The Holy Spirit and Mothers

We started a new series last week entitled The Holy Spirit and You, and last week we started off by asking a little bit about who the Holy Spirit is. As everyone is aware, today is Mother’s day, and I think I would be doing a disservice to Mother’s if we didn’t take a moment to recognize them. So today I want you to turn with me to the book of 2 Timothy and I want to read 2 Tim 1:5

2 Timothy 1:5 ESV

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.

See this verse tells us something very special about mothers. Now I want to note a few things as we begin our message today. 2 Timothy was written by Paul, and it was written to…..Timothy! This letter was written at a time when Paul was thinking about and contemplating the end of his life and is serves as a testamentary or “will” or instructions, a charge so to speak from him to Timothy. Paul spends time in this letter to encourage Timothy to be strong in God’s grace, he reminds him of the essence of the Gospel, Paul talks about evil and the end days, but before all of that, Paul gives thanks to God for Timothy and for the faith that is in Timothy, attributed to having received from his mother and grandmother.

Body of Christ, I want you to know that there is a special calling in the heart of God for those that pout out the love of a mother.

There is a special place in the heart of God for mothers. And I want to hasten to add that there are many in the world and maybe some in the body of Christ today that are not yet mothers, aren’t able to carry a child, or simply have chosen for their own personal reasons not to be a mother, and if that describes you this morning I believe that there is still much that we can learn about the heart of God and the work of the Holy Spirit as we look at Mothers.

The Fruit of the Spirit and Mothers

Since I told you that this message is a continuation of our series on the Holy Spirit, I hope it does not surprise you that much of what we will discuss today that makes mothers wonderful we see in the heart of character of God, specifically in the Holy Spirit. Turn with me if you will to Gal 5:22-23

Galatians 5:22–23 ESV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

These are listed in scripture as the fruit of the Spirit. Scripture tells us that you will know a tree by its….fruit. So let me say this another way, these things are the evidence that shows the presence of the Holy Spirit in your lives.

What may not be readily apparent to you as we walk through the fruit of the Spirit is that these gifts can be broken down into three categories or groups. Inward, outward, and growth. Love joy and peace describe the inward experience that we have as the Holy Spirit begins to lead us into the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Patience, Kindness, and goodness describe the outward manifestation toward others of a life motivated and changed by the grace of God. Finally the inward and outward changes lead to growth….faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are the fruits or virtues that are cultivated through the discipleship of the Holy Spirit.

See body of Christ I believe that our Father has given us an example in mothers as to the desires of His heart. That same desire to train and develop children in their themselves (inward), their behavior toward others(outward) and then in growing them to be everything that they can be is the trademark of mothers just as it is the trademark of the Holy Spirit in us. Now I do not mean to suggest that mothers are perfect, and some of you may have had a mother who made some mistakes, but when we look at the fruit of the Spirit, we see the work of mothers in the physical, just as we see the work of the Holy Spirit in the Spiritual.

So we know that we see the fruit of the Spirit in Mothers, they teach us and train us inwardly and outwardly toward growth, but why? Mothers are busy building up their children because they want to empower them to be the best they can be and to make the most of the gifts within them..

The Gifts of the Spirit and Mothers

Likewise the Holy Spirit wants to bring us to a place where we are empowered and trained to use the gifts within us. Turn with me if you will to 1 Cor 12

1 Corinthians 12:1–11 ESV

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

These verses describe what scripture calls spiritual gifts, or you may hear called the gifts of the spirit. See just as our mama’s didn’t spend all that time praying for us, and teaching us just for the fun of it, the Holy Spirit is not working on our lives bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit just for our own enjoyment. In both cases they did it so that we might become all we were created to be and best utilize the gifts placed within us.

1 Cor 12 describes 3 different types of gifts in the Holy Spirit in verses 4-6, ministry, motivational, and manifestation. When we talk about ministry gifts this is the area that most people are familiar with. Ephesians describes it this way:

Ephesians 4:11–13 ESV

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

This is what is being talked about here in Corinthians when we talk about ministry gifts….these are specific areas of ministry that an individual is called to serve in. Ministry gifts are gifts of God that are specifically called out to grow and build up the Church. Now many of you today are not called into the five fold ministry, and may or may not ever be called into ministry at that level. But I want you to know that the work of the Holy Spirit was never designed to be experienced by only a few.

Acts 10:34 KJV 1900

Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:

God is not a respecter of persons, so while the specific gifts that each of us will operate in change, it is the desire of God carried out in your life by the Holy Spirit that you will experience and flow in he gifts of the Spirit.

Corinthians goes on to talk about motivational gifts….motivational gifts are areas like serving, teaching, exhorting, giving, organizing. These are gifts that are used to encourage, inspire, strengthen, and yes motivate the Church.

Finally, we see the list in Corinthians that gets the most attention for Good and ill….. the manifestation gifts…….these gifts are supernatural demonstrations of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in the world today. Words of Wisdom, Word of Knowledge, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues and interpretation of tongues. These are the items that we typically think of when we talk about when we speak of the gifts of the Spirit. I will say a few things about these manifestation gifts. Manifestation gifts are often both under and over appreciated in the modern church. When we under appreciate the manifestation of the Holy Spirit we fall prey to the lie that those types of gifts were only for the apostolic age, and that God doesn’t really do that sort of thing anymore. And when we over appreciate the manifestation gifts we start to look for the sensational at the cost of the transformational. That is when we see places or people that are always there with the biggest best loudest most showy thing, but are lacking in basic Christ-like behavior. Neither of those are of God.

What I want you to understand about the gifts of the Spirit is this:

The gifts of the Spirit (including manifestation gifts) are in effect NOW!!!

The gifts themselves are NEVER the goal, the gifts of God will ALWAYS be used in the furtherance of God’s Plan

The gifts of the Spirit are distributed as He wills it, but with an eye that the Body is complete.

And lest we think that we have completely forgotten Mothers in our discussion of the Holy Spirit: these things are equally true when we look at the Godly love of a mother….it is always in effect, it’s not just for a time and a season……it’s never there just to put on a show or to look good, and you may not always get what you want…..but you will get what you need. Our mothers as the follow and show the love of God are a wonderful example of the work of God and the work of the Holy Spirit ion our lives.

The Holy Spirit and Mothers

Call for Catherine

Conclusion and set up for week 3 with indwelling vs baptism in the Spirit and then give out baskets