In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij examines Colossians 3:20 and the apostle Paul’s exhortation there as to how children should live Spirit-filled, Word-filled lives in relation to their parents.
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Summary
We are reminded that the parent-child relationship is sacred and foundational to all of society. Colossians 3:20 calls children to obey their parents in all things, and we are shown that this obedience is not merely a family matter but a deeply spiritual one — tied to a divine promise of abundant, blessed life.
Key Lessons:
- The Fifth Commandment is the first of God’s Ten Commandments to carry a promise — honoring parents leads to a long, full, and blessed life.
- Obedience has to do with action, and honor has to do with attitude; children are called to both, and obedience early in life grows into lifelong honor.
- Disobedience to parents is not just a family problem — Scripture connects it to broader lawlessness, societal breakdown, and ungodliness.
- Jesus himself is the ultimate example, submitting to his earthly parents until age 30, and honoring his mother even from the cross.
Application: We are called to take this imperative seriously every day — children by practicing obedience and honor toward their parents, and parents by modeling godly character, teaching the Word, and raising children with loving boundaries and discipline.
Discussion Questions:
- In what ways does learning to obey and honor parents prepare us to obey and trust God?
- How does Proverbs’ vision of wisdom within the family challenge the way our culture views parental authority today?
- What does Jesus’ example in Luke 2:51-52 teach us about the relationship between submission and blessing?
Scripture Focus: Colossians 3:20 is the central text, calling children to obey in all things as pleasing to the Lord. Ephesians 6:1-3 expands the promise. Luke 2:51-52 shows Jesus growing in wisdom and favor by submitting to his parents. Proverbs throughout extols parental wisdom and warns against foolish disobedience.
Outline
- Introduction
- The Fifth Commandment: A Transitional Foundation
- The Weight of Honoring Parents
- Lawlessness and the Destruction of the Family
- Obey in All Things: The Comprehensive Command
- Well Pleasing to the Lord: The Promise of Obedience
- The Promise of an Abundant Life
- Obedience Builds Trust and Character
- The Fruit of a Life Lived in Obedience
- Jesus: The Ultimate Example
- Conclusion: Keep Your Eyes on Jesus
Introduction
Thank you, praise team, for ushering us to the gates of heaven this morning. We are back in Colossians, and I’ll try not to lose my voice this morning. I’ve had a bout of something that just messes with your voice.
I have my ginger and my honey and lemon drink here in the pulpit. So if I lose my voice, we’ll just have a word of prayer and go home.
But Colossians 3:18-21. Let me read that this morning. It says, “Wives, be subject to your husband as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart.”
Let’s pray. Father, this morning as we look at this passage in the context of this book, give us instruction as to parents and children, how that all works, Lord, in a way that we hold to the promise that’s connected to this passage—the promise of a long and abundant life.
I pray, Lord, that you would give us ears to hear and a will to receive the word of God, so that we would implement the principles found therein and these imperatives that are so important for our forward growth in Christ Jesus. Bless us in that way, I ask in Christ’s name, amen.
We’re looking at this passage of scripture, but I’m going to focus this morning on one passage. That is the passage that says children. Because I’ve already covered verses 18 and 19.
“Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.” Now, so far in the book of Colossians, I have been saying all along that the new self is the new creature in Christ. And only the Christian has the capacity to consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God, with the ability given by the Holy Spirit of God to actually serve and please God.
No one has that ability unless they’re a Christian, unless they have the Spirit of God. And that’s including in our passage, children. Loving God, loving God’s word, and loving God’s son includes hating sin with the desire to pursue righteousness.
Therefore, salvation is not a matter of improvement or perfection. It is a matter of comprehensive progressive transformation. And what is that? That is to be like Christ. That is where the Spirit of God is taking all of us—to be like Christ as much as possible in your life.
Children who are controlled by the Spirit and who are word-filled need to be aware that their responsibility is to be in their action obedient to their parents and in their attitude honor them. The Bible kind of goes back and forth with these two terms of obedience and honor; they kind of dovetail together.
This Lord’s day I’m concerned to show children and parents that they can be submissive to their parents, because this is truly the place of blessing. You want to be blessed, you want the honor of God upon you, you even want to be happy, then this is where it happens—when children learn to be obedient to their parents and learn to honor them.
The Fifth Commandment: A Transitional Foundation
There is something very sacred about the family in scripture, about the relationship between parents and children. So special to God is this relationship that in the Old Testament, God told Israel in the Ten Commandments, if you want to have a time of blessedness and happiness in this new promised land, if you want to go on living under the blessing of God, then you must keep the fifth commandment.
The fifth commandment reads this. In Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16, it says: honor your father and mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.
Notice that this command is right in the middle of the ten. It is the first of God’s ten commandments that ends with a promise. The first four did not, and the next section of the decalogue will not, but this one does.
This obviously becomes a very important point in all of our lives, because we all have parents. We all have parents in some respect, we all have guardians over our lives. If we didn’t have natural parents, then maybe we were born into a family or we were adopted, whatever it may be, somebody has authority over you.
That person is considered to be someone that you are to obey and honor. If you honor your father and mother, yours will be a long, full life, full of blessing. If you want to live a blessed life, a full life under the blessing of God, observe and keep this commandment. God is pleased with his people to keep this commandment.
The fifth commandment has been referred to as a transitional commandment. This is because the family structure lays at the foundation of all other forms of authority and obedience in the culture. This is where they learn it. If they don’t learn it there, they usually don’t learn it out there.
“The family structure lays at the foundation of all other forms of authority and obedience in the culture. If they don’t learn it there, they usually don’t learn it out there.”
It’s the job of the parents—they’re the ones modeling this before the children, that ought to be taking place. This is definitely in the mind of Paul here in Colossians. What is he actually doing in chapter 3?
He’s going back to the foundational doctrines in Genesis, and he’s saying, listen, these false teachers are not teaching this and they have no results. But you as a believer, when you put these and implement these principles, you will have results.
The conscious reality when we come to this fifth commandment is that we humans, created in the image of God, are responsible for our character. We are responsible for our actions, we are justly held accountable for habits and words and deeds.
This fifth commandment is the bridge between our responsibility to our God and our responsibility manward. Parents do in some sense occupy to their children the place of God.
Much of what and who you are comes from your parents. Our voice, length and shape of our limbs, our height, the color of our hair, the strength and clearness of our sight, the soundness of our brain, our muscular vigor—whatever constitutes our weakness and our power—was largely determined for us by what our parents were.
We also were and are dependent upon them for food and clothing and care, without which we would die. We were and are dependent on their wisdom or their whim, on their harshness or their kindness, for our happiness.
We depend on those things, and of greater importance for our happiness, because it starts right in the family, it starts with mother and father and children. All these influence us and give us direction and form as to the development of our character.
Here’s the profundity of the fifth commandment: we alone are responsible for our actions. Honor your father and your mother. This is the first place that we will learn how to interact with others, whether we come from a good family or not so good. We are still responsible as to how we respond to the parental relationship.
As we come to Colossians 3, we will find in verse 20 another imperative, another command. There are three things that we can learn from this imperative this morning.
First, it’s to be taken seriously. Secondly, it has a comprehensive component to it. Thirdly, it redirects one’s attention on Jesus. That’s what it does.
The Weight of Honoring Parents
And I want to look at the first one. This is an imperative that is to be taken very seriously. Notice verse number 20, the first part of that verse. Notice, children be obedient to your parents.
Again, an imperative, a command. It means very basically, other places it’s translated to listen. You got to listen first before you obey, you have to process that before you can actually obey. Actually, in other places it means to submit to, to be subject to.
And the ultimate idea of the relationship between parents and children is to be found in the relationship between God and all mankind. Honoring parents and God are closely related. Give honor to where honor is due.
The Hebrew word for honor is the word kabad, which means weighty, to be weighed down with respect. It means to honor your father and mother is a very serious and weighty commandment. Don’t think it’s just something you can take or leave. It’s something you need to not only understand but actually implement in your life.
To honor one’s parents means much more than obedience. Obedience is included, but further it is to give your parents a place of superiority, to hold them in high esteem. The parental relationship is the first and most important relationship. It is a relationship that will shape all other relationships that you have.
“The parental relationship is the first and most important relationship. It will shape all other relationships that you have.”
There are all kinds of exceptions—good parents with bad kids and bad parents with good kids. It’s out there, we know, we all have met people in situations like this.
God places a special value on parental authority. The parent and child relationship is the first place where we learn what it is to have someone in authority over us, and how important that is.
Remember last time we looked at verses 18 and 19, and it said wives be subject to your husband. The context is still about being subject, being submissive to someone who God placed in the order of things over you. In the home is the place where we learn it the most.
We learn to listen, we learn to obey, even when we are told things to do that we don’t want to do. It is a place where children learn how to honor and respect others, and what it means to worship God and carry out the first four commandments.
Positive Actions of Honor
Honoring parents includes several actions, some positive, some negative. For example, honoring your parents has positive actions to it. What are some of those?
Right here in verse 20 it says, “Children, be obedient to your parents,” that means listen to them. Listening comes before obedience. The word “children,” techna, here in the Greek does not refer specifically to young children, but to the time children are under the tutelage of their parents and where they learn to submit to their authority.
The age could range from infant all the way to what they call a child adult, from 13 years old to 30 years old usually, depending on whether the child is still in the home under the authority of the parents.
Yet children are to honor their parents the whole of their life. In other words, obedience bleeds into honor. Obedience could end at one point—when you leave the home, you get your own family, and now you have your own responsibility to raise your children. But the honor for your parents goes on the rest of your life.
But it starts with obedience. If you do not obey them, you’ll probably never honor them, for whatever reason people won’t.
Now if you were to make a distinction between obey and honor, that means you switch from obedience to honor. Obey has to do with action, like disobedience or obedience, and honor has to do with attitude, respect or disrespect. Both things are together.
It’s like what it says in Ephesians, because Ephesians also brings this same passage up but expands it. In Ephesians where it says, “Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right, honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with a promise.”
“Obey has to do with action, and honor has to do with attitude. Both things go together.”
It’s to be noted that when Paul applies the commandment in Ephesians to the Christian reader, he omits any reference to the land of Israel and universalizes the promise. How could we ever keep that promise? By the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
We have the whole word of God. Colossians is talking about being word filled, Ephesians talking about being spirit filled. They’re the same thing. You can’t have one without the other; you have to have both of them.
Teaching Wisdom in the Home
Just like, what are the parents actually going to teach their children? Well, just take, go back to. I’m going to be looking at some Proverbs. Go back to Proverbs 23:22-26.
Notice what it says here, Proverbs 23:22. Again, Paul’s not preaching the New Testament in Colossians. He’s preaching the Old Testament, because the Old Testament and New Testament are hand and glove. They go together, right.
So he’s telling us what it says in Proverbs. And what’s Proverbs all about? Proverbs is all about how to raise wise kids while you’re driving them from foolishness, right—being naive and ultimately scoffing at things, right. So we want to raise wise children.
Notice what it says in verse 22 of Proverbs 23. “Listen to your father who begot you, and do not despise your mother when she is old. Buy truth and do not sell it, get wisdom and instruction and understanding.”
Notice verse 24: “The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, and he who sires a wise son will be glad in him. Let your father and your mother be glad, let her rejoice who gave birth to you. Give me your heart, my son.”
Now notice what the last part says: “And let your eye delight in my ways.” What you have there is the word—people listen. And then you have the modeling. Look at me as your parent, see how I live.
Now that lays a lot of weight on parents, because you can’t wiggle out of this. You can’t give this responsibility to anyone else. You must take this responsibility and really consider it to be one of the most important things that you’re called to do on this earth: to raise people, raise children to be wise. And that’s a lot of work, and it never ends.
Just because your kids grow up and leave the home doesn’t mean you’re done. There’s always communication. But if your children honor you, when you give your two cents after they leave the home, they’ll take it and they’ll listen to you. Not all the time, but you have to say, “Well, okay, you’re a man now, you’re a woman now, you have to make your own decisions. But I pray you make the right one, right.”
But most of the time your kids, even when they’re kicking sometimes against you, they listen to you. They may never tell you that, but they will put it into practice.
But nonetheless, there’s the word and there’s modeling. Your eye delight in my ways. And so as the parent is living to honor God, they are teaching their children to do that.
“As the parent is living to honor God, they are teaching their children to do that.”
Now, just going back to Colossians, you’ll find that when we were in Colossians, you find that the signs of honoring and loving your parents come how, where? Well, in chapter 3, verse 12, when mercy is taught in the home, and kindness is taught in the home, and humility and gentleness and patience and forgiveness are taught in the home.
And when it is taught, it is caught also by the kids. And so when both parents and children are doing this and putting these things into practice, unity is kept, relationships are built, and it leads to spiritual maturity in Christlikeness and spiritual fulfillment.
That is the blessed life. That is part of the promise that is connected to this small passage of scripture here, but all connected to all places in the word of God.
It also involves, as I said, positive things like listening. And it also involves adhering to and imitating their teaching. Again, without turning there, Proverbs 1:8: “Hear my son your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head and ornaments about your neck.”
Meaning what? When children honor their parents this way and listen to their instruction, it looks beautiful. You don’t have to worry about going to a supermarket and your kid lying down on the floor screaming and kicking because they can’t have their favorite cereal. They’re going to listen, and then people say to you, “How do you get your kids to listen?”
How do you get your kids to listen? Man, I want that, but I can’t do it. Well, they have to have the spirit of God too, and the word of God, to be able to do that. It’s just not something you can give them and they can do it. So you have to give the gospel, that means.
So the best way to show yourself a fool, at least a child, is to think that your parents are fools. The Book of Proverbs reiterates the admonition to honor one’s parents, extolling them as the fountains of wisdom.
Proverbs says again, 10:1: “A wise son makes his father glad, and a foolish son is a grief to his mother.” So obedience and honor fosters self-discipline in the home, and it brings about stability. It brings about longevity.
“A wise son makes his father glad, and a foolish son is a grief to his mother.”
Meaning that children won’t do foolish things that will shorten their lives, right. God will give them the wisdom not to listen to their friends that say take this drug, or go over here, or be involved with this thing, which could be very dangerous, and then possibly their life will be shortened.
Negative Actions: Dishonor and Disobedience
Obedience properly springs from reverence and respect, and vice versa. Also, honoring your parents by avoiding negative actions. Honor is equal to obedience, and dishonor is equal to disobedience.
Disobedience is shown in acts and attitudes of children when they display a reckless disregard of parental advice and a lawless demand for freedom, which threatens the family life and produces some of the most serious societal problems of our present day and other nations too.
When people act out in hatred towards other people, and that’s what we have going on in the world today. These principles in the Middle East were taught when they were young, and when they get older, what would you expect? This is what they were taught.
A child who violates the word of God concerning their parents faced punitive measures in the Old Testament, which included disinheritance and sometimes even death.
Avoiding negative actions means not cursing your parents. Exodus 21:17 says, “He who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.” If I was back in the Old Testament and I heard that, I think I’d obey my father and my mother. They actually did that in the Old Testament.
Also, not treating them with disrespect or dishonor. Deuteronomy 27:16 says, “Cursed is the one who dishonors father and mother,” and all the people shall say amen.
Not stealing from them. Proverbs 28:24 says, “He who robs his father and mother and says it is not a transgression, it is a companion of a man who destroys.”
Not striking your parents. Exodus 21:15 says, “He who strikes his father and mother shall surely be put to death.”
And blatant disobedience to parents. Deuteronomy 21:18 tells us, “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and his mother, the mother and father shall seize him.”
They shall take him to the elders of the city, and say to the elders, “This son of ours is a stubborn, rebellious son. He will not obey us. He’s a glutton also and a drunkard.” Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death.
“You shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear and fear.” That would make me afraid.
That’s the seriousness of the commandment. We don’t use these results today, but if we don’t discipline our children, if we don’t tell them what is right and what is wrong, what is God’s way and what every other way is, then what happens? There will not be unity kept in the home or in society.
“If we don’t discipline our children and tell them what is right and wrong, there will not be unity in the home or in society.”
Lawlessness cannot gain the upper hand. If it does, it must be dealt with and removed at the family level. That’s when you deal with that kind of attitude that comes from children, because they have a sinful heart.
We should know what sin is more than anybody else. They have a sinful heart. They’re going to disobey, they’re going to lie, they’re going to do things that they’re not supposed to do. We already know that; we did that. We’re no different than them.
But once we get the word of God and transformation is going on in our life, and we know what is right, then we want to pass that down to our kids. I didn’t have this when I was young. I didn’t have the word of God. I wasn’t a believer until I was about 21 or 22.
When I came to the word of God, I said, “Wow, that’s something. That is true. That’s the way it ought to be.” I didn’t learn that growing up. I thank the Lord that he did give me a decent family. There was obedience in the home, there was discipline, maybe not the kind that the Bible talks about, but it did keep me in line.
I did have a respect for my mother and father. I think one of the reasons why is because I learned the Ten Commandments. I would repeat them and repeat them. It’s stuck in my head. That’s what the commandments say, and I want to honor God. I didn’t know what I was really doing back then, but it turned out to be something that the Lord did.
Going back to Colossians, what are the signs of dishonor and disrespect? Colossians 3:5 says, “Consider the members of your earthly body to be dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.”
In the home, you are teaching your children to avoid shameful desires, sinful sexual sin, impurity, lust, greed, and idolatry.
Colossians 3:8-9 also says they are to avoid anger, malicious behavior, slander, dirty language, and lying. When they do that, the parents and the children are to put them to death so it doesn’t destroy relationships, to rid ourselves from these things, because they will break unity within the home and they end up crushing the people that God is granting to a particular family.
The general principle was that disobedience and dishonor promote a lack of discipline, which in turn brought instability, a shortened life, and the lack of well-being within the home.
Lawlessness and the Destruction of the Family
Now, there are obviously difficulties that rise out from this subject. Some young people may say today that their parents are not lovable, and therefore they cannot obey and love them. Or that they say that my parents are not wise, and therefore I cannot obey and respect them.
Or someone would say that my parents are unreasonable and selfish and have vices and sin and temper and speech problems, and therefore it is impossible for me to honor them.
Now, there’s not a few children, I’m sure, that in our days who are inclined to take that position. At first hearing, that could seem to be reasonable enough. But if the tables are turned, would the children want the parents or guardians to judge them with the standard that they’re judging? Not at all.
See, the word of God gives warning to the church, because worldliness has come into the church, and some consider this teaching to be old-fashioned and too restrictive. Satan has done a good job destroying the family, and now his target is children. That’s what the target is now.
You destroy society, you destroy the family, you get to the children, there’s nothing left. Then you attack the church and the word of God, and that’s where it’s going next in his plan.
The world could not be disorganized in all its rebellion and all the things going on unless the mystery of lawlessness was going on behind the scenes and Satan was pulling the strings. Everything is being set up for the time that the Antichrist will sit on the throne and proclaim himself God, and people will say worship him.
There will be one world government and one monetary system and one religion, and everybody will be controlled. They will know where you are all the time, they will know what you spend things on, they will have algorithms to what you desire, what you don’t desire, what you buy, what you don’t buy.
The day has come in which irreligion and godlessness and lawlessness are permeating everything, including the home. Scripture’s description of lawlessness is clear in Romans 1:30. What does it say? Slander, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents.
Second Timothy brings it up again. Paul speaking to young Timothy, being the pastor there at Ephesus, he says, men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy.
Children who are disrespectful and dishonoring to their parents are a picture of sheer ungodliness and lawlessness. One of the most striking displays of lawlessness is the observable, arrogant, unashamed disobedience to mom and dad when it’s seen in public.
There’s nothing more ugly, I believe, in society than this. There’s nothing worse that characterizes a generation than disobedience in action and disrespect in attitude towards parents. Because if that’s happening in the home, it will happen towards God.
“If disobedience is happening in the home, it will happen towards God.”
But in the end, our parents who had us loved us just the way we were, because we were their children, and their loving love transfigured us. Most parents love us in spite of our faults and shortcomings, don’t they? That’s what we do with our kids.
Young people, I would say this: your parents who have lived in the world 20 or 30 years longer than yourselves have found some things out worth knowing. If you are silly enough to dispense of all their experience and what they have learned from the word of God, you are tolerably certain to suffer for your folly.
When you come to scripture, it says honor your father and mother. Do not express habitual contempt for what you perhaps rashly supposed to be your parents’ ignorance or prejudices. If you knew a little more of the world, you might possibly see in them a power and a wisdom which as yet you in your youth have not yet discovered or experienced.
The bottom line is that authority came to be generally disregarded, and the whole structure of society when it is disregarded dissolves. Disobedient children reflect upon their parents and are ashamed to the home and to the church.
To fail to teach children to obey is to disobey God, and really bring disrepute upon his name, as well as making children unpopular with everyone else. Spoiled youngsters make poor employees, they make poor employers, they make poor husbands, poor wives, poor parents. They in the end become misfits in society.
Today many push aside God’s rule to not spare the rod, and substitute reason with your child. Now it would be fine if they were reasonable, but little children and rebellious teenagers are not reasonable.
As long as they are eating and sleeping at home, they should obey their parents. Parents complain that I could do nothing with them. The fact of the matter is that many parents do nothing with them when they were small, and now that they’re big, they can’t do nothing with them.
They did nothing to discipline them, they didn’t put out making rules and setting boundaries for them. If you break the rules and you move past the boundaries, there are consequences. That’s a loving home that does that, because that’s how the world is set up, is it not? There’s always rules.
Let’s face it, when you come to a stop sign, if you decide not to stop at a busy intersection, what could happen? By chance you can get through it and nothing happens, but try it again and your chances aren’t going to be very high.
In the Old Testament, the Bible really tells us, Micah tells us, listen, when disorder comes into the family and in relationships and into friendships and into the neighborhood, this is how it sounds.
The prophet Micah recorded it like this: Do not trust in a neighbor, do not have confidence in a friend, for her who lies in your bosom guard your lips. For sons treat fathers contemptuously, daughters rise up against their mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man’s enemies are men of his own household.
To despise those who brought them into the world and nurtured them to adulthood is a sign of the times. Difficult times will come, and this is part of it. Because men will be lovers of money and self and disobedient to parents, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
It all takes place in progression, and it starts right in the home, right with obeying parents. Is that important? It’s heavy, it’s weighty, it’s a weighty command to us. We should take it seriously.
Obey in All Things: The Comprehensive Command
Now that leads me to my second point, and it’s this: the second imperative that we can learn from is that it is an imperative that has a comprehensive component to it.
Back in Colossians 3, notice the second part. It says, “Children, obey your parents, what, in all things. In all things.” Why all things?
“Children be obedient to your parents — in all things.”
Well, just consider that for a moment. Because children are born with a sin nature, they are already born with no knowledge, so they’re naive. They’re born with no wisdom, so prone to foolishness, and left to themselves prone to self-centeredness and wickedness.
Parental Authority: Direct, Restrain, and Guide
Also, it is the parents who have been given by God the authority. They have the authority to direct their children. They have the authority to direct their children.
It says in Proverbs 29:15, the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother. Also, they have the power to restrain them. Proverbs 29:17, correct your son and he will give you comfort, and he will also delight your soul.
And then they have the power to actually test how things are going and then judge how things are going. In Proverbs 29:18, where there is no vision the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law.
Now that no vision means there are no boundaries. You give your children the ability to say no, you can’t go further than this. If you do, there’s going to be consequences. The power has been given and authority has been given to parents.
The force necessary to cause them to follow your verbal instruction and listen to you is the pressure to hold them back from what they would do if you left them to their own will and desire. It is the adjustment of pressure to evaluate how far your children come, so you can dispense rewards or take away rewards based on their action of obedience and their attitude of honor towards you as a parent. And it’s to be done in all things.
Proverbs 29:15: “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.”
Well Pleasing to the Lord: The Promise of Obedience
Now there is a third thing that we learned from this imperative, and it’s the last thing. In Colossians 3:20, it says, “Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, and notice, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.”
Now get this. If the desires of the parents and the desires of the children are to obey their parents, and for what reason—that it’s well pleasing to God—brethren, a life lived with that goal to please the Lord is the blessed life. That is the blessed life.
“A life lived with the goal to please the Lord is the blessed life.”
The Promise of an Abundant Life
Honoring your parents comes with a promise in Exodus, that your days may be prolonged in the land. Honoring parents brings goodness into one’s life. In fact, the honoring of one’s parents leads to a lengthening of one’s days.
The results that are ensured by fearing the Lord, like it says in Proverbs 10:27, the fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be shortened. Living long in the land, in the Old Testament, was more than just chronology. The phrase really has to do with abundant life.
If you want to enjoy the full blessing that God has for you in this life, you will listen to your mom and dad. Honoring parents does come with a reward, and that is part of the reward.
“Living long in the land has to do with abundant life. If you want the full blessing God has for you, listen to your mom and dad.”
Ephesians is the one who expands on that. As you honor your parents, it’ll be the first commandment with promise, so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.
Think with me for a moment. Picture a child who starts to learn God’s commands, and for the first time, after listening and honoring his parents, he begins to say, “Wow, this is not just for the Old Testament Israel, this is for the church. This promise is repeated in the New Testament. So if I actually do this, I have a promise that comes to me.”
A promise is something that has a positive characteristic to it, which creates in the child hope and anticipation. Let me use a weak illustration of a father promising his child a big old sloppy banana split at the end of a day that he was obedient.
What does it create in a child? It creates desire. What is a child thinking of by the end of the day? “I’m going to get a banana split, and I like banana splits.” I don’t know about you, I like banana splits. And I’m looking forward to that. So it creates desire, but it also creates anticipation to want to continue to do what’s right.
That’s what is in the heart of a child, that’s in our hearts too when we have a promise. When you honor your mother and your dad, you actually gain the respect and trust and freedom you actually crave. That’s where it comes from, that’s part of the promise.
It’s like what it says in Deuteronomy 10. The Bible says, “And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and to keep his commandments and his statutes which I am commanding you today, for your good.”
I like those endings that the scripture has. If you want to live a happy life, do this, and there’s a promise connected to it.
Obedience Builds Trust and Character
And the thing when we think about that, this divine command is coupled with a divine assurance of blessing to all whom it is obeyed. If it puts the onus on the one making the promise, who’s making the promise? Well, the parents are making the promise, because the parents are in the place of God. But God makes the promise too.
In other words, somebody has to deliver on a promise, which causes an atmosphere of mutual trust. A child learns to trust their parents, which in turn they learn to trust the Lord, they learn to trust the word of God, early in their life, early in the development of their character.
Their action of obedience will lead to their attitude of honor. It’s also a promise that bears benefits for parents in later years. When your children do come back to you, when your children do ask you for advice, when your children do respect you and talk to you to other people in an honoring way, that means that you are receiving the promise. This child learned something.
Many times parents say, “I didn’t have really much to do about it, it was all God who did it.” That’s true in one respect, but God gives us a responsibility to carry it out.
There’s a third thing: a young person would be motivated to go on to listen to the voice of God. And that is the goal. The goal is your children listen to you, so when you give the gospel to them, they’ll listen to God.
“The goal is that your children listen to you, so when you give the gospel to them, they’ll listen to God.”
Beyond the home, they’ll live for the Lord without you being there. Maybe that’s the greatest blessing a parent could have. It’s not a guarantee, but it is a blessing to know your kids, or one of your kids, or some of your kids are living for the Lord.
That becomes a part of your prayer list, always praying for them, that God would transform them, that God would grow them to Christ’s likeness, and God would make them people that when you’re not there, they’ll just carry on and they’ll pass the baton to the next generation, to their kids. That’s the goal.
When that happens, and they know that God takes his children by their hand, that he cares for their welfare, that he makes known to them his will in the word of God, and he marks out for them the way of happiness, that is the beneficial part of it.
A child learns early to listen, that listening and obeying to those in authority over them is beneficial for them, and it is motivational to them. It’s well pleasing to the Lord.
If we look at Colossians, isn’t that what the book of Colossians started out saying? Isn’t that the prayer of Paul for the children that just got saved? Look what he says in Colossians 1:9-10.
He says, “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
That is the goal. Parents, we are a part of making sure that goal happens.
Obeying is not always easy, whether you’re a kid or whether you’re an adult. Sometimes it means obeying when you don’t understand. Sometimes it involves obedience when your personal desires are in direct opposition to your parents’ desires.
Yet if children you are to honor God, then you must honor your parents’ desires, not sometimes, not when you think you are right and they’re wrong, always. We’re talking about Christian parents here in scripture.
Kids, mark this down: obedience comes easier when there is a proper respect for your parents. It’s easy to respect someone, it’s easy to obey somebody you respect. But if you don’t respect them, it’s very hard to obey.
The Fruit of a Life Lived in Obedience
Anybody, I have to say this: this is not necessarily a promise of a long life in the world in every instance as a result of obedience to God. Not every obedient person would live to a ripe old age. But the general tendency is that keeping the divine precepts issues in a prolongation of life and the preservation of health.
In other words, a quality of life. Somebody could live a short life and have a quality of life. Someone could live a very long life and have no quality in their life. This we pass on to our kids: a desire to have a quality of life.
And where does that start? Obeying your parents. In turn, would you obey the Lord. Obedience of children to wise and loving parents results in habits of industry, self-control, self-respect, faithfulness, kindness, and worship towards the Lord, which are absolutely a guarantee of success and of a long continuance of an abundant life.
And so why is that? Because the person willingly lives in the realm in which the word of God is desired, delighted, honored, and practiced. Where obedience is practiced, where sobriety is practiced, where temperance is practiced—a balance of all things. Where hard work is practiced, where contentment is realized, where tempers and passions are controlled.
Where sexual fidelity is practiced, where integrity, kindness, and love are practiced. Where worship of the Lord is daily realized and practiced, and prayer to the Lord is a regular part of the day and week. Expelling worry from the thoughts and showing dependence upon God.
The preaching of the word of God is heard regularly and practiced. They’re not only just listening to you, they’re listening to the preached word. The preached word is going to do way more than you can when they get it, absorb it, and then put it into practice.
“Obedience of children to wise and loving parents results in habits of industry, self-control, faithfulness, and worship — a guarantee of an abundant life.”
All these and more have a way of preventing the wear and tear on the constitution, to the general prosperity and well-being of a person who pursues God’s wisdom.
The main thing is that mom and dad aren’t sad when children obey—they’re glad. That’s what the Bible says: they’re glad. But when the children are not obedient, mom and dad are not happy.
Parents are sad when they see their child swell up with pride by thinking he or she is right, with no grid to measure what they are saying but by their own standard. He or she thinks they are right, and mom and dad are full of concern.
Parents have grief because they see what’s coming in this life and the next when their children do not obey. Like Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.”
Parents see danger in the child’s future. Maybe they see injury or death—maybe by drugs or by misuse of a car, or by picking evil friends, or by catching some communicable disease in a relationship with an evil man or woman.
Mom sees that if not by premature death, possibly by jail or prison, or just grief and pain and restlessness and unhappiness and pointlessness and loneliness that comes because people don’t obey. None of this is a quality of life, but a joyless misery. Who wants to live like that?
See, that’s part of the promise. The promise is: if I do this, then God is going to bless me with an abundant life.
So young people, when you obey, several positive things take place. Number one, you avoid conflict, and when conflict comes, you learn how to deal with it properly. You make your parents glad. Don’t you want your parents to be glad, kids? Yes. Do I hear an amen from the kids? Amen, amen.
Also, you feel glad yourself. You avoid dangers and difficulties that your parents foresee but you can’t see, because you’re a youth and lack experience. You please God. You learn to enjoy the life God has given you, not always looking over the fence to the greener pastures.
God’s blessed you with a life. He’s given it to you, and you are thankful for it. If God’s given someone else a life that seems way more abundant than yours, thank God for them too. God’s given them that, to them and not me—that’s all right.
Because greater, we’re all heading to the kingdom of God, where God’s preparing a place for us, and where he is we’re going to be also, right. That’s what we’re looking forward to. Even if we lose everything, we may lose it all, but we learn to enjoy the life that God has given to us and become increasingly thankful.
You want to dispel worry in your life? Be thankful. When you wake up in the morning, have a list of ten things you’re thankful for. Include people in that, and even possessions can come at the end. I’m thankful for a car that doesn’t break down, but I’m thankful for my wife, I’m thankful for my kids, I’m thankful for my church, for my brethren.
When you have a list of thankfulness, it kind of pushes out grumbling and complaining. There’s no room for it. Every day wake up and have a list of thankful things to repeat back to God.
Mr. Lloyd Jones says, don’t listen to yourself, talk to yourself. Talk to yourself: what am I learning in the word of God? Tell myself.
Young people, if you haven’t been doing well in this area, then today, show your parents that you mean business and prove it to them by practicing it every day.
It may mean that you must come and repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, because you haven’t done that yet. You haven’t been saved, so you really can’t do these things unless you’re saved. You can do them grudgingly, you can do them with your will to a certain point, but you can’t do them in the spirit where the spirit gives you the results of them.
It also may mean that you need to yield yourself to the Holy Spirit’s control, so that he can use you as an instrument of righteousness in your home.
Jesus: The Ultimate Example
And I want to end with this. Take your Bible and turn to Luke 2. The ultimate example of a child and parent relationship that’s honoring to the Lord is found in Luke 2.
This is the relationship that Jesus Christ has with his parents. Let me give you the background of this passage. At the point Jesus was growing to be a man and beginning to show independence from his parents, at the age of 12 he was taken to the temple in accordance with Jewish custom to go to Jerusalem to celebrate the day of atonement.
As the holy days had come to an end and everybody was heading back home to Nazareth, Jesus and his parents became separated. When Joseph and Mary could not find him in the midst of the caravan, searching everywhere, they headed back to Jerusalem and found him in the temple talking with the elders, asking questions back and forth.
When they found him after three days of frantic searching, I don’t know about you, but if your child is not in your view for a short period of time and you think they’re gone, you go crazy, right? Well, that’s what happened to Mary and Joseph. They were frantically searching for him.
When Jesus’ parents found him, they directed him to come home with them. And what does Luke 2:51 tell us about how Jesus responded?
Notice what it says in chapter 2:51: “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and he continued in subjection to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.”
In other words, Jesus willingly put himself under the authority of his earthly parents, when maybe the desire of him at 12 years old was to be with his heavenly father. But he submitted to them.
Jesus willingly put himself under their authority until his public ministry at age 30. And Jesus experienced the blessing of a quality of life. How do I know that?
Look at verse 52 of Luke 2: “And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.” Is that a blessed life? That’s a blessed life. That’s a life we can live too. That’s how we live it and please God.
Luke 2:52: “Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.”
That’s the action Jesus had of obedience to his parents at the age of 12. But Jesus as a man, at the hour of his death, what does he do? In John 19, what does it tell us about his attitude?
Jesus showed honor to his widowed mother by entrusting her to John’s care. It says the soldiers did these things. By standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.” And he said to his disciple, “Behold your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his house.
In other words, he honored his mother till the last minute. These are the things that we can do. All of us can do this. Kids, if you are a believer, you can do these things.
Conclusion: Keep Your Eyes on Jesus
And this imperative you can consider this morning as very serious. This imperative is to be lived every day. This is not something just thought about for a few minutes and then it passes from you—it’s every day.
Then this imperative keeps your attention on Jesus. He is the example. What is that attention? It says in Colossians 3:10 that I do things because it is well pleasing to the Lord. That’s the abundant life. Amen.
“It is well pleasing to the Lord. That’s the abundant life.”
Let’s pray. Lord, thank you again for your dear people. Thank you, Lord, for the word of God. It is amazing that it exposes so many things, it reveals to us everything that we need for life and godliness, and it gives us the very guidelines as parents to raise our children.
Lord, as children to be obedient to their parents, help them to know that when they are, there is a promise and a blessing that comes with that. They can actually live an abundant life when they obey the Lord.
I pray, Lord, that you would instill these truths and principles in all of us, so we can pass on to the next generation the baton that is worthy of serving.