Motherhood

This morning, we come together to celebrate and to honor mothers.

Motherhood was God’s idea and creation.  Motherhood is the foundation of civilization by God’s design because it is the foundation of marriage and of family.  This morning, we’re going to take a look at some of the mothers found in the Bible.  These women found in scripture were real women who made an incredible impact on history by both their perseverance and faith as well as by their mistakes.  I’m sure that many women here this morning will be able to well relate to, and hopefully be inspired by, these women.

We’ll go through these women in no particular order, but we will start in the beginning with the first woman ever, Eve.

In Genesis chapter 2, God saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone.  Now, as men, we wouldn’t have realized this on our own.  That’s why God created a male and female of all other creatures, but only created the male initially when it came to humans.  After a while, Adam picked up on the idea that it wasn’t good to be alone.  Therefore, God created a woman from Adam’s rib and brought her to Adam in the very first wedding ceremony.

Eve’s first role was to be Adam’s wife and helper.  However, Adam rightly named this first woman Eve because she would later fulfill her secondary role as the mother of all living mankind.  It’s important for us to remember this priority of roles.  Too often in our culture today, marriages fall apart unnoticed during the child raising years and when the children are raised and gone, the husband and wife find that they lost each other.  Making our marriage a priority teaches our children what to look for in their future spouse and how to create a healthy family.  Healthy marriages produce healthy children.

We also find all throughout scripture that wives possess incredible influence in their families.  Wives possess such influence in the family that in 1 Peter chapter 3, we read that by the pure and reverent behavior of a Godly wife, an unbelieving husband can be won over to Jesus without ever speaking a word!

Unfortunately, Eve didn’t have a mother to turn to whenever she ran into difficulties with being a wife or mother. She didn’t have friends who have gone before her to give her tips and advice on how to best do things.  She didn’t have a pediatrician to call when things didn’t seem right.  She was fully dependent on God to guide and direct her to be the best wife and mother that she could be.  I’m sure that there were times of frustration when she cried out and felt like giving up.

No, she wasn’t perfect.  In fact, most people remember her for being the first to follow the bad advice given by serpent deceiving her to disobey God.  Although obviously significant, this is the only mistake that she made that is recorded in the scriptures.  We can learn from her mistake, though.  It’s always best to follow God’s word.  Even though other advice may seem good and pleasing and make sense, if it contradicts His word, don’t do it!

She wasn’t only the first mother, but she also the first mother to lose her home.  After working so hard to build her paradise home, she lost it unexpectedly and in an instant.  She was the first mother to have to start her life all over in unfamiliar circumstances.

She was also the first mother to lose a child.  Simultaneously, she was also the first mother of a murderer.  She was well aware of the pain, disappointment, and heartbreak that comes when her children chose their own way over God’s.  She was the first mother of a prodigal.  She saw him follow in her own footsteps of regret that she wished she had never taken.

However, she also was the mother and grandmother of the generation that returned to the Lord and began calling on Him!  What a challenge and an adventure to be Eve, the very first mother!

Next, we have Hannah.  We find her account in 1 Samuel chapter 1.  Her husband, Elkanah had also taken another wife named Peninnah.  This was never the plan of the Lord, but the men of the Old Testament often chose this practice of polygamy.  The results were always tragic and this was no different in Hannah’s case!

Hannah was barren, but Peninnah had many children.  Life had to be miserable for her.  Peninnah would provoke her until she began crying and refused to eat.  Elkanah, being the classic, sensitive man, would ask why she was downhearted, crying, and not eating.  He asked, “Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”  I’m sure this didn’t exactly make Hannah feel much better.  Of course, to his defense, he would also give Hannah twice the meat to bring and give to the Lord because of his great love for her.

Once, when she was crying out to the Lord for a child, the priest Eli accused her of being drunk because she was praying in her heart and moving her mouth without speaking.  She explained that she wasn’t drunk, but was crying out to God in her grief and anguish.

Some women can well relate to Hannah.  You sense that your life is lacking the fullness of your purpose without a child.  You try and try and go through all of the fertility techniques, medications, and attempts, but still are left barren.  It’s a painful and confusing trial to walk through!  Know that God hears your cries and be patient, waiting on the Lord’s timing.

In time, God granted her request and she did become pregnant.  Hannah then understood something that all mothers and parents would be wise to understand.  Children come from the Lord.  They are His and they are entrusted to us only for a short while to love, train, and guide.  When her child was weaned, she gave him to the Lord to serve in the temple.  This could not have been easy for her to do because she waited and grieved so long for a child.  Now that she received him, she gave him away.  This child became the great prophet, Samuel.

Mothers, don’t hold onto your child longer than the Lord intended for you to.  Children are simply individual adults in training.  There will come a day when they begin to make their own decisions and their own mistakes.  If Hannah had held onto Samuel, he may have never achieved the greatness that he did in his lifetime.  He may have missed out on his divine destiny.  Do the best that you can with the time that you have, then let them go believing that God loves them and cares for them far more than you ever could.

Next, we have Sarah in Genesis chapter 11.  After marrying Abram, she took in her orphaned nephew, Lot.  Sarai was childless because she was unable to conceive.  She, like Eve, was familiar with relocating her home.  She left her homeland of Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan with her father-in-law, Terah.  When they arrived at Harran, they stayed until her father-in-law passed away.  She then moved into and throughout the land of Canaan as God called Abram to go.

Abram had been given a promise of God that his offspring would as numerous as the stars in they sky.  Sarai, wanting Abram to have a family and an heir to pass along his many riches to, decided that it would be good if he built his family through her slave, Hagar.  When Hagar became pregnant, Sarai despised and mistreated her.  Sarai, of course, blamed Abram for her suffering.  God still chose to bless Hagar’s son, Ishmael, with a similar word that her offspring would be too numerous to count, but that they would live in hostility toward others.

God then renamed Sarai to Sarah saying that she would be the mother of many nations and of kings.  She laughed when overhearing this since she was ninety, well past child bearing years.  She did, however, become the mother of Isaac.  Isaac was the grandfather of the twelve sons who would become the nation of Israel.

Sarah teaches us about the patience of God.  Even though we may laugh at Him because of how impossible His promise and timing may be, His word still comes to pass in spite of them all.  Trying to rush God’s promises and making them happen on our own is never wise.  God may still choose to bless it, but it will bring more trouble than good because it was not the time nor the way in which He had planned.

This naturally leads us to Rebekah, Isaac’s wife found in Genesis chapter 25.  She was also childless, but when Isaac prayed, God enabled her to conceive.  In fact, she conceived twins.  They fought with each other even before they were born.  When Rebekkah asked God what was happening inside of her, He revealed that her children would become two nations, the older serving the younger.

The older, Esau, was a daddy’s boy and a very skilled hunter who loved the outdoors.  The younger, Jacob, was a mommy’s boy and would rather stay at home.  Once when Esau came home from hunting, hungry to the point of death, Jacob convinced him to sell his birthright for a bowl of stew, fulfilling what God revealed to Rebekah.

Esau caused his mother and father grief by the wives that he chose to marry.  We’re not really sure why, but we know that they were trouble for their already wild child.  Your children may not always choose relationships with the type of people that you desire for them, which will grieve you.  Be honest and share your concerns with your children.  Gently and sincerely help them to understand your perspective and potential issues that you foresee.  Depending on their ages, you may have to do your best to keep a good relationship with your child despite their choices and your differences.

Upon Isaac’s deathbed, he wanted to bless Esau.  Rebekah, wanting her momma’s boy to be blessed instead, tricked Isaac into blessing Jacob.  Isaac found out about it, but not before already blessing Jacob to Lord over all of his relatives.

Rebekah teaches us that showing favoritism to our children isn’t a wise idea.  Although they each have different needs and will be loved equally, but differently, we shouldn’t favor one child over the others.  Who knows how things could have been different if this didn’t happen?  Perhaps Esau and Jacob would not have become two nations against each other, but perhaps could have become one great nation instead?

However, all mothers love their children and want only the best for them.  This leads us to our next mother, the mother of Zebedee’s sons whom Jesus chose as disciples found in Matthew chapter 20.

She knelt down on her knees before Jesus and asked that one of her sons be on the right hand of Jesus and the other on the left hand in His kingdom.  When the other ten disciples heard about this, they were pretty upset.

When we stop and think about it, though, is there any greater thing that a mother can do than to kneel down before Jesus asking that her children be as close to Him as they can be?  Notice that Jesus didn’t deny her request or criticize her for thinking that her children were worthy of such an honor, but rather said that those positions were His Father’s to give.

Next, we find a sad story, which is all to familiar today.  We find this mother in 1 Kings chapter 17.  Here, we find a single mom struggling to provide for her family.  In fact, when we find her, she is preparing the last bit of food that she has left.  She is without hope and is expecting that it will all end soon in death.

This poor widow, however, makes a choice.  She has just enough flour and olive oil to make some bread for her and her son’s last meal.  Instead of eating it themselves, however, she entrusts it to God and instead feeds Elijah first.  She trusted that he was a man of God and that what he said was true, that her jar of oil and flour would not run dry until it rained and ended their famine.

Her choice proved God right and Elijah, herself, and her son ate every day.  After all of her suffering, it seemed that she finally had hope and that things were looking up.  Just when things were beginning to go in her favor, however, her son became ill and died.  She blamed Elijah.

Elijah cried out to the Lord and the widow’s son was brought back to life.  This mother’s faith in the word of the Lord had never been stronger!  She teaches us that no matter how bad things get in life, no matter how alone and abandoned we may feel, God is still there.  God chose to send Elijah to this single mother and her child, of all of the people suffering during this great famine, to end her suffering and provide hope.

Next, we find a powerful testimony of the faith of a mother found in 2 Timothy chapter 1.

2 Timothy 1:3-7
3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

Timothy became a leader in the church at a very young age.  However, his destiny was set in motion decades before he ever met the apostle Paul.  Timothy had a sincerely faithful mother named Eunice and she had a sincerely faithful mother names Lois.  In a simple verse, we see the powerful blessing of a mother who remains faithful to God and prays for her children.

Mothers have the honor and privilege of passing along to their children far more than just their good looks and household skills.  Mothers pass along their faith.  They teach, through example, how to practically live out your faith.  It was because of this faith passed along from mother to daughter to son that Paul called Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God.  That flame was placed into the life of Timothy by his grandmother and mother.

Mothers, put a flame in the lives of your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.  Give them a desire to have a passionate relationship with the Lord.

You don’t have to be perfect, you have to be openly honest.  Admit your mistakes, apologize for them, and train up your children to know the Lord.

This morning, we thank you, we honor you, and we love you!