Introduction:
A. Today is Mother’s Day, so we want to express our love and appreciation to all the mothers who are with us today.
1. Mother’s Day is one of my favorite days of the year, because I love and appreciate all the mothers in my life.
2. My experience with the mothers in my life has been very positive – My grandmothers were great, my mother is wonderful, my mother-in-law is super, and my wife, the mother of my daughters is amazing.
3. I recognize that not everyone has been as blessed as I am in this way.
4. Mother’s day is hard for many people for a number of reasons.
5. For some, their experience with the mothers in their lives has been less than desirable.
6. For others, Mother’s Day is a sad day because the mothers in their lives have all passed on.
7. And then, there are those who desperately want to be mothers, but that experience has alluded them, so Mother’s Day brings with it a heart of disappointment and frustration.
B. Nevertheless, in spite of the difficulties that Mothers Day brings, it is right for us to honor God’s plan for motherhood, and to aspire to be the very best mothers a person can be.
C. Let’s start with a bit of motherly humor.
1. The story is told of a soldier at Fort Benning who received a package of cookies from his mother.
a. After roll call, the drill sergeant gave the trainee the choice of throwing the cookies out or eating them while he did one-arm push-ups.
b. To everyone’s surprise, he chose the later. As everyone watched with amazement, the soldier ate the cookies while doing one-armed push-ups.
c. Out of breath, and with a mouthful of cookies, he said, “This is a breeze compared to what my mother would do to me if she heard I threw her cookies away.”
2. Another story is told of a 4 year-old and 6 year-old who presented their mom with a houseplant for mother’s day.
a. They had used their own money and she was thrilled.
b. The 6 year-old, with a sad face said, “There was an arrangement of flowers at the flower shop that we wanted to give you. It was real pretty, but it cost too much. It had a ribbon on it that said, ‘Rest in Peace.’ We thought you would like it because you are always asking for a little peace so you can rest.”
3. Here’s one more quick one: A little boy forgot his lines during the Sunday School play.
a. His mother was in the front row trying to prompt him.
b. His line was the words of Jesus, “I am the light of the world.”
c. So mom started whispering “I am the light of the world…I am the light of the world.”
d. The little boy finally picked up on it, and with his face beaming and with great feeling said, “My mother is the light of the world.”
D. Many children feel about their mothers like the quip I put in the bulletin today from the old Dennis the Menace cartoon, when Dennis said to his dad, “Did you ever notice how Mom’s smile stays in the room even after she leaves?”
1. Mothers, indeed, play a very special role in this world and in the lives of their children, and we must never forget that.
2. God’s wonderful plan for humanity begins with mothers. Praise the Lord!
3. So Moms don’t ever doubt the significance of your role.
4. “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle Rules the World” - that poem by William Wallace is the truth.
E. The late Erma Bombeck was a great writer and humorist. Her honest and “down to earth” style usually captured some profound truths. Let’s spend a moment with something she wrote about Mother’s Day:
“For the first 4 or 5 years after I had children, I considered motherhood a temporary condition -- not a calling. It was a time of my life set aside for exhaustion and long hours. It would pass. Then one afternoon, with 3 kids in tow, I came out of a supermarket pushing a cart (with four wheels that went in opposite directions) when my toddler son got away from me. Just outside the door, he ran toward a machine holding bubble gum in a glass dome. In a voice that shattered glass he shouted, ‘Gimme! Gimme!’ I told him I would give him what for if he didn’t stop shouting and get in the car.
“As I physically tried to pry his body from around the bubble gum machine, he pulled the entire thing over. Glass and balls of bubble gum went all over the parking lot. We had now attracted a sizable crowd.
“I told him he would never see a cartoon as long as he lived, and if he didn’t control his temper, he was going to be making license plates for the state.
“He tried to stifle his sobs as he looked around at the staring crowd. Then he did something that I was to remember for the rest of my life. In his helpless quest for comfort, he turned to the only one he trusted his emotions with - me. He threw his arms around my knees and held on for dear life.
“I had humiliated him, chastised him, and berated him, but I was still all he had. That single incident defined my role. I was a major force in this child’s life.
“Sometimes we forget how important stability is to a child. I’ve always told mine, “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 produce to wash dirty faces, all the old gum they held in their hands, all the noses they wipe, and all the bloody knees they ‘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 your children finish something they said they couldn’t do, not believing them when they said, ‘I hate you,’ and sharing their good times and their bad times.
“Their cards probably won’t reflect it, but what they are trying to say is, ‘Thank you for showing up.’
“Today we want to thank all moms out there for the DIFFICULT and often thankless job they do -- Mothers are so very important... We could not of made it without them, they have provided great comfort and stability for their children through the years. God says Honor thy Mother, and I think MOST would agree that mothers are worthy of honor. Be sure to let your mom know that she is special...That you really appreciate her.”
F. What I would like to do with our time remaining is to take out the photo albums of our Bible and peruse the snapshots of motherhood that we see there.
I. Snapshot #1: (is a picture of) Eve – The First Mother (Genesis 4)
A. God created the first man – Adam, and then from Adam, God created Eve.
1. Eve’s name means “living.”
2. Eve is the mother of all people who have been and who will be.
3. Eve was the first mother – the first woman to ever give birth to a child.
B. Think about that for just a moment…the first woman to ever give birth to a child.
1. I wonder what she and Adam thought when her belly began to grow and the baby began to kick.
2. I wonder if she knew what to expect when it came time for Cain to be born.
3. I wonder if she was afraid of motherhood...after all, no one had ever done it before.
4. I wonder if she knew what an important and influential job being a mother would be.
C. Eve had three sons mentioned by name in Scripture: Cain, Able and Seth.
1. Genesis 5:4 tells us that Adam and Eve had many other sons and daughters, but the biblical story focuses on the three boys, and especially on Seth from whom God’s people would come.
2. Eve was not only the first mother to give birth, she was also the first mother to lose a child.
3. Imagine her heartache when her firstborn took the life of her second born.
4. She really lost both sons that day, because things with Cain would never be the same after that.
D. Since the time of Eve, and the beginning of motherhood, mothers have given themselves to raising their children in the Lord.
1. Mothers nurture us, provide for us, teach us and discipline us.
2. Mother’s have the remarkable ability to change the world one child at a time.
II. Snapshot #2: Jochebed the Protective Mother (Exodus 2)
A. I’m sure you know something of the story of Moses.
1. During the time when Moses was born, God’s people were living as slaves in Egypt.
2. The Egyptian people and Pharaoh himself feared that the Hebrew people were growing too rapidly in number and would someday rise up and take over the country.
3. So Pharaoh decided to control the population by eliminating the Hebrew males as they were born.
4. The Hebrew midwives, however, feared God and did not obey Pharaoh’s order.
5. So Moses was born, and his mother Jochebed, protected him by hiding him for three months.
6. When she felt that she could no longer hide him, she made a little basket-type boat and floated him in the reeds along the bank of the Nile River where Pharaoh’s daughter took her baths.
7. Can you imagine how hard that must have been to leave her helpless baby boy floating in the river?
8. Jochebed wisely stationed Moses older sister, Miriam, nearby to watch what took place and had instructed her what to do when Moses was found by Pharaoh’s daughter.
B. With God’s help, everything went exactly as Jochebed had planned.
1. Pharaoh’s daughter found the baby Moses and felt sorry for him.
2. Moses’ sister immediately approached Pharaoh’s daughter and offered to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby.
3. Pharaoh’s daughter suggested that she do so, and so Miriam got Moses’ mother to became the nursemaid, and Pharaoh’s daughter paid her to do it.
C. Like Jochebed, all good mothers protect their children.
1. The circumstances certainly are different from generation to generation, and from one culture to another, but good mothers watch out for the safety and development of their children.
2. Good mothers keep them from danger and harm.
3. Good mothers guide, teach and discipline their children.
4. Certainly in this sinful world in which we live, there is much from which mothers need to protect their children.
III. Snapshot #3: Hannah the Supportive Mother (1 Samuel 1)
A. There are few stories in the Bible as touching as the story of Hannah and Samuel.
1. Hannah was barren for many years, and faithfully prayed that God would give her a son.
2. She promised God that if He ever blessed her with a son, she would dedicate him to the Lord.
3. In the course of time, God graciously answered Hannah’s prayer and she gave birth to Samuel.
4. When Samuel was old enough to be weaned, Hannah took him to Eli the priest and left Samuel to be raised by Eli in service to the Lord.
5. Can you imagine how hard that must have been to leave her young son to be raised by someone else?
6. The Bible tells us that each year Hannah made Samuel a new robe and took it to him when she and Elkanah went up to offer their annual sacrifice.
B. So Hannah becomes a great example of a mother being supportive of her child.
1. Hannah gave Samuel to the Lord and allowed God to use him as He saw fit.
2. We should support our children in the same way as they go about doing God’s will.
3. Good mothers support their children by engaging them in the church, helping them with their education, guiding their social development, and helping them reach their individual potential and dreams.
IV. Snapshot #4: Rizpah the Devoted Mother (2 Samuel 21)
A. This story is one of those really unusual ones in the Bible.
1. As chapter 21 opens there is a famine in Israel that has been going on for three years.
2. King David realizes that this famine must be a judgment from the Lord, so he sought God’s face about the matter.
3. Incidentally, when we are facing trouble of some kind, it is a good idea to ask God if the trouble is meant to bring our attention to something that must change.
4. The Lord revealed to David that it had to do with something that Saul had done to the Gibeonites, when he put them to death.
5. See, long ago before King Saul, when Joshua led God’s people into the Promise Land, the Gibeonites had tricked him into making a treaty with them.
6. 400 years later, toward the end of Saul’s reign, he broke the treaty and sought to annihilate the Gibeonites.
7. So for that reason, the Lord brought a famine on the land.
B. David called the Gibeonites before him and asked them what could be done to make amends for what Saul had done.
1. They requested that David hand over 7 of Saul’s male descendents so they could execute them and expose them.
2. As you recall, David had spared Saul’s offspring, and had been gracious toward Mephibosheth.
3. David found seven other descendents of Saul and turned them over to the Gibeonites.
4. Two of the men who were executed and exposed were sons of Rizpah.
C. Here’s where the powerful story of a mother comes shining through.
1. For the next six months, Rizpah stationed herself on the hill where the bodies of her sons were exposed.
2. She did not let the birds of the air touch them by day, or the wild animals by night.
3. Can you imagine how hard it must have been for Rizpah to lose her sons, and then have to keep vigil over their decaying bodies day and night for six months?
4. You talk about devotion – she did all she could.
5. She couldn’t keep them from being killed, but she could guard the dignity of their deceased bodies.
6. Wow, what a mother!
D. When King David heard about her persistent devotion, he gave her sons an honorable burial in the tomb of Saul and Jonathan.
V. The final Snapshot #5: Eunice – The Instructive Mother (2 Timothy 1:1-5; 3:14-15)
A. Who is Eunice you ask? She is the mother of Timothy the disciple of Paul, disciple of Jesus.
1. Timothy’s mother was Jewish and became a Christian, but his father was a Greek, and as far as we know was an unbeliever.
2. The faith that grew in Timothy was first in his grandmother, Lois, and in his mother, Eunice.
3. Those important women in Timothy’s life taught him to trust in the Lord and to love God’s Word.
4. Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:14,15, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
5. Timothy’s mother and grandmother had taught him the Scriptures from infancy in both word and deed.
B. Mothers can play a very important role in leading their children to the Lord, and Eunice is a great example of this..
1. Children should learn about God from their mothers.
2. Mothers can begin by teaching their children songs about Jesus – Jesus loves me…Jesus loves the little children….
3. Children should be singing about Jesus before they are singing about Barney or Spunge Bob Square-pants, or the itsy bitsy spider!
4. Mothers, Let’s teach children to love God and to love His word.
5. Let’s be sure to get them to worship and Bible class regularly.
Conclusion:
A. Thank God for Moms, Amen! I said, Thank God for Moms!
B. You know, the pressures on mothers today are perhaps greater than they have ever been – Just think of what’s expected of ladies in our success-driven society:
1. They are often expected to have a successful career.
2. Keep the house spotless..
3. Raise perfect children.
4. Be a great cook.
5. Look like a model.
6. Be a charming hostess.
C. My goal today is not to pile on more impossible expectations, but to affirm the priceless role of a godly mother.
1. My goal is to encourage our mothers by expressing our appreciation for all you are and do, and to remind you that your source of strength and reward is God.
2. We are what we are only by God’s grace and through His power.
D. I hope to encourage you today by affirming that your role as mother is one of the highest callings there is. That’s true whether you are a work-out-of-the-home mom, or a stay-at-home mom.
1. Never underestimate the influence of your example, your instruction or your prayers.
2. The Proverbs remind us: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” (Pr. 22:6)
E. Never lose sight of the rewards of motherhood.
1. Godly mothers are rewarded with the respect of others who observe their godly actions.
2. Godly mothers are rewarded through the years with countless hugs, kisses, home-made cards, letters, phone calls and other expressions of appreciation.
3. Godly mothers are rewarded with a sense of pride flowing through them when their children show signs of progress – like when they do well in a spelling bee, on a sports field, graduate from high school, and especially when they obey the gospel being baptized into Christ.
4. But the rewards also extend beyond this life…God has seen and heard what godly mothers have done.
5. Even if the rewards in this life may seem few and far between, godly mothers will be rewarded by God in heaven.
6. Perhaps the greatest heavenly reward of all will be when you are walking down one of the heavenly streets of gold one day, singing God’s praises when you will hear the familiar voice of your child say, “Hey Mom, thanks for helping me get to heaven!”
F. Let’s have each of the mothers among us stand at this time while I offer a special prayer in your honor.
Resources:
Sermon by Troy Borst, Mothers Who Make A Difference.
Sermon by Steve Malone, Wow What A Mom!
