In the sermon 'Honoring the Dishonorable,' Scott Brown explores the biblical doctrine of honor, emphasizing Romans 12:10, which calls believers to give preference to one another in honor. Brown explains that honor begins with honoring God by presenting oneself as a living sacrifice, which then extends to all areas of life, including family, church, and civil authorities. He acknowledges the inevitability of authorities disappointing us due to their imperfections but stresses the importance of Christians learning to honor them regardless. The sermon delves into the challenges of honoring dishonorable parents or authorities and provides guidelines for maintaining respect without condoning sinful behavior. Brown uses the biblical example of Noah and his sons to illustrate the consequences of dishonor and the importance of covering others' faults with love. He concludes that honoring others aligns with God's commands and results in blessings, urging believers to cultivate a spirit of honor in all relationships.

Please open your Bibles to Romans chapter 12 and find verse 9. Romans chapter 12 verse nine. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, Cling to what is good, be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love. In honor, giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that you would teach us in the ways in which we should go. Come, Lord, and shepherd your flock by your word. Amen.

Please be seated. So we've been lingering on verse 10 in Romans chapter 12 and that statement in honor giving preference to one another and have been attempting to unpack this broad doctrine of honor that appears in the Bible. And so today I'd like to sort of wind up this series. There are other things that I could continue to elaborate on, but I want to just sort of bring some summary thoughts and then bring some additional thoughts on how to honor those who behave dishonorably. And I always want us to keep in mind the promise that's given in the fifth commandment, and I believe it applies across the board to all manners of honor, that it might go well with you.

It's a tremendous promise. And God, He teaches us about the blessings that flow from obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. The followers of Jesus Christ have something following them all the days of their life, and that is that God will do them good. Now I think we should just recognize at the beginning here that the Bible assumes that people from time to time will fall into a spirit of dishonor toward one authority or another. I think that's the assumption of the text.

People will struggle with the authorities under which God has placed them. Well, here's the good news. God has a plan for you when it happens. Probably not if it happens or if it might happen, it most likely will happen to every person. Authorities can tend to disappoint those under their authority.

It is inevitable. The problem with authorities is that they're not perfect. You'll see this from this list that I've given you. Most of them, eight in my list of ten, are authorities that aren't perfect and they just might likely sometime disappoint you. The way they behave, their quirks of personality, the decisions they make, things like that.

And so God is so kind to help us to live in the real world, the real world of authorities. Now how does all this begin? Well Romans 12 one tells us where it begins. It begins when a person presents his body as a living sacrifice to God holy and acceptable to God as your spiritual worship a Spirit of honor is launched in the soul when you first of all honor God and you place your life under God's authority and you say Lord not my authority any longer that didn't work out too well your authority is what I want it's what I need Please come and lead my life and Lord, I present my body as a living sacrifice to you. And so this is the beginning of honor and this is the beginning of all blessing in life and so I'd like to just continue to speak about this matter of honor and then I want to dial in on the matter of authorities who have behaved dishonorably and again I'm really unpacking this one phrase in honor giving preference to one another because it's a catchphrase that begins in a local church and it fans out into every other relationship.

This is one of the one-anothers in the Bible. You know there are about 50 one-anothers in the Bible. There are ten times in the last five chapters of Romans you will encounter one of the one-anothers and we'll look at each one of them hopefully in some level of detail and to honor means to give weight to esteem highly. It has to do with appraisal and weightiness to ascribe worth to someone who has been placed in an authority. And this, it's fulfilled in two ways.

It's fulfilled first of all by a capability that God gives the believer. It's the capability that the Holy Spirit begins in the believer's heart. Ephesians 5 18 says, do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And then he goes on and outlines what the Holy Spirit looks like, and he ends up in what it looks like in a home, children honor their father and mother. It looks like husbands who honor their wives and love them and wives who respect their husbands.

And it even concludes in chapter six with honoring employers. So this is a matter that covers every area of life. But there is a capability, the capability is the power of the Spirit. How do you exercise authority? According to the fruit of the Spirit.

And then it's also a command, it's not just a capability because we are being sanctified. We've not arrived yet. And so we have more ground to cover in learning how to glorify God in the world. So there's a command to give preference to one another in honor. So you have the capability by the Word of by the Holy Spirit and you have the command.

And what's so remarkable about this whole chapter in Romans 12 is that it really, it declares what a treasure a biblically ordered local church is to everyone. You know, imagine a church like this. It's a place where people are presenting their bodies as living sacrifices. It's a place where they're being transformed by the renewing of their minds, not being conformed to the world. They are proving the will of God.

They're pleasing God. They're not thinking too highly of themselves than they ought. They are members of one body. They're exercising their gifts. Some are ministering, some are speaking, some are teaching, some are giving, some have authority, some are showing mercy.

There's love without hypocrisy. There's a boring what is evil and clinging to what is good. These are people who are kindly affectionate to one another in brotherly love. Well, that would actually be a summary of the first 10 verses of Romans chapter 12. What a culture.

There's a particular culture that God establishes in his churches, in his kingdom, and this one, giving preference to one another, is very critical. So we've kind of been doing this journey through the doctrine of honor, And you have on your outline something that a pastor should never do. You should never give more than three points on your outline. And here you have like 116. Well, that's an overstatement.

But I wanted us to see the contours of the doctrine, again, in summary form, with our own eyes. And you have 10 manifestations of honor. And I believe that there's a there's there's the blessing of God in performing all these matters of honor to the authorities that God has given to you. In some ways they are ten promises of success and they and they flow from the very first that we have presented our bodies as living sacrifices. And this really begins with honor toward God.

In First Samuel two verse 30, the Lord says, "'For those who honor me, I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Honor begins with honoring God. That's the headwaters of all honor. And the Bible makes it very clear that all authority exists From God we're gonna get to that soon in Romans chapter 13 where we begin to expand Honor toward the civil government. What does it really look like?

And then you have honor toward parents. That classic passage that we walk through, children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. Theologians for hundreds of years have believed that this commandment to honor parents flows through to all other authorities And I do believe that is true. And the promise is there, that it might be well with you.

We talked a lot about raising children. And there are a few more things I wanna say about that. And I just want to remind us that the apostles make it very clear that there should be a particular child raising culture in the churches of Jesus Christ. And he's defining what that looks like. There is an apostolic methodology for raising children and the churches really ought to follow that methodology it's set by the Apostles and what the Apostles tell us is that God puts parents as supreme authorities in their home and both parents and children should come together and agree that that's the way of God and that children need to be delivered from their egocentrism when they're young particularly and parents should engage the battle and win the battle with their children.

That what God has designed for parents is that they are in the business of shifting their children's thinking about themselves and about authority. That they should shift their understanding of themselves as the god of this world, but there are other authorities that they must obey. And so we walked through those critical matters. And really how important it is to do this, you know, early on to secure honor in your children's hearts, that they know that there's an authority in town. And the truth is, if you don't get that done pretty effectively by age five, you're going to have a lot harder time from then on.

But you still need to wage the war and do all you can to secure honor with your children. And it's so pivotal because the blessings flow into the hearts and lives of children when they have learned how to honor authorities, beginning with their parents and then cascading down through all the other authorities. You know, there are a bunch of books that I recommended at the end of this outline, books for raising children. One of them is a book that I edited over a decade ago by William Gouge, Building a Godly Home. And Gouge goes on at length to describe the various matters that parents need to be very careful about.

He talks about all the things that you would normally think of. But he talks in one of the chapters about getting parents consent for the pivotal transitions in their lives. Here's, I'm just going to read some of the headings. Consent of parents in entering a vocation. Parents consent to the marriage of their children, parents giving their daughters in marriage, which involves consent.

And he builds this out from the scriptures, the sin of marrying without the consent of your parents. This causes tremendous dislocation and disaster in entire families when parents and children do not come into the time of marriage with an agreement that they are going to honor the counsel of their parents regarding their marriage. And I know there are many difficult matters that I don't really have time to unpack here because sometimes you have parents who are genuinely sinning against their children. And somehow that has to be unraveled. In fact, you know, in the time of the Reformation, 25% of the population had taken vows of celibacy and The reformers, you know were constantly, you know encouraging Children to get married go get married and have children That's what God commands you to do to go be fruitful and multiply Don't go into the convent and many of them had to defy their parents So there are there are circumstances where children should disobey their parents when it comes to marriage I think those are very very rare.

They should listen to their parents Here another heading ministers the ministers sin in marrying children without consent. Here's another heading, stealing children from parents for marriage sake. These are really difficult matters that that often confront families and William Gooch has quite a bit to say about that but we should never forget that it might go well with you the blessings that flow from those who follow Jesus Christ as Lord. So moving from honor toward parents, you have honor toward elders, obey those who rule over you and be submissive. These are very very clear statements and there are lots of verses you can look at to understand what the Bible says about that.

But I believe there are blessings that flow from those who follow the Lord Jesus Christ and learn how to somehow figure out how to honor the elders, the pastors of their churches. And you know elders do all kinds of things that can offend people on a number of different matters. They make decisions and it's easy to second-guess them. They're not perfect men and so it's as easy as pie to have a reason to dishonor your elders. But you have these commands here.

Then you have honor towards civil governors. We're going to get to that in more detail, but again you know there the implication of blessings that flow from those who honor the authorities that God has set forth. God is the one, God Almighty alone is the one who has established all authorities, even many of our corrupt civil magistrates. He has done it, and we just should recognize that. And while we might have something to say about it, we should understand what's really going on.

God is doing something in the world. And then you have husbands honoring their wives and wives honoring their husbands. There's so much to say. Adam was judged by heeding the voice of his wife, and at the same time, husbands are called to love their wives like Christ loved the church. You know, the relationship of a husband and wife is really the most pivotal thing in raising your children.

Because children will often mirror the behavior of their father and mother. And if you have a husband who's not loving his wife and honoring her and cherishing her, and if you have a wife who's resisting the authority of her home, then the children will often just do the same. They've been taught by their authorities how to do such a thing and you know a man might say well I'm honoring my wife but then he's harsh with her. You say you honor your husband but you're always upset with him and you're always dissatisfied with his decisions and you're complaining and you're subverting him you say You can say one thing but but what you do is really the most telling thing but honor in the home is so critical and their blessings that flow. We'll get to that in a minute.

I wanna talk about that in some detail. Then you have honor toward the aged. You shall rise before the gray-headed and honor in the presence of the old man. Oh, I like that verse a lot. That's fantastic.

And then next, honoring one another. This is the broad command that we find in Romans chapter 12, verse 10. This has to do with honoring the brothers and sisters in the church and having a general disposition of honor toward all men. And I think part of that is because all men and women are made in the image of God and they actually deserve honor because God has made them and he has placed manifestations of his glory in their souls. Of course you know all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God but you cannot miss the glory of God in humanity even in fallen humanity.

We owe all human beings honor because we're made in the image of God. And then you have, this is a little bit different, honoring the Lord's Day. I put that in there because it's very explicit that God has called his children to honor the Lord's Day, to make it a holy day, to make it a delight. And then, and then, and then next honoring employers, You know, a person may say they honor their employer, but they show up late. They take liberties with the internet during the day, and they don't really work all the hours that they're getting paid for because they're surfing and scrolling around or they might leave early.

They might be a complaining employee, might be a bitter employee. It's so easy. I don't know how many men I've talked to over the years, you know, who complain and became bitter toward their employers and, you know, you have to walk, try to walk them through that and and lead them back to living waters, lead them back to the success that God has designed for them in honoring their authorities. Now, I think it would be good to define dishonor. And I wanna begin with the Bible.

What does it look like to dishonor? And I wanna actually begin in Romans 1 verse 21, because it speaks of the unbeliever who did not honor him or give thanks. Part of honor is giving thanks. And part of dishonor is the refusal to be thankful. Here's another in Malachi chapter 1 verses 6 through 8 there's a picture of dishonorable offerings dishonoring God.

Dishonor in this context they did not honor God with their tithes and offerings. And there are two things they did. First of all, they brought lame and blind and sick animals, and that was a dishonor toward God. They did not exalt God with the way they were offering their gifts. And then the second thing, they withheld offerings.

They were withholding tithes and offerings. Dishonor looks like withholding from someone for whom it is due. Also, you know, they did not honor the marriage covenant. That was another thing that was a manifestation of their dishonor toward God. It was dishonorable toward God to bring their lame and blind.

It was dishonorable to God not to bring their tithes and offerings. It was dishonorable to God not to honor their marriage covenant. Another definition of dishonor would be mocking. Proverbs 30 verse 17 speaks about the eye that mocks his father, the young person who has his eyes lifted up you know so dishonorably even to even to mock. You have an unsubmissive spirit in Hebrews 13 17 which is one of the definitions of dishonor toward elders.

Unsubmissive spirit is part of dishonor. Then you have pride, 1st Peter 5, 5 through 9, in this matter of submission to elders. Likewise, you younger people submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility for God resists the proud But gives grace to the humble Dishonor looks like pride. So these are different things that you might see refusal to give thanks dishonorable treatment mocking unsubmissive spirit pride I think what you learn from this is dishonor is both an attitude, a secret sin, and it's also an outward sin that manifests itself in actions.

I mean, we know what it looks like in children. They're rolling the eyes, they're ignoring their parents, they're disobeying their parents. That's what it looks like in children. They whine, they argue with their parents, they talk back. This is dishonor being expressed, you know, in youth.

They talk back, they correct their parents, they interrupt their parents, they throw tantrums, they scream, They disrespect property rules. And so dishonor shows itself in outward actions. And the truth is, the N-word will come out. But it's interesting in all these that we've discussed and then the final one that we'll discuss in a moment You have an opportunity To dishonor an imperfect authority Another here's what I'm trying to say We have to deal with this all the time about dishonoring authorities. It's not just sort of an egregious situation where you have a dishonorable parent.

We've lived with this our whole life long with civil magistrates, with church leaders, with bosses, with all kinds of different categories of authority. And God is using all of those to teach us how to honor him because it is in honoring one another that we are simultaneously honoring God. So it's a very critical matter and this is really that it is all about how it will go well with you when you honor authorities. Here's just some ways to think about this. If you honor the civil government in an appropriate way and I know this isn't going to always hold hold especially if you're speaking truth in love to the civil government you will live at peace you know when the policeman comes and pulls you over and you act honorably to him it actually changes the narrative if you act dishonorably, the narrative will be what it will be.

If you honor your employer, what will you get? You will get trust. You will get loyalty. You actually will be attractive to your employer if you don't waste your time, if you honor him, if you do what you're supposed to do. Because the blessings flow.

You know, what goes around comes around. If you honor your husband, well here's the deal. Love grows in his heart instead of dies. A dishonorable wife kills love in a man. If you honor your wife, She wants to make you happy.

It energizes her and makes her want to help you. It makes her want to fulfill her role if you're honoring your wife. Well, there is a verse about this. He who loves his wife loves himself, that's in Ephesians 5. And the whole idea is if you love your wife it's gonna come back to you.

That's just a simple principle. In Hebrews 13, 17 it says if you honor church elders it is profitable for you. If you don't it's not profitable for you. What does that mean? The apostle doesn't define it But there's a whole range of unprofitable things that come into your life if you're a rebellious church member.

And, you know, if you honor the aged, how will God bless you? If you honor the aged, you know what will happen? They will open up to you. And they'll impart their wisdom to you if you're interested. You know, the aged typically aren't running around pushing their stuff on everybody because they know that if someone is interested and hungry they'll come and if you honor the aged they'll open up to you that's a blessing anyway those I just wanted to itemize various ways that God blesses you when you honor your authorities, whether it be civil authorities or employers or husbands and wives or church elders or the agent.

Blessings flow. That's the spectrum of blessing that God gives His children. Think of the many opportunities God gives you to be blessed in this world through the imperfect authorities that God gives you. So let's talk about this final matter, honoring those who are not honorable. And I'd like to actually, I'd like to begin with a narrative in Genesis chapter 9, and it's the narrative of Noah's drunkenness.

And I'm drawing quite a bit from my friend Jason Doane who preached a sermon on this a couple years ago, I think. I thought it was such a great sermon. I just couldn't help quoting some of it. So open your Bibles to Genesis chapter nine. Genesis chapter nine and find verse 18.

Genesis nine, 18. I'm gonna walk us through four scenes quickly in this narrative. Now this verse 19 verse 18, now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark for Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. Notice the language, the father of Canaan.

Hold on to that, we'll get to that later. That's actually important in the narrative. Scene two, Noah and the wine, verse 20 and 21. And Noah began to be a farmer and he planted a vineyard then he drank of the wine and was drunk and became uncovered in his tent. So Noah comes out of the ark he's now a farmer.

The Hebrew word means man of the soil. It's a great, it's a great term. And this is actually the first mention of wine in the Bible and it's actually not good news. And of course I think most of you are familiar about the biblical teaching about wine. I wrote a book about it, why we went from grape juice to wine in the Lord's Supper.

Here's the biblical teaching. There are very, very dramatic warnings against drunkenness and the misuse of alcohol. And they're all over the Bible. At the same time, it's very clear the Bible says that wine is a blessing, and there's only one reason we have wine in the Lord's Supper, and that's because that's the way it was in the early church and that's the way it always was until about 1830 in the church and our confession, the Baptist confession calls for it. That's the only reason we do it, okay?

It's the sufficiency of Scripture. But what you find here is the first mention, and I think it's telling, you know, you have this idea of the first mention, have you ever heard of that? The doctrine of the first mention. The first mention of something often tells a tale that you can draw through the rest of scripture and you can and you can and and and you can you can tell the tale of when people misuse alcohol in the Bible and that's why the warnings are so dramatic. So Noah is drunk, he's naked in his tent, it's not a pretty sight.

Scene chapter three, Ham, his son, walks in, verse 22, and Ham, the father of Canaan, there's that phrase again, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. He sees it, he talks about it. Now let's give a little bit of backstory on Noah. There's no evidence in scripture that Noah was a drunk. He was a righteous man.

In Genesis 6, 9, we read Noah was a righteous man blameless among the people of his time and he walked faithfully with God. Genesis 6 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him. Hebrews 11 7 he was a man of faith. 2nd Peter 2, 5, he's a preacher of righteousness. He lived 950 years and that all those things that I just read defined his life.

Here's what is most likely. This was Noah's worst moment. It was totally out of character. You know, he had been an exemplary man and an exemplary father. Scene 4, verse 23, But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both of their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father.

Their faces were turned away and they did not see their father's nakedness. Very different behavior. Ham wanted to report the sin. Shem and Japheth did not even want to see it. They did not want to remember it.

They honored their father, which was most likely in his worst moment. Now there are times that you cannot cover sin, but there are times when the most loving thing to do is to cover over sin. 1 Peter 4, 8, Above all things have fervent love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins." He's quoting Proverbs 10 verse 12. This is a consistent teaching. There are times when it's right to cover sin.

And then the next scene, the prophecy. Noah awakes from his wine and He knew that his young he knew what his younger son had done to him verse 24. Are you reading with me? Verse 24 then 25 then he said cursed be Canaan a servant of servants, he shall be to his brethren. And he said, blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant.

May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant." So Noah awakes. Something dishonorable has happened. That's very clear. Everyone who reads this and has commented on it for centuries, believes that Ham was, he was dishonoring his father.

We don't have the details, but it was dishonorable. And Noah here in his response, after he wakes up, we have to be very careful and understand what this is. Noah is not just mad, he's not in a fit of rage, he's acting as a prophet of God in this context. He's not flying off the handle. Noah is prophesying the legacy of Ham and Shem and Japheth.

He is speaking in the spirit of prophecy. And because he was a godly man, because every evidence that we have, he was a good father and he was a good husband and he was a man who was taking dominion for God's glory. That's what we know about Noah. One of the things that one of the commentators has said is that as he's issuing this prophecy, it's probably one of the most grievous, bitter griefs of his mind to issue this prophecy. In other words, he's not just mad, he's grieved and the prophecy does come to pass.

The lineage of Ham is cursed. Ham's son is, you might guess, Canaan and the lineage of Shem and Japheth is blessed. But what's so remarkable about this, Canaan doesn't even just become a servant of his brethren, He becomes a servant of their servants. So this is an ongoing problem that Ham will experience for the rest of his children's lives. And here's a principle.

If you do not honor your father who is up the family line, you will be dishonored down the family line. That's what happened with Ham. And God will carry on this legacy of dishonor down your family line. The family line of Shem and is the family line of Abraham, which is the family line of David, which is the family line of David which is the family line of Jesus. The family line of Canaan is that people that were defeated and subjugated by the family of Abraham when they were given the promised land.

Here's Matthew Henry. Though divine curses operate slowly, yet first or last, they will take effect. A people may lie under the curse of God and yet may prosper in the world till the measure of their iniquity be like that of the Canaanites. Many are marked for ruin that are not yet ripe for ruin therefore let not thy heart envy sinners." I think what Ham did fits into Deuteronomy 27 16, cursed is the one who treats his father or mother with contempt. J.C.

Ryle said it like this, the best men are men at best. You know that really follows with Ecclesiastes 7 verse 20 Where Solomon says surely there's not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins So I think this I think he's an example of a father who acted dishonorably and he had sons that acted differently toward his dishonorable behavior. I don't think anybody can argue that Noah acted dishonorably. Okay, so how do you how do you honor parents who have acted dishonorably? Well here are some realities.

As you grow up to adulthood, you see things about your parents. You see that they didn't do everything perfectly. They could have been this, they could have done that. Every child is going to grow up and say that. On some level, maybe one is going to have a long list and maybe somebody's gonna have a short list of things that weren't all that big of a deal.

But every everybody's gonna look back and say my parents could have done better. Oh, they went through this phase, they went through that phase. Okay, that's life. Everybody goes through phases. Everybody grows up a certain way.

You know, everybody does what they were taught and everything we were taught wasn't always perfect. So that's that's really a reality but we see their faults. But how do you honor your parents if they do disrespectful things? How do you honor your parents if they're unrepentant and they just continue in their dishonorable behavior? And what if their behavior actually affects you and your children and they're actually a harmful influence on you and your children?

And maybe they're abusive, maybe they're radically unloving, maybe they are drunkards, maybe when they're around you they're using immoral language and they use drugs, and they never turn off the TV when you go to their house. I mean, there are all kinds of things, you know, that can happen. You know, you have a you know, a husband who says my mother's always telling me that my wife is ruining me. My wife says my mother is telling me that my husband is a jerk. These are really difficult matters, okay.

In-laws can be a problem. And so you might think, well it's not really helpful for us to be around our parents. There's kind of like an epidemic of children disowning their parents right now. And some of these matters are so complex you can't unpack them, but I think often children jump the gun in disowning their parents. But honoring the undeserving is a really important category and the Bible addresses it.

Like I said this list that I just gave you, almost all of them include authorities that misbehave from time to time. So we should be well educated about it. Now Deborah and I, we grew up with our parents And it's really hard for us to dishonor our parents because they were so, they were so wonderful. We don't have a, we don't have a, I don't have a list. I don't, it's, I'd have to work to honor my father.

But that's not true with so many of you. The only experience I have in dealing with this matter is when people come to me and they say, I'm really having a hard time honoring my father and mother, here's what they're doing. And we have had many, many conversations with some of you in this church, but over the years it's a problem that children have to deal with, and it's a really important thing that we deal with it correctly. So here's what I did, because I don't have a lot of personal experience trying to grapple with this in my own soul, I've only had to try to bring the Word of God to bear. So I asked some men in our church who've had to grapple with this problem for many years.

And these guys have advanced degrees on honoring the dishonorable parent. They really do. I don't. I don't even have a degree on it. And so I asked them to give me some thoughts about how to honor dishonorable parents.

So I'm going to give you seven of the thoughts that I gleaned from them. I appreciate them helping me through this. And first, the first is honor the position, not the person. Scripture is clear that honor is a necessity. It is a command to recognize their position.

All authorities have been given by God. We're told to honor the Emperor as well. In fact, when Peter was telling the church there to honor the emperor, he was talking about Nero. So you can actually, in other words, it's possible to honor Nero. You know, think of it like this.

You're in a courtroom and there's a judge, you don't know anything about him, he might be an unjust judge, but you're expected to address him respectfully and because of his role, not because of his righteousness, not because of his family life, not because what he does outside the courtroom, but he has a position of honor and parents perpetually have a position of honor in children's lives. So that's the first. The second is, it does not mean that we ignore their flaws. It does not mean that we ignore their flaws. It doesn't necessitate that we agree with their lifestyle.

And, offending them with the truth of the gospel is not dishonor. Honoring a parent doesn't mean that you're enabling their sinful behavior. Sometimes parents will squander their money and squander the right use of their bodies and they get themselves in a lot of trouble. And honoring a parent doesn't mean that you enable them in their sin in dealing with money or alcohol or drugs or whatever. It doesn't mean that you enable that behavior.

Third, distinguish between honor and obedience. There's a difference between honor and obedience. When it comes to children, Honor is perpetual. When children get married, obedience is conditional and optional. When children get married, they establish a new government.

Oh, there's a new authority in town And you're not it if you're their father. They have established a household and they are heads of their households. And you are not. You have been displaced as parents. And you have to distinguish between honor and obedience.

And the call to honor remains for adult children, but I think that the command to obey changes with the governance of the home. And this is very, very difficult often because sometimes ungodly parents will try to manipulate their children and hold out this carrot or that carrot. But a son or a daughter is not obligated to obey a corrupt and wicked parent. Even though they might feel such a conflict in their soul. There's no obligation.

Distinguish between honor and obedience. Next, the fourth. Refuse to revile and retaliate. Refuse to revile and retaliate. Honor does not require advertising their dishonorable behavior to the world.

Christians are prohibited from gossiping and sharing things that are harmful about other people. And, you know, honoring the dishonorable, it requires a supernatural love. But bad-mouthing parents, sharing all of their problems, You know, going on social media and telling the world about how your mother is such a jerk, that's really, that's so wrong. The world does not need to know about your dishonorable parents. Fifth, establish and maintain healthy guardrails for you and your children.

It gets very difficult when you have grandchildren. And, you know, my advice has always been if it's very difficult to be with them, try to figure out ways where you can spend time with them on your own terms, where you define the context and the situation. You like, you know, these children that you have are their grandchildren and you should you should work hard to try to try to open as many doors as possible to them. But you, you know, there isn't any way a person like me can give you what the details of that council looks like because everything is so different with different families. But my advice is, if you feel like your parents are really harmful to your children and to your family, try to get together with them in a way where you control the context, the activities, the location, so that their sin doesn't rule the situation.

You might have to get creative, but as much as you can, open the doors to your parents, to their grandchildren. And again, I don't want to minimize the seriousness of the trouble that often parents have to grapple with with that. Next, sixth, focus on forgiveness. Bitterness will destroy your life. It will not go well with you if you're bitter, by the way.

You're gonna walk around and you're dissatisfied and you know you're angry and you have you have raging thoughts against me. Is that the kind of person you want to be? You want to walk around this world for the rest of your life angry and disappointed in people all the time? This is why you should learn it when you're a kid in the home because if you don't learn it in the home you might be that person who's always dissatisfied and disappointed and complaining against the authorities that God gives them. I mean you should secure this when they're little.

We have so many little children here, parents of those children, do all you can to secure honor when they're little. With all seriousness and severity I charge you before God do it because the consequences are so grave because it won't go well with them and it will be partly your fault because you didn't work with them. Focus on forgiveness. You know should you write the eight page letter of condemnation to your parents? Probably not.

We need to be quick to forgive. We have we forgive as we have been forgiven. Colossians 3.13. It's not conditional upon somebody's worthiness. We forgive whether they're worthy or not, whether they're exemplary or not, because we're not going to be those bitter people that walk around, you know, the big dark cloud over our heads because we dishonor our authority.

Seventh, care for them in need if possible. Parents grow old they may need help and support in their old age. 1st Timothy 5 8 makes this very clear. You know we didn't elaborate on this matter of, you know, caring for aged parents, but the Bible actually has a lot to say about it, and children have a responsibility to take care of their children in their own age. It's very interesting.

The Bible says two things. Parents should lay up something for their children and children should lay up something for their parents it goes both ways so the Bible teaches but fine if you know Try to care for them in their time of need. Well, let's land this plane here. Ultimately, honoring the dishonorable is a reflection of your culture, I'm sorry, is a reflection of your character and it's a reflection of your obedience to God. Honoring a dishonorable parents is less about what they deserve and more about how you, as a Christian, are called to behave.

That's a direct quote from one of the brothers in our church. He went on, it's about demonstrating Christ's love and grace even when it is difficult. We have to respond to dishonorable parents in a way that is not sinful. This is brilliant as he writes. It can be challenging.

The hardest thing is often growing weary and doing good. So don't lose heart, don't stop praying. Don't stop trying to find ways to be a blessing to your father and mother. If we honor God, if we honor parents, if we honor elders in the church, if we honor civil governors, if we honor our wives and our husbands, if we honor the aged, if we honor one another, and if we honor our employers, and if we honor those who are dishonorable, it will go well with us. And we won't be spending our lives in disappointment.

We won't be living in angst because of the authorities that God put in our lives. We'll be living victorious because the blessings flow upon those who follow Jesus Christ as Lord. So honor your father and mother, which is code for honor all your authorities. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word.

We recognize it's so challenging, but so helpful, Father. I pray that you would make in this little local church a little kingdom of honorable servants who know how to live in a world of difficulty and dishonor to recognize that they have much to do in this world to love those who are in authority over them. Amen.