Sermon Tone Analysis

This is Mother’s Day.

Did you know that Mother’s Day boasts as the third highest in card sales for Hallmark?

It is a huge holiday in the Christian world, but it is NOT a Christian Holiday.

Are there any Christian holidays?

It’s not a biblical holiday.

The only truly Christian holiday that we celebrate, in my opinion is the celebration is Easter, which we should be celebrating weekly, even daily.

The holiday had its roots in the church starting out as a church holiday but it wasn’t a biblical thing.

In Europe in the 16th century there was a holiday that the church started called mothering Sunday which was celebrated during Lent where people would go back to the church that they grew up in, or the church that they were baptized in, their mother church.

Many people were not able to get off of work during this time period, they didn’t have the weekends like we do so getting off of work to travel was difficult.

This church holiday enabled people to go back to the church they were brought up in and one of the benefits of that day allowed for families to spend time together for the day.

The holiday started out as a church holiday but it wasn’t a biblical thing.

The version of Mother’s Day that we know stems from a woman by the name of Anna Jarvis who wanted to honor her mother and her mother’s causes and campaigned relentlessly to honor her mother.

It all started in the 1850s, when West Virginia women's organizer Ann Reeves Jarvis—Anna's mother—held Mother's Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination, according to historian Katharine Antolini of West Virginia Wesleyan College.

The groups also tended wounded soldiers from both sides during the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

But the holiday has more somber roots: It was founded for mourning women to remember fallen soldiers and work for peace.

It all started in the 1850s, when West Virginia women's organizer Ann Reeves Jarvis—Anna's mother—held Mother's Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination, according to historian Katharine Antolini of West Virginia Wesleyan College.

The groups also tended wounded soldiers from both sides during the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

In the 1850s, when West Virginia women's organizer Ann Reeves Jarvis—Anna's mother—held Mother's Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination, according to historian Katharine Antolini of West Virginia Wesleyan College.

The groups also tended wounded soldiers from both sides during the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

Her mother was Ann Reeves Jarvis, who In the 1850s, West Virginia was a bit of an activist.

During the Civil War she held Mother's Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination.

The groups also tended wounded soldiers from both sides during the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

It’s a neat story and it is a good thing for Anna to want to honor her mom but it isn’t a Christian holiday.

I kind of wanted to talk about this just a little bit because if I think about Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day, or grandparents day, even though these are not Biblical holidays, there is a Christian connection that is behind all of them.

And it is the theme of Relationship.

And I got to thinking about this idea of relationship and how God set up the world, He set up the processes to how things are done.

And when it comes to the population, all people in the world, have been created by and for relationships.

Everyone that has been created (apart from Adam and Eve) have been created from a realtionship for a relationhship.

I think this may be important if we want to understand God a little better.

Because there has to be a reason why God set things up this way.

There has to be something about relationships where He would not only want to populate the entire planet through them, but through relationships people would want to be together in communities, as friends, as teammates as work mates.

God made this concept of relationships and I think this tells us something about God.

God has a desire to be in relationship with people just like he has relationship with himself, just like we have with each other.

God has a desire to be in relationship with people just like he has relationship with himself, just like we have with each other.

Let me say it this way.

When it comes to creating people.

God could have created the entire population out of the dust on the ground.

He did it already.

This, of course is Adam, the first man, But Adam is the only person God made from the dust from the ground.

Then God made Eve through Adam’s own body.

God did not exhaust His creative power after making Adam and Eve.

He could still create if He wanted to.

But God stopped creating that way and then created people, created the population through the process of relationship.

God did not exhaust His creative power after making Adam and Eve.

He could still create if He wanted to.

But God stopped creating that way and then created people, created the population through relationship.

Again, God could have created every person, miraculously.

He could have had people show up however He wanted to.

God could have created everything miraculously but He didn’t, God now uses relationship between a man and a woman where a relationship, a coming together brings on the next generation and the next and the next and the next.

This reminds me of all those ways that people used to talk about when it came to understanding where babies come from?

Remember that?

God really could have had babies delivered by storks.

What was one of the other ones?

They found a baby in a cabbage patch?

What?

That isn’t how it happened.

So these two were made by God but you know, every other person was

God now uses relationship between a man and a woman, a coming together that brings on the next generation and the next and the next and the next.

For some reason, God holds the institution of relationship very high in importance.

Very important.

And this isn’t just about making babies.

Not at all.

God created people to be in relationships with other people.

There is a need for relationship.

Look at what God does after he creates Adam.

18-22

Adam was placed, literally into a garden made by GOD! God made Eden and it was a perfect place, it was heaven on Earth.

It was paradise.

Adam is there, he is living on his own, in the most beautiful vacation getaway you can imagine.

God gives him a job, best job on the planet.

Sit here, I will bring all the animals to you and you can name them.

He is living the perfect life!

He is hanging out with all the animals, but Living in paradise wasn’t enough.

Verse 20 says that there was not a helper fit for him.

One version reads a helper as his counterpart.

He is hanging out with all the animals, God gave Adam the job of naming the animals, classifying them but it wasn’t enough.

Living in paradise wasn’t enough.

Verse 20 says that there was not a helper fit for him.

One version reads a helper as his counterpart.

Adam is lonely.

He needs relationship because we were created for relationships.

And it is interesting that we read that all of the animals were brought to Adam for him to name.

It wasn’t enough for Adam to have pet’s.

Okay?

It wasn’t enough for Adam to have his cats, or his dogs, or whatever.

He had all the animals come to him, the most exotic, beautiful animals in the world and guess what… they weren’t enough.

“No suitable helper was found”.

For those folks that think that their cats are enough, that isn’t what you were created for.

Being in paradise wasn’t enough.

And it isn’t because Adam wasn’t satisfied with God, it’s not that God isn’t enough, listen, it is that God created in us the need for relationship, the need, a real need for us to have others in our life.

We do, of course have a need for God in our life and we will talk about that in a couple of minutes.

But these relationships that we have, especially with our families are foundational, they are usually going to be strong, either positively, or negatively.

For some reason, God designed us to come in to the world and live in the world with a sense of relationship.

It is a major area in our lives.

God designed us for relationship, with others, with Him and with others.

With others, with God and with others.

What does that mean?

It means that generally, the process where we recognize our need for God comes from people.

People tell us about God.

Most of the time we don’t find God in a vacuum.

We usually don’t first discover God by ourselves, It can happen.