Sermon Tone Analysis

I talked to her this morning at 8:00am.

There was nothing in particular on my mind and nothing on hers.

We scratched for topics of conversation that were meaningful.

I asked her how the weather was.

I don’t remember what she said.

She asked me what the weather was like.

I knew that she didn’t really care.

We hung up and we won’t speak again today.

I will think of her repeatedly and she will think of me constantly.

Hearing my voice and knowing that I am okay does something for my mother each Sunday morning.

In her mind there is nothing better that I could have done with my life.

She’d be disappointed if I were the prime minister because I have become the answer to her prayers.

When we had nothing but each other, she rocked my brother and I in an old scratched, squeaky chair and prayed that God would call us into the ministry.

He did.

She still prays.

Don’t treat me mean or I’ll tell her and there is no fury in hell like my mother’s when someone bothers her boys.

When I was 6 months old she held me and unbuttoned the shirt of her 47 year old father as he lay in his coffin.

She placed my hand on the cold chest and asked God to give her son the spirit that drove this godly man’s heart when it was beating.

Did this lady impact my life – does she?

More than I know right now.

She’s near the top of the list of the most significant people in my life.

She will feel better for our few words together, better than I will because she loves me more than I love her.

I do love her but I can never muster the same sort of love that emanates from her.  It’s impossible for me at least.

No one can touch the love that a mother has for her child.

Perhaps that’s why we miss them so much when they are gone.

There is such a large hole that is left because no one is able to love us quiet like a mother loves us.

She knows that our service is beginning right now and probably is aware that I am preaching right now.

She thinks that I am the most perfect person in the entire world.

If you tell her that I am not you’ll be in her “bad person” book.

If she would fight for anyone in this world it would be me.

Until her dying day on planet earth she will be my mother.

This particular title and position brings her more pride and satisfaction than anything else that life has ever given her.

This is not a tribute to me but one to this called and commissioned lady who has been used by God to make my own existence richer than it might ever have been without her.

It is also a tribute to all mothers here today.

I believe that as we honor our mothers on Mother’s day that we honor what it is to be a mother and we worship the God who created and commissioned them.

/Thank you, God, /

/ /

/For pretending not to notice that one of /

/Your angels is missing and for guiding her to me.

/

/You must have known how much I would need her, so /

/You turned your head for a minute and allowed her to slip away to me.

/

/Sometimes I wonder what special name you had for her.

/

/ /

/ I call her "Mother."

/

/ /

/-- Bernice Maddux/

 

 

/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.

(Mk 15)*[1]* /

/ /

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

(Romans 16)*[2]* /

 

Mothers just can’t help being mothers.

These are interesting scriptures that we read this morning.

I would have to thank Pastor Tom Ward for this insight.

I had never noticed these verses before.

They connect the wife of Simon the cross-carrier to Paul the cross-carrier.

She was a motherly figure to the Apostle Paul.

I am not aware of another scripture where Paul refers to a woman who had a godly, motherly influence on him.

Mom’s just can’t stop being moms.

1.Accepting the Assignments

 

*I know that you have had a sense of personal calling and “mission” in your life*.

I guess I would have to believe that this was from God because it kept you going through some circumstances that would have killed other “weaker” folk.

Your mission was to raise two boys in the best way that you knew.

There was nothing in your life that held a candle to this calling, this single purpose.

Perhaps it was an effort to honor the memory of your own godly father that drove you to dedicate yourself to this task.

That certainly would have been an acceptable motive in my own mind.

God blessed you with wonderful parents and in their image you have been recreated for Bim and myself.

The young mother set her foot on the path of life.

"Is this the long way?" she asked.

And the guide said: "Yes, and the way is hard.

And you will be old before you reach the end of it.

But the end will be better than the beginning."

But the young mother was happy, and she would not believe that anything could be better than these years.

So she played with her children, and gathered flowers for them along the way, and bathed them in the clear streams; and the sun shone on them, and the young Mother cried, "Nothing will ever be lovelier than this."

Then the night came, and the storm, and the path was dark, and the children shook with fear and cold, and the mother drew them close and covered them with her mantle, and the children said, "Mother, we are not afraid, for you are near, and no harm can come."

And the morning came, and there was a hill ahead, and the children climbed and grew weary, and the mother was weary.

But at all times she said to the children," A little patience and we are there."

So the children climbed, and when they reached the top they said, "Mother, we would not have done it without you."

And the mother, when she lay down at night looked up at the stars and said, "This is a better day than the last, for my children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness.

Yesterday I gave them courage.

Today, I have given them strength."

And the next day came strange clouds which darkened the earth, clouds of war and hate and evil, and the children groped and stumbled, and the mother said: "Look up.

Lift your eyes to the light."

And the children looked and saw above the clouds an everlasting glory, and it guided them beyond the darkness.

And that night the Mother said, "This is the best day of all, for I have shown my children God."

And the days went on, and the weeks and the months and the years, and the mother grew old and she was little and bent.

But her children were tall and strong, and walked with courage.

And when the way was rough, they lifted her, for she was as light as a feather; and at last they came to a hill, and beyond they could see a shining road and golden gates flung wide.

And mother said: "I have reached the end of my journey.

And now I know the end is better than the beginning, for my children can walk alone, and their children after them."

And the children said, "You will always walk with us, Mother, even when you have gone through the gates."

And they stood and watched her as she went on alone, and the gates closed after her.

And they said: "We cannot see her, but she is with us still.

A Mother like ours is more than a memory.

She is a living presence."

To be a godly mother is a wonderful aspiration and a call from God himself.

God’s call is not withheld for people who attain to a degree of perfection.

As a matter of fact, there is really no criterion that people have to meet to be called by God.

I was called as an unregenerate sinner.

If I had died at the point that I was called, I know that I would have been eternally lost.

I know that as surely as I know that if my heart, this instant were to stop beating, I would stand in the next instant in the presence of Christ and his loving arms would welcome me.

I was speaking with a group of my peers the other day, thanking God that He loves me with no greater motive than to love me.

I enjoy His presence because He delights in me.

11 the LORD delights in those who fear him,