The Blessing and Joy of Honoring Our Fathers – Part 1

Introduction

The First Commandment with Promise

• Ephesians 6:2-4 (ESV): ² “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise),
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  • Parent honoring is foundational because parents are the first representations of God to us.
  • Parenting communicates to us that
    • 1. We did not create ourselves
      • We have an origin.
    • 2. We are dependent on our sources of life
    • 3. Anything we do with our lives is automatically credited to who gave us life.

Once you can honor your parents, it’s natural to honor God

• It’s natural to see Him as our creator.
• It’s natural to depend on Him.
• It’s natural to credit Him with what we become and accomplish.

The Mystery of Parenting

The commandment to honor parents also becomes a much-needed gratitude outlet for what God has done for us through our parents.

Parenting is a lot like how Jesus describes the Kingdom of God

• Mark 4:26–27 (ESV): ²⁶ And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. ²⁷ He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.
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• Mark 4:26–27 (ESV): ²⁸ The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. ²⁹ But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
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The Value of Celebrating Fathers

• You will get far more out of a man with respect and affirmation than with criticism and contempt

When Fatherhood Creates Wounds

• Ephesians 6:4 (ESV): ⁴ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
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• Father’s Day can be a day of lament about what we didn’t get or what we didn’t give.
• Don’t let the fallenness of this world rob you of the joy of honoring your father.

Reframing How We Think About Our Fathers

1. The commandment to honor your parents (it’s validity) is independent
   • The behavior of your parents
   • The status of your relationship with your parents
   • Whether you knew your parents
   • Whether your parents were honorable
2. You honor your parents for your benefit, not your parents’ benefit.
   • Ephesians 6:2-3 (ESV): ² “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), ³ “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”
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3. How you honor your parents is directly tied to how you honor God.
   • 1 John 4:20 (ESV): ²⁰ If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
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4. How you see your father affects how you see God as a Father.
   • Matthew 7:9–11 (ESV): ⁹ Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
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5. One of the ways you heal the wounds of fatherhood is to honor your father.
   • God wants to father you through the healing of your fatherhood wound, but He can’t do that while you’re dishonoring your earthly father.

How Do You Honor a Father That’s Difficult to Honor?

1. Remember that honoring your father does not require you to approve of his behavior.
2. Remember that honoring your father does not require you to like him.
3. Remember that honor is first a heart posture before it is anything else.
4. Open yourself up to God’s Fathering.
5. Ask the Lord to open up your story to you.
   • Hebrews 12:14 (ESV): ¹⁴ Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
   • There are pathways to peace that your in your power to pave
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   • Romans 12:18 (ESV): ¹⁸ If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
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     • Not about finding pathways to peace—they exist
     • The key is in removing obstructions to peace
   • Hebrews 12:15 (ESV): ¹⁵ See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;
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   • Hebrews 12:16 (ESV): ¹⁶ that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. ¹⁷ For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
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6. Ask the Lord to open up your father’s story to you?
   • Your story and your father’s story are connected.
   • Your father’s story is a treasure chest of context.
   • Helpful tool to learn your father’s story: Life Story Interview Kit
   • Compare your father’s story to the ideal Story
     • Key Stages of Masculine Development (Fathered by God: Learning What Your Dad Could Never Teach You by John Eldredge)
       • Beloved Son
       • Shepherd/Ranger/Cowboy
       • Warrior
       • Lover
       • King
       • Sage
7. Get creative.
8. Trust the Lord.

Charge to Men

“We aren’t meant to figure life out on our own. God wants to father us. The truth is, he has been fathering us for a long time—we just haven’t had the eyes to see it. He wants to father us much more intimately, but we have to be in a posture to receive it. What that involves is a new way of seeing, a fundamental reorientation of how we look at life, and our situation in it.”–Fathered by God, p. 8

“The reframing begins when we see that a man’s life is a process of initiation into true masculinity. It is a series of stages we soak in and progress through. And as for God, I believe that what he is primarily up to at any point in a boy’s or a man’s life is initiating him. So much of what we misinterpret as hassles or trials or screw-ups on our part are in fact God fathering us, taking us through something in order to strengthen us, or heal us, or dismantle some unholy thing in us. In other words, initiate us—a distinctly masculine venture.” —Fathered by God, p. 13

• Romans 15:1 (ESV): ¹We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
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Resources

Fathered by God: Learning What Your Dad Could Never Teach You by John Eldredge

Life Story Interview Kit – Classic Edition

Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters and What to Do About It by Richard V. Reeves

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2025