Great Lessons From A Godly Mother

Great Lessons from a Godly Mother

Exodus 2:1-11

Sermon by Rick Crandall

Grayson Baptist Church - May 11, 2014

*Mother's Day is a very good thing, because it reminds us how much we owe the mothers in our lives. Mother's Day reminds us how much we should appreciate not just our own mothers, but our grandmothers, the mothers of our children, and the mothers of our church. Mother's Day reminds us how much we should appreciate you, not just one day a year, but every day for all of the things you do. And Moms, we thank God for you!

*Erma Bombeck once explained Mother's Day by saying: "The easiest part of being a mother is giving birth. The hardest part is showing up for it each day. Mother's Day is traditionally the day when children give something back to their mothers for all the spit they produced to wash dirty faces, all the old gum their mothers held in their hands, all the noses and fannies that were wiped, and all the bloody knees that were 'made well' with a kiss.

*This is the day mothers are rewarded for washing all those sheets in the middle of the night, driving kids to school when they missed the bus, and enduring all the football games in the rain. It's appreciation day for making them finish something, for not believing them when they said, 'I hate you,' for sharing their good times, and for sharing their bad times. Their cards probably won't reflect it, but what they are trying to say is 'Thank you Mom for showing up.'" (1)

*Moms matter, especially godly moms, and that includes the mom in our Scripture today. She was Moses' mother. Exodus 6 tells us that her name was "Jochebed," and that name sounds strange to us. But Jochebed was a great name, because it means "Jehovah is glory" or "The glory of Jehovah." And Jochebed brought great glory to God. She was a mom who mattered 3,500 years ago, and she still matters today. This godly mother has some great lessons for us all.

1. First: Jochebed teaches us that we should always follow God over government.

*Verses 1&2 help us see this essential truth. -- There:

1. . . A man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi.

2. So the woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months.

*Jochebed hid her new baby for 3 months. That seems like a strange thing to do, especially today, when most people spread the news as far as we can. But Jochebed was a lowly Hebrew slave under the cruel tyranny of Egypt. Exodus Chapter 1 helps us understand how bad it was for the Jews to live as slaves in Egypt. Please look starting at vs. 7, where God's Word says:

7. . . The children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.

8. Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

9. And he said to his people, "Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we;

10. come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land.''

11. Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.

*That word "afflict" means treating them in a hard way, threatening them, forcing God's people to bow down, making them depressed and downcast.

12. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.

13. So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor.

*That word "rigor" means treating the Children of Israel with harshness and cruelty. The idea of this word was to fracture something or break it apart. The Egyptians were trying to shatter God's people.

14. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.

15. Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah;

16. and he said, "When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.''