Mother's Day

Turn with me really quickly to Ephesians 5:23-29 (Read).

So that passage clearly says that husbands are the head of the house, but also it says that we are to love our wives, just like Jesus loves the Church. In-other-words, we are to love our wives sacrificially… And let me just tell you, if we fail to love our wives like this, what we’re doing is disobeying a commandment given to us from God’s Word, and we are distorting the picture that marriage provides of Christ and the Church to the world. You’ve heard the saying, “As goes the home, so goes the Church, and as goes the Church, so goes the world…” Well this passage is where that idea comes from. Christian marriage is a picture of Christ and His Church to the unbelieving world. And secondly; if we fail to love our wives like this, we sin against our wives and our children, because our kids pick up on our attitudes and actions. One thing that gets me more riled up than just about anything else is to see a kid disrespect his or her mother. That causes my blood to boil. Because a lot of times, they pick that up from their own father. And I’ll tell you right now, that is not tolerated in our house. And it shouldn’t be in any house.

Ok; let’s turn back to Proverbs 31…

As you can see from our text, the demands on mothers are awesome! They include grocery shopping, preparing meals (sometimes for picky eaters), washing and ironing, house cleaning, caring for the many needs of the family, and on and on… and again; we look at that list and we go, they lady that’s doing all of these things is probably a basket case.

So in the time left, I want to quickly talk about how moms can handle all of this without going ballistic and losing their minds. We already touched on one important part, and that is the necessity of a loving husband and obedient kids. Guys, to love your wife sacrificially means that you help out. It is not beneath us to do the laundry. It’s not beneath us to occasionally do the dishes (you notice how I said ‘occasionally’? That shows you that even pastors sometimes have this pull of the world on us where we try to skirt the issue, or twist things to suit us). It’s not beneath us to DO THE DISHES, either occasionally or, if need be, often. So that’s one way we can help our wives be this virtuous woman. By helping out around the house!

Secondly; and this one is on the wives and moms… and that is they need to have their priorities straight. In Luke chapter 10 we read the story of Mary, Martha and Jesus. Jesus had come to their house, and Mary found the time to sit at Jesus’ feet, to be near Him and learn from Him, while Martha got involved in the busy work. She found plenty of things to do, so that she didn’t have to get alone and be with Jesus (Now she would’ve never admitted to that, but that’s what’s implied in that passage). Then she even complained to the Lord about Mary’s unwillingness to join her in her sin. Now I hope everyone realizes that this is the same Mary that goes to the tomb and is the first person to see the resurrected Lord. She was then commissioned to be the very first evangelist. Jesus told her to go and tell the others. And what we learn from that is that mom’s need to make Mary’s priority their own priority. It doesn’t mean that they ignore the other duties of motherhood. It means that they prioritize and have their priorities straight. On the flip side; mothers who end up making Martha’s priorities their own, end up like Martha. They find themselves full of resentment, self-pity, and tension.