A Mother's Most Solemn Duties

Text: 2 Tim 1:5, 3:15, Title: A Mother’s Most Solemn Duties, Date/Place: NRBC, Mother’s Day 5/11/08, AM

Opening illustration: 10. To be able to eat a whole candy bar (alone) and drink a Coke without any "floaters."

9. To have a 14-year-old answer a question without rolling her eyes in that "Why is this person my mother?" way.

8. Five pounds of chocolate that won’t add twenty.

7. A shower without a child peeking through the curtain with a "Hi ya, Mom!" just as I put razor to my ankle.

6. A full-time butler and chauffeur who looks like Brad Pitt.

5. For a teenager to announce, "Hey, Mom! I got a full scholarship and a job all in the same day!"

4. A grocery store that doesn’t have candy, gum, and cheap toys displayed at the checkout line.

3. To have a family meal without a discussion about bodily secretions.

2. To be able to step on a plane with toddlers and not have some stuffy business traveler say, "Oh, no! Why me?"

1. Four words: Fisher Price Play Prison

A. Background to passage: Explain how I came to this text. Paul is writing what would be his last letter. It is addressed to young Timothy, his son in the faith, and the Pastor at the Church in Ephesus. And he is in the “thanksgiving” portion of a letter and he thanks God for the genuine faith that is “at home” in Timothy, and he notes that it first lived in his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice. With the exceptions of these two verses, these women are not mentioned again in scripture. So we know very little about them, EXCEPT, they accomplished the two most sacred duties of a mother!

B. Main thought: From the text today, let’s think about what the two main jobs of a mother are.

A. Exhibit Genuine Faith (v. 1:5)

1. The first main job is to demonstrate authentic faith. Knowing these two women Paul used a perfect tense verb to describe completeness or fullness of his confidence in the sincerity of faith. To describe the faith he uses the word anoupokritos, which is the word for hypocrite plus a negative prefix. To be a hypocrite means to be a fake, or one who wears a mask, and does things for pretend motivations. So this word means without fakeness or pretense. Their faith was authentic. These ladies were the real deal, night and day, through good and bad, all the time living for Jesus. And they must have been bold students of the scriptures, because they were Jews who readily abandoned their hope for the Messiah

2. Isa 29:13, Mar 9:42, Heb 11:35-40,

3. Illustration: heard about a woman whose husband told her on the way to her baptism, this is another nail in the coffin of their marriage, It is widely known that former president Richard Nixon courted evangelist Billy Graham’s personal friendship for political advantage. When Billy read the Watergate transcripts for the first time, chock-full of Nixon’s profanity, manipulation, cover-ups, and power plays, he became so upset that he went into the bathroom and vomited. Charles Swindoll in his book on Grace puts it this way, "You want to mess up the minds of your children? Here’s how - guaranteed! Rear them in a legalistic, tight context of external religion, where performance is more important than reality. Fake your faith. Sneak around and pretend your spirituality. Train your children to do the same. Embrace a long list of do’s and don’ts publicly but hypocritically practice them privately . . . yet never own up to the fact that its hypocrisy. Act one way but live another. And you can count on it - emotional and spiritual damage will occur." Dad, do you think God heard the grace today?" He answered confidently, "Of course." Then she asked, "And do you think God heard what you said about the coffee, the cheese, and the bread?" Not so confidently, he answered, "Why, yes, I believe so." … "Then which do you think God believed, Dad?"

4. The greatest duty of a mother is to love God with all her heart, and demonstrate to little watching eyes what being a real Christian is. They are the little hypocrisy sensors, and every time you bypass in your own life what you have instructed them to do, they mark it down. So don’t just tell them to pray, let them find you praying. Don’t just tell them we should go to church, but every week regardless of circumstances, go with them to church. Don’t just tell them to read your bible, let them see you reading, memorizing yours. Show them biblical femininity looks like—with a quiet, gentle, submissive spirit and a biblical backbone of steel, esp in hardship! Your children need to see that Mom’s faith affects her temper, her financial decisions, her marriage, her job, her friendships. They need to see that when you are wronged, you turn to Christ in faith, not to gossip and manipulation. They need to see that you have a concern that your neighbors know Jesus Christ and that the world hears the gospel. They must see you do it, not just talk about it. They must see firsthand your love and absolute loyalty and priority to Jesus Christ and his church. They need to see authentic worship from an overflowing heart. They need to see desire to be with Christ and like him. We must model forgiveness and grace and discipline for them.