Family Fairytales: "Being A Mom Looks Like This" Series

Scripture: Matthew 12:46-50

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

Why didn’t Jesus drop what he was doing and go to his mother? Because he was God, and what he was doing did not need to be interrupted. Now, if Mary was perfect, she would have understood that. She wouldn’t have interrupted him. And the sense that the text gives us is that she agreed with his unbelieving brothers that he needed to tone down his ministry.

No, Mary was a good person. She was the mother of our Lord, but she wasn’t perfect. And neither are you…or certainly me. We’ve all made mistakes in the past, we’ll certainly make mistakes today, and we’ll probably make more mistakes tomorrow. But be encouraged. Because through it all, God will love you, work with you, accept you, and even use your mistakes for his glory.

How many women have been discouraged by the last few words of Proverbs? It is there that the author writes of the perfect woman. There are 22 lines in the poem, and each one of them begins with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It’s an acrostic poem that speaks of an imaginary woman. She never sleeps, and she always works. OK, so that’s the part of the poem that is reality. But in the poem, she manages a fleet of ships, she runs a farm, she manages a staff, she sews like a fashion expert, she cooks, cleans, and home-schools her children. She has a feast waiting on her husband when he arrives home from his much-less demanding job, and she needs no car pool whatsoever. She simply puts on her Super-mother cape and flies her children to their next appointment.

If you try to be like the woman of Proverbs 31 with perfection, you’ll understand the first line that says, “A wife like this ... who can find her?!”

God’s kind of mom does not, cannot, and will not be perfect.

But there’s a third principle that we find in the life of Mary, and it’s this:

3. God’s kind of mom never gives up the title.

Look, real quickly at John 19, verse 25.

“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother...”

Mary wasn't just standing there. Mary crumpled at the cross. She fell down to the depths there, moaning and wailing and begging God to stop what was happening.

Suddenly all the prophecies that she had heard were true. You and I cannot imagine the gut-wrenching pain she must have endured. Despite the pain, though, Mary was there. She was a mother from the beginning, and a mother at the end.

God’s kind of mom never gives up the title.

You’ll find mothers like that in the halls of children's hospitals, in funeral homes and in the counselors’ offices. Mothers never give up the title, even if the child is rebellious or cruel.