"WHO'S IN CHARGE?"
Look Up: Exodus
20:12; Matthew 7:12; 15:3-9; John 19:25-27; 1 Timothy 5:4, 8
Sermon preached by Dr. Wayne
Poplin, Senior Pastor of
Carmel Baptist Church, Matthews, NC
INTRODUCTION:
We have come full
circle—from “in charge” parents to perhaps “in charge” children.
“In charge” parents, who have sought to provide for their children, bring
them under control and build a relationship with them in order to bring them up
in the training and instruction of the Lord, may one day find themselves
dependent on their children. Because of health issues or age or a
combination of these, the day may come when the child will have to take
responsibility for the parent. The day came when my dad, who lived one
year after my mother’s death, started letting me make the decisions.
Then the day came when I became responsible for his care [the hospital said:
You need to make arrangements for his transfer]. I was now in charge.a
Some of you are facing this situation now [You are already in this stage or
parents are moving to be closer to children, you have moved to be near parents,
etc]. Most will face this situation at some point. The truth of the
matter is that if the Lord’s return or death does not interrupt our lives and
we continue to live and age, at some point all of us will have somebody else in
charge of us. I said, ALL OF US. So this message is for all of
us—it’s just a matter of time!
This matter is full of emotion. There is plenty of emotion for the parent.
The parent wants to age gracefully and go to be with the Lord before any
debilitating downturn in health. Who wants to become dependent or feel he
is “in the way?” But we do not know how the last chapters of our lives
will be written. There is emotion for the child, who finds himself in
charge. When the child sees the parent “as old,” that is painful [I
remember the day when that painful realization came to me]. Then, when
faced with the care of the parent, there is more
emotion—fear—anxiety—struggle with selfishness—a feeling of
inadequacy—dilemmas over what is best, etc.
What kind of guidance does God give in His Word about all of this? The
Bible is very clear about who is in charge and what we are to do.
Although everybody’s situation differs, I want us to hear the principles of
Scripture so we can apply them to our differing circumstances. The
Scripture gives mandates, gives a guiding rule, sounds a rebuke and provides a
model in clarifying this area for us.
I.
MANDATE
Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long
in the land the Lord your God is giving you [Exo.
Honor means to treat with respect, count with significance
and all that these would involve. We outgrow obedience to our parents, but we
never outgrow honoring. Honoring involves caring for. Honor keeps
the generations connected. Take note--this commandment is the first in the
list of horizontal mandates. Here, Moses would have been addressing all
ages in the trek to
You may find yourself in a situation where as you seek to
provide care your parents don’t appreciate what you are doing, do not
understand what you are doing, do not agree with what you are doing, but as best
as you know how you are honoring them. It will require patience, time,
money, and effort, but they carried us, cleaned up after us, were patient with
us and without them our chair would be empty.
We must be careful that we do not equate honor with a certain
action or making promises that we cannot keep. Mary could have requested
of Jesus, “Don’t die” or “Come down” but He couldn’t do that.
Saying I will never put you in a nursing facility may not be practical.
Describing a certain course of action may not be the best way to honor at some
point. So be careful not to equate a certain action or make particular
promises to the act of honoring.
But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should
learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own
family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to
God.
If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially
for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an
unbeliever [1 Tim. 5:4, 8].
Obviously,
this passage is pertinent to our topic. The Bible says here that the child
taking care of a dependent parent is a witness of a redeemed life. This is
putting what we believe into practice—that we are to love our neighbor; that
we are to be obedient to our Lord; and that we are live out our faith. It
is also a “repaying”—we now provide for those who provided for us.
Following this mandate is “pleasing to God.”
II.
RULE
I believe providing needed care for our parents is not only
mandated by Scripture but follows a scriptural rule. We call the rule the
Golden Rule.
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to
you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets [Matthew
This rule guides us in our behavior toward others and
suffices for a 1000 other rules. Applying this to our topic,
when aging has put you in a position of dependency and need of care, how do you
want to be treated? Do you want to be appreciated, cared for and loved?
Well, then, that is how you need to treat those for whom you are responsible.
Our turn is coming.
E.g., Grimm Tale.
Once upon a time there was a
little old man. His eyes blinked and his hands trembled; when he ate he
clattered the silverware distressingly, missed his mouth with the spoon as often
as not, and dribbled a bit of his food on the tablecloth. Now he lived
with his married son, having nowhere else to live, and his son’s wife was a
modern young woman who knew that in-laws should not be tolerated in a woman’s
home.
‘I can’t have this,” she
said. “It interferes with a woman’s right to happiness.”
So she and her husband took
the little old man gently but firmly by the arm and led him to the corner of the
kitchen. There they set him on a stool and gave him his food in a
earthenware bowl. From then on he always ate in the corner, blinking as
the table with wistful eyes.
One day his hands trembled
rather more than usual, and the earthenware bowl fell and broke.
“If you are a pig,” said
the daughter-in-law, “you must eat out of a trough.” So they made him
a little wooden trough, and he got his meals in that.
These people had a
four-year-old son of whom they were very fond. One suppertime the young
man noticed his boy playing intently with some bits of wood and asked what he
was doing.
“I’m making a trough,”
he said, smiling up for approval, “to feed you and mom out of when I get
big.”
The man and his wife looked at
each other for a while and didn’t say anything. Then they cried a
little. Then they went to the corner and took the little old man by the
arm and led him back to the table. They sat him in a comfortable chair and
gave him his food on a plate, and from then on nobody ever scolded when he
clattered or spilled or broke things.
In addition to the mandates and the rule, there is also a
rebuke sounded in this area of honoring parents by caring for them.
Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for
the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and
mother’….But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever
help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he
is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God
for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right
when he prophesied about you: “These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings
are but rules taught by men” [Matthew 15:3-9].
Jesus rebuked those who tried to dodge caring for their
parents, especially those who tried to act like they had a spiritual reason not
to. He called them hypocrites. They looked for a way around the 5th
commandment because of their selfishness.
Now, look with me at a model of providing parental care.
It comes from the Savior Himself. When Jesus was dying on the cross, one of His
last statements pertained to this very matter.
Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother, His mother’s
sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His
mother there, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His
mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your
mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home [John
Earlier Jesus had obeyed His parents. Now He was giving
a model of honoring the dependent parent that was living. There is great
significance here in what He said. But there is a huge significance in the
“when” of His statement. He was dying on the cross for the sins of the
world. But He made sure, even with that, that He provided the very best
care for His mother. This responsibility was second only to the saving act
of redemption. Caring for our parents may come at a very inconvenient
time, when our plates are full, when we feel sandwiched among
responsibilities—but look at the model set before us.
When you hear the mandates, consider the rule, hear the
rebuke and see the model, who misses the clear teaching of Scripture?
One day, if as the child, you find yourself in charge of the
parent, you will struggle with many emotions and issues. I remember the
fear and uncertainty I felt when I embarked on “caring” for my father.
I didn’t know exactly what to do [there are legal issues to consider, research
to do on how to provide care, financial matters to consider, etc]. I had
no idea how things would turn out. I fought selfishness, because I knew I
was sandwiched. I found that this was a time when my heart was exposed and
I had to deal with what I saw there.
Is selfishness pleasing to Him?
Is fear apart of His program?
Will I trust Him even when I do not see the way?
Can He not provide wisdom when I lack it?
What do we need to do? Decide now to follow the
mandates, heed the rule, and follow the example. Make up your mind to
honor your parents, please God and reveal that