Give Me a Break!
Finding Release in the Sovereignty of God
Steven A. Miller
Mother’s Day
May 13, 2001
It was told to me that for my Mother’s Day message, I should make the mothers feel very honored and special; that I should esteem them. And while that may be true for many here today as Grandmother’s, I think the primary need for a mother today is just to get a break. They need a break from the cleaning, cooking, laundry, and odd as it may sound to the Fathers, they might just need a break from you and the children. Well, this morning, I am going to give you the best break I as a minister of God’s Word can give you and that is that you can find release in the sovereignty of God.
It seems to be a general American problem, both men and women alike, but mother’s especially value themselves, not by who they truly are, but by how they are controlling the situations around them. They place too much self-worth on things like house cleaning and what daytime talk shows say about moms-on-the-go, but most importantly, they evaluate their significance as a person on how their children are doing.
A mother will too heavily judge herself by how her children behave once they know better. In essence, mothers unnecessarily burden themselves with how their older and grown children live their lives.
The truth of the matter is this: mothers, you cannot successfully manage the world, not even those in your closest circle. Even doing the best that you can,, sometimes, will not make things go as you have designed. But don’t be alarmed, you are already frantic enough, God is in control, He is sovereign, find release in the sovereignty of God.
So, for you mothers who attempt to parent perfectly, while attentively loving a husband or single-handedly going it alone, while holding down career after career, while participating in civic and church functions, while raising your children’s children or raising the neighbor kids, while…whatever, you must release your need to control every circumstance in life—because you ultimately cannot. You must release yourself from the build-up of guilt or pride of the past because it is only God whose business it is, to make the world go around. So this morning, give yourself a break.
The Text: Gen. 38:27-30
Our text is probably unfamiliar to you, especially for a Mother’s Day sermon, but I feel that before I pressure you with platitudes of the Proverbs 31 Woman, or remind you of the spiritual legacy of Eunice and Lois, you need to know that your children have turned out to some degree because of your motherhood, but to every degree they have been under the sovereignty of God. Listen: While you are responsible for and while you are, bringing up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6.4), the Lord is, right up along side of you, guiding, molding, disciplining, and using them in ways that you cannot see.
The sovereignty of God means that God’s authority and power is supreme and over the entire universe—that includes you and your kid’s lives. Mothers, this relieves you of your self-appointed task to bear the over-powering burden of guilt from your parental mistakes and your children’s mistakes that hurt, embarrass, or grieve you from time to time.
You see, the text I chose for you this morning is about much more than a woman giving birth to a set of twins—that’s already been recorded in Bible History. The text hides deep within it a powerful truth that God wants you to know about. He wants to reveal that though you may do good or though you may do bad as a woman, a wife, a mother, a friend, He is sovereign over every moment.
Let me tell you the short version of the story of how this woman came to be a mother. It begins with Judah who is the son of Jacob, a.k.a. Israel, and brother to eleven other boys. Joseph, one of the brothers, was just sold into slavery to the Ishmaelites when chapter 38 begins. Judah married a Canaanitess and later chose a Canaanitess for a daughter-in-law—that was Tamar. Er, Tamar’s husband was the oldest of three of Judah’s boys but was wicked before the Lord and so he died leaving Tamar a widow and childless. According to the Levirate laws of marriage, Tamar would be given to Judah’s next son to raise up children in his deceased father’s name. So Tamar was joined to Onan; but, he too, was wicked and he died leaving no son for Tamar. Judah had a third son named Shelah. But Judah said that he was too young and sent Tamar back to her father’s for Shelah to grow-up. Well the time passed and Tamar knew that Judah was not going to send for her so she planned to trick Judah into producing a child from his family. By this time, Judah’s wife passed on and he was heading to a nearby town on business. Tamar put on a disguise that made her look like a prostitute and when Judah passed by, not recognizing her, he made Tamar an offer. Tamar bargained for some personal things of Judah as payment and they consummated the arrangement. Well, it turns out that she became pregnant and when Judah found that his widowed daughter-in-law must have been prostituting herself, he declared that she should be burned to death. But she quickly revealed that the father of the illegitimate pregnancy was the one who owned the things she held in her hand. They were, of course, Judah’s personal things and he admitted to the deed and even declared that Tamar was more righteous than he was because he did not fulfill the duty to allow Tamar to raise children with Shelah.
Now here’s the good news that you probably wouldn’t have come across, the genealogy in Matthew 1 states Perez, the son of Tamar as ancestor to Jesus. If you also notice in the genealogy, a prostitute named Rahab and another foreigner, named Ruth, is in the lineage too.
Do you see the point that the text is making then? The ancestors of Jesus were deceivers, half-breeds, prostitutes and the like. You have to ask why do we want to know that the Christ came from such sordid stock. Saint Paul could answer from 2 Corinthians 4.5 and 7. He says, "We don’t go around preaching about ourselves; we preach Christ Jesus, the Lord. All we say about ourselves is that we are your servants because of what Jesus has done for us…But this precious treasure—this light and power that now shines within us—is held in perishable containers, that is, in our weak bodies. So everyone can see that our glorious power is from God and is not our own."
Why didn’t Jesus come form a perfect family line? Because, there is not a one that we can boast about except Jesus, Himself—everyone else is sinful. One commentator said it this way: "Because … the emphasis is not on human worth, but on the will and saving work of God."
That work was that God, Himself, in Jesus Christ lived the perfect life. In every way He was obedient to the Laws of a Holy God. He was without sin, and yet was crucified on the cross. He died taking on your sin and paying the penalty of your ungodliness. That’s why I can tell you that you can have a break. I am not saying that you don’t shouldn’t be a good steward of your children. I am saying that the cross is where we can lay down our sorrow over our sins. If you feel overwhelmed because you know that you have messed up, run to the cross of Jesus, because he wants you to see that He has taken your sin to the grave for you. And hear him say you are free now to do well, without the guilt.
The text proves that this mother did what she thought was best. Does that mean that she did right? No, it most likely hurt the father, the children, and the rest of the family. But the good news is that God worked good in spite of what was done wrong. Two children were born, out of which came the Savior of the world. This is the gospel, that in spite of your life choices, God can bring hope.
Sproul puts it this way: We believe that God created the universe and gave the power of secondary causality to things and people within it so that we actually can do things by our own volition, through our decisions, our minds, our wills and activities. But at every single point of our actions and of the secondary causes that are at work, God remains sovereign.
Even Jesus’ mother didn’t raise Him perfectly to be savior of the world. The Roman Catholics give her way too much credit. It is God Himself in Christ, God alone, who came and lived and died to appease the Law, not his nurturing. Ruth Bell Graham has a poem that puts it appropriately:
Had I been Joseph’s mother / I’d have prayed / protection from his brothers / "God, keep him safe. / He is so young, / so different from / the others." / Mercifully, / she never knew / there would be slavery / and prison too.
Had I been Moses’ mother / I’d have wept / To keep my little son: / praying she might forget / the babe drawn / from the water / of the Nile. / Had I not kept / him for her / nursing him the while, ’ was he not mine?--and she / but Pharaoh’s daughter?
Had I been Daniel’s mother / I should have pled / "Give victory! / --this Babylonian horde / godless and cruel-- / Don’t let him be a captive—better dead, / Almighty Lord!"
Had I been Mary, / Oh, had I been she, / I would have cried / As never mother cried, / "Anything, O God, / Anything … --but / crucified.
Mothers as wonderful as you are, you will never be the perfect mother you envision and God knows that it is better that way or else you or your children would never learn the lessons you find from mistakes.
I sense that there are mothers here who are quite overwhelmed with the yoke of guilt from the years of raising children. Jesus has something for you in the cross. Hear Paul’s confess in Romans 8, "there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus."
Likewise, if you feel that you have done well with motherhood, because of the way your children have turned out, know that it is only by the grace of God.
My best guess is that you have mixed feelings because you had and still have mixed times. Don’t get caught in this trap. The word for today says that your worth is not based on your ability to be a successful parent—your worth is found in the cleansing work of Christ alone. You see, you don’t have to push your world around with the heavy yoke, that is for God—God is giving you a break, find release in His sovereignty.
Mothers, on this Mother’s Day, look back upon your experiences. Perhaps God is affirming in you that you need to review the Proverbs 31 Woman or inspire others like Timothy’s Eunice and Lois. But I believe God would have you first not look at what you can do with how you are, but what God can do with a freer you, and sometimes in spite of you.
I believe the sovereignty of God can melt away your need to be perfect because Christ is. I believe that you don’t have to have a death-grip on controlling your world because God is handling every moment’s outcome.
Your invitation is to start right where you are and acknowledge that you can’t run everything with perfection. Why not? Maybe it’s because you are a sinner and you have never ask Christ to clean you. Maybe it’s because you are a saint and God is teaching or reminding you something. But, in this moment of decision God wants you to talk with Him. He wants your confession, your release of control, and your acknowledgment of His control.
Finally, I’ll read how Liz Curtis Higgs understands the Tamar situation and then we will close with worship in a Hymn that will invite you to come to Jesus. Higgs reminds us that Tamar’s sins are not dismissed because she is implemented in the lineage of Christ. To do that would misplace
the ability to learn a lesson from her story. Tamar is not to be praised—God is.
The Lord used her in spite of her sin. That’s the hook we hang our hope on, sisters. Not in “getting it right,” but in knowing that although we get it wrong—over and over, consistently, even blatantly—God’s power to accomplish his will is not limited to our meager efforts.
Whew. What a relief!
We are made for one purpose: to worship and glorify God. Our challenge is to stop trying to make things work out for our good and let God work things out for his good and perfect will through us.
