Moms, You Are Vital to Our World!

INTRO: I love the perspective of children on everyday questions. In this case, on the question of Moms.

These answers were given by second-grade school children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?

1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.

2. Mostly to clean the house.

3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

What ingredients are mothers made of?

1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.

2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?

1. We're related.

2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's mom like me.

What kind of a little girl was your mom?

1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.

2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy..

3. They say she used to be nice.

Why did your mom marry your dad?

1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my mom eats a lot.

2. She got too old to do anything else with him.

3. My grandma says that mom didn't have her thinking cap on.

What's the difference between moms and dads?

1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.

2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.

3. Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friends.

4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mom do in her spare time?

1. Mothers don't do spare time.

2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mom perfect?

1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.

2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet -- maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?

1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.

2. I'd make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it -- not me.

3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Mother’s Day is one of those holidays where pastors especially, I think, ask themselves, “What can I say this year about Mother’s day that I haven’t said in previous years?”

“What can I say that won’t offend people, yet offer plain truth?”

A little side note on that one; it’s not always possible to deliver truth without offense. The hope is that the offense will translate into soul-searching.

“What can I say about moms that won’t make those who didn’t have a good mom feel horrible afterwards?”

“How can I be biblically accurate, culturally appropriate, and incredibly inspiring to those sitting in the chairs at church today?”

A little note on that one: I realized, that’s what I ask about every week.

So, far from being an easy subject, and precisely because of the culture we live in, preaching about motherhood is not as easy as preaching, say a Christmas sermon.

Why? Because, culturally, we have far strayed from God’s plan and design for motherhood.

And in some circles, even some Christian circles, we are proud of it.

So with all of that in mind, I will attempt to preach a three-point message that does not hurt anyone, but honors God as I attempt to give this most marvelous of God’s creations the due respect deserved, Moms.

1. Moms, you are vitally important to the transmission of faith to your children!

The bible stresses the vital role of women in the transmission of the faith.

Not only is motherhood vital in the Old Testament, Paul calls out the mother of Timothy and his grandmother.

He honors them for being the ones who gave Timothy a vision of what to believe.

2 Timothy 1:5 NIV

5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

If Paul called out moms and grandmothers for meritorious conduct, we should too!

Way to go mom!

2. Moms, not only are you vital to the transmission of faith to YOUR children, you may be very important in transmitting faith to the children that hang around your children!

There is a touching moment in Romans 16 that is often not acknowledged, but is nonetheless very touching.

Paul is sending his personal greeting to his friends in Rome.

He says, in...

Romans 16:13 NIV

13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too.

Whoa! What did he just say?

Do you know who Rufus is?

We can piece together very easily from scripture who Rufus is.

He was the son of Simon of Cyrene... who carried the cross of Christ... on the last leg of the painful Good Friday journey.

This means that Simon (probably) went home from that experience a changed man.

And he shared the power of that moment with his wife who then, likely, shared it with her sons, Alexander and Rufus.

Mark 15:21 NIV

21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.

Are you not moved by imagining that she heard from her husband about his close encounter with Jesus…and that the two boys heard it as well?

And then, in a remarkable loving intersection of faith and circumstance, she might have shared it with Paul.

How they met, where they met, and under what circumstances this remarkable coincidence occurred, we will never know.

But imagine this: she was like a mother to the Great Apostle Paul.

Paul of Tarsus may have learned about the final moments of the life of his new Lord from the wife of the man who carried the Lord’s cross, Simon of Cyrene.

She was like a mother to him.

Whatever that meant for Paul, we should be thankful for her.

And her care and love of Saul of Tarsus, the terrorist-turned-missionary, should inspire us all.

Think about it. Without knowing who he would become, she was a mother to the most significant convert in the history of the church.

Thank God for Rufus’ mother!

Moms, be aware that you may have an influence for Christ to the children that hang our and play with your children when they are young.

3. The womb is God’s great tool for the salvation of the human race.

God had to ‘borrow’ one to accomplish his plan.

He fulfilled the promise through a borrowed womb.

Galatians 4:4 NIV

4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

Think about that for a bit.

We live in an age when sex is lauded and revered, but gender is confused, and motherhood is jeered at.

But God didn’t use sex to save the world.

But he did use gender, of the female kind, to save us.

He did honor pregnancy and motherhood in a way that our culture does not today.

God bypassed what our culture ‘worships’ today (sex) and used what our culture dismisses as unimportant (motherhood).

Moms should be honored by us…God honored them all with the Incarnation.