Mother’s Day Sermon
“What Being a Parent Sometimes Means”
Exodus 2:1-11
INTRODUCTION: “The Lord gives good many things twice over; but he don’t give ye a mother but once” says Tom in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Today is the day set aside each year to pay tribute to Mothers, a sometimes thankless and difficult job. Sometimes Mothers think their job is tougher than most anything else they do in life, and they are probably right. Many people think we are living in the worst of times to raise a family --drugs, violence, all kinds of temptations pulling at children, but the Mother in our scripture today had some very difficult choices to make during a very critical time in history also. Mothers have to be all things at all times it seems.
STORY: The second grade teacher had been giving a lesson on science. She had explained about magnets and showed how they would pick up nails and other bits of iron.
Now it was question time, and she asked, “My name begins with the letter M and I pick up things. What am I?
Billy, a little boy on the front row waved his hand and proudly answered, “You’re a Mother!!”
How can this Old Testament account give today’s Mothers a sense of new confidence and empowerment to handle the difficulties of today’s world? What can it say to you personally today?
1. Being a Parent Sometimes Means Making Difficult Choices: The Mother of Moses had a difficult choice to make. The Hebrews had fallen into slavery down in Egypt. As they began to multiply and grow stronger in the land they became a threat to Pharoah who was beginning to fear them. He decreed that all baby boys be killed--thrown into the Nile River. Parents were probably hoping that they would have only girls in that day even though boys were generally preferred. The Hebrew parents were going through much turmoil as they were trying to make decisions. Acts 17:17-22 tells us that many parents abandoned their babies--maybe not abandon them necessarily to die but that someone would come along and preserve their lives. Verse 18 says, “Then another king who knew nothing about Joseph became ruler of Egypt. He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by throwing out their newborn babies so they would die.” Moses Mother tried to make a better decision. First of all she “hid him for three months” (Ex. 2:2). The family probably was on pins and needles the entire time so that no one would detect him and that no one would hear him crying. Someone from Pharoah’s court could have passed by at any time and discovered him. Moses Mother had to make another difficult decision when she could hide him no longer. She put him in a basket that day and put the basket out on the river. It was a difficult decision to let him go after carrying for him for three months, but she didn’t just abandon him on the river that day.
None of you have ever had to make that exact kind of decision concerning your children but there are other painful decisions that occur from time to time. Some have to do with difficult medical decisions when there are life-threatening conditions.
STORY: There was an article in one of the magazines where a one year old had such a serious medical condition that only an experimental medical procedure MIGHT help her. Otherwise she would die in a short time. Certain members of the family were strongly opposed to going ahead with it. The parents were agonizing over what to do. Do they run the risk of her dying from the surgery or go ahead with it? It was a difficult decision which they ended up making in favor of the surgery. After a long process the little girl started to recover and now she is four years old.
Sometimes being a parent means making difficult choices -- how do you do this?
We need God’s help on a DAILY basis. Too many families today are trying to make it on their own. Making decisions that are diffcult without the wisdom and guidance that only God can give can lead to disasterous outcomes. There is no parenting manual that gives all the answers or tell the “right” way to handle everything. Moses Mother was not an expert in every way, but she sought the Lord’s guidance on a daily basis.
Mothers, stepmothers, grandmother’s and other caregivers--put your dependence upon the Lord who can guide you and direct you toward the best decisions in these difficult times as well as the necessary daily decisions.
2. Being a Parent Requires Wisdom and Parenting Skills: Moses mother posted his sister, miriam, nearby to keep an eye on the basket. She was instructed to stay out of sight to see who might come along that day. When it so “happened” that Pharoah’s daughter saw the basket and the baby inside, Merriam volunteerd to find a Hebrew Nanny to take care of him--Moses own mother. When she showed up, she showed wisdom and restraint by not letting on that she was actually the baby’s mother and she agreed to take the job and received a paycheck for doing it.
Like Moses mother, today’s parents need lots of wisdom to know when to stay calm and collected, when to say “yes” and when to say “no.” When to tighten the reins and when to loosen them, when to CHOOSE the battles rather than fight every one of them over every little thing. When to intervene and when to watch from the sidelines. When to give advice and when to remain silent. That is difficult and requires wisdom from God as well as good parenting skills.
I have seen many parents who try to shelter their children from the world by structuring their lives so closely that they are only around “Christian friends” or only go to “Christian schools.” They make their decisions for them for so long that the children don’t know how to make decisionro or face temptations and to say no to temptations. Maybe they have good intentions for their children, but many times it has the opposite effect.
Moses mother knew that she couldn’t shelter Moses for a long time. He was going out from her protection--he was on the Nile River where dangers existed. He was going to grow bigger and stronger each day--She had wisdom in handling the situation that day.
ILLUSTRATION: There was a movie that came out awhile back where parents had sheltered their son away from the world in a bomb shelter for 30 years. When he came out of it, he didn’t know who to handle difficult situations. He was totally lost. He was not able to function in society because he had not been used to making little decisions along the way.
Wise parents know when to let children make choices and decisions, when to go talk to the principe at school about problems or when to let kids fight it out for themselves.
ILLUSTRATION: One friend of mine home schooled her kids. She said, “Children cannot make decisions on their own until they are 15 or 16 years old.”
I know another mother who went to the principal of the school for every little conflict that arose. The kids always knew that “Mom would take care of it.” The principal hated to see her coming and to this day, “Mom is still stepping in to bail the kids out of problems and to TAKE CARE OF IT.”
On the other hand, many parents are not involved enough in their children’s lives.
One teenager on TV the other night said, “We want to spend more time with our parents and we want some limits.” You might think that is surprizing to hear.
Moms, stepmothers, grandmothers, and others involved in caregiving--there needs to be balance--not going from one extreme to the other. It requires wisdom from God to achieve this balance.
3. Being a Parent Means Trusting God’s Providence: The Mother of Moses must have trusted the providence of God when she placed him in the basket by the river. She again showed her trust when that after she had cared for him that she later took him back to Pharoah’s daughter and entrusted him to a stranger’s care.
The writer of the book of Exodus saw the events surrounding the life of Moses to be providential. He was born with a destiny to lead God’s people out of Egyptian bondage and to be a great law giver. It was providential that he grew up in Pharoah’s palace where he could be educated and trained for the great tasks that lay before him. Acts 7:22 says, “Moses was educated in all the wisom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.” It was providential that Moses later fled to the wilderness and encountered God in a “burning bush” while tending his father-in-law’s sheep. The mother of Moses was a woman of great faith who entrusted her son to divine providence. Hebrews 11:23 tells us that “by faith Moses parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.”
There comes a time when all parent must trust their children to God’s providence. Parents cannot always go with children out in the world to school or to college or when they are with their friends.
Anne Frank wrote in her diary, “Parents can only give good advice or put their children on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.”
There is a lot of truth in that statement, but Christians can also go a step further in knowing that their children’s future are also in God’s hands. Covering children with prayer as they grow up and get out on their own has more influence than we realize. Most Christian parents are quite used to praying for their children to keep them entrusted to care and safekeeping, but it takes OUR FAITH TO BELIEVE THAT EVEN WHEN they go astray or are wayward that God is just as much involved in looking after them AS WHEN THINGS SEEM to be going well.
When parents present their children for baptism this is a sign that they are calling on God to bless them and to work in their lives, to guard them from evil and temptation. In baptizing children, we are claiming the providence of God in their lives.
CONCLUSION: Mothers, stepmothers, grandmothers, and other care givers--don’t be discouraged by the difficult decisions you have to make pertaining to your children, continue to learn good parenting skills and ask for God’s wisdom to be a part of your daily experience, and extend your faith to trust in the Providence of God in your children’s lives.
SHALL WE PRAY:
