Sermon Tone Analysis

Our nation has set aside this day to celebrate mothers.

That is because mothers are perhaps the most important classification of human beings in this world.

That being said, most of you have been in this church for the length of my ministry, almost six years, may have noticed that I do not very often preach a typical Mother’s Day or Father’s Day message.

Let me give you some of the reasons I, as a general rule, don’t:

1.

My charge from God is to preach the gospel, and so I struggle with magnifying anything other than the gospel.

2. I have known several women who were not able to have children, for various reasons.

Many of these dear ladies feel so out of place on Mother’s Day.

They feel, whether accurately, or inaccurately, that they are being judged for something they could not help.

3. My own relationship with my mom during my teenage years as well as adulthood was a bit strained.

This year I have prayerfully chosen to preach a Mother’s Day, and Lord willing a Father’s Day message, and my goal is to do so in such a way as to magnify the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You folks probably know by now that I am not all that comfortable with topical messages.

I like to preach through a passage rather than on a topic.

But today I am hoping to take somewhat of a topical/character sketch approach as we consider the expectant hope of a mother.

I well remember the expectant hope that Gail and I had as we were awaiting the arrival of each of our children.

To a point we could argue that we have that same type of thing going on now as we wait to hear whether the State of Michigan will allow us to adopt our little 7-month-old foster son, or not.

Since his name is the middle name of our second son, we have considered renaming him.

Our second son’s name is Caleb Michael, and we asked him what he thought we should name this child.

He replied “Caleb Jr.”

For this morning I want to consider what a mother should hope for.

As we consider a mother’s expectant hope we will take a broad view of Eve, who is the mother of all the living.

Turn in your Bible to , which is where we will begin.

Let’s beginning by considering

A Future Mother’s Hope for a Husband

Mrs. Degree

When I was a student at Moody, one of the common questions that we ask fellow students, as we met them was regarding what are they studying.

I was a Church Music major, others were missions majors, or Bible and Theology majors, etc.

More than once I came across a female student who said that she was pursuing an MRS degree.

Being the dense fellow that I am, I’m pretty sure I had to have someone spell that out for me.

Sadly, over the last half of a century or more, this particular aspect of parenting has dropped significantly in our society’s eyes.

There are instances when I actually think this is for the best.

What I mean by that is that sometimes it may be best for an unwed, expectant mother to remain single.

I have an instance within my own extended family where a female cousin had broken up with her boyfriend before they discovered that she was pregnant.

After, what was at that time considered to be a scandalous discovery, she was forced by her parents to marry the man she had broken up with.

This marriage did not end well!

(Though the children that it produced are very dear to me!).

Taking one wrong and compounding it with another wrong does not make a right!

One man for one woman

All that being said, God’s clear intention is for a marriage to occur first before the act of marriage is put into practice, which in turn aims to produce the hoped-for child.

The biblical account of the sixth day of creation points to the fact that God made one man for one woman.

Let’s look at

The danger of taking a nap

Moses, the human author of Genesis, goes on in chapter two to explain how both man came to be and how woman came to be.

Adam came from dust, while Eve, was fashioned out of one of Adam’s ribs.

As I considered this fact this week an interesting, and yet unimportant thought popped into my head.

The first time that Adam ever took a nap, God performed surgery on him.

You just never know what might happen during a nap!

Matthew Henry had some interesting insight into Eve being fashioned from a rib of Adam’s.

That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.

The pinnacle of creation

Eve was the pinnacle of the six days of creation.

She was literally the last thing that God created during this very busy week.

And Adam was the epitome of what every future bride hopes for in a husband — he was the best merely human example of a knight in shining armour riding on a white horse.

In God declared that all He had made on the sixth day, including the union between a man and his wife, was very good.

Let’s move on to consider a

A Mother’s Future Hope for a Child

I think we can all agree, before a child is even conceived most hopeful-mothers begin the process by hoping for a child.

In today’s day and age of contraceptives, women who are on a career path often wait until they have their career established before beginning the process of becoming a mother.

Though they may choose to wait, still, in most women there is a general desire to be a mom.

I say most women because there is always the exception to the rule.

Eve’s expectant hope

Eve, too, had what I believe is an expectant hope for a child.

From the time she was fashioned from Adam’s rib, Eve had been commanded to be fruitful and multiply.

Think about it, if Eve had conceived and given birth to a child before the fatal events of , then she would have truly been super mom — she would have been the perfect mother, as she had been the perfect wife.

But that is not how the story goes.

One of the reasons why I don’t think that man lived very long in the Garden of Eden in a state of sinless perfection is that Eve had not yet conceived a child before sin entered the world.

Sin entered the world after the command to be fruitful and multiply

God was not surprised by sins’ entrance

The entrance of sin into the world changed everything.

But don’t think for a moment that it took God by surprise.

Nor should we imagine that God had imagined the possibilities but was not aware of what would in fact happen.

Paul indicates in that believers in Jesus Christ were chosen for redemption before the foundation of the world.

Therefore, the entrance of sin into the world was in keeping with God’s eternal plan of redemption.

This does not mean that God is to be blamed for sin.

Nor does it mean that man is not responsible for his sin.

God is always just.

God is always righteous.

Back to Eve and her expectant hope, I don’t want to dwell on process by which sin entered the world, this morning.

It is a familiar story, and fits best in a different context than this message.

But even from the very time of the entrance of sin into the world, the was a hint of an expectant hope.

Let’s look at the startling announcement that God gave the serpent, whom we know to be Satan, regarding his certain defeat.

Consider

The hope of a Redeemer

From this announcement we see that Eve must have had an expectant hope that her future son would bring redemption by bringing upon the head of the serpent a decisive blow.

I imagine that when Eve gave birth to Cain, her firstborn, she probably thought that he would be her redeemer.

But rather than redeeming his mother, he pierced her heart with a violent uprising against his brother Able.

Sometimes a mother’s hope and expectations are not met

Sometimes a mothers hope and expectations for her children are met with tragedy, such as with Eve.

Many of you mothers out there, not to mention you fathers, have had your hearts pierced by the actions of your children.

Many of you grandmothers have had your hearts pierced by the actions of your grandchildren as well.

If this describes you, know that the announcement of a Redeemer is just as much for your benefit as it was for Eve.

We will talk more about this as we move on to consider how

Mothers Hope for a Child who is Happy & Healthy

Many of you mothers out there delivered your children before the advent of ultra-sound technology.

Therefore you could only guess as to the sex of the child that you were carrying in your womb.

Ultra-sound technology changed drastically over the ten year span between the birth of our oldest child and our youngest.

When Gail was expecting Tim, her doctors would not perform an ultra-sound unless they suspected a problem.

About two weeks before his birth, they suspected that he was breech and so they ordered the ultra-sound.

But the lab technician was not allowed to tell us the sex (though we coaxed it out of her anyway!).

Five years later, when Gail was carrying Caleb her doctor at that time performed his own ultra-sounds in his office.

The umbilical cord was in the way and prevented us knowing if this child would be a Caleb or a Courtney.