The Protectors: The Age of the Mom
(Some aspects of this message are from Wayne Searls’ message, “Three Things That Make an Outstanding Mother)
Mother’s Day 2015
May 10, 2015 CFBC Chester, IL Dr. Mike Fogerson, speaker
Introduction:
A On August 21, 1970, a woman gave birth to an 8lbs. baby boy in Centralia, Illinois at St. Mary’s Hospital.
1 Shortly after the birth, the woman gave the unwanted, unplanned bastered child to a lady that wanted the child...the baby was me, the lady was Debbie, my mom. . .the woman is was the one who gave birth to me.
a The one who gave birth to me wasn’t my mom . . . giving birth doesn’t make a woman a mother.
b It takes a special woman to be mom.
aa Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relationship -Ron Heinlein
bb A mom is a person who willingly takes the responsibility to invest her life into another human being, who is totally dependent upon her to do so.
2 Motherhood is a choice you make everyday to some else’s happiness & well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when your not sure what the right thing is . . . and to forgive yourself, over & over again, for doing everything wrong. -Donna Ball
a Howard Hunter, “Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind.”
b Life doesn’t come with a manual, but thank God, it does come with a mother.
B Luke 2:1-7 (NASB) 1 Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. 2 This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. 4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, 5 in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. 6 While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
1 In the infinite wisdom of God, He sent His only Son to be raised by a man & woman (Dad & Mom) with a very unique skill set.
a We know how picky we are with whom we allow to watch/pour into/invest into our children; We can only image how selective do you think the Father was on who raised Jesus?
b Mary had to be something unique, unequaled, unparalleled that set her apart as the woman whom Jesus would call “Imah” or “am”. (Hebrew for Mother & mom respectively.)
aa There’s something about Mary.
bb What was that something that made her unique, got her the job of being Yeshua’s Imah?
2 There is no way to be a perfect mother . . . but there a million ways to be a good one.
a This morning we’ll look at three actions that a mom can take to be a woman that gets God’s attention, that allow her children to rise up and bless her; Her husband also, and he praises her.
b Pray (Linda Schafer)
I The First Action that a woman can take to get God’s attention is TO HAVE A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM.
A Mary was a lady who had a deep and meaningful relationship with her God.
1 Luke 1.30, 46, 47
a When an angel appeared to her to reveal God’s plan for the Word to become flesh, the angel said, "Don’t be frightened, Mary," the angel told her, "for God has decided to wonderfully bless you! Luke 1:30 (TLB)
aa In the “Magnificat”, Mary’s Song of Praise, she is giving a response to God’s great display of favor/grace upon her for choosing her to be the favored one.
bb Luke 1:46-55 (TLB)46 Mary responded, "Oh, how I praise the Lord. 47 How I rejoice in God my Savior!
48 For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and now generation after generation forever shall call me blest of God. 49 For he, the mighty Holy One, has done great things to me. 50 His mercy goes on from generation to generation, to all who reverence him. 51 "How powerful is his mighty arm! How he scatters the proud and haughty ones! 52 He has torn princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly.53 He has satisfied the hungry hearts and sent the rich away with empty hands.
54 And how he has helped his servant Israel! He has not forgotten his promise to be merciful.
55 For he promised our fathers—Abraham and his children—to be merciful to them forever."
b Mary enjoyed the presence of God, wanted to be faithful/obedient/hungry for the things of God.
aa After the ascension of her Son into heaven, the Book of Acts tells us that her hunger for God grew for God.
bb Acts 1:14 (TLB) Here is the list of those who were present at the meeting: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James (son of Alphaeus), Simon (also called "The Zealot"), Judas (son of James), And the brothers of Jesus. Several women, including Jesus’ mother, were also there.
cc Acts 2.1-4, “Seven weeks had gone by since Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the Day of Pentecost had now arrived. As the believers met together that day, 2 suddenly there was a sound like the roaring of a mighty windstorm in the skies above them and it filled the house where they were meeting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on their heads. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in languages they didn’t know, for the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.
dd Mary was in the upper room when the Holy Spirt poured Himself out upon the 120, and they began to speak in tongues and received the filling of the Holy Spirit.
c Mary’s passion for God stayed fiery hot; she didn’t lose her hunger for things of heaven/have an experience . . . she had an encounter that last, I believe, until the day she died.
B I’ve asked Ms. Suzann Spindler to give a brief testimony on how to develop the Mary-like hunger for God, Mary-like intimacy with the Father.
1 Ms. Suzann has been married to Mr. Dave Spindler for 56 years in July, and she told me that it’s been too long!
a She is the mother to her two daughters, Sara & Beth, and a grandmother to her 7 grandchildren.
b She was raised in a small town in Southern Illinois called Karnac.
aa Ms. Suzann was saved 63 years ago and has been active at CFBC for 55 years.
bb The most important thing in Ms. Suzann’s life today is her relationship with Jesus.
2 Ms. Suzann Spindler
T.S.: The First Action that a woman can take to get God’s attention is TO HAVE A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM.
II The second action that a woman can take to God’s attention is TO HAVE A PROPER RELATIONSHIP WITH HER FAMILY.
A God is a God of order (1 Corinthians 14:33 (NASB)
“for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.) and He established an order for the family, husbands & wives.
1 In our world today, we have made the family anything and everything, and by doing so the family has become nothing.
a Ephesians 5:22-24 (HCSB) 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, 23 for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so wives are to ⌊submit⌋ to their husbands in everything.
aa Although Mary wasn’t probably alive when Ephesians was written, she lived by them nevertheless.
bb Matthew 2:13-15 (TLB) 13 After they were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up and flee to Egypt with the baby and his mother," the angel said, "and stay there until I tell you to return, for King Herod is going to try to kill the child." 14 That same night he left for Egypt with Mary and the baby, 15 and stayed there until King Herod’s death. This fulfilled the prophet’s prediction, "I have called my Son from Egypt."
*Mary supported her husbands leadership in following him down to safety in Egypt.
cc Listen for how Mary supported her husband’s leadership in this passage:
Matthew 2:19-23 (TLB) 19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and told him, 20 "Get up and take the baby and his mother back to Israel, for those who were trying to kill the child are dead." 21 So he returned immediately to Israel with Jesus and his mother. 22 But on the way he was frightened to learn that the new king was Herod’s son, Archelaus. Then, in another dream, he was warned not to go to Judea, so they went to Galilee instead 23 and lived in Nazareth. This fulfilled the prediction of the prophets concerning the Messiah, "He shall be called a Nazarene."
*Mary honored her husband by going back to Israel when the coast was clear.
b Mary played an integral role in teaching her babies the discipline of honoring God.
aa When Jesus was 13, shortly after His Bar Mitzvah, Dr. Luke tells us, 51 Then he (Jesus) returned to Nazareth with them (Mary & Joseph) and was obedient to them; and his mother stored away all these things in her heart. 52 So Jesus grew both tall and wise, and was loved by God and man. Luke 2:51-52 (TLB)
bb Mary, as a good Jewish mother who loved God, undoubtably lived out the Proverb 22.6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will no depart from it.”
cc Jesus knew no sin . . . so Mary must have done her job well.
c Mary stood by her children . . . all the way to end.
aa John 19.25 (NKJV) “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.”
bb We may think we grow up and leave mom & dad’s house, but we never leaves mom & dad’s heart.
2 If your children don’t honor/obey you, whom they can see, how will they learn to obey God whom they cannot see?
a I’ve asked Ms. Priscilla Preston to tell us a little about how a mom can have a proper relationship with her family.
aa Ms. Priscilla has been married to Brother Byron Preston for the last 30 years.
bb She has 7 children: Sheri, Teri, Geri, Scott, Brian, Jimmy Dale, and one in heaven, Randy.
cc Her daddy was an ordained preacher, her brother Eddie Griffen was a deacon at this very church.
dd She was saved when she was 9, and has been attending this church since it was established; hence she is the longest active member at CFBC.
b Ms. Priscilla Preston
3 In the wake of the funeral for Freddie Gray--a young black man who, amidst charges of police brutality, died after having his neck broken while in police custody--the streets of Baltimore erupted in massive protests, often violent, which resulted in injury to both police and protesters, not to mention widespread damage from vandalism and looting.
a By now you’ve no doubt seen the viral video of a concerned Baltimore mother chasing down, clawing at, grabbing and smacking her teenage son in an effort to stop him from engaging in the violence.
aa The video garnered not only social networking headlines, but mainstream media headlines as well, prompting the NEW YORK POST’s Wednesday (4/29/15) edition to lead with the front page headline: “Forget the National Guard. SEND IN THE MOMS.”
bb Response to the incident has resulted in both cheers and jeers, with some hailing her as a hero, and others indicting her as just another “stereotypical” black mom who thinks “the only way to control black kids is to beat them.”
cc Yet Toya Graham, a 42-year-old single mother of six, is unapologetic, saying she didn’t want her son to become “another Freddie Gray.”
dd "I was so angry with him that he had made a decision to do some harm to the police officers,” Graham told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. "I just lost it at that point.”
b Her 16 yr old son, Michael, was no doubt mortified to be so publicly disciplined by his mother. "I was just like, 'Oh, man. What is my mother doing down here? Why would she be down here?'" he told Cooper. "But when I heard, 'Put that brick down,' I was like, 'Oh, that's my mother.'"
aa Yet with a little time and space to think about, he's actually come to be grateful for her intervention, later telling ABC News, “I understand how much my mother really cares about me. So I’m just going to try to do better."
bb Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts applauded her, saying, "I wish I had more parents who took charge of their kids tonight.”
cc Even the Obama White House chimed in on her parental prowess and passion with press secretary Josh Earnest calling her intervention a "powerful expression about the role that parents can play."
c Whether you live in the inner city or in a mansion on a hilltop, moms are on the front lines—sometimes literally!—when it comes to teaching their kids the hard lessons of life and protecting their safety.
aa No doubt we’d all wish that Graham hadn’t had to engage in a physical struggle with her son.
bb Graham herself assured concerned reporters that this was not the usual way she interacted with or disciplined her son. But what was her choice?
cc She found herself on a battlefield. Dodging danger herself, she took desperate measures to get her son's attention and drag him from the fray. This was a mother doing what she felt she had to do to protect her son.
dd Moms, are you willing to do whatever you have to do to protect your children? Perhaps if more moms were, we wouldn’t have needed the National Guard after all. “Forget the National Guard. SEND IN THE MOMS!”
*“Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far away” (Proverbs 22:15).
*“A foolish man despises his mother” (Proverbs 15:20b).
T.S. We’ve looked at two actions that moms can take to get God’s attention: personal relationship with God, proper relationship with her family, the third action has legs/hands.
III The third action a woman can take to get God’s attention is to provide service in the Kingdom of God.
A The Scriptures tells us that Mary saw herself as “maidservant/bond slave” of the Lord. (Luke 1.38)
1 She committed herself to the service God expected of her.
a She knew it would difficult to be the mother of the Son of God. . .
aa She knew people would talk, Joseph wasn’t going to be happy. . .
bb She wanted to please/serve her God and, in my opinion, this is what made her stand out the most to God.
b She not only knew the passage in Deuteronomy (10.12,13) that says, “And now . . . what does the LORD your God required of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, “and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes which I command you today for your good?”, she lived them.
2 She humbly understood that she was here to serve God with her life.
a What ever God asked her to do . . . she would do.
b Real women of God get involved in what the LORD is doing, give to what the LORD is blessing, support the ministry of the Kingdom with their gifts, talents, resources.
aa Their children see her serve, pray, give . . . not to shine, but just because they love God.
bb Women that get God’s attention do not simply attend church services, but they serve God.
B My final introduction today is Ms. Pam Fogerson, she has been married to her high school boyfriend for 24 years this December, Mike Fogerson.
1 She has had four children, Kayleigh, Madalyn (who are in heaven this morning) and Lake & Ridge (who are seated in the front row this morning).
a She was saved when she was 9 and has been active at CFBC for 15 years.
b She’s been a Sunday School teacher, Student minister, choir member, church pianist, worship leader, bible study facilitator, VBS volunteer, conference speaker, mentor, a pastor’s wife for the last 24 years and this Pastor’s hero & best friend since 1984.
2 I’ve asked the First Lady of First Baptist to speak on how a woman can serve the Kingdom of God in a way that gets His attention, Ms. Pam Fogerson.
Conclusion:
A There is no perfect way to be a perfect mom, but there a million ways to be a good one.
1 Today, we’ve looked at three actions a woman can take to get God’s attention:
a Personal relationship with God,
b Proper relationship with her family,
c Provide service in the Kingdom of God
2 Of course, these aren’t the only actions she can take . . . but these are three really good ones.
B For some of you ladies, you are going to leave this service unaffected, unfazed, and uncommitted.
1 God bless you all and I hope things go well for you . . . but others of you are going to make a choice to be better than when you came in here this morning.
a I’ve asked these ladies if they would pray over, lay hands, and bless any lady this morning . . .
aa Deeper, personal relationship with God,
bb Proper wife, mother, friend, aunt, grandmother, daughter,
cc Serve the Kingdom with more passion, fervor, dedication,
b In a moment, I will invite the ladies to come forward & allow Priscilla, Suzann, & Pam over you.
aa Pray for blessing, encouragement, anointing over you & your house.
bb If you need prayer or counsel, the deacons and I will be available also.
2 Prayer/give invitation
3 Baby Dedication
Notice to Sermon Central Users:
My name is Mike Fogerson, and I pastor a Southern Baptist Church in Chester, Illinois. I have been a long-time user of Sermon Central and truly appreciate its content and contributors. Some of the best sermons I’ve ever preached have been reworked material from this website. As you use the material from my sermon bank, understand that it is work that has been done from not just myself, but from hundreds of other pastors as well. If you see part of your message, or a bunch of your message with my name on it and this upsets you, please email me and I will quickly respond and cite you as the main source. My intent is not to claim someone’s work as my own. I am disclaiming up front that I use the resources from Sermon Central and appreciate the tool. I simply want all those who use my work to know that some of these messages were inspired by the Holy Spirit working through other pastors. Because I do use the messages of other pastors I waive all claims of originality or origin of creativity for the messages posted under my messages. I pray God blesses your preaching ministry for the glory of His Kingdom.
Respectfully,
Mike Fogerson
