The Fifth Commandment

Guys, we're continuing and we're halfway through our series on the ten commandments, and I hope that you've been enjoying it. I have been. It's such a practical series, isn't it? So much to learn, so much to apply straight away. God's word is always practical.

Theology is always practical. Sometimes it just takes a bit more work to get there. But the ten commandments really, really, you won't find anything more practical than that. The last few weeks we have really zoomed in on a few individual verses, but this morning I just want to, as an overview again, read the entire law as we have received it. We haven't read it like this every week, but this morning, just as a refresher halfway through, let's read the entire ten commandments together as it stands as a whole.

So let's start from Exodus 20:1. And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commands.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days, the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honour your father and your mother. That's this morning's message. Honour your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. You shall not covet your neighbour's house. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbour's.

So far, our reading. The fifth commandment that we look at this morning is definitely a message for our times. Exodus 20:12, honour your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. It is a message with sharp clarity, with holy urgency to a world, as Quibby already prayed, where the concept of family, of authority, of mutual respect is fraying at the edges. The commandment presupposes a normative ideal, doesn't it?

It presupposes the union of one man and one woman for life in the bonds of marriage. And within this context, so as God may bless them, they will find and have children together in stability and in an environment of respect. We see this as a presupposition, an assumption that this is the God ordained plan for human flourishing. Yet family life, we know today, is more complicated and less reflective of the biblical norm than ever before. So in the fifth commandment, we find a commandment for our time.

But there is also more to this command than just family, as we will see. The implications of this law are far reaching, from the nuclear family right through to the essential elements of our society. We find three functions to this command from God, three metaphors from this command that will help us understand not only the scope, but the meaning of this law of God. First, we'll see it is a bridge command, then it is a blanket command, and then thirdly, a beacon command. Bridge, blanket, beacon.

Three B's. Firstly, a bridge. The fifth commandment is a bridge. First of all, we see that this lands squarely in the middle of the ten commandments, right?

Previously, we've spoken about the idea that there were two tablets that God gave the ten commandments on. Remember? And there's been speculation about this, but we see that there's roughly a breaking or two areas, two spheres that these commands address. The first tablet, the first half, addresses our relationship with God. The second tablet, the second half is about our relationship with one another.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbour as yourself, as Jesus summarised the law. These two tablets. Now what we find in the fifth commandment is a bridge between the two, is a linking between the love of God with the love of our neighbour. The fifth commandment acts as this link between these first four commands of loving God and the six last commands, and they stand as a connector in the way that we are to honour God, and now we are to honour those in authority over us relationally. Notice, for example, the word with which the fifth commandment begins, honour your father and your mother.

Honour. That Hebrew word is kabot, which means and is often translated as glory. This word, when used in the context of worship, has the idea of the weightiness of God's majesty on the worshipper. The weightiness, the gravity of who God is. It is his glory.

Deuteronomy 28:58, and I've got a few verses up there for you to look at this week. 28:58 in Deuteronomy uses this word to speak of the glorious or inspiring name of the Lord. Isaiah 24:15 calls the world to worship using this word saying, in the East, give glory, give honour to the Lord. There's that word. Give honour to the Lord in the coastlands of the sea.

Give glory to the name of the Lord God of Israel. So there's a connection here of worship. There's a connection here that is tied with the honour and the glory of God. And so we see in the fifth commandment a designation or an echo of what has come before in the commandments one to four, and it applies to the relationship between a father and a mother to their children. We see the tight connection in Malachi coming through again.

Malachi 1:6 where God speaks about Himself and His heartbreak that His children are leaving Him, have turned to idols. He uses the same sort of language. Listen to this. The echoes of the fifth commandment coming through Malachi 1:6. He says, God says, as a son honours his father and a servant his master, if then I am a father, where is my honour? If I am a master, where is my fear?

You see the point of that passage? The loving reverence that is to mark the relation between a son and their father should echo the loving reverence that we have with God Himself. The essence of respect for our elders in some way is bound up in our respect for God. How we relate and how we respect our elders is somehow a show of our respect for God.

Or to put it another way, the family and especially the way that children honour their parents is designed by God to reflect the honour God Himself receives in our lives. You may even say that the way children honour parents and the dynamics of relationships within a family is a good barometer of the place that the Lord holds in that family's life. When there is a deep rupture, the flip side of that, when there is a deep rupture within the family, when this honour isn't present, where the Lord is not held in honour, we see a fraying of the concept of who God is. We see a family who's very far from God often. In fact, fathers and mothers, your example in parenthood becomes the basis for how your kids view God.

Your example is the basis for how your kids view God. What will a son think of God? What will your son or your daughter think of God when they hear that God is a father to them? They will compare God to you. With all respect, in some way, you represent God to them.

And we could say the opposite as well and find a great encouragement and a comfort here in this fifth commandment, not just a warning and a rebuke, but a home where God is given honour and glory, generally speaking, is a home where love and honour and respect for your elders exists. The two work hand in hand. So first of all, this is a bridge between the love of God, the honour of God, and the love for one another. That respect, that honour. It connects the honour that is due to God with the way we treat one another in the home and in society, and that leads us to the next point.

A blanket command we find. That is to say it covers a wide range of human relationships. Certainly speaking, very directly, God is addressing the family unit here as the basis or the foundation of society itself. A son, a daughter, a mum, and a dad. That is where it begins.

To put it bluntly, children of all ages. So parents looking at their kids as I'm preaching this, this applies to you if you are a son or a daughter, which I'm assuming you are. I don't think we grew up in test tubes. You do have parents as well, I'm sure. Some of them may not be with us anymore, but we were all kids and are all kids at one point. Whether you are 14 or 40, God wants us to treat this command seriously and with great care, with great listening to the instruction, to the teaching, to the input of our parents whom God has given us.

In a world where the power of youth is constantly advancing, the power of youth is constantly winning, and old people can become increasingly sidelined. This is very counter cultural. Question is, do you listen? Do you listen to what your parents are saying? Can you say that you obey your parents?

Can you say that you take their advice seriously? Or do you disregard it out of hand? Now I know this can be hard. I know this can be very hard. Parents can be wrong.

Parents can be frustrating. Mums and dads, they love us very, very much, but they may be wrong. They can get it wrong. They may not know everything, and they may have made mistakes in their past. But God is calling us, all of us, to humility.

God is calling us to be humble, to accept their instruction, to honour them enough to do as they have asked us to do, to honour them enough to do and say to them, I love God and God has commanded me to honour and respect you and therefore I will do just that. There's a lot, a whole lot of humility in this regard. I have a friend who's Chinese. And in a society that is very, very hierarchical, right, a society that still holds in great respect the honour between an elder and someone young.

If they see a little bit of grey in their hair, they immediately respect you. And to see him struggle as a Christian, he became a believer later in his life, to see him struggle with honouring his mum and dad who weren't Christians, but trying to be faithful to this command is tricky. But to see him wrestle with this was an inspiration as well. There's a lot of humility needed in this regard.

And for all the flaws of parents, we should remember to give them the benefit of the doubt. If God has placed them over us then God has a plan for them in our lives. Godly parents, especially, have good reason for their input. They have good reason for their advice and their opinions. Despite what we may think, despite what our society may say, Mark Twain famously said, and we may some of us relate to this. When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant.

I could hardly stand to have the man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. The older Mister Twain got, the more he realised his dad actually did know a thing or two and had a bit of wisdom behind those years. We need to keep a little humility up our sleeves and give honour and respect when it's due. And of course, at the very same time, God has a word for parents.

This is a two way street, right? Right after telling children to obey their parents in Colossians 3:20, Paul says in verse 21, fathers do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. So children, obey your parents. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

Don't be the source of discouragement in the home. Similarly, Ephesians 6:2, right after quoting, Paul quotes the fifth commandment. Right after quoting the fifth commandment, Paul says, fathers do not provoke, here's that word again, provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Who is the source of Christian education? Not the teachers.

Not the Sunday school teachers. Dad. First port of call, spiritual headship, Dad. If you want children who honour you, be sure to pursue their heart with gospel words, with gospel teaching, with gospel instructions. Parents, live such a life that demands respect.

If you live honourably, you give every reason for your child to respect you. Practise patience therefore. Don't panic. Pray and trust that God is with your kids. You have a wonderful privilege as parents.

It is a privilege. Again, society says it might be a burden. Our society may say we can get rid of kids in the womb even because it may affect our lives negatively. Children are a blessing from the Lord. You have a privilege as parents.

Nothing you will ever do is as important as this. Someone once said that it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men, and that is your calling as parents. Strive to be honourable in the ways you treat your children so that your children in turn might learn to honour you. Love them that they might love you. Love them constantly by holding out the gospel so that through your witness, they may love God and honour Him as they've come to love and honour you as a representative of God in that family.

So certainly, at its very core, the fifth commandment deals with parents and children, but it is also far more reaching than this. And we've seen that in the ten commandments before. We've seen idolatry wasn't just crafted bits of wood and stone. It was to do with the heart. It was to do with the worship of things that God had created, and that is everything around us.

It covers many more relationships than simply the relationship of parents and children. It speaks to the very way we relate to all authority. All authority. John Calvin took the fifth commandment to address not just the parents, but the civil authorities and the government that's been placed above us. And in his time, it was kings and princes.

But he goes on further and he said, church leaders and then even people that are generally older than us in society. The Bible makes the point, for example, that when a person is called to live under a government, that this government becomes a pseudo parent. The government's responsibility under God is to love their people like a parent loves their child. That is what they will have to answer to before God one day. Literally, government is seen in the same way as father or a mother.

The Westminster Larger Catechism, for example, cites Isaiah 49:23 to make this case where God says that the kings shall be your foster fathers and their queens your nursing mothers. Similarly, in Romans 13, we find Paul saying that we are to subject ourselves to the government authorities for there is no authority, Paul says, except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God Himself. He says, because of this, you also are to pay taxes. For the authorities are ministers of God. The authorities are ministers of God.

My title as a reverend is a minister. Paul is placing them in some way on the same level. They are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. He says, pay to them all that is owed, taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed. And then he says this, honour, the same word.

Honour to whom honour is owed. To honour father and mother therefore implies honouring those in authority over you, and that includes, here we go, your boss. That includes your government. It includes the police. It includes all civil authority.

So to us Aussies who kind of push back against the whole authority thing, we just do, who don't like authority very much, let me ask you, how are you speaking about your leaders? What is your internal vocabulary about them like? What is your posture? What is your attitude when you are called to show honour and respect for those that God has placed over us? We are called to show honour even when we differ and disagree.

Parents and children are definitely in view here, but also civil authorities are included. Leaders in the church are covered here as well. Galatians 4:19, Paul addresses believers and he says, you are my little children. My little children. One Thessalonians 2:7 and 11, he likens his ministry to the tender care of a mother and the encouragement of a father.

So the church. One day, elders and pastors will have to give an account as parents. And I can tell you how weird it is being a parent to people many, many years my senior, but parents to children. And then even to those older than us in society, we are called by the Bible to show honour and reverence. One Timothy 5:1 and 2 says, do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father.

Do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father. Now there's a word of caution too. So long as, and this is all within this context, so long as obedience to authority does not require us to break God's law, the fifth commandment calls us to give all reverence and all honour and obedience to everyone in a position of authority insofar as it stays within the law of God. And this is where my friend really had to struggle when his non-Christian parents kind of pushed the boundaries on this. So the fifth commandment is a blanket command.

It covers all spheres, all levels of society. And frankly, it is very counter cultural today. So we are called to put to death cynicism and disrespect. And it sounds so easy when you preach it, so easy when you hear it being read, but what do we do when a government votes in same sex marriage, if that happens? What do we do when a parent massively disappoints you?

How do you honour your father and your mother who may have seriously abused you as a child? But friend, the remarkable thing is, imagine a church who would love and honour those people in authority over them. Imagine how utterly revolutionary that would look to a world watching on, to people paying their taxes and their fines on time, but gladly, freely. What a witness we might give to the world of the power of the gospel to renovate lives, to live in obedience to the fifth commandment. Utterly revolutionary.

And then the last point, the last B. The fifth commandment is a beacon. That is to say, like a beacon that guides ships in the dark into a safe harbour, the fifth commandment directs our steps by way of a blessing. Notice in this verse that we read, verse 12, that there is a promise attached to the fifth commandment. Honour your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land your God is giving you.

Remember when the ten commandments were given. Remember that the context Israel were at the foot of Mount Sinai. They had just left Egypt. They were about to enter the promised land, Canaan, at that time. And God is here saying, if you live according to my law, I will give you not just the land, I will give you a blessing.

I will give you a fulfilment and enjoyment in this land, a long life to enjoy all of its blessings. Now there's a temptation for us as people not associated with Israel anymore to spiritualise this altogether or to say that it belonged completely to Israel at that point. There is indeed for the church no longer a promised land in that sort of way. The promised land belonged to the Jews of that time if they remained faithful. But we see in Scripture that there is a blessing of life inherently connected to this command specifically.

If we go back to Ephesians 6:1 and 2, where we've already talked about Paul giving the obligation of children to honour their parents, you'll see this continuing application of the promise. He doesn't spiritualise this promise of blessing away, although he slightly modifies it. He says, there's no longer a promise of a specific homeland for God's people, yet he says, honour your father and your mother. This is the first command with a promise, he says. This is the first command with a promise that it may go well with you, that you may live long in the land.

What is this promise about? It simply is that if society lives within respect and honour for those in authority, whether parents or civil authorities, you will be successful. Your country will be blessed. Families will be healthy. Stability will be in your country.

You will live long in this land. You will prosper. Society and families will function as God intended. But this command is also a beacon pointing towards something that is to come. Remember all of God's law, and we said this right at the beginning of this series, all of God's laws points towards Jesus.

It all points to Christ. If you are to find the sting of your heart this morning as you reflect and as a parent you realise, maybe I haven't lived a life honourable. Or you realise as a son as I did again this week, I wish I didn't do that then. I wish I didn't say those things then. If you realise you failed, if you ask what hope is there for this blessing of living long in the land?

The hope of blessing, the beacon of light is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the perfect son. No one has ever kept the fifth commandment like He did. Do you remember the story of Him as a young teenager when He was 12 and He went to the temple? And there He sat with the rabbis and He was teaching them.

He was teaching them. He was debating with them the law of God. And Mary and Joseph, they couldn't find Him. They had no idea where He went. Mary was beside herself with worry, and then that sort of parental anger mixed with, like, relief when finally He turned up again.

Remember afterwards when they were reunited in Luke 2:51. We can actually have just turn there. Luke. It's beautiful. Luke 2:51.

Jesus says to them in verse 49, He says to them, why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house? And they did not understand the saying that He spoke to them. How could they? In verse 51, it says, He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them.

He was submissive to them. Jesus, the Son of God, obeyed an earthly father and a mother. Friend, do you think that you know better than your parents? Were you the one that created a trillion synapses in the brain to make you think that in the first place?

Do you believe that your insights are more sophisticated? Were you there when the earth's foundations were laid? Do you reject a Malcolm Turnbull or a Julia Gillard as your leader? Were you there when God breathed life into the first man? Jesus was. And yet, He was submissive to these parents who did not understand.

But then even more wonderfully, friends, even more wonderfully is John 17. On the eve of Jesus' betrayal, Jesus prayed and He says, Father, I have glorified You on earth. I have finished the work You gave me to do. Imagine your son doing the dishes and saying, Father, I have finished the work that you have given me to do.

Obviously, Jesus is talking about the cross. Jesus is viewing what is going to happen soon in the next twenty four hours and He says, I've obeyed You. I'm gonna do it. Jesus remains obedient to His Father in heaven as well. He prayed in the garden, remember, just before His death.

In that garden crushed, weighed down, buckling under the weight of our sin and our guilt, knowing the suffering of our penalty that our sin deserves. He cried out for deliverance and yet He said, Father, not my will, but Yours be done. Hebrews 5:8 says, though He was a Son, He learned obedience by the things He suffered. Christ is the perfectly obedient Son that we never were. A Son who honoured both earthly parents and His heavenly Father, and He kept this command for you.

He kept it for you. So that by His sacrificial death, by this sacrificial death, He would cover me with His righteousness. And so that when God sees me, He sees or He views me as having kept this one single commandment perfectly my entire life, as if I had been that faithful son to Him, my heavenly Father, but to my father.

What wonderful news, friends. What amazing grace. His obedience, His obedience is our refuge. His obedience is our hiding place. The fifth commandment then is this wonderful bridge between honouring God and honouring those God has placed us around.

Connecting those first four commandments with the last six, teaching us to honour God as we honour those that God has given us. The fifth commandment is a blanket command that covers everything in our society in terms of authority. Our government, our councils, our MPs, our police, our ambos. It cuts across the grain of all of society. What a witness a people who live like this would be in our age.

What a witness that would be. And the fifth commandment is a beacon commandment. It is the promise of a Son who would be faithful. May God help us. May He give us a fifth commandment heart.

May He make this church a fifth commandment church marked and characterised by honour and respect among ourselves that we may show a world of disrespect and dishonour and cynicism what the gospel does, renovating, overhauling, transforming lives to the glory and the praise of God who is our Saviour. Father, we are so thankful for these words. And, God, the blunt certainty, the stark black and white crispness of this word sits at times very uneasily with us. When there is plenty of excuses at hand, when there is plenty of reasons not to be obedient, not to be respectful, not to honour. When there is more flaws than good reasons, God.

Yet You tell us to honour our father and our mother. Lord, help us to apply this in the multifaceted life of this church. For parents here to be worthy of honour, for kids, children, living at home, still under the authority and headship of a mum and a dad, help us to respect and listen. And Father, help us to live in a society where we so often feel so disconnected, so tempted to pull up stumps.

So tempted to become little ghettos of self righteousness, little empires. Lord, I pray that we may live honourably before a watching world. So as those watching on may say, there's something remarkable here. There is something revolutionary here. God, may You receive all the glory that is due through these lives.

May we find the beautiful blessing that it is as well of health, of wholesomeness, of well-being, of security and stability to live long in the land that You have given us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.