Trust, Teach, Turnover Series

Scanning a crowd at a sporting event you see all sorts of things, very overweight men who are very underdressed, usually with a letter or a logo on their belly. You see people in costume, some that make sense, like a fan of the Minnesota Vikings dressed up as a Viking, and some that don’t like the guys in the green unitard at the Canucks games. You see people screaming and shouting and lifting a finger to the sky, hopefully the pointer. But the one thing you inevitably see is the people in the crowd shouting and mouthing the words. Hi Mom! Mothers are incredibly important for so many different reasons, and today is the day that we celebrate all that they do for us, and all that we forget to do for them.

I’d like to look this morning at an example of a Godly mother, and try to unpack a couple of foundations to being a Godly mother. Now, everyone has their opinions on motherhood, Oprah and Dr. Phil will give you plenty of advice, but even though there may be a bit of truth in what they are saying, without the foundational truth of God behind their words, there is no real eternal value and it is relegated to the arena of opinion rather than truth. So let’s start with a Biblical foundation. Turn with me if you will, to Exodus Chapter 2 Verses 1-9. If you’re there, say Thanks Mom!

Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.

Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

“Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses,[saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

As background to this story, The Hebrews, were living in the land of Egypt in captivity. They had grown in numbers and the Pharaoh was getting nervous that they would outnumber and overthrow the Egyptians. To prevent this, Pharaoh decreed that all boys were to be killed at birth. They were to be thrown into the Nile. Now in our passage, we can identify three things that help to describe a Godly Mother. The first thing is that A Godly Mother Trusts God. The second thing is that A Godly Mother Teaches God, and the third thing is that A Godly Mother Turns Over to God.

Point 1 Explanation

Godly Mothers trust God.

It’s not hard to see that Jachobed trusted God. Can you imagine the scene? Here’s this young mother, knowing that she can no longer keep her baby hidden from the authorites weaving together what could very well be her young boy’s coffin. It’s not like she could head out to Wall-mart or Michaels and pick up a basket, she would have spent much time in prayer and contemplation, carefully assembling it. All the while asking God to take care of her new son. The basket is a symbol of her trust in God. She was not content to simply let the Egyptians throw Moses into the Nile to be eaten by Crocodiles. She trusted that God would take care of him and as we read later, her trust, her faith is rewarded

Illustration

In watching the Olympics that just passed, I was amazed to see blind skiers! Now I hear they have blind hockey too, and I’m sure Ed and Stephen would attest that I could qualify, but. . . Anyways, they had trained for slalom, dodging in and out of gates. (Andrew, if there) could you imagine skiing a slalom course with your eyes closed, that would be incredibly dangerous and difficult. Now, these blind skiers were paired with sighted skiers, the blind skiers were taught on the flats how to make right and left turns. When that was mastered, they were taken to the slalom slope, where their sighted partners skied beside them shouting, "Left!" and "Right!" As they obeyed the commands, they were able to negotiate the course and cross the finish line, depending solely on the sighted skiers' word. It was either complete trust or eat snow.