AND transportation management preferred but not required. Skills in carpentry, culinary arts, crafting, electronics, fishing, and everything else you've ever been exposed to will certainly be helpful .
WAGES AND COMPENSATION:
You pay them, offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

PARENTING TEST (received from Gina Hull)

It really is a wonder that you must pass a test to obtain a driver’s license, but this is not true for marriage, or parenting. Someone sent me, however, a parenting test. You decide if we should make this test mandatory so that people can ready themselves for parenthood. This is a hands on test, not a written test.

1. Mess Test

Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

2. Toy Test

Obtain a 55 gallon box of Legos (you may substitute roofing tacks if you wish). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold and take off shoes. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream because this would wake a child at night.

3. Grocery Store Test

Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

4. Dressing Test

Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all the arms stay inside.

5. Feeding Test

Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

6. Night Test

Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 3:00pm, begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00pm. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00pm. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these, too, until 4:00am. Set alarm for 5:00am. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

7. Ingenuity Test

Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube and turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Use only scotch tape and a piece of foil. Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty box of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

8. Automobile Test

Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it into the CD player. Take a family-size package of chocolate chip cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Run a rake along both side of the car. There, perfect!

9. Physical Test (Women)

Obtain a large bean bag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Then remove the beans. And try not to notice your closet full of clothes. You won't be wearing them for a while.

Physical Test (Men)

Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.

10. Final Assignment

Find a couple who already has a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, and toilet training and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

Focus: The first commandment that comes with a promise of blessing is the commandment to honor your father and mother.

Ephesians 6:1-3 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“that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

Why should I?

B. “BECAUSE I SAID SO…” (for this is right)

Children often ask their parents, “Why?”, when their parents give them orders to be obeyed. What parent hasn’t answered this exasperating question with the now famous phrase, “Because I said so.” As much as we hated that phrase as kids, we pull it as the trump card as parents. I have come to believe this is an appropriate answer at times. Look at the scripture above again. Do you see the phrase that is very much like the phrase, “Because I said so.?” Here God gives us the divine “because I said so” with the phrase “for it is right.” Some things are right, whether we understand why or not. And some things are just wrong whether we understand why or not. God is like a parent, in that when he gives a command, he doesn’t usually explain why. He simply expects obedience.

Psychologically this is the first commandment that a person experiences: We learn to obey our parents long before we learn about stealing, or murder, or adultery. If we learn to obey our parents as they try to bring us up in the Lord, then the rest will be so much easier. If we are rebellious all the others will be more difficult, even as it will be more difficult to submit to God.

No wonder this commandment has a promise attached. The child who learns to respond to parental guidance will avoid those destructive and harmful behaviors that tend to shorten life.

“That it may go well with you” reminds us again. God gives us His commandments for our benefit. As we live in harmony with what God says is right, we truly are blessed.

Hupakouoô (obey) literally means “to hear under,” that is, to listen with attentiveness and to respond positively to what is heard. Children are to put themselves under the words and authority of their parents.[1]

The Wooden Bowl[2]

“Honor your father and mother” was not originally so much about children sassing their parents as about providing respect and care for older people. Given this understanding, this German folktale is a commentary on the Fourth Commandment.

There was once a couple who lived with their only son Conrad in a modest house at the edge of a great forest. Though they were not rich, they lived a comfortable and happy life together.

One day the man’s father came to make his home with the young couple. The old grandfather’s eyes had grown dim, his ears nearly deaf, and his hands shook like leaves in the wind. When he ate he was unable to hold his spoon without spilling food on the tablecloth and the floor. Often bits of food would run out of his mouth, soiling his clothing. For months the young couple discussed the irritating behavior of the old man. Finally they set a table for him to eat in a corner of the kitchen. As he ate, he looked sadly at his family. When he spilt his food, he would sob.

Finally one day the old man’s trembling hands could no longer hold the glass bowl, and it fell to the floor, breaking into a dozen pieces. The woman scolded him and immediately went to the market where she purchased a wooden bowl for the grandfather. As the days passed the old man said very little as he sat in his corner eating out of his wooden bowl.

Late in the fall the father came home from a long day’s work to find Conrad sitting in the middle of the floor carving a block of wood. “What are you making, my young man?” asked the father.

“It is a present for you and mommy,” answered the child. “I am carving two wooden bowls so that you will have something to eat from when you live with me in your old age.”

The husband and wife looked at each other for a long time, and finally they began to weep. That evening they moved the old grandfather back to the family table. From that day on he always ate with them, and they said nothing even when he spilled his food.

Why obey and honor your parents? Because it is right.

The command was not primarily written to minors. This command is for adults to heed. The original context suggests that children should be sure to take care of their aged parents when they are feeble and no longer able to take care of themselves.

In our culture, the expectation is that our parents will work till they are wealthy and can retire, then when they die, they leave us an inheritance. But this is an exception, not the norm for most cultures. For most cultures, there comes a time when elderly parents can no longer work, and meet their own needs. That’s when children need to remember God’s command with a promise. Honor your parents.

What if it doesn’t feel right?

This clause, "in the Lord," would suggest the due limitation of the obedience required (Acts 5:29 compare on the other hand, the abuse, Mark 7:11-13).

· Acts 5:29 But Peter and the apostles answered and said, "We must obey God rather than men.

The Biblical principal simply put is this. If your parents ask you to do something that is dishonoring to the Lord, we are to obey God rather than men.

If you have dishonorable parents, remember this. God holds accountable those parents who have abused their children.

· Matt 18:6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Since God holds them accountable, we can forgive them, and let them off our hook. If we don’t we will be damaged by bitterness. There is a way to honor even dishonorable parents.

But how do we do that??

He tells us how to do that in His Word:

1. By loving them.

· John 14:15; If you love me, you will obey what I command.
John 15:10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.

2. By forgiving them.

Christ endured far worse than anything we have been through.

Forgiveness is extremely powerful. If I want His blessings, and want to be a blessing, I must be willing to obey- even when it hurts. The hurt will pass away. God's blessing is forever.

C. “BECAUSE IT’S GOOD FOR YOU” (with a promise)

It’s the first commandment with a promise

Those who have learned how to obey and honor their parents…

ENJOY LIFE MORE

LIVE LONGER

· Proverbs 30:11-14 "There is a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother. There is a generation that is pure in their own eyes, yet does not wash from its filthiness. Oh, how lofty they are in their own eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation whose teeth are like swords and whose fangs are like knives to devour the poor from the earth and the needy from among men."

Does this accurately describe our generation?

This description makes them look like monsters. And they are. This generation is becoming a brood of monsters simply because they refuse, we refuse — we’re all guilty of it — to honor our fathers and mothers.

What is the end result?

· Proverbs 30:17 The eye that mocks a father, And scorns a mother, The ravens of the alley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it.

Now, that’s a pretty picture. What is God trying to tell us here? Those who dishonor their parents can expect to be dishonored themselves.

HOW TO OBEY AND HONOR YOUR PARENTS

A. “IN THE LORD”

B. “IN THE LORD…Become like them”

One of the most honoring things to a parent (and sometimes, most dishonoring thing) is when their children become just like them.

SHOW SLIDE SHOW

(We concluded our mother’s day service with a slide show of honored mothers, with the names of their children, accompanied by music).

[1] MacArthur’s New Testament Commentary on Ephesians

[2] Stories For Telling, by William R. White, Augsburg pub. 1986. P. 132