Mother's Day 2020

Mother’s Day 2020

Text: Luke 10:38-42, Philippians 3:17-4:1

Good morning. Today is Mother’s Day, and it’s one of those holidays that I’ve truly come to appreciate more and more as I’ve grown older. I appreciate it, because of my own desire to honor my mother, and my mother-in-law… and to honor the mother of my children. And you know it’s a good thing that we do that… it’s a BIBLICAL thing that we do that. It’s one of the 10 Commandments – honor your father and mother, and it’s something that we as a society should do more of. Because the truth is – we live in a culture that has devalued motherhood greatly. And we live in a culture that flat out doesn’t believe in the Biblical views of male and female roles and relationships, and difference. Thankfully the SJW’s of the world haven’t yet demanded that we stop having Mother’s Day… but even if they did… or rather I should say, “When they do.” It won’t matter to us as Christians. It is a commandment we are called to obey. “Honor your FATHER, and your MOTHER.” And those are role distinctions that God has made, not man. When God tells you something, or commands you do something, or gives certain rights – man… doesn’t matter who he is, or what authority he has… man has no right, power, or authority to take that away from you, or to command you to do differently.

And so today, we want to honor mothers. We love you. We are thankful for you. And thankful for the role and ministry you do in the home, and in the Church.

So what I want you to do is open your Bible’s to Luke 10:38-42 and we’re going to read the story about Mary and Martha and Jesus… and then we’re going to look at Philippians 3:17-4:1.

The story of Mary and Martha is going to set the stage for us, and give us a question we should ask, and then Paul is going to answer that question for us in the passage from Philippians 3.

(READ Luke 10:38-42)

Now I’m sure that all of you are familiar with this story. Jesus shows up at Martha and Mary’s house. And it’s not just Jesus – there tended to be a crowd that followed Him. So Martha goes to work. She’s trying to make sure everyone has food to eat, and that everything is taken care of, but Mary sits at Jesus feet. And so Martha gets frustrated, and she goes to Jesus and says, “Jesus, tell my sister to get off her hiney and help me.” And Jesus says to her, “Martha… Mary has chosen the good portion…”

Now there’s something here that we need to understand before we go on, and it’s in verse 39. It says that Mary sat at Jesus feet, and LISTENED to His teaching. So it wasn’t like Mary was just shirking her duties. And it wasn’t like Mary had interjected herself into the discussion… she wasn’t sitting there thinking, “Oh I add a valuable voice to this discussion.” No… she listened. What that word means is that she not only heard the words Jesus said, but she gave herself to trying to comprehend and understand them. She was chewing on what He was saying, running it through her head, and really applying herself to understanding. Now I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve had someone come up to me (both women and men) and say, “Pastor Ken, what do you think about this…?” Or “What’s your point of view on this particular subject?” Or, “What’s the best way for me to handle this situation?” And I’ll start to give them my answer and they can’t wait to say, “But what about this?”, Or, “Well this is what I think…” In other words, they already had a pre-conceived idea, or notion, and they came to me hoping that I would affirm it. They didn’t really want to know what I had to say, or what the Bible has to say about something. They’ve already made up their mind. So they come to a pastor, or a good Christian friend, and hope that they’ll agree with them, and if we don’t, they’ll try to convince us to… but ultimately if they can’t, they can at least say, “Well I talked to some Christian friends… I got counseling from a pastor… but it didn’t help.” OF COURSE IT DIDN’T! You didn’t do what they advised. You just heard the words come out of their mouth, but didn’t put it into practice. Well Mary is sitting here, and she’s not only hearing the words, but she’s thinking on them… she’s asking herself what they mean, and how can she put them into practice. That’s what this word “Listening” means here in this passage.