How do I honour someone who wasn't honourable? Nobody's parents are perfect. Honour is not ignoring wrong things, or saying wrong things are right, or having no boundaries.
Honour has more to do with what we pass on to the next generation; than how we respond to the previous one. It's maintaining godliness through our generations. It's choosing to be honest about the ungodliness, and choosing to break the cycle.
Be thankful you're alive; realise your parents were a part of fallen humanity; give up the urge to take vengeance, and to judge - realise they were wounded too.
Exodus 20:12 – “Honour your father and your mother, so that your days will be long in the land that the Lord your God gives you.”
ReviewThis is way bigger than a guy going up a mountain, and coming down with two tablets of stone. This is about a group of people who've been slaves for 430 years. All they knew was slavery for 430 years; get up, make bricks, get beaten, whatever. There was no dignity.
The job of every slave driver is to take your dignity away. The same thing is true today. You should be able to find yourself in this story pretty easily. If something drives your life, other than God, then it's a slave driver for you; and the job of the slave driver is to take your dignity away.
If you're a man, for instance; let's say you struggle with lust; and let's say you have a hard time getting away from the computer, and doing all the things associated with that. There are times in that slave driver, where you think you'll die without it; but the truth of it is: whenever it's over, when you lay your head down at night, you feel worse than you did before; because the job of the slave driver is to remove your basic dignity.
If your slave driver is anger, and you just can't seem to not blow up; you feel like: I'll die if I don't blow up; but when you actually blow up, when you go to bed at night, you feel worse than ever before. The job of every slave driver is to take your dignity away.
That's the job of Egypt. In Egypt, if they wanted to kill you - they killed you. If they wanted to steal something from you - they stole it; if they wanted your wife - they raped her. It didn't matter. The Israelites were less than human!
So God's trying to take a group of people, who've been taught they were less than human for 430 years, and He's trying to teach them how to be human again. In teaching them how to be human again, He's trying to create a culture that the whole world's going to want in on.
The Ten Commandments starts with: “And the Lord spoke all these words and said this; I am the Lord your God”. In the Hebrew language there's three words: Anochy Jehovah Elohim - I am the Lord your God. You could say “I am the Lord your God” by saying "Jehovah Elohim” - but they put this word in there “Anochy”.
Broken down into letters (which are then read like a cartoon strip), the word Anochy means: “your authority is going to multiply inside the hedge of praise and submission”. So the first word of the Ten Commandments is Grace. Its: I want to make you bigger. I want to restore your worth. I want to take you out from under the yoke, of a slave driver that's taking your worth away, and I want to restore your worth; and in that, I want to create a culture that the whole world's going to want in on.
It's amazing, the grace of God. I learned something just today, about the grace of God. This is a dollar coin, and I found it in the parking lot; so probably overnight that dollar coin had been driven on, stepped on; whatever was on the bottom of people's shoes was on it. There's no telling how long that dollar coin just needed someone to pick it up. There's no telling what sort of rough thing has happened, what kind of hot or cold.
Here's what hit me: no matter what that dollar coin has been through, as I hold it in my hand right now - it's still worth a dollar. If you found this in a pile of cow poop, it would still be worth a dollar. If you found it in a toilet, and you needed it so bad, you dug it out of it; it would still be worth the same, as if you went to the bank, and asked for the newest one made. Its worth is not determined by what it went through; but by what it is - and that is what God is trying to do.
God is trying to get a group of people to understand that: your worth is bigger than bricks. Your worth is bigger than anything you do; and part of you living a worthy life is: treating other people like they're worthy.
So we're not going to murder, we're not going to steal; and we're going to take a day off. We're going to honour the basic dignity that's in the life of every person. We're going to honour the human condition.