By Pastor Greg
Mother’s can be quite interesting at times. Take, for instance, my mother who constantly complained about my dirty face, then would clean it with her spit. And I’m like, “Eww, germs! Hello, there are germs here!” Did you ever have a mother like that? Did you ever have a mother wash your mouth out with soap? What’s up with that? She holds open your mouth and shoves in some Irish Spring. Talk about making you gag! One day my mother held open my mouth and shoved in some Sauerkraut, and I couldn’t for the life of me think what bad thing I had just said. I told her next time use the soap, it tasted better.
For those of you who may not know this yet, your mother will take you shopping. She will complain about the way you are dressed. She will make you eat things you may not like. A mother will take her 14 year old boy shopping for new underwear, and she will hold it up in the store and shout “what do you think about this kind of underwear?” Ever have a mother like that? Your mother will bake cupcakes on your birthday and she will bring them into school. And don’t even think that she’ll drop them off at the principal’s office. She will bring them right into class yelling “Surprise!”
If you’ve ever had a mother like that, you should be thankful. You could have had a mother who did not care. You could have had a mother who neglected you, ignored you, didn’t want you, or abused you. You could have had a mother who made you feel like you ruined her life.
There seems to be a growing trend in this world where the things some of us have taken for granted (the love, attention, and nurturing care of a godly mother) are becoming less and less common. And I suspect it’s because we are seeing fewer godly mothers. Most importantly, there are fewer godly grandmothers to teach their daughters the character traits of a godly mother. And so those mothers, who have been given no godly instruction from their mother, turn to society for help. And of course we all know that we live in a fallen world with a fallen perspective on life. So when young mothers turn to the world for advice in parenting, what will they find? Will they find any godly teaching at all?
Now I know this can sound a bit sensationalized but it is unfortunately quite true. When godly parenting skills are not demonstrated and passed along by mothers, it only takes a generation or two for the whole family unit to resemble the ways of the world and not the ways of God. Consider what happened shortly after Adam and Eve sinned. It didn’t take long for society to be filled with vengeance and cruelty. Lamech kills a boy for hitting him (Genesis 4:23). After the Exodus from Egypt, God pulled Israel aside and told her to stop acting like the rest of the world and start acting like His people. Why did Moses instruct the nation to read God’s covenant every seven years? It was so the “children who have not known these instructions will hear them and will learn to fear the Lord your God. Do this as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy” (Deuteronomy 31:13). Without godly instruction, the family faces destruction.
Where there are godly mothers, mothers who follow the teachings of God, entire communities are transformed. The world is changed simply because a God-fearing woman cares enough to get involved. Do you think I’m exaggerating here? Well, back when Christianity was in its infancy, there was a distinct absence of godliness in the world. According to the early church leader Tertullian, parents throughout the Roman Empire had a habit of exposing their unwanted children, which literally means throwing them outside to die. It was acceptable in that culture. There are even instructions on how to induce an abortion dating back to the 4th century. But along comes the Church filled with mothers who had received this godly instruction and who saw value in human life. Transformed by Christ and the Spirit, they would spend their day wandering through the streets, rummaging through the trash, looking for those unwanted babies to raise as their own. And it didn’t take long for the world to take notice. A second century letter to Diognetus confesses “They marry and have children just like everyone else; but they do not kill unwanted babies”.
Why is it important for mothers to live godly lives and demonstrate this godliness to their children? It’s because godly instruction and the example of a godly mother become the one thing that keeps a society from falling apart. I’m serious about this. If you take godly mothers out of the picture, if you remove from a society the influence of a godly mother, that society will degrade back into one where babies are simply thrown away. History has proven that in the absence of godliness children are ignored and forgotten; made to walk through the fire as an offering to the god Molech (compare 2 Kings 23:10).
Look at the effects a woman of faith had on Timothy. Paul says, “I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you.” [1] (2 Timothy 1:5) To raise a child of faith, a mother needs to be a woman of faith; a woman who has first received the wisdom of the Word and the guiding of the Spirit.
It is the mother who falls on her knees before God and pleads with Him for wisdom and understanding that we find giving proper instruction to her child. This is the mother who prays constantly for herself and her child. Did you ever have a mother like that, a mother who prayed for you, a mother who actually cared about you? You should count yourself fortunate because in today’s world this kind of mother is becoming harder to find.
If you did have a mother like that, God is asking you to do one more thing. I know raising a child is difficult enough, especially when they squirm and fuss during church. But just as your mother taught you, you are called to pass that along to another generation. What your mother taught you yesterday, God is calling you to teach today. “Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.” [2] (Titus 2:3-5) God needs you, mothers, to show this world how it’s done. We all need you to be a mother like that.
[1]Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
[2]New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Tit 2:3-5). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
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