Honour is not something that gets talked about a lot these days. But Commandment number 5 out of the top ten is to honour your father and mother. And it turns out that there’s a very good reason why it’s right up there at number 5.

It's funny how the way we think; the things that we think are important. They change over time. If you got a 15 year old down with a 45 year old and a 60 year old and a 90 year old and got them together and asked them what things are really important my hunch is we'd get quite different responses from each of them – the values of my parents generation, people who've been through World War 2 and their parents who'd been through the Great Depression.

Well those generation’s values are quite different to those of my own, the baby boomers, for whom the term the ‘me' generation was invented. I mean my grandfather on my father’s side (who's now long gone) he was born in the 1800's and he lived in a house in Romania (a place where it gets bitterly cold in winter) with animal skins instead of glass for windows.

And there's one core value though. One that we don't hear people talk much about anymore, that's so important when it comes to building a godly family. That value is honour. It's something that today’s generations don't talk too much about. Oh we know that we want other people to honour us. But honour, as it turns out, is a two way street and without it we simply can't have a godly family.

And in fact, God thinks it's so important that in the Ten Commandments, the first four are about God and us and the very next one, the fifth Commandment is about honour in the family. It’s pretty amazing that whole Ten Commandments thing when you think about it. Let's have a quick look. The first commandment, Exodus chapter 20, verse 2:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other Gods before me.

That's the first Commandment. Put God first. The second Commandment:

You shall not make for yourself an idol whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that's in the earth beneath or that's in the water or under the earth. You will not bow down to them or worship them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God punishing children for the inequity of their parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject Me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

So there it is, the second one. The first one was honour God. The second one is you don't get to worship anything other than God. The third Commandment:

You will not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God. For the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses His name.

So, it's again about honouring God and the fourth Commandment, Exodus chapter 20, verse 8:

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work but on the seventh day is a Sabbath day to the Lord your God, you will not do any work.

So again it's about our relationship with God and setting time aside for Him, to rest in Him.

There are the first four Commandments. What are they all about in a nutshell, the executive summary? Well Jesus summarised it pretty well when some young lawyer asked Him, 'What's the greatest Commandment of all?' Remember what He said. Luke chapter 10, verse 27. He answered:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first and the greatest Commandment.

You see, this whole "first four Commandments" thing is about honouring God, first and foremost, above all other things. That's the executive summary, nothing more important than that.

Now, I'm wondering if you or I were God, what would we have put down as the next commandment? Well, if it were me, I think 'don't murder' would be number 5. I mean what can be more important than that. Don't steal. Don't commit adultery. Mmm, I think those should have come next but number 5 probably "don't murder". So, what does God choose as Commandment number 5? Here it is:

Honour your father and your mother so that your days maybe long in the land of the Lord your God is giving to you.

See, this 'honour your father and mother' comes ahead of murder, ahead of adultery, ahead of stealing, lying and jealousy. Honour your mum and your dad. I don't think I would have even had that one in the top 10 – maybe in the top 20 but probably not in the top 10. Yet where does God put it? Number 5, the very next Commandment after He's given four commandments about us honouring Him first and foremost.

Not only that, it's the very first commandment to which there is a blessing attached. You honour your father and mother, and here's the blessing, so that you may live a long time in the land that God has given you. You know what that's about? Israel was, one day, going to go and possess the Promised Land. They were going to have to take it by force and all the nations they took it off would try and get it back. And all the other nations around them would try to defeat them. But the blessing attached to honouring your father and mother is this – that there would be peace.

Ain't there a message in that for a few families? I mean, how many families are a mess because the children have never been taught to honour their parents? I know young adult children in their 20's who live with their parents who don't pay board, who drain on parents finances in their old age. Who leave a mess behind and they cause pain. Why? Because these children needed to be taught to honour their father and their mother. That's why.

Have a listen to how the psalmist puts it. Psalm 37 beginning at verse 25. He says:

I have been young and now I'm old. Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are ever giving liberally and lending and their children become a blessing.

Do you see the link between what happens to children when we are righteous? They become a blessing.

Now, let me warn you here. Teaching our children to honour their parents is plain hard work. It's ongoing. It's incessant. Why? Because we're all born to sin, all of us. Think about it. What's the first or the second word that each young child learns to say? No. We are all naturally rebellious. And that's why God calls us, first and foremost, to honour Him, and secondly, for us to honour our parents. Honour, respect, revere, listen to, obey, speak well of – that's what honour means.

Parents, listen to me. In this day of consumerism we've been conned into thinking that unless we pander to our children’s every whim and desire and race here to do this for them and make their lunches and clean up after them, unless we do that we're not being good parents. We rationalise it. We think we're so busy at work, "I need to do things for them in other ways."

Listen, the very worst thing that we can do to our children is to fail to teach them to honour their mother and father. The very worst thing, because if we fail in that, we fail to give them one of the most important elements of maturity that they will need in their adult life: the ability not to be first’; the ability to be subject to authority; the ability to serve others, to put others before themselves. Do you get it?

In our home there are some bottom lines. I mean our kids are basically grown up now but there were some basic rules. You do not go out unless your bedroom is tidy. No exceptions. You speak with respect to your mother. No, she is not your personal slave. You say thank you when your mother or your father play taxi driver for you and pick you up on Friday night late at night. You say thank you directly, straight away as you're getting out of the car and loud enough for us to hear.

See, this isn't about ego. It's not about being mean. It's about one simple thing. The best thing I can do is to teach my boys to honour their mother because if they don't learn to honour her, they will never honour a wife. And the same is true of my daughter with a husband.

Unless children are taught to honour their father and their mother, there will be, listen to me, there will be no godliness in the household. There will be no peace. There can't be. And the time to start is here and now.