Honor Your Father and Mother

1. 0:00Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 39. What is God's will for you in the fifth commandment? That I show honor, love, and faithfulness to my father and mother and all those
2. 0:20and authority over me, submit myself with proper obedience to all their good teaching and discipline, and also that I be patient with their failings, for by
3. 0:30their hand God wills to rule us." So, the fifth commandment. First thing to perhaps highlight in the catechism question, which is found in many, many other catechism questions, is
4. 0:45personal application. That's one of the things I love most about the Heidelberg catechism, is it's not just objective, abstract teaching. It's personal, it's pastoral, it's applicatory.
5. 1:00And the catechism asks, "What is God's will for you in the fifth commandment?"
6. 1:05So it's a personal question that we are to provide an answer for.
7. 1:09And the answer is recognizing what's said in the fifth commandment, in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.
8. 1:17But I think it's important to recall what the apostles said Paul says in the book of Ephesians, and that is, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."
9. 1:28This is the first commandment with a promise.
10. 1:30That is, here is one of the Ten Commandments which are addressed specifically to children.
11. 1:36And it's important particularly for parents in raising their children.
12. 1:39is that they can say, "Here is a motivation for children to obey their parents."
13. 1:44It's the first commandment with the promise. God attaches to this commandment that you may live long in the land that the Lord your God has given you. God
14. 1:53promises long life for faithfully adhering to His Word. The next thing to notice is something unusual, and I would ask, as somebody not raised with the
15. 2:06Heidelberg Catechism, can you demonstrate that the answer provided here is actually what the Bible teaches? And what I'm referring to here is when it says,
16. 2:16"Not only are you to show honor, love, and faithfulness to your mother, and father, but all those in authority over me. Now where do you get that from
17. 2:25the Bible? Well, does the Bible actually teach that? Yes, it does. The Bible teaches that using family metaphors for references to people in
18. 2:39authority in various spheres of life. It refers to them by family designations. So, for example, in Genesis 45, Joseph is spoken of as a father to Pharaoh. In
19. 2:53Judges chapter 5, Deborah as a judge is referred to as a mother in Israel.
20. 2:59Naaman is a father, referred to as a father in 2 Kings chapter 5. You could look at Isaiah chapter 49 where it talks about the king as a father in Israel.
21. 3:11Prophets, teachers, church leaders are also referred to with family metaphors.
22. 3:18Paul often talks about him to his congregations as a father or as a mother who has given birth to them.
23. 3:25Again, family metaphor. So when we actually question the Bible and examine it as to whether or not the teaching of the catechism is excessive or faithful, we find that it's faithful.
24. 3:39that we are to show honor, love, and faithfulness to father and mother, and all those in authority who are referred to as father and mother in the Bible. And why is that important? Because
25. 3:53catechism says, by their hand, God wills to rule us, or perhaps more colloquially we would say, Through them, God chooses to rule us. That is, that there is a hierarchy in creation,
26. 4:06and those who are in various spheres of authority in life are, for example, parents, obviously, the fifth commandment most specifically, civil authority, are referred to as fathers and mothers,
27. 4:22church officers, and employers.
28. 4:26Through all those individuals, God chooses to rule us.
29. 4:30I think that's an important thing to take into the world when we leave the church on Sunday and go to work Monday through Saturday, is that God is a good person God is actively at work in the world.
30. 4:42God is choosing to rule me through my boss.
31. 4:45Submission, the word for submission in the New Testament is hupotasso.
32. 4:50It literally means to rank oneself under, which shows that hierarchical arrangement that God has put in the world.
33. 4:59Now, having said all that, do we just blindly submit to any and all authority no matter what?
34. 5:06No, there's a limit on submission and a limit on authority.
35. 5:09God alone has absolute authority.
36. 5:12All subordinate authorities, whether they're parents, civil authorities, employers, or church leaders, have a delegated authority.
37. 5:19delegated authority. And we must refuse to submit to those delegated authorities if and when they call us to do what God
38. 5:28forbids or forbid us to do what God requires. So there's a limit on that. However, God is long-suffering with us, and oftentimes His Moral teaching for us as his people is to be a reflection of how he deals with us.
39. 5:48And if God is long-suffering with us, then we are called to be patient and long-suffering with those in authority over us.
40. 5:55Fathers and mothers are not perfect. They make mistakes. They sin.
41. 5:59Civil authorities are not perfect.
42. 6:02We should be patient with their failings.
43. 6:03Church leaders are sinners like the rest of the members of the church.
44. 6:08We should be patient with their failings.
45. 6:10And the same thing with our employers on the job or our business owners.
46. 6:15We should be patient with their failings.
47. 6:17All of this is involved in what God will is for us in the fifth commandment honor your father and your mother

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