A Christian Mother's Prayers Series

Title: A Christian Mother’s Prayers (Mother’s Day)

Series: Prayer 101 (Sermon # 3)

Date Preached: May 11, 2008

Text: Proverbs 14:1

COPYRIGHT © Joe La Rue, 2008

Introduction

A. Hook: A teacher gave her class of second graders a lesson on the magnet and what it does. She explained all about the magnetic process, how a magnet attracts iron and picks it up and the reasons why it does. She covered her subject thoroughly, and her students knew all about magnets. The next day in a written test, she included this question: “My full name has six letters. The first one is M. I pick up things. What am I?” When the test papers were turned in, the teacher was astonished to find that almost 50 percent of the students answered the question with the word ‘Mother.’

B. Moms do seem to spend a large amount of their time picking up things. Maybe that’s why this other story I heard about happened. It seems that a four-year-old and a six-year-old presented their Mom with a house plant. They had used their own money to buy it, Dad said, and she was thrilled that they would have done something like that. The older of them said with a sad face, “There was a bouquet that we wanted to give you at the flower shop. It was real pretty, but it was too expensive. It had a ribbon on it that said, ‘Rest In Peace,’ and we thought it would be just perfect since you are always asking for a little peace so that you can rest.”

C. Well, today is Mother’s Day, and I want to spend the next twenty minutes or so talking to about the prayers of Christian moms and grandmas. Take your Sermon Notes page out of the program, and lets get going. If you have your Bibles with you, open up to Prov 14:1. It’s also printed for you on the Sermon Notes page. Listen as I read. Prov 14:1. The Bible says:

“The wise woman builds her house; but the foolish tears hers down with her own hands.” (Prov 14:1, NASB).

D. Now, back in Bible times women didn’t build houses. Women didn’t hammer wood together or lay brick. So, when the Bible talks about a woman building her house, it isn’t talking about women going into the house construction business. No, what this is talking about is women going into the people construction business. It’s talking about women building up the people who make up their household: women building up their husbands and especially their children and grandchildren. “The wise woman builds her house.” A wise woman invests in the lives of her loved ones and helps them become all that God wants them to be. Now, listen to another scripture. The Bible says in Psalm 127:1,

“Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1, NIV).

E. Okay, let me bring this together. The wise woman builds her house, but unless the Lord builds it she is laboring in vain—it’s not going to get built. A wise woman tries to build up her family, but unless the Lord is doing the building, the woman’s efforts won’t succeed. What does this mean? It means that—this is a blank on your outline, fill it in please—it means that the wise woman is going to be praying that God will build up her house, that God will build up her family to be all that it should be for His glory. In other words, Christian ladies should want to leave a Godly legacy for their children and grandchildren.

F. Trans: Ladies: do you want to be wise? Do you want to build your houses for God? Do you want to leave a Godly legacy for your children and grandchildren, so that they will be devoted to God? Let me give you three ways that you can do that. First,

I. Dedicate Your Children And Grandchildren To God.

A. If you want to leave a true legacy of faith for your children and grandchildren, you’ve got to give them to God. Raising your children to know and love and obey God needs to be the greatest goal of your life!

1. ILL: This is what Hannah, in the Old Testament, did. She was married to Elkanah, and Elkanah loved her very much. However, as was the custom in that time, Elkanah had another wife named Peninnah. Peninnah had born Elkanah children, but Hannah was barren. Now, even today, barrenness is a horrible tragedy for couples who want to have a child. But the tragic nature of the condition was magnified in their society, because a wife who was unable to give her husband children was regarded as a second-class wife. So this weighed tremendously on Hannah. Even though Elkanah reassured her of his love, she wanted to have a baby of her own. So, she prayed to God for a child. We’re going to read her prayer: it’s found in 1 Sam 1:11. As I read it, I want you to listen to how she dedicated the child she would conceive to God. Listen: