God's Call, God's Choice Mother's Day

God’s Call, God’s Choice Mother’s Day

Judges 4:1-10 Luke 7:36-8:3 May 9th 2021

We want to say Happy Mother’s Day to all of you women who have made a difference in the lives of others as Mothers, Aunts, Grandmothers, Daughters, Sisters, Cousins, nieces, Great Grandmothers, foster Moms, teachers, nurses, cashiers, social workers, cooks, politicians, pastors, office workers, supervisors, co-workers, youth workers and servants of Jesus Christ. Without you none of us would be here today.

I’m so glad that God created the woman last, because you often see things we do not see and correct them before we knew they needed correcting. When God created humanity, God’s word specifically says, in the image of God, God created them, male and female God created them.

God had a specific purpose in mind when God created us male and female. That purpose goes much deeper than just the physical distinctions in our bodies. God has made us different in some ways and the same in others.

Women should not have to try to become more like men and men should not have to try to become more like women. The goal should be to ask what is God requiring of me and to seek after that call.

We should be able to celebrate our differences while recognizing we are equal in the eyes of God. We should be free to respond to the call of God upon our lives, because God’s choice for us, may not be the choice of others.

There are differences among those of the same sex which should also be celebrated. The woman who remains at home with her children, is just as valuable in the eyes of God as the woman who becomes CEO of a company. At the end of the day, its not how much money did I make, but how much love did I show to those I encountered.

We must allow for God to be God with each of His children for each of them to reach their full potential. It is important for us to know the word of God, because it teaches us that God has never overlooked the talents and capabilities of women.

We may want to limit boys and girls and men and women to play certain roles in society, but that’s not because of God’s word. It’s because of our prejudices. There was a time when if boy wanted to be a liturgical dancer, we made him feel ashamed yet from the very beginning God assigned male and female dancers as a part of praise and worship.

As believers in Christ, with a heritage from the Old Testament, we have already had our first Woman President. It happened about a thousand years before Jesus was born. God had led his people into the land of Canaan which is where God promised to bless them.

God kept his end of the deal ,but the people did not. Unfortunately, the people disobeyed God and turned to the worship of idols. God left them to their own devices, and they discovered doing your own thing is not always the best thing.

There was a powerful king named Jabin who had taken over the land of Canaan. King Jabin was cruelly oppressing God’s people. The king had a massive army with nine hundred chariots, led by a general named Sisera. Chariots would be the equivalents of tanks in our day in a land battle. That would be like sending foot soldiers against tanks with just rifles to fight with.

God’s people had known a lot of misery and suffering for 20 years under King Jabin. The people cried out to God for help. God chose a new president for his people. He sent his call to Deborah. We know that Deborah had been a prophet and a judge, but now she is elevated to the highest office. We know that she was married to Lappidoth. The people trusted her wisdom and her counsel because they knew she was in touch with God.

Deborah calls a man named Barak to tell him what the Lord has said. Deborah says to Barak, “Take 10,000 men and go to Mount Tabor. I will lead General Sisera to the Kishon River with his chariots and troops and deliver them into your hand.”

Think about this for a moment, Sisera and his men are a standing army, trained for battle and have been doing maneuvers for years, and not only that, they have iron chariots. Yet God is somehow going to defeat them.

President Deborah is offering you the job of taking a bunch of untrained farmers and merchants into battle against Sisera’s army on foot. What would your response be?

Barak, replies to her, “I will go if you go with me, but if you don’t go, I won’t go.” Notice that Deborah didn’t choose Barak, but God did.” You can have God’s call, and you can be God’s choice, and you can still miss out on what God wants to give you if you start to put stipulations on what you will and will not do with God’s will.