Scripture: Hebrews 2:10-11
Listen Link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
For Mother’s Day, I thought it might be nice to look through a family photo album of mothers in the Bible. I almost picked them at random, but I was generally looking for mom’s that we could relate to. Our Scripture reading for today was chosen to reflect on Jesus’ acceptance of us as his brothers and sisters. Not because we are as perfect as He is. But because he loves us so much anyway. So, the mom’s we’re looking at in Scripture today are really not supermom’s, just people, whose stories got into the Bible for one reason or another.
Not supermoms because I’ve been warned many times not to preach on the Proverbs 31 woman and expect all the ladies to live up to that ideal. After all, that description was written by a guy describing his idea of the perfect woman, so how realistic could it be?
That’s a joke. I am not mocking the Bible. Yes, it is good that the ideal is recorded in Scripture. But the gospel message is that God loves us even though we are not perfect and cannot measure up to that ideal. And there are lots of moms in the Bible whose lives show us what life is really like. However, we only have time to look at four of them today.
Let’s look first at Eve, the mother of all mothers! Her story starts in Gen. 1-3. She was created by Gods’ own hands. Eve was perfect and had a perfect life. Everything was peaceful, happy, calm, the life any woman dreams of. Her home was beautiful, nothing was missing, she was happy with her husband, she had control of everything, and nothing could be better. There’s no way she meant to mess that up.
But all of a sudden, because of her disobedience to the Word of God, her entire world came crashing down, her penalty was tough, her mistake cost her a lot and Eve was found guilty. Her sin brought terrible consequences to her own life, her husband and the entire world. I’m not letting Adam off the hook. He messed up too. But this is a Mother’s Day sermon so I’m staying focused on the ladies. Imagine, in just minutes your life changing the way hers did because of one action taken without thinking it through first, because she wanted to do things her way.
Now think of this. Her failure came from good intentions. She wasn’t literally greedy for more with an evil outlook like Satan’s. He tricked her! Yes, she compromised on what God had told her, but only because she thought it would help them be better. Who wouldn’t want to get wiser by eating the right food? But it was a tragic mistake. The devil’s deceptive tactics worked. She had a marvelous life, now everything went dark and mysterious. And soon, she had to bear the agony of losing one of her sons when the angry one killed the righteous one.
But there was hope. Eve knew she was guilty. But God made a redeeming promise to her. God is merciful and forgives. She would give birth to children and would be the mother of all human beings. This showed a ray of sunlight in her darkness. And God told her right away that the damage she had done to creation would be undone by one of her own children.
Maybe you find yourself in a similar situation, you couldn’t resist the devil’s temptation and now you feel lost, empty, without God and disoriented. You feel like you don’t have strength to go on, you’ve lost hope, or maybe you think you are not worthy of God’s forgiveness. And worst of all you feel like you have to hide it and make sure no one finds out. The shame you feel doesn’t allow you to move on. But God is merciful and forgives. He loves you very much. Your life has great value to God, and he wants you to know that. And moms these days are pretty good at modeling that unconditional love that hangs in there with the most prodigal of children, praying for them to come home and longing to rejoice when they do, just like God. Eve made a mistake that changed the course of human history. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Eve. All of us are descended from her.
Let’s move on to Sarah. Her story mostly runs through Gen. 12-23. Sarah was beautiful, rich and married to the man she loved. Beautiful picture, is it not? But Sarah’s life was anything but easy. She had to face many challenges.
The first one was to leave the prosperous city of Ur of Chaldees, when all of a sudden God tells Abraham: “Go to the land that I will show you.” To abandon everything and go to an unfamiliar place is not easy. To leave your comfort, the life you know, for a life that is uncertain is hard. Sara had to leave her beautiful house, her family, the place where she grew up and was happy, say good-bye to so many friends and neighbors she would never see again, to go somewhere she had not even a clue of. Especially for women, that kind of loss of security is not a thing that sounds like a great idea. And to top it off, Sarah had no choice. She was Abraham’s husband and it was his decision.
Sarah faced all of that and still accepted the challenge. She accepted Abraham’s decision. She proved she’d be by his side in any and every situation. No matter the circumstances, good or bad, she had decided she would follow her husband and her God. Sarah served her husband with devotion and respected him so much to the point of referring to him as lord.
Her faithfulness persisted even as her husband proved to be a bit of a coward when he asked her to tell a lie to protect him from harm, “Say you are my sister,” so that the king won’t kill me in order to have you. But this resulted in Abraham being forced to let her go to be someone else’s wife, just to save his own skin! Fortunately, God stepped in and saved Sarah from that indignity.
But she carried an even deeper suffering. She couldn’t be a mother, even though God had promised that she would. Maybe she didn’t understand why that was happening to her. And even though Sarah had her husband’s unconditional love, at that time in history it was considered a curse from God to be a barren woman. It made her feel useless. It brought much pain and suffering to Sarah to deal with her issue of being barren. She was humiliated because she couldn’t give her husband children and create his line of descendants. Since God had promised that it should happen, she could easily have felt like the worst of failures.
To make matters worse, she tried to fix it herself. She came up with a plan to provide a child for Abraham through her slave woman, but it backfired. Even though it was her idea, she had to see her slave caring her beloved husband’s child. I’m sure she must have been jealous and upset. This all felt like too much to handle.
But God had made a promise and after about 70 years of waiting, it finally came to pass. Over this time, Sarah learned how to trust in Gods’ promises and at 90 years old, her dream of being a mother finally came true.
How about you, in the midst of so many tribulations, have you chosen to follow the voice of God, or your own will? In the midst of all your struggles, have you trusted, or have you opted for an easier way out, trying to solve problems your own way?
When God tells you to leave it all and go, do you think about how comfortable it would be to stay, all the things you have, or are you willing to leave it all behind to follow God and prove your love for Him? These were Sarah’s dilemmas and each of us has to face our own dilemmas too. They may not be of the same magnitude as Sarah’s dilemmas. But our dilemmas are big problems to us, nonetheless. So, there is always a decision in our hands, to trust and wait, or to try to fix it for God, or without God. However, we know more about God than Sarah did. And Sarah’s story factors into what we know about God. It should be easier for us to trust, because we have heard Sarah’s testimony of God’s faithfulness. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Sarah.
Next comes Rebekah. Her story is in Gen. 24-27. She was a generous and energetic woman who practiced hospitality in the extreme! She’s the one who welcomed Abraham’s servant, though a total stranger, and offered to give him a drink by drawing water from the nearby well, plus continue to draw water for all ten of his camels until they had enough too! One camel can drink 53 gallons of water in 3 minutes! So, we’re talking more than 500 gallons, drawn using probably a 5 – 7 gallon jar!
Rebekah trusted Abraham’s servant, and probably also trusted God because of the servant’s testimony about his prayer and her being the answer to his prayers. But still, for her to be willing to leave her family so abruptly and travel with this stranger to meet Isaac. This was more than a blind date. It was a blind marriage! No dating, no engagement, just full commitment from the get go! And unlike Sarah, Rebekah was free to choose, and she chose to go. That takes quite the adventurous spirit!
And she was a good wife, though she had only two sons, and they were twins, so only one pregnancy in her whole life. And as the boys grew up, a rivalry grew up between them too. Unfortunately, Isaac and Rebekah only made things worse by picking favorites. They were not the greatest parents after all. Isaac favored Esau. Jacob was the momma’s boy.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Rebekah played with Jacob by playing practical jokes on him. It would have been one way he could have picked up on her family’s tricky ways. He learned to be a schemer and deceiver from someone, and I doubt that the incident with the goat skins in which he pretended to be Esau was the first time Jacob ever pranked anyone.
However, that time with the goat skins was really Rebekah, at her worst. She was totally disrespectful of her husband. Showed very little faith in God to work things out as he had promised. She took matters into her own hands and committed a major fraud, supposedly to benefit Jacob. One consequence of this was that Jacob had to run for his life. And it was Rebekah who sent him away, for his own safety. But she told Isaac that Jacob had to leave, to go find a wife. Well, you may recall that as a result, Jacob was gone for more than 20 years. Rebekah never saw her beloved son again. She died before he returned.
Have you ever tried to help God fulfill his promises, using your own wisdom, without waiting for God to work things out? Have you ever made a tragic choice that resulted in unintended consequences far more devastating than you could ever have expected? But God is gracious. He did not change his plans for Jacob as punishment for Rebekah and Jacob’s bad behavior. God is good and kind. He is patient and understanding. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Rebekah.
Now because we only have time for one more, we’re going to jump way ahead to Mary, the mother of Jesus. God needed a special woman, for a glorious mission. Not that she could not have flaws like any other human being. And we know that she didn’t have to be a princess, or famous and important to do what God wanted from her. In fact, God was not looking for a pretty appearance; he was looking toward the heart.
So, what qualities should this woman have so that God could use her to fulfill His plan of salvation? Without doubt, confidence, humility, loyalty, willingness to be used, a life that pleased God and a heart completely given to Him. God found that in Mary.
In a time when sinners were stoned to death for sin, Mary, who was not yet married to Joseph, agreed to be an instrument in God's hands and said "yes." Soon she was found to be with child. Their society, and even Joseph, misinterpreted the cause of her pregnancy. Joseph didn’t believe her story until an angel talked to him one night. And he only helped Joseph. We can surmise what the rest of the villagers thought of the two of them when Joseph married her anyway.
Then, she went through complicated situations. She must have grieved when she heard how Herod killed all the other babies two and under after the angel told Joseph to take his family to Egypt. She probably personally knew, or even baby sat for several of those little kids before she left Bethlehem. Evil king Herod wanted to kill Jesus to eliminate a potential rival for the throne. So, on the run from Herod, Mary became a homeless fugitive for a while. And many years later, she had to watch her son Jesus be crucified for the sins of the world. That was painful, truly a sword pierced her own soul as well. But soon she felt the joy of seeing Him resurrected. Thank God for that!
I guess to some, Mary would be the closest thing there is to a super mom in the Bible. But even she had a big problem one day. She got separated from her son one day when he was just twelve-years old. And because of her negligence she had no idea where he was and didn’t miss him for several hours! I’m sure a lot of mom’s here have gotten unintentionally separated from their kids one time or another. Even if it’s just been a few minutes, what a horrible feeling when you start looking. I’ve felt it too!
And Mary’s grief would have been amplified by her knowledge that this was her miracle child, the son of God! What a terrible failure it would be if she never found him! It took her three days to find him! That could make anyone feel despised and useless for any task. But even that much can be forgiven, and God always does. Turns out that three days of grief was used by God as a foreshadowing of another three days of even worse grief, while her dead son lay in a sealed tomb.
Thank God for Mary. God loved her ever so much. And he loves all of us the same. Thank God for all mothers. None are perfect, but most fiercely love their children, and would sacrifice anything to keep them close and safe. Thank God most of all for God himself, whose character of fierce love is instilled in every good mom. He himself loves all of us no matter what, and is eager to forgive, not condemn. Those who believe in Jesus for salvation are welcomed into the most loving family you could ever imagine.
Listen Link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
For Mother’s Day, I thought it might be nice to look through a family photo album of mothers in the Bible. I almost picked them at random, but I was generally looking for mom’s that we could relate to. Our Scripture reading for today was chosen to reflect on Jesus’ acceptance of us as his brothers and sisters. Not because we are as perfect as He is. But because he loves us so much anyway. So, the mom’s we’re looking at in Scripture today are really not supermom’s, just people, whose stories got into the Bible for one reason or another.
Not supermoms because I’ve been warned many times not to preach on the Proverbs 31 woman and expect all the ladies to live up to that ideal. After all, that description was written by a guy describing his idea of the perfect woman, so how realistic could it be?
That’s a joke. I am not mocking the Bible. Yes, it is good that the ideal is recorded in Scripture. But the gospel message is that God loves us even though we are not perfect and cannot measure up to that ideal. And there are lots of moms in the Bible whose lives show us what life is really like. However, we only have time to look at four of them today.
Let’s look first at Eve, the mother of all mothers! Her story starts in Gen. 1-3. She was created by Gods’ own hands. Eve was perfect and had a perfect life. Everything was peaceful, happy, calm, the life any woman dreams of. Her home was beautiful, nothing was missing, she was happy with her husband, she had control of everything, and nothing could be better. There’s no way she meant to mess that up.
But all of a sudden, because of her disobedience to the Word of God, her entire world came crashing down, her penalty was tough, her mistake cost her a lot and Eve was found guilty. Her sin brought terrible consequences to her own life, her husband and the entire world. I’m not letting Adam off the hook. He messed up too. But this is a Mother’s Day sermon so I’m staying focused on the ladies. Imagine, in just minutes your life changing the way hers did because of one action taken without thinking it through first, because she wanted to do things her way.
Now think of this. Her failure came from good intentions. She wasn’t literally greedy for more with an evil outlook like Satan’s. He tricked her! Yes, she compromised on what God had told her, but only because she thought it would help them be better. Who wouldn’t want to get wiser by eating the right food? But it was a tragic mistake. The devil’s deceptive tactics worked. She had a marvelous life, now everything went dark and mysterious. And soon, she had to bear the agony of losing one of her sons when the angry one killed the righteous one.
But there was hope. Eve knew she was guilty. But God made a redeeming promise to her. God is merciful and forgives. She would give birth to children and would be the mother of all human beings. This showed a ray of sunlight in her darkness. And God told her right away that the damage she had done to creation would be undone by one of her own children.
Maybe you find yourself in a similar situation, you couldn’t resist the devil’s temptation and now you feel lost, empty, without God and disoriented. You feel like you don’t have strength to go on, you’ve lost hope, or maybe you think you are not worthy of God’s forgiveness. And worst of all you feel like you have to hide it and make sure no one finds out. The shame you feel doesn’t allow you to move on. But God is merciful and forgives. He loves you very much. Your life has great value to God, and he wants you to know that. And moms these days are pretty good at modeling that unconditional love that hangs in there with the most prodigal of children, praying for them to come home and longing to rejoice when they do, just like God. Eve made a mistake that changed the course of human history. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Eve. All of us are descended from her.
Let’s move on to Sarah. Her story mostly runs through Gen. 12-23. Sarah was beautiful, rich and married to the man she loved. Beautiful picture, is it not? But Sarah’s life was anything but easy. She had to face many challenges.
The first one was to leave the prosperous city of Ur of Chaldees, when all of a sudden God tells Abraham: “Go to the land that I will show you.” To abandon everything and go to an unfamiliar place is not easy. To leave your comfort, the life you know, for a life that is uncertain is hard. Sara had to leave her beautiful house, her family, the place where she grew up and was happy, say good-bye to so many friends and neighbors she would never see again, to go somewhere she had not even a clue of. Especially for women, that kind of loss of security is not a thing that sounds like a great idea. And to top it off, Sarah had no choice. She was Abraham’s husband and it was his decision.
Sarah faced all of that and still accepted the challenge. She accepted Abraham’s decision. She proved she’d be by his side in any and every situation. No matter the circumstances, good or bad, she had decided she would follow her husband and her God. Sarah served her husband with devotion and respected him so much to the point of referring to him as lord.
Her faithfulness persisted even as her husband proved to be a bit of a coward when he asked her to tell a lie to protect him from harm, “Say you are my sister,” so that the king won’t kill me in order to have you. But this resulted in Abraham being forced to let her go to be someone else’s wife, just to save his own skin! Fortunately, God stepped in and saved Sarah from that indignity.
But she carried an even deeper suffering. She couldn’t be a mother, even though God had promised that she would. Maybe she didn’t understand why that was happening to her. And even though Sarah had her husband’s unconditional love, at that time in history it was considered a curse from God to be a barren woman. It made her feel useless. It brought much pain and suffering to Sarah to deal with her issue of being barren. She was humiliated because she couldn’t give her husband children and create his line of descendants. Since God had promised that it should happen, she could easily have felt like the worst of failures.
To make matters worse, she tried to fix it herself. She came up with a plan to provide a child for Abraham through her slave woman, but it backfired. Even though it was her idea, she had to see her slave caring her beloved husband’s child. I’m sure she must have been jealous and upset. This all felt like too much to handle.
But God had made a promise and after about 70 years of waiting, it finally came to pass. Over this time, Sarah learned how to trust in Gods’ promises and at 90 years old, her dream of being a mother finally came true.
How about you, in the midst of so many tribulations, have you chosen to follow the voice of God, or your own will? In the midst of all your struggles, have you trusted, or have you opted for an easier way out, trying to solve problems your own way?
When God tells you to leave it all and go, do you think about how comfortable it would be to stay, all the things you have, or are you willing to leave it all behind to follow God and prove your love for Him? These were Sarah’s dilemmas and each of us has to face our own dilemmas too. They may not be of the same magnitude as Sarah’s dilemmas. But our dilemmas are big problems to us, nonetheless. So, there is always a decision in our hands, to trust and wait, or to try to fix it for God, or without God. However, we know more about God than Sarah did. And Sarah’s story factors into what we know about God. It should be easier for us to trust, because we have heard Sarah’s testimony of God’s faithfulness. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Sarah.
Next comes Rebekah. Her story is in Gen. 24-27. She was a generous and energetic woman who practiced hospitality in the extreme! She’s the one who welcomed Abraham’s servant, though a total stranger, and offered to give him a drink by drawing water from the nearby well, plus continue to draw water for all ten of his camels until they had enough too! One camel can drink 53 gallons of water in 3 minutes! So, we’re talking more than 500 gallons, drawn using probably a 5 – 7 gallon jar!
Rebekah trusted Abraham’s servant, and probably also trusted God because of the servant’s testimony about his prayer and her being the answer to his prayers. But still, for her to be willing to leave her family so abruptly and travel with this stranger to meet Isaac. This was more than a blind date. It was a blind marriage! No dating, no engagement, just full commitment from the get go! And unlike Sarah, Rebekah was free to choose, and she chose to go. That takes quite the adventurous spirit!
And she was a good wife, though she had only two sons, and they were twins, so only one pregnancy in her whole life. And as the boys grew up, a rivalry grew up between them too. Unfortunately, Isaac and Rebekah only made things worse by picking favorites. They were not the greatest parents after all. Isaac favored Esau. Jacob was the momma’s boy.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Rebekah played with Jacob by playing practical jokes on him. It would have been one way he could have picked up on her family’s tricky ways. He learned to be a schemer and deceiver from someone, and I doubt that the incident with the goat skins in which he pretended to be Esau was the first time Jacob ever pranked anyone.
However, that time with the goat skins was really Rebekah, at her worst. She was totally disrespectful of her husband. Showed very little faith in God to work things out as he had promised. She took matters into her own hands and committed a major fraud, supposedly to benefit Jacob. One consequence of this was that Jacob had to run for his life. And it was Rebekah who sent him away, for his own safety. But she told Isaac that Jacob had to leave, to go find a wife. Well, you may recall that as a result, Jacob was gone for more than 20 years. Rebekah never saw her beloved son again. She died before he returned.
Have you ever tried to help God fulfill his promises, using your own wisdom, without waiting for God to work things out? Have you ever made a tragic choice that resulted in unintended consequences far more devastating than you could ever have expected? But God is gracious. He did not change his plans for Jacob as punishment for Rebekah and Jacob’s bad behavior. God is good and kind. He is patient and understanding. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Rebekah.
Now because we only have time for one more, we’re going to jump way ahead to Mary, the mother of Jesus. God needed a special woman, for a glorious mission. Not that she could not have flaws like any other human being. And we know that she didn’t have to be a princess, or famous and important to do what God wanted from her. In fact, God was not looking for a pretty appearance; he was looking toward the heart.
So, what qualities should this woman have so that God could use her to fulfill His plan of salvation? Without doubt, confidence, humility, loyalty, willingness to be used, a life that pleased God and a heart completely given to Him. God found that in Mary.
In a time when sinners were stoned to death for sin, Mary, who was not yet married to Joseph, agreed to be an instrument in God's hands and said "yes." Soon she was found to be with child. Their society, and even Joseph, misinterpreted the cause of her pregnancy. Joseph didn’t believe her story until an angel talked to him one night. And he only helped Joseph. We can surmise what the rest of the villagers thought of the two of them when Joseph married her anyway.
Then, she went through complicated situations. She must have grieved when she heard how Herod killed all the other babies two and under after the angel told Joseph to take his family to Egypt. She probably personally knew, or even baby sat for several of those little kids before she left Bethlehem. Evil king Herod wanted to kill Jesus to eliminate a potential rival for the throne. So, on the run from Herod, Mary became a homeless fugitive for a while. And many years later, she had to watch her son Jesus be crucified for the sins of the world. That was painful, truly a sword pierced her own soul as well. But soon she felt the joy of seeing Him resurrected. Thank God for that!
I guess to some, Mary would be the closest thing there is to a super mom in the Bible. But even she had a big problem one day. She got separated from her son one day when he was just twelve-years old. And because of her negligence she had no idea where he was and didn’t miss him for several hours! I’m sure a lot of mom’s here have gotten unintentionally separated from their kids one time or another. Even if it’s just been a few minutes, what a horrible feeling when you start looking. I’ve felt it too!
And Mary’s grief would have been amplified by her knowledge that this was her miracle child, the son of God! What a terrible failure it would be if she never found him! It took her three days to find him! That could make anyone feel despised and useless for any task. But even that much can be forgiven, and God always does. Turns out that three days of grief was used by God as a foreshadowing of another three days of even worse grief, while her dead son lay in a sealed tomb.
Thank God for Mary. God loved her ever so much. And he loves all of us the same. Thank God for all mothers. None are perfect, but most fiercely love their children, and would sacrifice anything to keep them close and safe. Thank God most of all for God himself, whose character of fierce love is instilled in every good mom. He himself loves all of us no matter what, and is eager to forgive, not condemn. Those who believe in Jesus for salvation are welcomed into the most loving family you could ever imagine.
Message: Family Photo Album
Scripture: Hebrews 2:10-11
Listen Link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
For Mother’s Day, I thought it might be nice to look through a family photo album of mothers in the Bible. I almost picked them at random, but I was generally looking for mom’s that we could relate to. Our Scripture reading for today was chosen to reflect on Jesus’ acceptance of us as his brothers and sisters. Not because we are as perfect as He is. But because he loves us so much anyway. So, the mom’s we’re looking at in Scripture today are really not supermom’s, just people, whose stories got into the Bible for one reason or another.
Not supermoms because I’ve been warned many times not to preach on the Proverbs 31 woman and expect all the ladies to live up to that ideal. After all, that description was written by a guy describing his idea of the perfect woman, so how realistic could it be?
That’s a joke. I am not mocking the Bible. Yes, it is good that the ideal is recorded in Scripture. But the gospel message is that God loves us even though we are not perfect and cannot measure up to that ideal. And there are lots of moms in the Bible whose lives show us what life is really like. However, we only have time to look at four of them today.
Let’s look first at Eve, the mother of all mothers! Her story starts in Gen. 1-3. She was created by Gods’ own hands. Eve was perfect and had a perfect life. Everything was peaceful, happy, calm, the life any woman dreams of. Her home was beautiful, nothing was missing, she was happy with her husband, she had control of everything, and nothing could be better. There’s no way she meant to mess that up.
But all of a sudden, because of her disobedience to the Word of God, her entire world came crashing down, her penalty was tough, her mistake cost her a lot and Eve was found guilty. Her sin brought terrible consequences to her own life, her husband and the entire world. I’m not letting Adam off the hook. He messed up too. But this is a Mother’s Day sermon so I’m staying focused on the ladies. Imagine, in just minutes your life changing the way hers did because of one action taken without thinking it through first, because she wanted to do things her way.
Now think of this. Her failure came from good intentions. She wasn’t literally greedy for more with an evil outlook like Satan’s. He tricked her! Yes, she compromised on what God had told her, but only because she thought it would help them be better. Who wouldn’t want to get wiser by eating the right food? But it was a tragic mistake. The devil’s deceptive tactics worked. She had a marvelous life, now everything went dark and mysterious. And soon, she had to bear the agony of losing one of her sons when the angry one killed the righteous one.
But there was hope. Eve knew she was guilty. But God made a redeeming promise to her. God is merciful and forgives. She would give birth to children and would be the mother of all human beings. This showed a ray of sunlight in her darkness. And God told her right away that the damage she had done to creation would be undone by one of her own children.
Maybe you find yourself in a similar situation, you couldn’t resist the devil’s temptation and now you feel lost, empty, without God and disoriented. You feel like you don’t have strength to go on, you’ve lost hope, or maybe you think you are not worthy of God’s forgiveness. And worst of all you feel like you have to hide it and make sure no one finds out. The shame you feel doesn’t allow you to move on. But God is merciful and forgives. He loves you very much. Your life has great value to God, and he wants you to know that. And moms these days are pretty good at modeling that unconditional love that hangs in there with the most prodigal of children, praying for them to come home and longing to rejoice when they do, just like God. Eve made a mistake that changed the course of human history. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Eve. All of us are descended from her.
Let’s move on to Sarah. Her story mostly runs through Gen. 12-23. Sarah was beautiful, rich and married to the man she loved. Beautiful picture, is it not? But Sarah’s life was anything but easy. She had to face many challenges.
The first one was to leave the prosperous city of Ur of Chaldees, when all of a sudden God tells Abraham: “Go to the land that I will show you.” To abandon everything and go to an unfamiliar place is not easy. To leave your comfort, the life you know, for a life that is uncertain is hard. Sara had to leave her beautiful house, her family, the place where she grew up and was happy, say good-bye to so many friends and neighbors she would never see again, to go somewhere she had not even a clue of. Especially for women, that kind of loss of security is not a thing that sounds like a great idea. And to top it off, Sarah had no choice. She was Abraham’s husband and it was his decision.
Sarah faced all of that and still accepted the challenge. She accepted Abraham’s decision. She proved she’d be by his side in any and every situation. No matter the circumstances, good or bad, she had decided she would follow her husband and her God. Sarah served her husband with devotion and respected him so much to the point of referring to him as lord.
Her faithfulness persisted even as her husband proved to be a bit of a coward when he asked her to tell a lie to protect him from harm, “Say you are my sister,” so that the king won’t kill me in order to have you. But this resulted in Abraham being forced to let her go to be someone else’s wife, just to save his own skin! Fortunately, God stepped in and saved Sarah from that indignity.
But she carried an even deeper suffering. She couldn’t be a mother, even though God had promised that she would. Maybe she didn’t understand why that was happening to her. And even though Sarah had her husband’s unconditional love, at that time in history it was considered a curse from God to be a barren woman. It made her feel useless. It brought much pain and suffering to Sarah to deal with her issue of being barren. She was humiliated because she couldn’t give her husband children and create his line of descendants. Since God had promised that it should happen, she could easily have felt like the worst of failures.
To make matters worse, she tried to fix it herself. She came up with a plan to provide a child for Abraham through her slave woman, but it backfired. Even though it was her idea, she had to see her slave caring her beloved husband’s child. I’m sure she must have been jealous and upset. This all felt like too much to handle.
But God had made a promise and after about 70 years of waiting, it finally came to pass. Over this time, Sarah learned how to trust in Gods’ promises and at 90 years old, her dream of being a mother finally came true.
How about you, in the midst of so many tribulations, have you chosen to follow the voice of God, or your own will? In the midst of all your struggles, have you trusted, or have you opted for an easier way out, trying to solve problems your own way?
When God tells you to leave it all and go, do you think about how comfortable it would be to stay, all the things you have, or are you willing to leave it all behind to follow God and prove your love for Him? These were Sarah’s dilemmas and each of us has to face our own dilemmas too. They may not be of the same magnitude as Sarah’s dilemmas. But our dilemmas are big problems to us, nonetheless. So, there is always a decision in our hands, to trust and wait, or to try to fix it for God, or without God. However, we know more about God than Sarah did. And Sarah’s story factors into what we know about God. It should be easier for us to trust, because we have heard Sarah’s testimony of God’s faithfulness. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Sarah.
Next comes Rebekah. Her story is in Gen. 24-27. She was a generous and energetic woman who practiced hospitality in the extreme! She’s the one who welcomed Abraham’s servant, though a total stranger, and offered to give him a drink by drawing water from the nearby well, plus continue to draw water for all ten of his camels until they had enough too! One camel can drink 53 gallons of water in 3 minutes! So, we’re talking more than 500 gallons, drawn using probably a 5 – 7 gallon jar!
Rebekah trusted Abraham’s servant, and probably also trusted God because of the servant’s testimony about his prayer and her being the answer to his prayers. But still, for her to be willing to leave her family so abruptly and travel with this stranger to meet Isaac. This was more than a blind date. It was a blind marriage! No dating, no engagement, just full commitment from the get go! And unlike Sarah, Rebekah was free to choose, and she chose to go. That takes quite the adventurous spirit!
And she was a good wife, though she had only two sons, and they were twins, so only one pregnancy in her whole life. And as the boys grew up, a rivalry grew up between them too. Unfortunately, Isaac and Rebekah only made things worse by picking favorites. They were not the greatest parents after all. Isaac favored Esau. Jacob was the momma’s boy.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Rebekah played with Jacob by playing practical jokes on him. It would have been one way he could have picked up on her family’s tricky ways. He learned to be a schemer and deceiver from someone, and I doubt that the incident with the goat skins in which he pretended to be Esau was the first time Jacob ever pranked anyone.
However, that time with the goat skins was really Rebekah, at her worst. She was totally disrespectful of her husband. Showed very little faith in God to work things out as he had promised. She took matters into her own hands and committed a major fraud, supposedly to benefit Jacob. One consequence of this was that Jacob had to run for his life. And it was Rebekah who sent him away, for his own safety. But she told Isaac that Jacob had to leave, to go find a wife. Well, you may recall that as a result, Jacob was gone for more than 20 years. Rebekah never saw her beloved son again. She died before he returned.
Have you ever tried to help God fulfill his promises, using your own wisdom, without waiting for God to work things out? Have you ever made a tragic choice that resulted in unintended consequences far more devastating than you could ever have expected? But God is gracious. He did not change his plans for Jacob as punishment for Rebekah and Jacob’s bad behavior. God is good and kind. He is patient and understanding. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Rebekah.
Now because we only have time for one more, we’re going to jump way ahead to Mary, the mother of Jesus. God needed a special woman, for a glorious mission. Not that she could not have flaws like any other human being. And we know that she didn’t have to be a princess, or famous and important to do what God wanted from her. In fact, God was not looking for a pretty appearance; he was looking toward the heart.
So, what qualities should this woman have so that God could use her to fulfill His plan of salvation? Without doubt, confidence, humility, loyalty, willingness to be used, a life that pleased God and a heart completely given to Him. God found that in Mary.
In a time when sinners were stoned to death for sin, Mary, who was not yet married to Joseph, agreed to be an instrument in God's hands and said "yes." Soon she was found to be with child. Their society, and even Joseph, misinterpreted the cause of her pregnancy. Joseph didn’t believe her story until an angel talked to him one night. And he only helped Joseph. We can surmise what the rest of the villagers thought of the two of them when Joseph married her anyway.
Then, she went through complicated situations. She must have grieved when she heard how Herod killed all the other babies two and under after the angel told Joseph to take his family to Egypt. She probably personally knew, or even baby sat for several of those little kids before she left Bethlehem. Evil king Herod wanted to kill Jesus to eliminate a potential rival for the throne. So, on the run from Herod, Mary became a homeless fugitive for a while. And many years later, she had to watch her son Jesus be crucified for the sins of the world. That was painful, truly a sword pierced her own soul as well. But soon she felt the joy of seeing Him resurrected. Thank God for that!
I guess to some, Mary would be the closest thing there is to a super mom in the Bible. But even she had a big problem one day. She got separated from her son one day when he was just twelve-years old. And because of her negligence she had no idea where he was and didn’t miss him for several hours! I’m sure a lot of mom’s here have gotten unintentionally separated from their kids one time or another. Even if it’s just been a few minutes, what a horrible feeling when you start looking. I’ve felt it too!
And Mary’s grief would have been amplified by her knowledge that this was her miracle child, the son of God! What a terrible failure it would be if she never found him! It took her three days to find him! That could make anyone feel despised and useless for any task. But even that much can be forgiven, and God always does. Turns out that three days of grief was used by God as a foreshadowing of another three days of even worse grief, while her dead son lay in a sealed tomb.
Thank God for Mary. God loved her ever so much. And he loves all of us the same. Thank God for all mothers. None are perfect, but most fiercely love their children, and would sacrifice anything to keep them close and safe. Thank God most of all for God himself, whose character of fierce love is instilled in every good mom. He himself loves all of us no matter what, and is eager to forgive, not condemn. Those who believe in Jesus for salvation are welcomed into the most loving family you could ever imagine.
Scripture: Hebrews 2:10-11
Listen Link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
For Mother’s Day, I thought it might be nice to look through a family photo album of mothers in the Bible. I almost picked them at random, but I was generally looking for mom’s that we could relate to. Our Scripture reading for today was chosen to reflect on Jesus’ acceptance of us as his brothers and sisters. Not because we are as perfect as He is. But because he loves us so much anyway. So, the mom’s we’re looking at in Scripture today are really not supermom’s, just people, whose stories got into the Bible for one reason or another.
Not supermoms because I’ve been warned many times not to preach on the Proverbs 31 woman and expect all the ladies to live up to that ideal. After all, that description was written by a guy describing his idea of the perfect woman, so how realistic could it be?
That’s a joke. I am not mocking the Bible. Yes, it is good that the ideal is recorded in Scripture. But the gospel message is that God loves us even though we are not perfect and cannot measure up to that ideal. And there are lots of moms in the Bible whose lives show us what life is really like. However, we only have time to look at four of them today.
Let’s look first at Eve, the mother of all mothers! Her story starts in Gen. 1-3. She was created by Gods’ own hands. Eve was perfect and had a perfect life. Everything was peaceful, happy, calm, the life any woman dreams of. Her home was beautiful, nothing was missing, she was happy with her husband, she had control of everything, and nothing could be better. There’s no way she meant to mess that up.
But all of a sudden, because of her disobedience to the Word of God, her entire world came crashing down, her penalty was tough, her mistake cost her a lot and Eve was found guilty. Her sin brought terrible consequences to her own life, her husband and the entire world. I’m not letting Adam off the hook. He messed up too. But this is a Mother’s Day sermon so I’m staying focused on the ladies. Imagine, in just minutes your life changing the way hers did because of one action taken without thinking it through first, because she wanted to do things her way.
Now think of this. Her failure came from good intentions. She wasn’t literally greedy for more with an evil outlook like Satan’s. He tricked her! Yes, she compromised on what God had told her, but only because she thought it would help them be better. Who wouldn’t want to get wiser by eating the right food? But it was a tragic mistake. The devil’s deceptive tactics worked. She had a marvelous life, now everything went dark and mysterious. And soon, she had to bear the agony of losing one of her sons when the angry one killed the righteous one.
But there was hope. Eve knew she was guilty. But God made a redeeming promise to her. God is merciful and forgives. She would give birth to children and would be the mother of all human beings. This showed a ray of sunlight in her darkness. And God told her right away that the damage she had done to creation would be undone by one of her own children.
Maybe you find yourself in a similar situation, you couldn’t resist the devil’s temptation and now you feel lost, empty, without God and disoriented. You feel like you don’t have strength to go on, you’ve lost hope, or maybe you think you are not worthy of God’s forgiveness. And worst of all you feel like you have to hide it and make sure no one finds out. The shame you feel doesn’t allow you to move on. But God is merciful and forgives. He loves you very much. Your life has great value to God, and he wants you to know that. And moms these days are pretty good at modeling that unconditional love that hangs in there with the most prodigal of children, praying for them to come home and longing to rejoice when they do, just like God. Eve made a mistake that changed the course of human history. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Eve. All of us are descended from her.
Let’s move on to Sarah. Her story mostly runs through Gen. 12-23. Sarah was beautiful, rich and married to the man she loved. Beautiful picture, is it not? But Sarah’s life was anything but easy. She had to face many challenges.
The first one was to leave the prosperous city of Ur of Chaldees, when all of a sudden God tells Abraham: “Go to the land that I will show you.” To abandon everything and go to an unfamiliar place is not easy. To leave your comfort, the life you know, for a life that is uncertain is hard. Sara had to leave her beautiful house, her family, the place where she grew up and was happy, say good-bye to so many friends and neighbors she would never see again, to go somewhere she had not even a clue of. Especially for women, that kind of loss of security is not a thing that sounds like a great idea. And to top it off, Sarah had no choice. She was Abraham’s husband and it was his decision.
Sarah faced all of that and still accepted the challenge. She accepted Abraham’s decision. She proved she’d be by his side in any and every situation. No matter the circumstances, good or bad, she had decided she would follow her husband and her God. Sarah served her husband with devotion and respected him so much to the point of referring to him as lord.
Her faithfulness persisted even as her husband proved to be a bit of a coward when he asked her to tell a lie to protect him from harm, “Say you are my sister,” so that the king won’t kill me in order to have you. But this resulted in Abraham being forced to let her go to be someone else’s wife, just to save his own skin! Fortunately, God stepped in and saved Sarah from that indignity.
But she carried an even deeper suffering. She couldn’t be a mother, even though God had promised that she would. Maybe she didn’t understand why that was happening to her. And even though Sarah had her husband’s unconditional love, at that time in history it was considered a curse from God to be a barren woman. It made her feel useless. It brought much pain and suffering to Sarah to deal with her issue of being barren. She was humiliated because she couldn’t give her husband children and create his line of descendants. Since God had promised that it should happen, she could easily have felt like the worst of failures.
To make matters worse, she tried to fix it herself. She came up with a plan to provide a child for Abraham through her slave woman, but it backfired. Even though it was her idea, she had to see her slave caring her beloved husband’s child. I’m sure she must have been jealous and upset. This all felt like too much to handle.
But God had made a promise and after about 70 years of waiting, it finally came to pass. Over this time, Sarah learned how to trust in Gods’ promises and at 90 years old, her dream of being a mother finally came true.
How about you, in the midst of so many tribulations, have you chosen to follow the voice of God, or your own will? In the midst of all your struggles, have you trusted, or have you opted for an easier way out, trying to solve problems your own way?
When God tells you to leave it all and go, do you think about how comfortable it would be to stay, all the things you have, or are you willing to leave it all behind to follow God and prove your love for Him? These were Sarah’s dilemmas and each of us has to face our own dilemmas too. They may not be of the same magnitude as Sarah’s dilemmas. But our dilemmas are big problems to us, nonetheless. So, there is always a decision in our hands, to trust and wait, or to try to fix it for God, or without God. However, we know more about God than Sarah did. And Sarah’s story factors into what we know about God. It should be easier for us to trust, because we have heard Sarah’s testimony of God’s faithfulness. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Sarah.
Next comes Rebekah. Her story is in Gen. 24-27. She was a generous and energetic woman who practiced hospitality in the extreme! She’s the one who welcomed Abraham’s servant, though a total stranger, and offered to give him a drink by drawing water from the nearby well, plus continue to draw water for all ten of his camels until they had enough too! One camel can drink 53 gallons of water in 3 minutes! So, we’re talking more than 500 gallons, drawn using probably a 5 – 7 gallon jar!
Rebekah trusted Abraham’s servant, and probably also trusted God because of the servant’s testimony about his prayer and her being the answer to his prayers. But still, for her to be willing to leave her family so abruptly and travel with this stranger to meet Isaac. This was more than a blind date. It was a blind marriage! No dating, no engagement, just full commitment from the get go! And unlike Sarah, Rebekah was free to choose, and she chose to go. That takes quite the adventurous spirit!
And she was a good wife, though she had only two sons, and they were twins, so only one pregnancy in her whole life. And as the boys grew up, a rivalry grew up between them too. Unfortunately, Isaac and Rebekah only made things worse by picking favorites. They were not the greatest parents after all. Isaac favored Esau. Jacob was the momma’s boy.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Rebekah played with Jacob by playing practical jokes on him. It would have been one way he could have picked up on her family’s tricky ways. He learned to be a schemer and deceiver from someone, and I doubt that the incident with the goat skins in which he pretended to be Esau was the first time Jacob ever pranked anyone.
However, that time with the goat skins was really Rebekah, at her worst. She was totally disrespectful of her husband. Showed very little faith in God to work things out as he had promised. She took matters into her own hands and committed a major fraud, supposedly to benefit Jacob. One consequence of this was that Jacob had to run for his life. And it was Rebekah who sent him away, for his own safety. But she told Isaac that Jacob had to leave, to go find a wife. Well, you may recall that as a result, Jacob was gone for more than 20 years. Rebekah never saw her beloved son again. She died before he returned.
Have you ever tried to help God fulfill his promises, using your own wisdom, without waiting for God to work things out? Have you ever made a tragic choice that resulted in unintended consequences far more devastating than you could ever have expected? But God is gracious. He did not change his plans for Jacob as punishment for Rebekah and Jacob’s bad behavior. God is good and kind. He is patient and understanding. And God loved her even so. Thank God for Rebekah.
Now because we only have time for one more, we’re going to jump way ahead to Mary, the mother of Jesus. God needed a special woman, for a glorious mission. Not that she could not have flaws like any other human being. And we know that she didn’t have to be a princess, or famous and important to do what God wanted from her. In fact, God was not looking for a pretty appearance; he was looking toward the heart.
So, what qualities should this woman have so that God could use her to fulfill His plan of salvation? Without doubt, confidence, humility, loyalty, willingness to be used, a life that pleased God and a heart completely given to Him. God found that in Mary.
In a time when sinners were stoned to death for sin, Mary, who was not yet married to Joseph, agreed to be an instrument in God's hands and said "yes." Soon she was found to be with child. Their society, and even Joseph, misinterpreted the cause of her pregnancy. Joseph didn’t believe her story until an angel talked to him one night. And he only helped Joseph. We can surmise what the rest of the villagers thought of the two of them when Joseph married her anyway.
Then, she went through complicated situations. She must have grieved when she heard how Herod killed all the other babies two and under after the angel told Joseph to take his family to Egypt. She probably personally knew, or even baby sat for several of those little kids before she left Bethlehem. Evil king Herod wanted to kill Jesus to eliminate a potential rival for the throne. So, on the run from Herod, Mary became a homeless fugitive for a while. And many years later, she had to watch her son Jesus be crucified for the sins of the world. That was painful, truly a sword pierced her own soul as well. But soon she felt the joy of seeing Him resurrected. Thank God for that!
I guess to some, Mary would be the closest thing there is to a super mom in the Bible. But even she had a big problem one day. She got separated from her son one day when he was just twelve-years old. And because of her negligence she had no idea where he was and didn’t miss him for several hours! I’m sure a lot of mom’s here have gotten unintentionally separated from their kids one time or another. Even if it’s just been a few minutes, what a horrible feeling when you start looking. I’ve felt it too!
And Mary’s grief would have been amplified by her knowledge that this was her miracle child, the son of God! What a terrible failure it would be if she never found him! It took her three days to find him! That could make anyone feel despised and useless for any task. But even that much can be forgiven, and God always does. Turns out that three days of grief was used by God as a foreshadowing of another three days of even worse grief, while her dead son lay in a sealed tomb.
Thank God for Mary. God loved her ever so much. And he loves all of us the same. Thank God for all mothers. None are perfect, but most fiercely love their children, and would sacrifice anything to keep them close and safe. Thank God most of all for God himself, whose character of fierce love is instilled in every good mom. He himself loves all of us no matter what, and is eager to forgive, not condemn. Those who believe in Jesus for salvation are welcomed into the most loving family you could ever imagine.
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