Mother's Day 2023
Notes
Transcript
Mother’s Day is the hardest sermon in the year for me to prepare.
It is my one chance to give a shot in the arm for mom’s everywhere that they get can get through another year. It is my one shot to urge them specifically to be godly.
It is my one change to put my foot in my mouth and alienate over 50% of the congregation.
So, I am going to try not to do that and to hopefully preach a message that is encouraging to everyone.
Before I make you hate me, Happy Mother’s Day, Moms.
I use the word “mom” loosely. I am speaking to those who are mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers. I am speaking to those who do not have children of their own, but who have spiritual children. I am speaking to those who yearn to have children, but do not. Those who had children and suffered their loss. Those whose children moved away and those whose children are still at home. I am speaking to mom’s who stayed at home and mom’s who worked.
Happy Mother’s Day, mom. When I think about mother’s in 2023, I think about Jael.
I am not talking about prison, but the lady, Jael, or in the Hebrew, Yael. Wielder of a tent-peg.
Warning: this is not your normal touchy-feely Mother’s Day sermons.
Today, we are going to talk about Jael and then we are going to talk about you.
Will you pray with me?
Let’s read the passage:
Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, now that Ehud was dead. So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in Harosheth Haggoyim. Because he had nine hundred chariots fitted with iron and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.
Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided. She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’ ”
Barak said to her, “If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.”
“Certainly I will go with you,” said Deborah. “But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh. There Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali, and ten thousand men went up under his command. Deborah also went up with him.
Now Heber the Kenite had left the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, and pitched his tent by the great tree in Zaanannim near Kedesh.
When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, Sisera summoned from Harosheth Haggoyim to the Kishon River all his men and his nine hundred chariots fitted with iron.
Then Deborah said to Barak, “Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?” So Barak went down Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men following him. At Barak’s advance, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot.
Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim, and all Sisera’s troops fell by the sword; not a man was left. Sisera, meanwhile, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was an alliance between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite.
Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come, my lord, come right in. Don’t be afraid.” So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.
“I’m thirsty,” he said. “Please give me some water.” She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.
“Stand in the doorway of the tent,” he told her. “If someone comes by and asks you, ‘Is anyone in there?’ say ‘No.’ ”
But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.
Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. “Come,” she said, “I will show you the man you’re looking for.” So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple—dead.
On that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Israelites. And the hand of the Israelites pressed harder and harder against Jabin king of Canaan until they destroyed him.
Anyone every heard a sermon on Jael? People talk about Deborah a lot, but few people talk about Jael.
So, let’s talk about Jael.
Jael
Jael
Let’s talk about what is going on in the passage
Biblical Background
Biblical Background
This is the time of the judges. There is no king in Israel. Since escaping Egypt and setting up shop in the land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the people of Israel have not been following God.
The author of Judges describes it for us:
After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.
Generation after generation refused to follow God. God raise up nations to conquer them. They would cry out to God. God would raise up what were called judges, who saved the Israelites out of the hands of the raiders, calling Israel to repentance.
But, as the author of Hebrews says:
Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands.
It was a vicious cycle, where
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.
The first judge was Othniel, Caleb’s nephew, who defeated the Arameans.
The second judge was Ehud, who defeated the Moabites. He was left-handed and killed Eglon the king of the Moabites in a rather graphic way, which you should read sometime.
The third judge was Deborah, which is our text.
The Canaanites, whose king was Jabin, had been cruelly oppressing Israel for twenty years. Sisera was his general.
Now, when I say cruelly oppressing, I mean cruelly oppressing. We in America, even though there are some things politically that have put a bee under our bonnet, we have it pretty good. Compared to Israel at this time, we are living in paradise, even with everything going on right now.
Sisera had been known to steal young girls for pleasure, take crops, destroy homes. Twenty years of this.
Deborah says enough is enough.
Very few sermons focus on Jael, because this is the point of the passage centers around a judgment against Barak, which is echoed faintly against Heber.
Deborah tells Barak:
She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’ ”
Barak doesn’t say: Awesome! I will follow God! Instead he says: I’m only going to fight if you come with me Deborah. This is a rather unusual statement in a male-dominated society.
Deborah agrees, but she says:
“Certainly I will go with you,” said Deborah. “But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh.
Barak and Deborah, through God’s help, defeat the Canaanite forces, and Sisera is fleeing for his life.
Enter Jael.
She is not the normal heroine. First, She isn’t an Israelite. She is a Kenite. Her husband is a descendant of Moses’ brother-in-law. The Kenites as a group were allied with Israel. They had followed the Israelites to the Promised Land. Helped conquer the land.
Heber, however, Jael’s husband,
Now Heber the Kenite had left the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, and pitched his tent by the great tree in Zaanannim near Kedesh.
He said: I don’t want to be with the people of God. Instead, he makes an alliance with Israel’s cruel oppressors.
Sisera, meanwhile, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was an alliance between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite.
Any of you ladies want to be married to this man? You say, oh but I am married to this man. We’re not going there right now.
So, Jael’s husband has set himself up against Israel and for the oppressor. What does Jael do when that oppressor comes to her door?
She takes control. If you look at the language, she goes out to Sisera. She invites him in. She covers him with a blanket. When he asks for water, she brings him milk instead and gives him a drink and covers him back up.
He is in her complete control. Then, when he is deeply asleep, she takes that tent peg in her hand.
This is the weapon that she knows how to use. In her society, the women were in charge of setting up and taking down the tents, so she knew how to use a hammer and tent peg.
She looks at the enemy of Israel, her husband’s ally, and drives that tent peg through his head and into the ground.
What a Mother’s Day sermon, right?
Barak comes by, trying to catch up to Sisera:
Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. “Come,” she said, “I will show you the man you’re looking for.” So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple—dead.
What do we do with Jael?
Be Available 4. Act Four: A Victorious Confrontation (Jdg. 4:11–23)
Should we bless or blame Jael for what she did? She invited Sisera into her tent, treated him kindly, and told him not to be afraid; so she was deceitful. The Kenites were at peace with Jabin, so she violated a treaty. She gave Sisera the impression that she would guard the door, so she broke a promise. She killed a defenseless man who was under her protection, so she was a murderess. Yet Deborah sang, “Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent” (5:24).
We cannot read back into Judges the spiritual standards taught by Jesus and the apostles. The Jews had been under cruel oppression and God had promised to rescue them. Both Jabin and Sisera had been mistreating the Jews for 20 years, and if they had won, hundreds of Jewish girls would have been captured and raped.
“Jael not only helped deliver the nation of Israel from bondage, but also she helped protect the women from the most vicious brutality.” A war was going on and “this courageous woman finally stopped being neutral and took her stand with the people of God.”
Jael sat in her home, looking at the war that was going on, and when that war came into her sphere, she drove her tent peg for the glory of God.
That is Jael.
You
You
Let’s talk about you, moms.
There is a war going on. I’m not talking about attitudes with kids and grandkids. I’m not talking about politic stuff. I’m talking about the actual war.
Paul writes
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Because of this war, Paul urges followers of Christ to
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
He tells us to take up our tent peg and do battle. He tells you, mothers, to take up your tent peg and do battle.
Now, I have to be careful, because whenever we take up a weapon, even a tent peg, we can very easily use it against the wrong person. Our enemy is the devil and his dark forces. But, sometimes, we can look at the tent peg in our hand, and then look at our kids or our grandkids, we could look at our husbands, and say: you’re the enemy and down comes the hammer on the tent peg. Wham!
We are in a war, and we have an enemy.
Turn to your kids, if they are here, and say: you’re not the enemy.
Now, turn to your husbands, if they are here, and say: you’re not the enemy.
Mothers, you have an enemy, are you going to take up the tent peg.
Some of you might say: But, what about my husband, isn’t he the leader?
In our passage, we have two different ladies. Both have to step up because of men who were not following God.
Barak refused to fight the battle that was before him, unless Deborah was by his side.
Heber refused to fight at all and made a treaty with the enemy.
Sometimes your husband will be a great spiritual leader, and you will be like Priscilla and Aquila in Acts, jointly, as a team, serving God and teaching others. That is sweet when that happens, but it is rare.
Other times, your husband will be a Barak, and he doesn’t have the courage to his shame, and you need to build him up and say: I’m with you, let’s fight together. And you take his hand, and he takes yours, and he does it, because you helped him.
Other times, your husband will be a Heber. And he is completely out of the picture. But, that doesn’t negate the war and that doesn’t negate your responsibility.
There is a war. There is an enemy, will you take up your tent peg, with or without your husband?
Against your sin
Against your sin
Will you take up your tent peg against your sin?
The author of Hebrews says:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
Before we can fight the battles in other’s lives, we must fight the battle in our own. We must see the sin that is in our lives, our private sin, and the sin in our relationships, and we must take up the tent peg in our hands and pound it through the sin in our lives.
How do we do it?
Paul writes in Ephesians:
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
That’s where everyone stops, but Paul actually keeps going:
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
We see the sin in our lives, and we drop down on our knees and we pray, then we invite others to join us in being alert praying about our sin. That takes humility.
But, if we have a true understanding of truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, salvation, and the Word God, we will have the humility to grab someone else to join us in praying. Then in the moments of temptation, whatever our sin is, with prayer on our lips, we can take up the armor of God and stand, with the tent peg through the temple of our sin.
There is a war, mothers. Will you take up your tent peg?
Against the Sin in Your Family
Against the Sin in Your Family
Will you take up your tent peg against the sin of your family.
This is a challenging one, because when we see sin around us, often we want to nail the person who is committing the sin.
But, they are not the enemy.
We are called to fight against the enemy. So what do we do when we see sin in our family. Yes, we discipline for the sake of our kids. But first, we take up our tent peg and we fight.
We drop on our knees.
Book: Dad walked around the block before disciplining. Flesh this out. Need to remember book!
Martin Luther is famous for saying:
“If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.”
We drop on our knees and we beg God: not in my family. Change the heart of my kids, change the heart of my husband.
In the Lord’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water
that he channels toward all who please him.
We beg God and we keep begging, until in his time it happens.
Mother’s, there is a war. Will you take up your tent peg?
Against the Priorities that Usurp God
Against the Priorities that Usurp God
Will you take up the tent peg against the wrong priorities in your life and your family?
We all say that we want to serve God. We all say that he is the most important thing in our lives. But, do our lives show it.
If you looked at your calendar today, what does your calendar say? If you looked at your kid’s calendars today, what do they say?
You, mom’s, have a lot of control over what happens within your family. Your husband just works. You tell him what is going on and he tries to fit it in. Unless he takes his role seriously, but that is the sermon for Father’s Day.
What are you allowing to take priority over God? Is it sports? Would you rather have your child in sports than following Jesus? Drive a tent peg through it. Is it education? Would you rather have your child have good grades than a tight relationship with Jesus Christ? Drive a tent peg through it. Is it a clean house? Is it financial stability? Is it safety? Is it relationships? Is it busyness?
Whatever it is, drive a tent peg through it.
Mothers, there is a war going on. Will you stand up with Deborah and Jael, with your tent peg in your hand and do battle?