Sermon Notes May 12, 2013 FBCam
The Blessings of Being a Mother
Happy Mother’s Day! As we celebrate our mom’s today, I found the following humorous reflections on the differences in the way mom’s respond to their children as the second and third child comes along. (Source: sermoncentral.com)
Your Clothes
1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your doctor confirms your pregnancy.
2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.
3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.
Preparing for the Birth
1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.
2nd baby: You don’t bother practicing because you remember that last time, breathing didn’t do a thing.
3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your 8th month.
Worries
1st baby: At the first sign of distress--a whimper, a frown--you pick up the baby.
2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.
3rd baby: You teach your 3-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.
Pacifier
1st baby: If the pacifier falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.
2nd baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby’s bottle.
3rd baby: You put it in your mouth and suck it clean, then pop it back in the baby’s mouth
Diapering
1st baby: You change your baby’s diapers every hour, whether they need it or not.
2nd baby: You change their diaper every 2 to 3 hours, if needed.
3rd baby: You change their diaper only after it is sagging to their knees.
At Home
1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.
2nd baby: You spend a bit of every day watching to be sure your older child isn’t squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.
3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.
IT’s NOT EASY Being a MOM!
One thing that makes it difficult is that some people think being a mom is second rate.
Seminary president, Al Mohler wrote an article describing a “Good Morning America” program that devoted two consecutive daily segments featuring the arguments of Linda Hirshman, a prominent feminist thinker. Source:http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/03/24/time-magazine-and-the-new-stay-at-home-moms/
This well known and published feminist was concerned by an amazing trend– large numbers of highly educated young women on elite college and university campuses indicated that they did not intend to pursue a career outside the home, but to give themselves to being wives and mothers.
Concerned by these statistics, Hirshman decided to undertake some research of her own. She selected a sample of young women who had been identified as brides in the “Sunday Styles” section of The New York Times for three Sunday’s in 1996. Hirshman believed that “the brilliantly educated and accomplished brides” of her sample would be indicative of the way this generation of young women is approaching career, marriage, and motherhood.
As Hirshman relates: “At marriage, they included a vice president of client communication, a gastroenterologist, a lawyer, an editor, and a marketing executive. In 2003 and 2004, I tracked them down and called them. I interviewed about 80 percent of the 41 women who announced their weddings over three Sundays in 1996. Around 40 years old, college graduates with careers: Who was more likely than they to be reaping feminism’s promise of opportunity? Imagine my shock when I found almost all the brides from the Sunday at home with their children. Statistical anomaly? Nope. Same result for the next Sunday. And the one after that.”
“Ninety percent of the brides I found had had babies. Of the 30 with babies, five were still working full time. Twenty-five, or 85 percent, were not working full time. Of those not working full time, 10 were working part time but often a long way from their prior career paths. And half the married women with children were not working at all.”
(End quote from Hirsham)
Mohler remarks Linda Hirsham clearly believes that housekeeping and child-rearing are not interesting and should not be socially validated. She doesn’t buy into the arguments of many homemakers who say taking care of the family is the “most fulfilling thing they could imagine.” She accuses stay at home moms of “bearing most of the burden of the work always associated with the lowest caste.” She identifies these tasks as “sweeping and cleaning bodily waste,” and condemned mothers who were described in a press account as “vigilantly watching their babies for signs of excretion 24-7 as “untouchables by choice”
Make no mistake–Hirshman does not want women to have any real choice in the matter. “Choice feminism” is an abysmal failure, in her view, because it validates what should never be validated–motherhood.
END MOHLER QUOTE
When I read this article, I thought, “wow, what did this person’s mother do to her to make her so antagonistic against motherhood?” Her response reminds me of a quote from the book of Jude: "Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them." Jude 10
MARRIAGE is under attack
- Gay marriage is a direct assault against the home. YOUR home!
- Infidelity is a direct assault against the home!
- Living together is a direct assault against marriage!
To counter this attack, let’s examine The Blessings of Motherhood
BLESSING #1. GOD ORDAINED MOTHERHOOD
Genesis 2:24–25 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. " "The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."
Genesis 1:27–28 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. " "God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
BLESSING #2: CHILDREN ARE GOD’S GREATEST EARTHLY BLESSING!
Psalm 127:3 (ESV) "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward."
God has compassion on the childless
Psalm 113:9 "He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the LORD."
God’s love for barren women runs throughout the Old and New Testaments. Consider the following women who recognized God’s blessing in providing them with a child:
Sarah. Genesis 21:1–2 "Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. " "Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him."
Rachel. Genesis 30:22 "Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb."
Hannah (1 Samuel 1-2)
Elizabeth. Luke 1:24–25 "After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”"
BLESSING #3: GOD DEMONSTRATES HIS CHARACTER WITH MOTHERLY DESCRIPTIONS
God's care like that of a mother bird. Matthew 23:37 (NIV84) - 37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.
God never forgets his children. Isaiah 49:15 (NIV84) - 15 "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
God raised Israel as a parent raises children. Isaiah 1:2 "Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: “I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me."
Mothers as symbols of the old and new covenants. Galatians 4:21-28 (NIV84) - 21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. ..... 24 These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. .... 28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.
Application:
Does anyone love you more than your mother?
Thomas Wolfe, noted author, told about a man from North Carolina who wanted to be a writer above all else and came to New York in search of a career. Webber found the going very hard. He discovered how difficult it is to write and publish. Rejection slips, rejection slips! When things got unbearable, George would take a train and ride all night in a coach back to North Carolina. Arriving, he would walk from the station to their humble home where his mother was invariably waiting. The giant six-foot-ten-inch man would kneel before his mother, his aching head in her lap, and he would weep like a child. His mother’s reply was always the same: “Son, I don’t know what’s wrong but whatever it is, it will be all right.” (G. Curtis Jones, 1000 Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1986). 137.)
We can picture how much our mother’s love us. That is why God makes it a special point to remind us that He loves us MORE! Isaiah 49:15–16 "“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! " "See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me."
RESPONSE
Receive God’s love by accepting his Son, Jesus as your savior.
Receive God’s love by embracing his forgiveness.
Thank God today for the mother that loves you, and thank God that He loves you more!
