How to Keep the Peace with your Parents | Exodus 20:12 | Chapel Hill Church Gig Harbor

How do you honor your parents when honoring them isn’t easy? When they’ve hurt you, failed you, or are difficult to respect? That’s the real question underneath one of the most straightforward-sounding commandments in the Bible.
In this Father’s Day message, Pastor Ellis opens with a story from his own childhood and walks through what it actually means to honor your father and mother, especially when your family story is complicated.

1. What the Hebrew word for “honor” (kaved) actually means: to give weight to someone, to treat them as significant rather than disposable, and why that changes how we approach this commandment
2. Why the fifth commandment comes with a promise, and what the Harvard Study of Adult Development says about the connection between honoring family and living longer
3. The gospel case for why this commandment is possible at all: where we’ve failed to honor, Jesus honored perfectly; where our parents have wounded us, the cross covers that too
4. What it means to find your identity as a child of a perfect heavenly Father, and how that frees you to honor your earthly parents without needing them to be something they’re not
5. Four practical ways to honor your parents: accept them, affirm them, avoid abandoning them, and act now

If your relationship with your parents is painful, complicated, or one you’ve been putting off addressing, this one is for you.
Finding Your Way | Chapel Hill Church