A Mother's Faith!

[ME] Orientation

This is the 102nd anniversary of Mother’s Day. The first Mother's Day was celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia, on 10 May 1908. Like Memorial Day, Mother’s Day comes out of the national trauma of the Uncivil War. Ann Jarvis was a young Appalachian homemaker who, starting in 1858, had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers' Work Days. She organized women throughout the War Between the States to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors. When Jarvis died in 1907, her daughter, named Anna Jarvis, started the crusade to found a memorial day for women.

That first Mother’s Day was celebrated in the church where the Anna’s mother, Ann Jarvis, had taught Sunday School. Originally the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, this building is now the International Mother's Day Shrine (a National Historic Landmark). From there, the custom caught on — spreading eventually to 45 states. The holiday was declared officially by some states beginning in 1912. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

        According to IBISWorld, a publisher of business research, Americans will spend approximately $2.6 billion on flowers, $1.53 billion on pampering gifts — like spa treatments — and another $68 million on greeting cards. Mother's Day will generate about 7.8% of the US jewelry industry's annual revenue in 2008. Americans are expected to spend close to $3.51 billion in 2008 on dining out for Mother's Day, with brunch and dinner being the most popular options.

        Today we want to talk about one of the most important but otherwise overlooked mothers in the Bible, a woman named Jochebed. But before we do, I want to address a few groups of people. For some of us, Mother’s Day is not a joyous time, but a painful day. You might have lost your mother, or you desperately want to be a mother, or your mother was less than ideal. Not all of us are mothers, but Jochebed’s commitment to her children is a lesson for us in commitment to family and loved ones.

[WE] Identification

Nine years after the first official Mother's Day, commercialization of the U.S. holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become. Mother's Day continues today as one of the most commercial American holidays. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother's Day is one if not the most popular day of the year to dine in a restaurant.

        According to IBISWorld, a publisher of business research, Americans will spend approximately $2.6 billion on flowers, $1.53 billion on pampering gifts — like spa treatments — and another $800 million on greeting cards. Mother's Day will generate about 7.8% of the US jewelry industry's annual revenue in 2008. Americans are expected to spend close to $3.51 billion in 2008 on dining out for Mother's Day, with brunch and dinner being the most popular options. No question that Mother’s Day is a special day…86% of Americans will celebrate Mother’s today. BUT....

(a) for some, motherhood is unexpected, and not always a welcomed; (b) for some, physical reasons motherhood isn't possible; (c) for some, mothers weren't all that nice; (d) for some, motherhood had brought many heartaches an difficulties. (c) for some motherhood was a failure.

For Children:

(a) Some did not have loving mothers. (b) Some did not know their mothers. (c) Some lost their mothers because of some tragedy.

There can be a negatives side of motherhood.

        Today we want to talk about one of the most important but otherwise overlooked mothers in the Bible, a woman named Jochebed. But before we do, I want to address a few groups of people. For some of us, Mother’s Day is not a joyous time, but a painful day. You might have lost your mother, or you desperately want to be a mother, or your mother was less than ideal. Not all of us are mothers, but Jochebed’s commitment to her children is a lesson for us in commitment to family and loved ones.

         If I can take some liberties with poet Wilhelm Busch's words, I'd have to say. My German is not very good, but he said: "To become a mother is not so difficult; on the other hand, being a mother is very much so!"

         So, with all these negatives , why bother with Mothers' Day at all? I'll tell you why 覧 because for all its stumbling blocks, pitfalls and broken dreams, heartaches, failures, for all we talking about the beautiful plan, a natural part of God's creative order to bring love and caring to light. Yes, because people are sinners and often fail.....Motherhood as God planned is a wonderful thing. We should honor it and lift it up is a constant remember of the gift of love and caring. All of us should work teach the highest ideas of motherhood by example and word to our children.

         Let me ask you a question: Who is the greatest influence in your life? Has a teacher or a professor been your greatest influence? Perhaps you would say that a friend or maybe your spouse has influenced you the most. A poll asked that question to more than 4,000 adults. People were allowed to give any of those responses. The results were revealing. According to the poll, the person with the greatest influence was a person's mother. 42% of men and 53% of woman said that mother was the most influential person in their life. (USA Today, 6-15-90.)

         On this Mother's Day we pause to honor mothers and to reflect on the important contribution they have made to our lives. We may even try to imagine what our lives would have been like without them.

ILLUS: The story is told of a teacher who gave her class of second graders a lesson on the magnet and what it does. The next day in a written test, she included this question: "My full name has six letters. The first one is M. I pick up things. What am I?" When the test papers were turned in, the teacher was astonished to find that almost 50 percent of the students answered the question with the word Mother. They all got it right!

        Argum: The cartoon character Dennis the Menace told his friend Joey, "I don't know what I'll do when my mom gets too old to tie my shoes." (North American Syndication, 4-9-91.)

      Illust:    Another humorous is told of a the mother of three notoriously unruly youngsters was asked whether or not she'd have children if she had it to do over again. "Yes," she replied. The with a smile she added....."Certainly I would, but not the same ones."        Today we want to talk about one of the most important but otherwise overlooked mothers in the Bible, a woman named Jochebed. But before we do, I want to address a few groups of people. For some of us, Mother’s Day is not a joyous time, but a painful day. You might have lost your mother, or you desperately want to be a mother, or your mother was less than ideal. Not all of us are mothers, but Jochebed’s commitment to her children is a lesson for us in commitment to family and loved ones.

[GOD] Illumination

By the end of the Genesis story, God’s promise to Abraham that he would have many descendents has been partially fulfilled. Jacob’s children have now become a large, flourishing group in Egypt. But “an new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” []. This ominous note signifies the start of a chan of events that will lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into their own promised land - the home that God has also promised to Abraham.

As the biblical story resumes in Exodus four hundred years after Abraham, we are still in Egypt. Joseph and his brothers have died, but their descendents have multiplied until they are substantal part of Egypt’s population. God’s promise to Abrham concerning a great number of descendents has been partially fulfilled. But what of God’s other promises - to provide a relationship with himself and to give his people a land of their own? As the Exodus narrative begins, it seems that these promises are a long way from being fulfilled. A new Pharaoh has risen who does not know Joseph, fears the number of Israelites, subjecs them to brutal salve labor, and embarks on a vicious policy of killing all newborn male Israelites. Though this oppression seems to be an obstacle to God’s fulfilling his promises, it paradoxiically becomes the impetus for the Israelites’ escape from Egypt.

When they cry out to God amid their suffering and oppression, “God [hears] their groaning and he [remembers] his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.” []

That brings us to our story this morning of the birth of Moses, the deliver...

English Standard Version Chapter 2

Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. 3 When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. 4 And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. 5 Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child 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.”

Explanation:

Jochebed. Her name means “glory of YHWH.” Jochebed was the mother of three famous people: Moses, Aaron the first priest, and Miriam (Exodus 26:59). Jochebed was from the family of Levi and married a Levite named Amram, actually her nephew (). So Amram’s wife was also his aunt. West Virginia somehow comes to mind again.

        “The oak has its roots around the rock, and Jochebed’s children had their roots around their godly mother.”[1] Moses was the great lawgiver of Israel. Aaron the first of Israel’s priesthood. Miriam was the gifted prophetess and musician who saved the baby Moses in the river Nile and led the Israelites in celebration after the crossing of the Red Sea.

        Jochebed’s most famous deed was the clever way she attempted and succeeded to save her baby boy from death. Pharaoh’s program of population control through forced partial-birth abortion was failing because the Hebrew midwives were not cooperating (). His next directive involved sacrificing all male Hebrew babies to the god of the Nile, a crocodile-infested river.

Jochebed’s courage and trust had far-reaching consequences for the nation and the world. She is among the heroes of the faith in . At the time that Jochebed was expecting Moses, Miriam was about ten years old, and Aaron about three. They lived as an oppressed minority, slaves to the Egyptians, somewhere near Memphis in northeast Egypt thirty-three centuries ago.

        Imagine her suspense as she carried the child. Was it a girl or a boy? If a boy, he would be taken from her and thrown into the Nile to be devoured by a crocodile, considered a god to the Egyptians. What devastation when the midwife delivered a boy. What would she do?

As the biblical story resumes in Exodus four hundred years after Abraham, we are still in Egypt. Joseph and his brothers have died, but their descendents have multiplied until they are substantal part of Egypt’s population. God’s promise to Abrham concerning a great number of descendents has been partially fulfilled. But what of God’s other promises - to provide a relationship with himself and to give his people a land of their own? As the Exodus narrative begins, it seems that these promises are a long way from being fulfilled. A new Pharaoh has risen who does not know Joseph, fears the number of Israelites, subjecs them to brutal salve labor, and embarks on a vicious policy of killing all newborn male Israelites. Though this oppression seems to be an obstacle to God’s fulfilling his promises, it paradoxiically becomes the impetus for the Israelites’ escape from Egypt.

        Three times the Scripture says that “she saw that he was a goodly child” (; ; ). How did she keep him a secret when he cried out loud?  When she could hide him no longer, she plaited some reeds and put the water cradle among the bulrushes, and she put Miriam on guard duty to watch him.

        Soon Pharaoh’s daughter, coming to bathe, found the little one in the basket, and Miriam offered to find a nurse for her, none other than Moses’ own mother, Jochebed. And Pharaoh’s daughter paid her a wage to nurse her own son.

When they cry out to God amid their suffering and oppression, “God [hears] their groaning and he [remembers] his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.” []

        One thing I’ve always wondered about was Pharaoh’s daughter naming the baby boy, Moshe, or Moses, a Hebrew name which means, “drawn out” of the water, that is. Wouldn’t she have more likely named him with an Egyptian name? Well, she did. She named him Moshe indeed. In Egyptian it means, “son of” or “my son,” as in the names of pharaohs like Thutmose and Ahmose.[2]

That brings us to our story this morning of the birth of Moses, the deliver...

        Jochebed died a slave of an oppressed minority in Egypt. By the time Moses was 40 years old and fled the country after killing the Egyptian overseer, Jochebed apparently was dead. She never saw what kind of man became of the little baby boy she had saved. However she had left a legacy of trusting God. She left some lessons for other MOTHERS to observe 33 centuries later…She taught mothers to ...

1.   BE MOTHERS OF COURAGE ().

Explanation: Jochebed knew she was breaking the law by not killing her baby. She knew the risks. Her whole family could be executed by the authorities. They were considered as nothing but dirty slaves, of no value to anyone, but Jochebed knew there is a higher law than the government. Even if her government had a low view of life, she had a high view of life, and it came from her heritage of the Word of God and the promises to her forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When most mothers were keeping their mouths shut for fear and giving their babies up to be thrown in the Nile, Jochebed had courage to say NO.

Jochebed knew she was breaking the law by not killing her baby. She knew the risks. Her whole family could be executed by the authorities. They were considered as nothing but dirty slaves, of no value to anyone, but Jochebed knew there is a higher law than the government. Even if her government had a low view of life, she had a high view of life, and it came from her heritage of the Word of God and the promises to her forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When most mothers were keeping their mouths shut for fear and giving their babies up to be thrown in the Nile, Jochebed had courage to say NO.

ARGUMENTATION: I realize culturally speaking our times have changed. There is a very good chance that you will not have to hide your infant son in order to spare his life, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to be courageous.

APPLICATION: There may be a time when you must be courageous for your own children’s sake. It may be that their weekend visits with your former spouse expose them to all kinds of abuse and filth. You need the courage to report that to the authorities and protect your children.

It may be that you are struggling with taking that step to sacrifice some extras in your life to stay home with your children. You know the truth that no one can take care of your children better than you can, but the fear of debt and the convenience of not having the extras you want keep you in a daily misery of guilt for leaving your children with someone else and in a job you hate anyway. Have you ever thought that the expenses of working, a vehicle, car insurance, fuel, car taxes, work clothes, income taxes, day care, etc. might be costing you more money that you are actually making? Even if you’re breaking even, it is worth the price that your children are paying?

Illustration: When Madison was born.

Or perhaps you are in the place where you need the courage to go back to work for your children’s sake. Perhaps they need help getting through school. Perhaps the best thing you can do for them to help them is to go back to work outside the home. The point is that whatever the Lord has called you to do, you need to ask him for the courage to be obedient.

Women today are killing their children, not out of fear, but out of convenience. You might need the courage not to take the easy way out with your unborn baby, to say NO to the lie of abortion. The truth is, that abortion is murder . Killing your baby is not the answer, and the regrets last for a lifetime.

2.   BE A MOTHER OF WISDOM  ().

Explanation: Jochebed was nobody’s fool. She made that little basket and coated it with tar and pitch, the same as Noah’s ark. And Miriam was not just playing in the water. She was on guard. The river is full of crocodiles.  And do you think she just happened to place it in bulrushes upstream from the Egyptian princess’s bathing spot?

b.           And do you think she just happened to place it in bulrushes upstream from the Egyptian princess’s bathing spot?

And how do you think a ten-year old slave girl knew what to say to a royal princess? Don’t you think someone had coached her? Miriam wasn’t just standing around the princess’s bathing spot offering free nurses to baby boys floating in the river. Jochebed’s wise head was behind all this, protecting her child.

Illustration: My Grandma Brown was not just a godly woman, a woman of courage, but she was a wise woman too. You had to be with 6 daughters, and no boys. My grandpa had often checked out by the time he got home from work. So my grandmother offered up a lot of wisdom.

 APPLICATION: Are you watching out for your children? Are you protecting them from what is on television? Or do they have their own television in their room? Are you protecting them from things they can see on the internet or online predators they cannot see? Or is the computer used in a private place (or in their room) without protective software? Are you protecting them from harmful video games? Do you even know what the games involve and why your child is so addicted to them? Are you protecting them from kids, adults, and places that may have temptations over their heads? Alcohol, weed, raging hormones? Maybe it’s time you let them show you how to use their iPod and listen to some of that music. Maybe it’s time to find out how to do Facebook or text so that you can know what is going on in your kids’ lives.

3.   BE A MOTHER OF FAITH (2:9-10)

Explanation:  Jochebed saw the image of God in that little boy, “he was a fine child” (). fine The Hebrew word used here is the common word for “good” (tov). This verse—which combines “she saw” and the word tov—parallels God’s assessment of creation in . This link indicates that a creative act of God is in view—the birth of Moses will lead to the exodus from Egypt and the birth of Israel as a nation. There was no question that Jochebed knew that there was something special about this child. [see reference]

Where do you think Moses, Aaron, and Miriam got their training, their understanding of the Bible and the covenants and the love of God? It wasn’t in the court of Pharaoh. It had to happen early in their lives. Miriam and Amram taught them, trained them, made them to know their heritage and their faith in God and why they should believe.

Illustration: E. Dr. Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the John’s Hopkins Children’s Center wrote an essay, entitled, “There Is No Job More Important Than Parenting,” about the influence of his mother on his life. He wrote: "Over the years my mother’s steadfast faith in God has inspired me, particularly when I had to perform extremely difficult surgical procedures or when I found myself faced with my own medical scare. A few years ago I discovered I had a very aggressive form of prostate cancer; I was told it might have spread to my spine. My mother was steadfast in her faith in God. She never worried. She said that God was not through with me yet; there was no way that this was going to be a major problem. The abnormality in my spine turned out to be benign; I was able to have surgery and am cured. My story is really my mother’s story – a woman with little formal education or worldly goods who used her position as a parent to change the lives of many people around the globe.” - Dorothy Valcarcel, Christian Post Guest Contributor.

c.           APPLICATION: You know, it’s not the Sunday School’s responsibility to teach your child about the Lord Jesus and the Bible stories. It’s not the children’s director’s responsibility. It’s not the youth pastor’s responsibility. It’s your responsibility. Are you doing it? Are you reading a Bible story several times a week to your child? Have they ever seen you praying or reading your Bible? That has a big impact on them. Do you pray with them more than teaching them a little ditty that you use for a table blessing?

APPLICATION: You know, it’s not the Sunday School’s responsibility to teach your child about the Lord Jesus and the Bible stories. It’s not the children’s director’s responsibility. It’s not the youth pastor’s responsibility. It’s your responsibility. Are you doing it? Are you reading a Bible story several times a week to your child? Have they ever seen you praying or reading your Bible? That has a big impact on them. Do you pray with them more than teaching them a little ditty that you use for a table blessing?

Why do you think our young people drop out of church? They are not seeing it modeled in their homes growing up. You can’t live any way you want to and play church on Sunday and expect your children to have any respect for the God you claim to worship. Your calling is to live a Christlike example before your children. Make it your top priority to nourish in your children a love for the Word of God, a love for the Lord, and when the Holy Spirit moves in them, a commitment to give their lives to Jesus Christ.

RIGHT NOW MEDIA

Invitation: This birth of a deliverer would have reminded the Israelites of the promise that God had made to deliver them, but it would also have reminded them of of , and how God was going to one day crush the enemy by sending us the ultimate rescuer.

Will you make a fresh commitment today to love your children? Perhaps someone here today needs to open their arms and receive the Christ of Love whose life in you will make you a person who can love. Would you respond to the Lord today?

__________ years later God the Father would send a virgin girl to Bethlehem and she would deliver the ultimate rescuer. He would deliver His people from their sins. He would come to save His people from their sins. He would lay down His life as a ransom for many. [Elaborate - A picture of Mary and Jesus]

[YOU] Application

So what have we learned from Jochebed, the mother of the Prince of Egypt? We have learned that mothers are to be courageous, full of wisdom, and full of faith. If this happens they will pass along the faith to the next generation. Don’t diminish your roll, but getting so busy that other things take precedence over you being a mother. Be the best mother God has called you to be! In His strength, and by His power you can accomplish that.

If you are here and you don’t have children, then find some in the church. Work in the kids ministry, or the student ministry love on the next generation!

Maybe you have lost a child, or you have experienced an abortion, and you have never gotten over it. You are carrying the guilt and the shame from killing your unborn child. I want you to know that God’s grace is sufficient. He will heal that void in your life if you will allow the Holy Spirit to work!

[WE] Inspiration