This exhortation was given at King’s Cross Church (Moscow, ID) on November 13, AD 2022.

We are beginning to enter the holiday season, with Thanksgiving just a couple weeks away and then Christmas a month after that. And with the joys and excitement of the holidays can also come, for some of you, various challenges with family – especially with parents or in-laws.

So this morning I want you to consider your upcoming family gatherings not as challenges to overcome, but opportunities from the hand of the Lord. They are opportunities to obey God when He commands us to “honor thy father and mother.”

The Hebrew word for honor here carries the meaning of weight to it – to honor is to give due weight to someone, not treating them lightly. It also means to glorify, as Scripture uses it when speaking of honoring God. And the way we treat our parents should reflect how we treat God. Our parents are not God – but they are His gifts to us. He chose these exact people for us and put them in that office of parent in relation to us.

Whether you’re a college student visiting home or a parent yourself bringing the kids over the hill to grandmother’s house, the Lord’s will for you is simple this season: He desires for you to honor your parents.

If your relationship with your parents or in-laws is strained, if there are any difficulties present, that is not a reason to leave honor behind. Rather, honoring them is the path forward.

Love covers a multitude of sins. And if there is any sin present that cannot be covered much longer, then you need honor to be the atmosphere in which it is eventually addressed.

So as you begin to make those holiday to-do lists, include on there the need to prepare your hearts in order to express honor toward your parents.

For it is in the soil of honor that God is pleased to grow the fruit of love, joy, and peace.