Motherhood: Protector, Survivor, Encourager, Mentor, and Giver of Hope

We do want to celebrate the mothers and—in reality—all women in our church. But we also want to be sensitive to those who have struggles in this area.

I had the opportunity to travel last night to Matamoros, Mexico with my own woman of noble character, Olga, my wife. I was invited to preach at a Mothers Day celebration for Cordero de Dios church with our good friend and partner in ministry, Pastor Lorenzo Rangel.

This morning I wanted to provide a quick overview of scripture, highlighting some of the great mothers that we find to encourage the mothers that we have here with us today to the very best that we see in them as they protect, nurture, encourage and provide for our families in so many ways.

We’re going to start with a quick look in Proverbs 31 and then get into our Bible study.

Proverbs 31:29–31 CSB

29 “Many women have done noble deeds, but you surpass them all!” 30 Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised. 31 Give her the reward of her labor, and let her works praise her at the city gates.

[orar]

“You surpass them all!” Indeed, let’s look at some of these mothers in the Bible...

Eve, the Mother of Life

We start out our survey of scripture looking at the Mother of All Living, Mother Eve, wife to Adam. We look to the creation of life in Genesis 2, which culminates in the creation of woman and the marriage mandate provided by God in the beginning...

Genesis 2:18–24 CSB

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.” 19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. 22 Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man. 24 This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.

I will acknowledge that many of the women, wives, and mothers in the Bible are pinned culturally to a male-dominated society that sometimes can be difficult to apply to our modern view of women. However, I do see some things here that we can take away.

God created humanity male and female, with very different makeup, different roles in the family, but they were created to complement and complete each other.

I take the position that men and women can certainly survive on their own without a mate, but the male/female relationship is synergistic:

synergy - the interaction or cooperation of two or more [parts] to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

That simply means that, when male and female are fulfilling their roles the way God designed them, then we can truly achieve what God wants for the family. The truth of the matter is that God designed us to work better together than alone.

Eve was the mother of all living things. When Adam woke from his nap with an ache in his side, he beheld what God had made. He looked at Eve and said “Woh man!” He liked what he saw and named her woman.

We don’t have much detail as to how Eve acted as a mother to Cain and Abel, so let’s jump forward a few chapters to another significant mother...

Sarah, the Mother of the Promise

Sarah, was wife to Abraham and mother to Isaac. When God made a promise to Abraham regarding the birth of a son in a time that both Abraham and Sarah were past their childbearing years, the promise was for Sarah as well...

Genesis 17:15–16 CSB

15 God said to Abraham, “As for your wife Sarai, do not call her Sarai, for Sarah will be her name. 16 I will bless her; indeed, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will produce nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

Genesis 18 describes a visit Abraham had from the Lord. As he was sitting in his tent, three men appeared to him. He invited them to his tents for a meal. As Sarah was preparing the meal in the tent, she overheard their conversation...

Genesis 18:9–15 CSB

9 “Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he answered. 10 The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. 12 So she laughed to herself: “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I have delight?” 13 But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ 14 Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.” 15 Sarah denied it. “I did not laugh,” she said, because she was afraid. But he replied, “No, you did laugh.”

Sarah gave birth to a son, Isaac, who later was named Israel, who was the father of the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel.

This promise that the Lord made to Abraham and Sarah is for much more than a nation and a people, the promise provided for the birth of the Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ.

While I could talk all day long about this, I want to speed through these so that we can cover the other mothers and the traits and characteristics we see. Let’s move onto Rahab.

Rahab, the Redeemed Mother

The story of Rahab is probably my favorite Old Testament account. Rahab was the owner of an inn in Jericho, and she is named throughout scripture as a prostitute.

Rahab, was a Canaanite woman, coming from a people known to worship false gods. She lived in the walled city of Jericho, condemned to destruction.

Rahab aided the Hebrew spies as they scouted Jericho for an attack by the Hebrew army.

Rahab did something very surprising. She chose to believe in the God of the Hebrews and chose faith in him over her life as a pagan prostitute.

Rahab...

Joshua 2:9–11 CSB

9 and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and everyone who lives in the land is panicking because of you. 10 For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings you completely destroyed across the Jordan. 11 When we heard this, we lost heart, and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below.

Rahab acted out of the fear of the condemnation from the Lord and the destruction of her city. However, she chose to believe in God and took him as her own God. Rahab’s words here don’t take up a generic all-in-one kind of God but use the intimate Hebrew name for God, Yahweh. She said to the spies “Yahweh, your elohim (the One True God and Creator of the universe) is elohim in heaven above and on earth below” (Josh 2:11).

Rahab’s action is celebrated throughout scripture...

James 2:25 CSB

25 In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works in receiving the messengers and sending them out by a different route?

Because of her belief, she found redemption and was written into the history and lineage of Christ as one of his ancestors. We don’t get a picture of Rahab as a mother in this account, or even in scripture, but she is named in the lineage of Jesus as one of the few women named.

Rahab was brought out of a sinful place and a sinful lifestyle to believe in God and experience redemption through God’s salvation. She also paved the way for redemption to come to all of us through the salvation that Christ provides us.

Jochebed, the Protective Mother

You might not remember Jochebed, she is only named twice in obscure references in scripture. She is the birth mother of Moses , the one who protected him from certain death as male infants of his age were being killed in Egypt to control the population of the Hebrew slaves.

Exodus 2:1–10 CSB

1 Now a man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman. 2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son; when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. 4 Then his sister stood at a distance in order to see what would happen to him. 5 Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds, sent her slave girl, took it, 6 opened it, and saw him, the child—and there he was, a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.” 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a Hebrew woman who is nursing to nurse the boy for you?” 8 “Go,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. So the girl went and called the boy’s mother. 9 Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Jochebed was mother and nursemaid to one of the most important and foundational leaders of the Hebrews as they left Egypt and wandered in the wilderness.

We attribute the Torah—the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible—and the preservation of the Hebrew people to Moses.

His life was preserved because of his mother’s foresight—at the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—to protect God’s man long before he ever became a man and returned to the court of Pharoah.

Naomi, the Mother of Faith

Mothers can be more than those who give birth and raise their children. We look to the story of Ruth and her mother in law, and mother in the faith, Naomi...

Ruth 1:6–7 CSB

6 She and her daughters-in-law set out to return from the territory of Moab, because she had heard in Moab that the Lord had paid attention to his people’s need by providing them food. 7 She left the place where she had been living, accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, and traveled along the road leading back to the land of Judah.

Naomi’s husband and her sons died in the land of Moab. They had travelled there to escape a drought in Israel and the sons too Moabite wives. Naomi released her daughters-in-law, sending them off to find new husbands. She offered them a blessing and sent them off weeping.

This truly appeared to be a desperate situation for Naomi and her daughters. They wanted to stay with her, but she insisted that they leave. It was Ruth that insisted on staying.

Ruth 1:16 CSB

16 But Ruth replied: Don’t plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.

Naomi loved Ruth and her other daughters by marriage, but they had all experienced the tremendous loss of their husbands while they were living in a foreign land. It might have appeared to Naomi that all hope was lost, but Ruth latched onto her out of love.

Ruth was not a Hebrew. She was a Moabite, married into the Jewish faith and adopted this faith that she learned under Naomi. Ruth was later rescued through marriage to Boaz and became the great-grandmother of King David.

Naomi and Ruth display a great love and loyalty for each other that leads Ruth into a relationship with Boaz that eventually spawns the great Davidic dynasty and prepares the way for the Messiah.

I celebrate Naomi for being a spiritual mother to Ruth, giving birth to faith in this young Moabite woman.

Hannah, the Expectant Mother

Hannah was the second wife of a man, named Elkanah, and she couldn’t have children, though she desperately wanted to. She prayed for years for a child, while Elkanah’s other wife taunted her and made fun of her.

Hannah took to a deep depression and would cry, refusing food.

Elkanah asked her...

1 Samuel 1:8 CSB

8 “Hannah, why are you crying?” her husband, Elkanah, would ask. “Why won’t you eat? Why are you troubled? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”

Men, I don’t recommend that tactic. There are times that we cannot give our wives what they desire, nor can we be the solution to all their problems.

Hannah, continued praying to the Lord with a broken heart when she encountered the priest, Eli, one of the Judges of Israel.

Eli confused her depressed and desperate state of prayer for drunkenness...

1 Samuel 1:12–18 CSB

12 While she continued praying in the Lord’s presence, Eli watched her mouth. 13 Hannah was praying silently, and though her lips were moving, her voice could not be heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14 and said to her, “How long are you going to be drunk? Get rid of your wine!” 15 “No, my lord,” Hannah replied. “I am a woman with a broken heart. I haven’t had any wine or beer; I’ve been pouring out my heart before the Lord. 16 Don’t think of me as a wicked woman; I’ve been praying from the depth of my anguish and resentment.” 17 Eli responded, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the request you’ve made of him.” 18 “May your servant find favor with you,” she replied. Then Hannah went on her way; she ate and no longer looked despondent.

It was not long after this that Hannah discovered that she was pregnant..

1 Samuel 1:20 CSB

20 After some time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, because she said, “I requested him from the Lord.”

Hannah gave her son, Samuel, to the priest Eli to serve in the temple as a servant of the Lord...

1 Samuel 1:24–28 CSB

24 When she had weaned him, she took him with her to Shiloh, as well as a three-year-old bull, half a bushel of flour, and a clay jar of wine. Though the boy was still young, she took him to the Lord’s house at Shiloh. 25 Then they slaughtered the bull and brought the boy to Eli. 26 “Please, my lord,” she said, “as surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. 27 I prayed for this boy, and since the Lord gave me what I asked him for, 28 I now give the boy to the Lord. For as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.” Then he worshiped the Lord there.

Samuel served the Lord for his entire life and became a priest and prophet of the Lord, and counselor to King David.

Hannah was a mother-in-waiting who turned to the Lord with her plea for a child. Hannah’s song of worship is one of the great prayers of the Bible, praising God for answering her prayers and giving her a son.

Mary, the Mother of Salvation

While there are certainly other mothers in scripture, both good and bad mothers, I want to include one of the most celebrated mothers of the Bible.

Mary, was the virgin mother of Jesus, who conceived Jesus through the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit. While there is much conflicting thought about Mary, there is no doubt that she devoutly believed in God, she was expectantly awaiting the arrival of the Messiah, and she was given a promise by an angelic messenger of God that she would go through something miraculous...

Luke 1:28–33 CSB

28 And the angel came to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you.” 29 But she was deeply troubled by this statement, wondering what kind of greeting this could be. 30 Then the angel told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 Now listen: You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.”

God made the impossible possible in Mary. He told her as much through his angelic messenger...

Luke 1:37 CSB

37 For nothing will be impossible with God.”

And her response was humble acceptance...

Luke 1:38 CSB

38 “See, I am the Lord’s servant,” said Mary. “May it happen to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.

Mary, is also one of the women written into the lineage of Christ.

While the legal lineage of Jesus gave him claim to the Davidic throne of Israel, the Judaic lineage through Mary provides a theological thread of significance that also points to the Redeemer that we see fulfilled in Jesus Christ, as our Redeemer, our Savior, and our King.

Conclusion

Whether you are a mother by birth or by adoption, one who waits, one who has sacrificed, one who pours herself into others, or one who brings the promise to life, God has a special role for you in the life of another.

Proverbs 31:29–31 CSB

Today we celebrate mothers because God gave each of us a mother.

[pray]

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