Pastor Ray Smith

​Senior Pastor - First Congregational, Ashland, NE




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July 10, 2026

       When our fathers give us a command, how fully do we carry that command out? Unfortunately, how we respond to our parents authority reveals a lot about our hearts. The last two chapters of Genesis, as we will see, plainly bear this out. Isaac and Rebekah had made their wishes known to both sons: no Canaanite wives. Specifically for Jacob; he was to go to Paddan Aram and find a wife among his mother's own people. And what will we witness? Jacob rose and went. He honored the command even when it cost him all his comforts, his family, and eventually, years of labor under Laban's roof.
        Esau tells a different story. He had already disobeyed and married Hittite women, and Scripture is not shy about what those relationships brought about: strife and anguish for Isaac and Rebekah. When Esau finally noticed his parents' displeasure, not only did he not seek repentance, he added to it his parents' misery. Esau goes and marries a daughter of Ishmael, a natural enemy of the tribe of Abraham. So here is the question we sit with this week: is our obedience the kind that obeys before we are noticed, even if the command is displeasurable? Or is our obedience the kind that only scrambles once we've been caught?
      The command to honor father and mother did not begin with Moses on a mountain. Paul calls it the first commandment with a promise. Now, we may not always agree with the advice, or work, or chores our parents give us, but we are instructed to obey. Jacob likely did not relish fulfilling Rebekah's wishes. But godly character is not measured by how we feel about instruction, it's measured by obedience to it.

“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you." Deuteronomy 5:16

 ~Pastor Ray~
Servant in Christ 
402-944-7121 (church office)

PASTOR RAY SMITH

Pastor Ray began his ministry at First Congregational, Ashland, NE, February 2025