A Godly Mother
I John 4:7-12
This is the day set aside for recognizing what our mothers mean to us. Last week when I was writing a letter to my mother to send with her card, I recalled the letters she sent to me over the years – in college, in Japan, and even since living in Lima. She hasn’t written many letters recently, but I talk to her every week on the phone. Her short-term memory isn’t so good, but she remembers lots of things from long ago.
One thing she remembers is verses from the Bible. And every so often one slips out while we are talking. When that happened recently she said, “I’ll bet you are surprised that I remembered that verse.” She said that as a girl at home, she and her sister competed while they did the dishes to see who could say the most verses.
When I was a kid, we attended Sunday services morning and evening. Sometimes the evening leader asked people to recite Bible verses beginning with A and on through the alphabet. My favorite was the shortest verse in the Bible which began with J in John 11:35. Jesus wept. You may wonder where you would find a verse beginning with Z. In Ps. 97:8, we find Zion heard and was glad. I remember hearing my mother’s voice frequently on those Sunday evenings.
My mother’s memorization of the Bible in her youth has served her well through the years. At age 90 she can still recite many verses. What a gift.
I’m sure that among the verses she memorized were several from I John. When people who are beginning their walk of faith ask me where they should start reading in the Bible, I sometimes tell them to start with this book. The vocabulary is easy and the ideas are understandable. Listen to these familiar verses.
3:16 God is love.
4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
4:19. We love because he first loved us.
If you read through this short book, you will find it peppered with the word “love.” Love is mentioned more than 40 times. This little book is about love, but not the cheap, gushy, sappy, sentimental kind you might find on some Mother’s Day cards.
When you read I John, it doesn’t take long to figure out that love is more than a feeling or an emotion. Love is expressed in what we do. Love is action. And on this Mother’s Day, I think it is appropriate to think about the measure of love we can expect in a godly mother.
Before we go there, I need to alert you to something about I John. This little book is full of statements about who God is and what we should be, but if you are the type of person who likes to outline paragraphs and chapters and books of the Bible, you may be frustrated. The ideas don’t always follow each other logically like we find in other books of the Bible.
Instead, they are more like what happens when you drop a pebble in a pond. [Slide of ripples] I don’t know what it is about ponds and kids and pebbles, but kids seem to enjoy throwing stones into water. When the stone hits the water, rippling circles begin to move out. And if you throw another one close by, the new circles intersect with the old ones and soon you have some interesting patterns going. (Earl F. Palmer, The Preacher’s Commentary)
John’s letter is something like that. The first pebble he throws out is the idea of life. (1:1) When the first verse mentions the word of life, we know immediately that we are talking about Jesus and the new life he has brought to our world. And that ripple effect goes all the way to the end of the book. (5:11,12.) John wants his readers to know that if you’ve got Jesus, you’ve got real life.
But while we are still thinking about the meaning of life, he throws in another stone and the new ripples begin to intersect with the circles that are already there. This one is named light. (1:5) And we see that God is the author of light. He overcomes darkness and invites us to walk in the light, because if we don’t we will be blind and we will walk in darkness and we will lose our way.
Then before the ripples of life and light fade away, he drops in the third stone, love. This one seems bigger and it sends ripples in all directions. And today we will look at it to see the measure of love we can expect in a godly mother. And you can ask yourself how you measure up.
1. A godly mother embraces God’s love. A godly mother knows that the most important ingredient of her life is God’s love. [Slide of baking clipart] Already in the first paragraph, John writes about having fellowship with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ. A godly mother is full to the brim in her understanding of God and his love.
• She knows that God loves her. (4:10) In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
• She knows what to do about her sins (1:9) if we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
• She knows that the only way she can nurture her relationship with God is to abide in him, to depend on him, and walk with him. As 4:15 says, God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of god, and they abide in God.
Some of us have been blessed to have godly mothers who meditated on God’s word and prayed for God’s blessing upon the lives of their children.
Back in the 1700s, Susanna Wesley, mother of John and Charles Wesley, depended on her faith in God to get her through her trials. She developed her faith as a youngster and once wrote in a letter: "I will tell you what rule I observed when I was young, and too much addicted to childish diversions—never to spend more time in mere recreation in one day than I spent in private religious devotions."
She gave birth to 19 children in 19 years, nine of whom died. She started a daily school for them at home. Each day before class, she set aside an hour to herself for Scripture reading and prayer, and then led them all in singing psalms. Later, her husband Samuel wrote this to his children: "You know what you owe to one of the best of mothers . . . above all for the wholesome and sweet motherly advice and counsel which she has often given you to fear God . . . " She had a great impact on her children. Two of her sons became well known for their preaching, their missionary work, and their music. In our hymnal alone, we have 24 of their hymns. (http://www.intouch.org/myintouch/mighty/portraits/susanna_wesley_213595.html)
If you are going to be a godly mother, realizing God’s love needs to be at the top of your priorities. Open your heart to God’s love and let it cleanse and renew you. Spend time in his word; let it speak to your heart. Stay in touch with God through prayer. This past week we talked with several mothers in this neighborhood and several of them mentioned their need to draw closer to God. One asked for a devotional booklet. One wanted a cross necklace. One wanted prayer for her son. One wanted to know how to understand the death of a small child in an accident. Another one asked us to keep her in our prayers. She had made a similar request about 5 yrs ago. A godly mother experiences a full measure of God’s love.
2. A godly mother lives out sacrificial love. A godly mother not only realizes God’s love, she acts on what it requires and has it woven into every aspect of her life. [Slide of quilting]
• She knows that it’s not enough just to believe in Jesus, she must do what he says. (3:23) And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
• She knows that love is expressed in actions, not just in nice thoughts or flowery words. (3:18) Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
• She knows that her pattern for love is based on Jesus’ love. What kind of love is that? (3:16) We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.
A mother who follows Jesus is willing to lay down her life and take risks for her family. If you go back and read the story of Moses you will see a mother who loved her son so much that she broke the law in order to preserve his life.
A godly mother gives her love sacrificially and unselfishly. I like this little story about a kid in math class. They were studying fractions. The teacher asked one of the students, "James, suppose your mother made a cherry pie, and there were ten of you at the table: your mother and father and eight children. How much of the pie would you get?" "One ninth," was his answer. "No, no, James. Now pay attention. There are ten of you in the home. Don’t you know your fractions?" "Yes, ma’am," he replied, "I know my fractions, but I know my mother even better, and she’d say that she didn’t want any pie."
This past week, Sue and I met a mother who was working in the hot sun, painting a porch floor for her daughter, who has health problems. She didn’t seem put out about it. She was a mother who loves Jesus, and to our great joy, a member of a Church of the Brethren congregation. A godly mother knows what it is to sacrifice because she knows that Jesus covered her sins when he gave his life.
3. A godly mother shares her love with others. One trait of love in I John is it is not something you keep just for your self. The words “love one another” occur 6 times in I John. [Slide of picnic] A godly mother will share God’s love with others: her biological family, her spiritual family, her community.
• She knows that love is to be shared as we read in 4:11, Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.
• She knows that loving others is an expression of God’s love. (4:12) No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
• She knows that true love goes beyond caring for her own family. (3:17) How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and refuses help.
I know that some of you grew up in homes where your mother reached beyond the walls of your house or even the boundaries of your neighborhood to show love to people outside your family or close circle of friends. You have told me of times when beggars came past your house and your mother fed them. Some of your mothers spent hours and hours making quilts for refugees or canning food for the hungry. Some of your mothers visited people in the hospital or took food to someone who was sick.
Someone has proposed a brigade of grandmothers to go to political hotspots in the world to share their love with people instead of sending armies with weapons of violence. We have not yet seen the full impact of love’s potential in our world. A godly mother shares her love with others, even those outside her normal circle of acquaintances.
[Slide of ruler] Mothers, I commend the book of I John to you. There are a lot of little measuring sticks tucked away in here. Ask yourself this morning how you measure up.
1. Have I received God’s love in full measure?
2. Do I have sacrificial love woven into the tapestry of my life?
3. Do I share my love with others?
