In Ephesians 6:1-4, the message centers on biblical parenting, honor, and discipline. Explore Ephesians 6:1–4 and discover a biblical vision for children, parents, honor, discipline, and raising a family in the Lord. Rather than treating the passage as abstract theology, the sermon traces what these truths reveal about God, the gospel, and the way followers of Jesus are called to live.
The sermon applies the text to relationships and Christian community, showing that spiritual maturity becomes visible in the way we love, honor, serve, forgive, and take responsibility for one another. Biblical conviction is connected to everyday choices rather than left at the level of ideas. The result is a call to build relationships that reflect the character of Christ and strengthen the people God has placed around us.
Along the way, the message engages themes including Ephesians 6:1-4, biblical parenting, honor, and discipline. These ideas help place the primary passage within the larger story of Scripture and show how its theology speaks to real spiritual formation. At its heart, the sermon helps answer questions such as: What does Ephesians 6:1-4 teach about biblical parenting, honor, and discipline? It also considers how should biblical parenting, honor, and discipline shape the way Christians live?
For someone studying this passage, exploring the Christian faith, or looking for practical biblical teaching, this sermon offers a clear path from the text to everyday discipleship. The invitation is to hear what Scripture says, receive it with humility, and take the next faithful step in following Jesus.
What does Ephesians 6:1-4 teach about biblical parenting, honor, and discipline? | How should biblical parenting, honor, and discipline shape the way Christians live? | How can believers apply Ephesians 6:1-4 in everyday life?
Ephesians 6:1-4, biblical parenting, honor, and discipline, ephesians 6, 14 a biblical vision children, raising a family in lord, biblical parenting
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I told the team already, this is going to be my least favorite message to preach in Ephesians. Who's excited? All right, it's going to be real short. You ready? Ephesians 6 1-2. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and me mother. All the parents said, "Amen." >> All right, let's get out of here. Let's go. We're done. Man, I think sometimes that like that's kind of how this gets preached where it's like it says honor your father and mother and like period stop done. Okay, we're we're good. But when we read all of scripture and we read all that that God is is saying here, what Paul is is even saying here, there's so much connection to the Old Testament, the New Testament, and it's not always this simple, right? Right. >> And as I was preparing for this um message, I just want you to know I I don't think I've prayed more for a message than this because I know so many of your stories. Like y'all know my story, but I know so many of y'all's stories. And I know that many of y'all don't have the greatest upbringing. You don't don't have perfect parents. There's moments and traumas and and things that you've struggled with and and I know we got middle schoolers and kids in the room today. Your parents are perfect. All right, just so you know, your parents are awesome. Nothing wrong with them, okay? But we live in one of the most dysfunctional family eras. >> Yeah. >> Where I feel like everybody has got mommy problems or daddy issues. And it's kind of funny because I didn't really realize that I had mommy and daddy issues until TV shows and movies and social media told me I did. >> We see Disney movies celebrating children disobeying their dumb parents following their heart and in the end the kids were right and the parents they grew. >> There's certain there's certain Disney movies I don't let my kids watch. I'm just telling you right now, like even like the old school ones because they've like rewired our brains to be like, "It's okay to disobey if you're just following your dreams, right?" And then you follow your dreams and then you get Ursula and all these witches and all this crazy stuff and they Yeah, I need some feedback, y'all. You're going to have to help me today. And I feel like this, too. Like if you're on social media, especially on Instagram and Tik Tok, I see these posts all the time. You might have been raised by a narcissist if XYZ, right? My gosh, were we all raised by narcissists? Like, I feel like that's what I'm constantly seeing on social media. Like, uh, what in the world, right? Or how to create boundaries from your crazy in-laws. Hey, I love my in-laws. Lynn, I love you so much. You're amazing. My mother-in-law is here today. But there's so many standards out there that are constantly being put on us, especially when we're living in this state of comparison. Do I put my parents in a crummy nursing home because of the way they treated me? Hey, or do I build a homestead compound together where we all live on the same property just just moments from each other? Right? Am I better than my parents were for me? How do I raise that standard? Or do I raise the standard? And life is drastically different now than it was parenting 20, 30 years ago. Do I even listen to what my parents are saying and the advice that they're giving me because things are so different now? Do my parents even deserve a voice in my life? Maybe they don't live for Jesus. Should I even bring my kids around them? There's a lot of things that we wrestle with and questions that are coming up. or maybe you disagree on politics and everyone's telling you you need to cut them off from your life, right? Cancel them. And so when we look at this passage and we're going to we're only going to be on these these four verses. We need to see that this is bigger than just parenting, but it's about God being a great father, >> right? >> God has a standard for us to live by as children, as parents, and even as grandparents. And this standard is all part of God's plan. People should look at my parenting and see God the way he is as a father. And people should look at how I treat my parents and see Jesus as a son. I'll tell you, last week I'm a little I'm a little hurt, but it's okay. If I had any ego, it's all gone. I got more positive feedback about last Sunday's message than I think I've ever preached in my entire life. I was getting text messages. I had people coming up to me like, "This was incredible." And here's why. Because my wife was up here, right? Y'all are like, "No, you did great, pastor." No, because Britney came up here and she was amazing. >> But here's the thing. Like, number one, God was in it. >> Amen. >> God was in this the last week's message. My wife was preaching. Yes. But here's what here's what's so beautiful. you all got to see God on display in her life. >> You all got to see God on display in our marriage. >> And so I had so many people texting me like this is inspiration for us as a couple. And I'm not like patting myself and tooting my own horn, but like there's something powerful about us being a reflection to the world wherever we go. A reflection of God with our marriage. And and Paul's saying this as well with our parenting that we get to reflect the love of God. We get to reflect Jesus in how we parent. When people hear that you're a Christian and then they see the way that you parent, would they want to follow Jesus? It's a challenge that we need to take on. We're witnessing power in our lives. And so again, we go back into Ephesians 6 1-2. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. When it says children, it means offspring, adopted or biological. We are all someone's child. Amen. And this command to honor doesn't end even after you are an adult or married. But what does honor mean? I I got a fun definition up here for you. Honor, let me say this first. Honor is meant to reflect God's character and build up his people. And so honor means recognizing and treating someone according to the value that God has placed on them. That's what biblical honor needs to look like. If if if you grew up in a home where it was constantly pushed on you because you went to church and it was like, "You need to honor me. I'm your father. You need to honor me. I'm your mother. And there's that demanding sort of thing like this is what the Bible says, so you need to live by it. But when I see this again, I wrestle with it because not all of us grew up with in homes with parents that we would say are worthy of honor or where it's hard for us to recognize what God has placed in them and is valued in them. So, just follow me here today because this is a a tough topic of conversation, but there's going to be radical healing that's going to take place today. Amen. >> Someone say, "I'm ready to get healed." Okay. Honor should be mutual and lifegiving and Christ centered. Whereas a father, I can recognize in my children and value what God has placed inside of them. And in turn, my children look to me and can see as a godly father what the Lord has put inside of me. And and I and I and I put this out here not to give you a reason to not honor your family and not honor your parents. I think so often we look at this scripture just like with the just like with uh husbands and wives, we say, "Well, he's not loving me, so I don't have to respect him." That's not what this is saying, >> right? Come on. We're not looking for an excuse to not follow the word of God. >> That's right. >> Honor your father and mother. And it says here, this is the first commandment with a promise. This is one of the ten commandments. The promise is this, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. This goes all the way back to Exodus. So if I honor my parents, I get to live to be 120. Heyo, right? I get to live long. No, that's not what it's talking about. The children of Israel were going to the promised land and God was saying to the nation of Israel that if you want to prosper generationally in this land, you need to be a family unit of honor. Again, honoring and seeing the value in your parents. And here's the thing, there's a lot of ways that we can see value in our parents, whether we want to or not. A child's obedience to their parents, it was a good thing. And it led to the prospering of the people. When it says go well with you, it means blessing. There will be a blessing. And and it's not just equating to the blessing of money, but it it's a blessing that means that there is help and favor from God. Right? Somebody say, "Favor ain't fair." >> Favor ain't fair. >> Come on. God is saying that as you honor your parents, you honor me and I will favor you. But this is what you were all waiting for. Most of you, except for the middle schoolers, you weren't waiting for this at all because your parents are perfect. But pastor, my parents were flawed. They are flawed. News flashed. Every parent is flawed. Amen. >> Your parents are flawed. Their parents were flawed. If you're a parent now, you are 100% flawed. And if your children become parents, they will also be flawed. God designed it that way. Like point to me a perfect person on this earth. Point to me a perfect parent. And so knowing this, we can see that God designed it this way. And so with no perfect parents, there is no excuse to not honor the position that they've been given in your life. >> That's right. >> Even if you don't feel like you can honor them. Cuz here's the thing. I I I I said this already, but like or kind of said this, but if you can't look and find an area in their life where they valued you, maybe your maybe your father wasn't in your life or your mother wasn't in your life, but they brought you into this world. And if that's all they did for you, then that's what we value. >> Yeah. >> Like you would not be alive today without them, right? The reason that you're here right now in this church, whether you want to believe it or not, is because of your parents. And I'm going to get more into that here in a second. God chose them and he used their DNA to make you. And again, some of y'all were were chosen. You were adopted into a family. God chose those people to be your family. In Psalm 139:13, "For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb." Listen, God had a plan and has a plan for your life. God understood that you would not be you if your mother and your father had not been who they were. Think about it. There are no accidental children. There are accidental parents. There are illegitimate parents, but there are no accidental illegitimate children. Can somebody say amen? >> Amen. >> Your parents may not have planned for you, but God did. >> That's right. >> God had a plan for you to come into this world, and he used your parents to bring you into this world. >> Amen. >> And it's by the grace of God that they didn't take you out of this world. Amen. Why did God give me these parents? Listen to this. God was more interested in creating you than their parental skills. >> Right? >> God was more interested in bringing you into this world than trying to give you the perfect parents or the perfect family or the Disney movie family that you may have been wired to think that you deserve. And you can say, "I I can't honor my dad because he was never in my life." Or, "I can't honor my mother because she was a terrible narcissist." And God may give you parents to keep you alive. Again, you're living and you're breathing and you're in this room and you're hearing the sound of my voice. So, you have some level of gratitude for that fact. And I know for some of y'all if you hadn't left your home when you did, trauma, addiction, pain, sorrow could be plaguing your life on another level today. And I get that. Again, maybe you didn't have godly parents. But just recognize for a second that it's by God's grace that you're in this church today. It's by God's grace that you have come to know him. You could have grown up with with parents who worshiped the devil, but here you are now worshiping Jesus. >> There's power in that perspective. And guess what? That doesn't necessarily give you justice, does it? For how you grew up feeling. But we give all glory to God and we say vengeance is his. >> That's right. It's a miracle that you're serving God today. When you get married or you become a independent adult, some of us have had to create boundaries, healthy boundaries. And I I feel like every time I'm on Instagram, I'm hearing about boundaries. But honoring our parents looks different over time. and how we honor them. We have to look at scripture. We have to look at the Bible for all of this. And and I'm not trying to if you're looking at this message or looking what I'm trying to say to try to find a reason not to honor your parents, you're listening in the wrong heart. So just hear me today. When we're children, scripture tells us it's obedience. That's how we honor our parents cheerfully and immediately. My kids, my kids say, you know, when mommy asks me to do something, I do it all the way right away with a happy heart. I might have mixed up the the order of that, but your parents are your authority. And I'll just say this, too. When it comes to authority, parents, if you want your kids to have a miserable life, allow them to disrespect authority. That goes for your in your home. That goes for the government, your teachers in school. That even goes for the church. God ordained so many of these positions. And you may not like the person that's in the position, but we're called to respect the authority of the position. >> Amen. You may not like who the president is, but you have to respect he's in that role. You may not like your teachers in school, but you need to respect that they've been put into that position, in that role. >> If you're a young adult or even a teenager, honor looks like respect. Okay? In Leviticus 19:3, it says, "Each of you must respect his mother and father." Hebrews 12:9. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. The big thing with respecting your parents, it doesn't mean that you don't see their weaknesses. And the older you get, the more you realize that they're imperfect human beings. And if you're a teenager, all you see are their imperfections, right? All you see are what they're not doing for you. And you may still be in that place and not be a teenager and that's fine. God says respect them, forgive them, and accept the good, the bad, and the ugly. One of the greatest things that my parents taught me, and I and they I don't know if they regret sharing this with me or not, but so often they would come to me and I'd witness them handling some kind of situation and they'll turn to me and said, "I didn't handle that well. learn from my mistakes. Like I just screwed this up. Learn from it. Like like there there was so much so many times they said learn from our mistakes. We will not always get it right. Learn what not to do by observing what we're doing. And there there is a a powerful amount of maturity and wisdom that we can take from that statement is that God gave us parents sometimes to show us how not to parent. God may have given you godly parents and and there's and there's pathways and and ways that that you feel like you want to emulate and be just like them in your parenting style, but even with having godly parents, they're not always going to do it perfectly >> and they're going to make mistakes. And so it's our job to to not punish them constantly or push them out of our life because of the mistakes that they've made, but it's our job to learn from these mistakes. It's our job to look to the Lord and say, "God, what do I need to learn from this? And how can I grow from it?" It it it it seems so counterintuitive and counterculture today, but how how would you feel if everyone in your life cut you off because of the mistakes that you made and you may be in that place? You may be in that spot where you've made a lot of mistakes and you've burned a lot of bridges. But how beautiful is it when we can try to mend that bridge and bring unity back again rather than constantly being in this place where we're walking around with landmines everywhere, scared of offending or scared of triggering or this isn't what God wants us to do and how he wants us to live. Intelligent children, Proverbs 30:1, intelligent children listen to their parents, and foolish children do their own thing. So again, like I I understand that I don't have to follow the instructions of everything that my parents tell me, but I choose to listen carefully to them. Right? Like I'm a grown man. I'm not going to do everything that my dad tells me to do if I don't agree with it or if I don't feel like the Lord is wanting me to do it. Right? And we we can get into all the scriptures of like you're married, you cleave from your family and what's extended family versus my my immediate family, all these different things. But just hear me today. When we read scriptures like this, we need to look at the context of what Paul is trying to say because it's what what tended to happen during that sort of Greek and Roman time period is that when you were the man of the house, everybody even your family was subservant to you and whatever attitude that you carried and it can be an abusive one. You it was in your right to abuse your own children. It was in your right to hurt your wife, hurt your kids. It was in your right as that leader of the home. And so what Paul is saying when he's saying things like, "Love your wife like Christ loved the church." This is countercultural to everything that the the church in Ephesus had heard up to that point. Even when it comes to our our our children and how we raise our children, like they just need to get over it. I'm not going to change. But again, I choose to listen carefully to my parents and to the even spiritual fathers and mothers in my life. Even if they're terrible people, even if your parents were awful, because even a heathen can speak to their mistakes, their pain, and their experience. and we can learn and grow from those things. Again, if we're constantly just disregarding people, we're going to find ourselves alone. >> Proverbs 23:22, "Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old." Again, as adults, honoring them looks like appreciating their effort, appreciating their sacrifice. Because guess what? It was not easy raising you. Somebody say amen to that. You weren't perfect as a kid. Parenting is difficult. It's demanding. It's time consuming. And it's very expensive. >> Amen. >> Amen. I got four kids, man. Check this out. In America right now, it costs $310,000 to $330,000 to raise a child from age 0 to 18. >> Does it feel lowballing? 17,000 to 18,000 per child per year. It's per child though. Think >> lowball. Okay. Like one of the most unselfish decisions that a human being will ever make is become a parent. If I had one less kid, I could have had a boat. Man, our parents took care of us and so we need to take care of our parents because the roles reverse after a while. Think about this. Jesus was hanging on the cross dying and he turns to John and he says, "Take care of my mom." >> In his last moments, his mother was on his mind. >> Yeah. >> Think about it. 1 Timothy 5'8. Y'all aren't y'all aren't going to like this, but you know, it's the word of God. So, anyone who does not provide for their relatives and especially for their own household has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. >> If I neglect my family, I'm worse than an unbeliever. And that's a tough word. >> And we wrestle with this text, especially if we struggle with that unity within our family or our extended family. And then we start going, who is my family? Can we redefine the terms now? Right? And this is where it gets fun, too, because it goes in back in Ephesians. It goes from honoring your parents to this in verse four. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Come on. God is saying, "Honor your parents." But if you're a Christian father and you're provoking your children to anger and you're creating a no-win scenario for them, all they're going to be able to do is fall into rebellion, >> right? >> How can we expect honor and obedience when we're constantly saying, "We love Jesus." and we're provoking our kids to anger. We're frustrating them and we're hurting them and we're making it impossible for them to grow and find Jesus. Again, I'm not saying that this verse is an excuse to not honor your parents. >> Exactly. >> But there's a lot of kids and even myself included when I went through seasons of my life where I I felt so frustrated with the way that my parents They're not here today, so I can talk smack about them. I'm not going to do that. I would get so frustrated with the way that they would handle things for my life. And and so often because of my youth, I was not able to communicate it well. Just think about it. My mind had not fully developed yet. I'm still growing. I'm still trying to wrestle with the feelings and emotions and the words. And so this scripture is a direction for us as fathers to start to be understanding of where our children are at emotionally and spiritually. That's that's what he's saying here because again it's countercultural to what was happening in Roman times. Like who cares what my kids think? Who cares what what they're what they're thinking or what they got going on? Like I've got my stuff to to handle, right? But this is beckoning us, inviting us to take moments and take times to sit down with our kids and say, "Hey, what's going on? What are you feeling right now? Yeah, I care about how you're feeling. I care about what's going on in your heart and the decisions that we're making as a family. And we begin to create opportunities for our children to begin following Jesus and becoming who Jesus saved them to be and desires them to be. Again, this is not an excuse for us to dishonor our parents, but parents who don't discipline their children and raise them up in Christ, how can we expect our children to honor us? That's the question. How can we expect it? Because we can't demand it. I used to say this often and my wife gets on to me when I say it now, but I used to say, "At least I'm better than my parents were for me." We need to be mature enough to make God's standard our standard for parenting and not live in this place where we're comparing our upbringing to how we're raising our kids. We need to set the standard. And and I think it's it's hard so many times because we're we're putting in a lot of effort or we're putting in some level of effort in our parenting. And when things don't go right, we can just fall back and go, well, you know, my dad beat me. At least I'm not beating my kids, right? Or my mom manipulated me. At least I'm not doing that to my kids. and we swing on this pendulum and we don't actually hit the standard that the Bible says. We just say, "Well, at least I'm better in my mind." Is is better best for our families? Come on. Joshua 24:15, "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Can we Can we be at church where that's the standard? where we say, "As for me and as for my children, as for my household, we will serve the Lord. And whatever the Bible tells me to do, that's how I'm going to live. It's not going to be what Instagram or Tik Tok tells me. It's not going to be what what the Johnson's are doing down the street. I'm not going to do the the gentle parenting. I'm not going to do the fafo. I'm not going to do any of this weird stuff that everybody's talking about on how you should parent my children. I want to do what the word of God tells me to do. >> I want to set the standard for what it needs to look like. And it needs to look like a biblical household and a biblical family. And this is something that we wrestle with because there's so many things that are influencing us right now. >> There are so many voices telling you that you can't do it this way, you can't do it that way, you need to try this and then maybe try that. and and we and we end up worshiping our children rather than worshiping God. Because listen, I believe that the greatest threat to our children is not the world. Hear me today. I believe the greatest threat to our children right now in this church are Christian fathers and mothers who are influenced by the world and compromised by the world. Do I need to say it again? We want to prepare our kids for everything out there, but they're looking at us and how we're living, how we're talking. And if we're living for the Lord and they see that my heart's desire is that they're seeing a godly man, a woman or godly father, a godly mother that's not influenced. Another tough verse, Matthew 18 verse 6. If anyone causes one of these little ones, those who believe in me, to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. This has got to be one of the strongest words that we can find in scripture. Parents, we have a mandate to raise our family >> to become who Jesus saved us to be. And there's something powerful about a family that serves God together. That we can raise our kids up in a place where they know that their parents aren't perfect, but they know a God who is. Pastor, I've been hurt by my parents. I don't have the structure or standard or I can't look to my parents as an example of how I should live. Maybe they didn't measure up to the standard that you felt you deserved. Maybe they did their best, but it wasn't enough. I think a lot of us can put ourselves into that category where we say, "Oh, they tried. They brought me into this world, but they just weren't enough of a father. They weren't enough of a mother." And again, it's because they're not perfect. They're never going to be enough. And God's not asking you to deny your pain in your past. God's not asking you to excuse it, repress it, or ignore it, or sweep it under the rug and pretend like you didn't live through what you lived through. But my desire for us today is that we would let God be enough. Let God be enough. Are you cringing every time that you spend time with your family over the holidays? Let God be enough. Are you pretending like you're one big happy family? Let God be enough. It may be one of the hardest things that we have to do as followers of Christ is just let him be enough for us. We need to stop looking to our parents, our spouses, our children, our brothers and sisters in Christ to be enough for us. The only one who's enough is Jesus. >> And this has been one of the the the darkest and deepest truths that I've had to wrestle with and come to understand. Many of you know my story, and I'm not going to go into it, but someone who's been raised in church my entire life, and I've seen God move in powerful, powerful ways, but this idea that somebody else could be enough for me has led me into places where I wanted to kill myself. And I think so often the enemy comes in and pushes this narrative of no one is ever enough for you and you will never be enough for anybody else. This idea of enough enough. But let me tell you, I have had enough with us looking to anybody but Jesus >> to be enough for us. your parents weren't enough. Let God be enough. Maybe you need to stop pretending and start being proactive. Maybe you need to have a sit down with your family and forgive. And real talk, your parents may never admit that they did anything wrong. And they may gaslight you, put you on blast, and make you feel all kinds of wrong. So maybe that's not the best thing for you to do. You may want to go in and you may want to air out all of the hurt and all of the pain and completely like blindside them so that you can get your resolution and you want to inflict the damage that they've done to you, right? But vengeance is not mine, >> right? >> It's the Lord's. Here's the thing. You cannot change the past, but you can shape your future with the Holy Spirit. We can't undo what happened or didn't happen. No amount of apologies are going to change what they said or what you did. But let me tell you, life is too short to continue being burdened and bound by the past. It's too short. It's too It's too short to be held up by everything that you wish you had. It's time to start setting the standard for our own lives and and be who Jesus saved us to be here and now. If you never get the reconciliation or the resolution like until you get to heaven, we're called to say, "God, you're enough. more than enough. We need to quit running and things are not magically going to get better over time. Like time heals all things is a lie. >> Unforgiveness over time creates bitterness, resentment, and rage. >> You ever talk to somebody and and they get triggered and they just go off on you and you're just like, "Where did that come from? Oh, I just never forgave." Again, it takes courage to make peace with your parents and it can strengthen your relationship with them. But more than anything, when we can forgive our parents, it deepens our relationship with God. We need to stop the cycle for the next generation. >> Again, you may not get resolution or reconciliation, but you work on your heart and let God be enough. Here's what I love. This this verse right here, I think I I don't think this is just for people who were forsaken by their parents. I believe this is for anyone who feels like their family or their parents weren't enough. Check this verse out. Psalm 27:10. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take care of me. >> The Lord will be enough for me. Listen, God fills the gaps that my parents have left in my life. You may feel forsaken or feel like you didn't get what you needed as a child, but God knew. God knew exactly everything that you would be facing and going through. And he still says, "I'm enough." Again, the Bible says that the spiritfilled person thanks God always for everything. And so, God, I thank you for my parents. Hey, we need to thank God for our parents. We as a church, they may not have met the standards, but it if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be who I'm becoming today. I'm thankful for the way I was raised because, get this, they showed me how much I need God for better or for worse. Because a crappy parent can point you to Jesus just as much as a godly one. >> Did you have awful parents? I need Jesus. Do you have godly parents? I need Jesus. God filled the gaps that my parents couldn't fill. And God has become a father to me. And that's his desire for each and every one of us. Jonathan, you can come. We're going to wrap this up. I think it's so important that we wrestle with these verses again, not to try to get out of doing what God has told us to do or look for an excuse to not follow his word. But when we can wrestle with these verses and and begin to see even in my moments of prayer and thanksgiving and we can say, "God, thank you for my parents. Not for anything that they maybe instilled in my life, but thank you that they had me. Because of them, I'm drawing breath right now." It was a rocky road to get here, but I'm here today and I'm thankful. I think if we start there, it'll begin to shift our hearts into a place where we can begin to honor them and [music] honor the sacrifice that they made for us. And that may be as far as you go. And there may need there may need to be forgiveness. There may need to be moments of reconciliation. But more than anything, [music] a time where you come before the Lord and you say, "God, help me to forgive. Lord, I forgive." And here's the thing. We all have a reason to forgive our parents because they were never enough in some area in [music] your life. And we need we need to recognize this. Can you imagine if I preached this on like Mother's Day or Father's Day? [laughter] But it's not for you to be like, "Oh, boohoo. My life was all this and not enough." We all have different levels of our testimony and our story. But I just think it's so important for us to [music] just take a moment right now and forgive our parents for any [music] mistakes, any words that they said. Some of y'all, your parents are in the room with you right [laughter] now. But let's just take a moment and release them [music] of of the backward standards or things that we've been holding them to or maybe the real hurt. The areas where they weren
