Love Languages - Gift Giving

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, Happy Mother’s Day, and welcome to our worship service. It’s good to see you all here in person.

I have a few announcements I’d like to mention as we begin this morning.

The men’s group is taking the evening off tonight. They’ll be having their cookout on May 22 at 5:00. All men are invited to that.

We also had to move our work day for the church grounds because of the weather yesterday. That’s going to be held this coming Saturday the 14th instead starting at 8:30. But keep an eye on that as well, because the forecast for next Saturday doesn’t look that great right now either.

Also, Della says that we have collected 20 blankets for Ukraine. Thank you to everyone who contributed to that.

And also I’ll remind you of our quarterly business meeting that will be held this Wednesday at 6:30.

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

Father, we come before You in Jesus’ name to praise Your Holy name. We will not forget Your benefits and your forgiveness of our sins. We praise You because You have redeemed our life from the pit and crowned us with compassion. We praise You because You satisfy our desires with good things and You renew our Youth like the eagles. Father, we praise You and honor You for You alone work righteousness for the oppressed, You are compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love. For it’s in Jesus’s name we ask it, Amen.

Mother’s Day Recognition

Today is a special day in our country and in many others as we honor the people who are in most cases the ones who have had the most impact in our lives — mothers.

We have a gift for all the mothers here this morning, but first, if you are a mom, momma, mommy, step-mother, grandmother, or godmother, will you please stand?

Proverbs 31:28-29 describes well all these women we have with us today: Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”

Will you please remain standing as you receive your gift.

Let’s pray:

Father we’re so thankful for these women gathered here with us this morning. We’re thankful for their love, for their wisdom, for their gentleness, and for the guiding hand upon their children and grandchildren that leads them upon a straight path to you. Bless them as you have blessed us through them. For it’s in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.

Sermon

Last week we started a small series about how God uses each of the love languages when relating to us because God himself is love. Our first example was words of affirmation.

Today we turn to another love language, gift giving, and in honor of the holiday, we’re going to look at how and why God gives us gifts through the way he gave gifts to two mothers in the Bible.

That’s a pretty broad category, isn’t it? Gifts? In Gary Chapman’s book on love languages, gifts come in all shapes and sizes.

If your love language is gift giving, you enjoy giving and receiving objects that don’t have to be large, don’t have to cost much, but are always meaningful.

That’s the important part. All those little things that you buy or you make for others, they carry a special significance. That’s what gives them their worth. It’s the same for God, but in a much more profound way.

It’s a sad thing that we often overlook or undervalue the gifts we receive from God, but in a way it’s almost understandable because those gifts are so many and given to us in so many ways.

That breath you just took is a gift. The clothes you put on this morning after you rose from the bed you slept in that’s inside the house you live — all gifts.

The family you have. The friends you enjoy. The clean air you breathe in this beautiful town you live in, all the years you’ve been alive, your good days and your bad days and your eternal home in heaven, are all gifts.

You’re surrounded by them every moment. You can’t live without them. And all of them, every single one, come from only one source.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,” James wrote, “coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

All of them. Every gift. Everything you are and everything you have is given to you freely and with love from the God who created you in his image.

If you ever doubt his love for you, if you ever doubt his attention, all you have to do is take a look around at all he’s given to you.

But that’s only part of what it means to receive gifts from God. It’s more than getting good and perfect things from God. God gives us all these gifts every moment, every day. But why? Why does he give them?

Because he loves us, certainly. Because it’s God’s nature to give gifts even to the point where it hurts him greatly. We only have to look at Christ on the cross as an example of that.

But he also does it for another reason, an important reason. God showers us with gifts so that we can use those gifts to help others.

Peter writes in his first letter, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace.”

That phrase Peter uses, “good stewards,” is so important. That’s what we’re called to be. Remember last week when we talked about how God uses words of affirmation to remind us of our worth and value as human beings. He created us in his image to be good stewards of the world he gave us.

To be a good steward means to honor the gifts we have, whether it’s the house we live in or the job we have or the talents we possess. It means not just to enjoy those things, but to show our thanks and appreciation for them by using them to make the lives of others better.

That’s what we see happening in our two examples this morning — of how these two mothers in the Bible use the gifts God has given them to help make their world better.

We’re going to start in the Old Testament, in the book of 1 Samuel, chapter one, verses 20-28. Turn with me there and follow along:

And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the LORD.”

The man Elkanah and all his house went up to offer to the LORD the yearly sacrifice and to pay his vow. But Hannah did not go up, for she said to her husband, “As soon as the child is weaned, I will bring him, so that he may appear in the presence of the LORD and dwell there forever.”

Elkanah her husband said to her, “Do what seems best to you; wait until you have weaned him; only, may the LORD establish his word.”

So the woman remained and nursed her son until she weaned him.

And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and she brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh. And the child was young.

Then they slaughtered the bull, and they brought the child to Eli. And she said, “Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the LORD. For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the LORD. As long as he lives, he is lent to the LORD.”

And he worshiped the LORD there.

And this is God’s word.

We met Hannah a few months back when we learned to pray in the same manner she prayed, to pour out our hearts to God and trust everything to him.

That’s what Hannah did. She came to God wanting a very specific gift — Hannah wanted a son. So she prayed. She emptied all of herself before him, then Hannah trusted God to hear her. And God did. He heard that prayer and answered.

That’s where we pick up here in verse 20. And right away we notice two things, don’t we? The first is that Hanna didn’t become pregnant right away. There was a time of waiting. “In due time,” the verse says, “she bore a son.” Hannah’s gift was coming, but it didn’t come right away.

This gift Hannah asked from God was her deepest wish and desire. It was all she had prayed for, not only on that day in Shiloh when she met Eli the priest but for every day of her married life. But even though she had to wait, God was already moving.

Now, do you think that Hannah received other valuable gifts from God in the meantime? Of course she did. God gave her health. God provided for Hannah and her household. God was preparing Hannah’s heart for everything that was about to come. That’s why he had to wait just a little longer.

So many of us are after that one thing, aren’t we? We’re after that one answered prayer, that one yes from God that we think will make everything else better. And very often, God doesn’t say yes right away. Very often, God makes us wait.

And where we sometimes stumble is when we’re so focused on that one thing that God tells us to wait on that we miss out on all of the other gifts he gives us right now.

Hannah didn’t do that.

Now, the second thing we learn in this verse. Hannah waited in faith, and in due time she received her gift — a son named Samuel. In the Hebrew, the name Samuel means “heard of God.” There’s a double meaning attached to that name, and it plays right into what Hannah thinks of this great gift from God.

First, Samuel’s name is a symbol worship for the love and goodness of the God who granted her prayer. But that name also calls back to the sense of obligation Hannah had. If you remember, Hannah had vowed to God that if he would give her a son, Hannah would give that son right back to God to serve in the tabernacle.

And it seems like Hannah’s not the only one who made this promise. In verse 21, Elkanah, Hannah’s husband, takes his family and goes back to Shiloh to offer the yearly sacrifice. But that isn’t all that Elkanah does. He also pays his vow. Now what is this vow for?

In Numbers 30, we learn that according to the laws given to Moses, when a wife makes a vow, her husband had to both hear of that vow and consent to it in order for that vow to be an obligation. It also appears that even though it isn’t mentioned in scripture, Elkanah had also added a vow of his own.

This is important, because we often forget that Hannah wasn’t Samuel’s only parent. Elkanah would have to give Samuel up just as much as Hannah would, and it would be even more difficult for Elkanah because this vow to give Samuel to God wasn’t his own. It was Hannah’s.

But Elkanah loved his wife so much that he not only affirmed Hannah’s vow, he made a vow himself.

Right here, both Hannah and Elkanah are learning what Peter wrote about. God doesn’t give us gifts just for our own enjoyment. God gives us gifts so we can share them with the world.

That’s what Hannah does in verse 22. She keeps Samuel at home until he’s weaned. She’s raising her young son, teaching him, preparing him to serve God, just as all good mothers do.

But Hannah is doing more than being a good mother to her son. She’s honoring the gift God gave her, and fulfilling her vow to share that gift with everyone.

Finally the time comes to honor that vow, beginning in verse 24. She and Elkanah gather up their offerings and take Samuel to Eli.

And Hannah says to Eli, “I’m the one you met before, praying to God. I asked him for a gift, and here he is.

“This child God gave me is my greatest blessing, and I know the safest and best place to keep that blessing is in His loving arms.

“The Lord gave him to me, and now, Eli, I’m giving him to you just as I promised. Because the gift I receive isn’t meant to be hidden away, it’s to be shown to everyone.”

It’s a hard lesson, isn’t it? One of the hardest lessons we’ll learn is that God gives us a multitude of gifts every day, and the best way we can honor those gifts is to share them.

“Give, and it will be given to you,” Jesus said. “For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”

The poet John Donne wrote a very famous line: No man is an island, entire of itself. Meaning that all of us are connected. If you go out and bless one person, that person will then bless two, and those two will bless four. But if we keep our blessings to ourselves, all of that stops.

The Christian life is about the blood of Christ, yes. It’s about become a little more holy every day, yes. But it’s also about hearing those words of affirmation from God that you are made in his image, and seeing how your actions affect everyone else, both good and bad.

And that brings us to the most famous mother in the Bible, Mary. Turn with me to the gospel of John, chapter 2. We’ll be reading verses 1-12:

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.

When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”

And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.”

And they filled them up to the brim.

And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.”

So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.

And this is God’s word.

John doesn’t tell us where this wedding was. We only know from this scripture that it was a busy town filled with life, and all the families lived close to each other and knew one another. Kind of reminds me of Stuarts Draft when I was a kid.

We don’t know whose wedding this was either, or how many of the townspeople attended. But we do know a few of the guests.

Mary was there, and Jesus came with her. The disciples were also invited. Not all of them, just the ones Jesus had called to this point — Peter, Andrew, Philip, and Nathanael. And they weren’t really called disciples yet, though they believed Jesus was the Messiah.

There’s no mention of Joseph, which leads many scholars to believe he had passed on by this time. But since Jesus and Mary are both there, it’s probably likely that Jesus’s brothers and sisters would have been there too, and they likely brought families of their own.

In fact, it looks like the hosts of the wedding had invited as many people as possible to celebrate this event. That was usually the case. Back then, a wedding was an event. It lasted hours and sometimes even days, which meant a whole lot of food and drink was needed to keep everyone happy.

As a guest, Mary had no responsibilities at all in the planning or the course of this wedding. All that was expected of her was to show up, have a pleasant time, and wish the married couple well as they began their life together. But then she overhears a problem — the wine’s almost gone.

Now in that time and place, to run out of wine during a wedding celebration wasn’t just an inconvenience. It was a scandal. It was a major embarrassment. As a matter of fact, this is something that could literally ruin the lives of the parents of the bride.

The good news was that only a few people knew about it at the time. The bad news was that pretty soon everyone would know.

To some, it seems like Mary was close with the people giving this wedding banquet. Or maybe she was just someone from close by like all the others. The scripture doesn’t say.

Either way, Mary doesn’t do what a lot of us would do. She doesn’t sit back and think, “Well, it’s none of my business if the wine runs out.” And she REALLY doesn’t sit back and say, “Ooh, we got some drama brewing here. This is gonna be good.”

No. Mary has empathy. Mary helps. Mary gets involved. She does it in the most perfect way — quietly, and effectively. And she does it in the most perfect way too — she goes straight to Jesus.

Look at verse 3. You can almost picture Mary going quietly to Jesus, standing on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, “They have no wine.”

What’s Mary want from Jesus here? She isn’t telling him just to share a little gossip. She’s trying to get him involved. Mary wants Jesus to fix this. But how? Surely Jesus doesn’t have enough money to go out and buy all the wine needed to let everyone drink.

And remember, and this is important — what’s going to happen here eventually is the first recorded miracle of Jesus. So at this point, according to scripture, he hasn’t performed any miracles at all yet.

Probably, even Mary isn’t sure what she was asking Jesus to do about this. But she knows who he is, and she knows he’s the only one who can help.

But what does Jesus say in verse 4? “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

Wow, right? I mean, that sounds pretty harsh doesn’t it? But let’s look at verse 4 a little closer and see what Jesus really meant by those words.

First, that word “Woman.” We kind of wince at that, don’t we? It would have been better if Jesus would have used the word “Mother” there, wouldn’t it? “Mother, what does this have to do with me?” But Jesus saying “Woman” almost makes it sound like he’s mad at Mary, doesn’t it?

But he’s not. Jesus uses this word six other times in the gospels. In Matthew 15, he says “Woman” to a Canaanite mother who shows great faith in seeking healing for her daughter.

In Luke 13, he uses it again to a woman he healed who had been bent over for eighteen years.

He uses it in John chapter 4 when talking to the woman at the well, in chapter 8 to the woman caught in adultery, and again to Mary herself while he was on the cross in John 19.

And he uses it one last time when he appears resurrected to a weeping Mary Magdalene.

This isn’t a word given in anger. This is a word given with tenderness and compassion and deep, deep love.

What’s Jesus say next? “What does this have to do with me?” Now, what does this mean? Some people actually think Jesus is making a joke here. He’s saying, “Are you trying to marry me off, Mom? I’m not the groom, it’s not my responsibility to be restocking any wine yet.”

Other people think the meaning of what Jesus says is exactly what it sounds like — “Mom, why are you trying to get me involved here? It’s not my business.”

And why isn’t it Jesus’s business? Because of what he says next — “My hour has not yet come.”

Now again, we can look at what Jesus says here a few different ways. Maybe Jesus is saying that the time hasn’t yet come to work his miracles publicly.

Or maybe he’s saying that he has to let the wine run out completely first before he does anything.

Or maybe this is just a gentle reminder to Mary that it’s God’s timing that matters here, and not Mary’s own.

No matter how we choose to look at this, though, one thing is clear: Jesus doesn’t seem too interested in helping this situation, does he?

Which makes what Mary says next extraordinary. Look there in verse 5. She tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Isn’t that amazing? Mary completely ignores the fact that Jesus seems to say no.

There aren’t a whole lot of places in the Gospels where Jesus is told what to do by his family or his friends, is there?

Remember when he’s teaching and someone brings a message saying that his mother and brothers are outside? What’s Jesus do? He sends them away, doesn’t he? He says my mother and brothers are those who know the word of God and keep it.

But Jesus doesn’t do that here. It’s the most amazing thing because it’s an entirely human scene that almost all of us have lived through at some point.

Mary wants Jesus to do something. Jesus goes, “Oh, ma. Come on.” And Mary answers, “God might be your daddy but I’m your momma, so you listen to me.”

And he does. Jesus tells the servants to fill up the big ceremonial jars with water. Now water was a luxury out in the desert, which is where they are, so nobody would refuse it. Might not be wine, but at least they have water, right?

But then the surprise comes — the water has now become wine. Not only has this crisis been averted, Jesus had made the party even better than it was before.

And we see the loving heart of Jesus here, the generous joy of Christ, because he could have just replaced the wine with the same wine that was served at the beginning. But he didn’t. This wine, this miracle, was even better than the wine before.

We understand what John wants us to take from this story. Jesus cares deeply for our needs, whether spiritual or material.

And from this we know that Jesus was sent by God. He had power and authority over the earth, over the very water of creation. He was not just a miracle worker, he was a miracle maker, and the glory of God was revealed through him.

But I want to talk about Mary’s part in this story, first because she was a mother and that’s who we’re honoring today, but also because we’re talking about how we should use the gifts that God has given us.

Because that’s who Jesus is for Mary, isn’t he? Jesus is God’s gift — to everyone, sure, but maybe to Mary most of all. She understood who her son is, of course. She knew maybe more than anyone else, surely anyone else at this wedding.

We see a lot of her personality and character in this story. Mary has a heart for the wellbeing of others. She has an eye for detail. Like most mothers, she seems to always be on guard for any potential problems. And it’s a good thing she’s like that here, or else this wedding would have turned out a lot differently.

What else can we know about her here? She has an enormous amount of trust in her son, doesn’t she?

Mary knows without question that Jesus will do something — and not just that he’ll do something, but he’ll do it in a way that shows God’s generous love.

That miracle of turning basic water into the finest wine doesn’t just save the reputation of the wedding hosts. It also replaces their poverty with God’s riches.

We also see the depths of Mary’s confidence as well, and it’s a confidence rooted in constantly seeking God’s will. Because it seems at first like Jesus is telling her no, but again how does Mary respond? “Do whatever he tells you.”

I want you to underline that verse in your Bible, because that right there is the Christian life in a few words.

What’s it mean to be a Christian? To do whatever Jesus tells you. And so many times it’s so much easier to know what it is in particular that Jesus is telling you if you know broadly who Jesus is.

Jesus said, “Come on, Mom. I don’t know about this.” Maybe he was testing Mary a little. Maybe he was teasing her. Maybe Jesus said that and smiled.

But Mary knows that the God she worships is the sort of God who wants to bless the start of this young couple’s life together, and she knows that Jesus is the one who can bring that to life.

She meets this situation with faith. She does exactly what we should all do when we see something that needs fixing — Mary goes to Jesus first, and then she does all she can herself, and then she leaves it all to Jesus to do whatever he wants.

Hannah and Mary. Two mothers given special sons, one of whom stands as a giant in the Old Testament, the other we worship as our Lord and Savior. Two women who teach us how we are to use the gifts that God gives us each day.

The Christian life is a life of service. It’s a life that sees the value and the spark of God in every person, no matter who that person is, and then treats that person accordingly.

In other words, it’s a life of feeling, of not looking away from the pains and troubles of this world, but right at them.

In Ezekiel, God says, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

A heart of flesh. A soft heart, a vulnerable heart, a heart that’s easily broken.

More than anyone else, Christians should possess the ability to experience the pain that others feel, the worry that burdens them, and the fear that makes them cower.

And why does God want that from his people? Because we’re made in his image. Because when we help, when we stand alongside those in need, God will use us to bring encouragement and hope.

Like Hannah’s and Mary’s, our gifts are not ours to keep. Our gifts are ours to give away and give freely, because that’s not just how your life is made better, it’s how the world is made better.

And if you’re ready to use your gifts to God’s service, then I invite you up here as we sing our closing hymn.

Let’s pray:

Father we are so thankful on this day to have the example of these two mothers, women who received such incredible gifts but who understood that to honor those gifts meant sharing them with the world. We have so much because of You, Father. Every day we are blessed. Help us every day, Father, to share those blessings. We thank you for the mothers here today, we thank you for their presence in our lives and for the love they continually share, and we pray that their example becomes ours. For it’s in Jesus’s name we ask it, Amen.