Mother's Hall of Fame Texts: 1Sam 1:9-10, 2Tim 1:2-5, Mark 7:24-30

Mother's Hall of Fame

Texts: 1Sam 1:9-10, 2Tim 1:2-5, Mark 7:24-30

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Introduction:

Today of course is Mother’s Day and some of you may already have turned in your Bibles to Proverbs 31 “The Virtuous Woman” chapter and it’s a good chapter for Mother’s Day but perhaps a little overused. So we aren’t going there today, we’ll save it for the next Mother’s day. Instead I’d like to start by reading an article I cut out of a newspaper. Now for our younger members a newspaper was this big bunch of pages that used to come to your house with ….news, written on the pages. It was kind of like Facebook except it didn’t have as many things about stupid cats in it. This article was written back in the 1980s by Carolyn Barta in the Dallas Morning News 

"I remember messages from 'Mama'.

I grew up in Dallas back in the days when moms were called Mama and everybody leaned early that Mama knows best.  Moms were big in those days on simple homilies.  Like "Mind your mama." and "Don't sass Mama."  There was it seemed, a saying for everything.  "Can't never did nothin'. That was the standard response to any excuse that began with "I can't."  Or, "Do you think money grows on trees?"  That was the standard response to any request that began with "I want."  (We were often "broke," but never "poor.")

"On those rare occasions when it was necessary to get a "switch," we were always told in advance, "This is going to hurt me more than it'll hurt you."  The switches actually were few and far between.  If you got in trouble at school, you knew there would be double trouble at home.  Mama would have marched an errant daughter right back up to the school to sit through a scolding twice, so she could hear it for herself.

  Along with the discipline came plenty of TLC.  The ultimate in pampering was to have a "pallet" spread out on the floor or the grass with something cool to drink and your library books spread all around you.  By the time my kids came along, the pallet was fixed in front of the TV by the Mama who had become Granny.  When they were growing up, my sons were shocked to find that their more affluent little friends in North Dallas had never slept on a pallet.

Here were some other messages I remembered.

-Work hard, and you will be rewarded.

-Study hard, become educated, and you will have a  better life.

-If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  You  can do better.  Failing is unacceptable.

-You can do most anything you "set your   mind to."

-Live by the Golden Rule:  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 

Be courteous and considerate of others.

-If you can't say something nice, don't say anything  at all.

-Pretty is as pretty does.

-Honesty is the best policy.

-Respect your elders; obey your parents.

-Maintain a spiritual life.  Say your prayers- daily. 

-If the church doors are open, be there.

-Nice girls don't ...(argue, fight, talk back, talk dirty, swear, smoke or go all the way.)

-Family comes first.  Families take care of each other.  They are there for each other.  Family  dinners are important.  Families are together on important occasions - deaths, births, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and of course Mothers Day.

-Ones home is kept clean and straight. Everybody works around the place.  The house is at least, always picked up.  Dirty dishes aren't left in the sink.

-Once the bed is made, nobody sits on it.  Don't ask me why.  That was just one of the rules of life.

  The most important things were family, friends, home, work, school, church. There wasn't a lot of clutter.  The focus was on how to live a good life, not the just the good life.  A good life, not a just a good time.

There is a story that illustrates the importance of mother’s in the life of their children and the work of the Lord in raising them. A famous pastor, G. Campbell Morgan had 4 sons all of which became preachers. One day the eldest son was asked jokingly, "Well, tell me, who in the Morgan home is the best preacher?"  The son looked at his dad and then replied, "Mom."

I   Investing  1Samuel 1:9-12

 So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD.  And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.  And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.  And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth.

A.  Hannah invests herself in Samuel

1.  The vow and prayer 9-11

2.  The prayer answered 19-20 Samuel's name "Name of God."

3.  The vow kept 24-28

4.  Invested herself in short time she had.

a.  Her time, too precious for trip 1:21-22

b.  Her God,  2:2-3

c.  Her love, a new coat every year 2:18-19

 

B.  1st criteria for consideration in the Mother’s Hall of Fame is investment.

1.  Do you realize how truly limited you time as a mother is? What is 5, or 10 or 20 years? In the end your child must leave and your time with them as a parent will end.

2.  Do you realize the child is really God's an he has only place them in you care for a short time?

a.  Ps 127:3  Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord

b.  How hard for Hannah to release her child to God.  How much harder to have your child taken by this world.

3.  Five Ways to invest as Hannah did.

a.  Show affection, don't be afraid to say I love you or to hug their neck or affectionately pat their arm.

b.  Play with you child, never be to old to build sand castles or drink imaginary tea or wrestle on the floor.  Play is the way you enter your child's world and show them it's a world you enjoy.

c.  Listen, turn off the TV, put down the paper look in your child's eyes and sincerely listen to what they have to say.  No stronger message can you send or that child's worth to you than to hear them when they speak.  (Lauren will grab my chin and turn my face to look into hers if she thinks I'm not paying close enough attention.)

d.  Include them in your plans and activities.  They are people not luggage or decorations, they need to fill involved in the things that involve them.  They shouldn't to be the boss, but they should be made to realize that their opinion is important to you.  Because they are important to you.

e.  Remember they are children.  They are not miniature adults sent to drive us crazy.  They did not choose their parents or their siblings.  In reality they usually act better than most of our coworkers and friends.  Be patient yet firm when mistakes are made. Correct the mistake without making the child feel like they were the mistake.

 

C.  Illustration:  Poem Molding in Clay

I took a piece of plastic clay

And idly fashioned it one day;

And as my fingers pressed it still,

It moved and yielded to my will.

I came again when days were past;

The bit of clay was hard at last;

The form I gave it, it still bore,

But I could change that form no more.

I took a piece of living clay

And gently formed it day by day,

And molded with my power and art

A young child's soft and yielding heart.

I came again when years were gone;

It was an Adult I looked upon;

They still that early impress wore,

And I could change them never more.

Transition: Not only should mothers invest themselves in their children, but they must also instruct them in the things of God. 

II  Instructors  2 Timothy 1:2-5

 To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.  I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;  Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy;  When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.

A.  Eunice and Lois teach Timothy

1.  A mother and grandmother passing their knowledge and faith to the son.

2.  When Paul encountered Timothy, and the Spirit touched him he was ready to accept Christ.

B.  The 2nd criteris for the MHF is instruction.

1.  The most formative years of a child's life are spent closest to his mother.

2.  Her responsibility is as great as the fathers, but her opportunities are greater.

a.  Proverbs 1:8 Hear the instruction of thy father and forsake not the law of thy mother

b.  Proverbs 2:2-4 The personification of wisdom is female in Proverbs.

So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;  Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;  If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;

3.  A child learns by hearing, by seeing and experiencing his mother's teaching, actions and life.

A child learns of God in a mothers's bedtime story

A child learns of sacrifice in a mothers skipped meal

A child learns of love in a secret good night kiss

A child learns of patience in a mother's old patched dress.

A child learns wrong from right in mom's scolding and praising

A child learns gentleness and strength in mom's warm embrace

C. Illustrations:

A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin, 5, Ryan, 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. "If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait." Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus!"

D. Transition: Lets go to the next criteria for godly mothers found in Mark 7:24

 

III  Interceding  Mark 7:24-30

 And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid.  For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet:   The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.  But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.  And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.  And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.  And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.

A.  Syrophenician mother intercedes for her sick child.

1.  Jesus first had to go to the Jews, God's nation  27

(The children had to be fed before the pets.)

2.  The mothers love refused the logic  of what was right  28

(Her love was inseparably welded to her faith.  Even one crumb from Jesus was enough for her daughter.)

3.  The love and faith of a foreign mother for an unseen daughter moves Christ to break the rules  v 29.

B.  The 3rd criteria for the MHF is intercession.

1.  Are you praying for your kids?

a.  A duty of love that doesn't stop when they are grown

"The prayers of a mother never die."

Pray is sometimes called "standing in the gap."

To stand in the gap meant that in a battle when the frontline of defenders had been breached.  A soldier had fallen, that another soldier would step up to stand in the gap lest the enemy break through.

This is what we do when we pray for our children. We stand in the gap protecting them from the world and sin that wants to destroy them.

3.  Time spent in prayer is time spent fighting for the souls of your children.

C.  Illustration  Rizpah 2 Samuel 21:8-13 A mother fights for her children long after they have been hanged by the King

 But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite:  And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the LORD: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.  And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.  And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.  And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabeshgilead, which had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa:  And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son; and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.

How long will you pray and fight for your children?

Conclusion:

 In looking at these mothers who made it into our Hall of Fame, you may feel like somehow you have failed.  Your just not all the mother you wanted to be.  Please remember there are no perfect mothers.  There are only imperfect mothers who refuse to quit.

    Follow this guideline and you will not fail.  Add the undying love you have for your children to the unfailing love God has for you.  Subtract your hurt and heartache by God's patience and power, and when there is not enough of you to go around, always remember God's love is always multiplied never divided.

William P. Mackay, was born in the year 1839. At the age of 17,  he left for college.  His mother was a godly, Christian woman, who didn't want him to go, for fear that he was heading down a path of destruction. But she turned him over to the Lord, and let him go on his way.  Before his departure, she gave him a Bible to take with him, and in the fly-leaf of
the Bible, she wrote his name, her name and a Bible verse.  The young man left for college and then went on to the university medical school but he began to travel with the wrong crowd. So far down that path of destruction did he travel that one day, short on funds and in a drunken binge, he pawned the Bible that his mother had given him for money to buy more liquor.

He wandered far away from what he had been taught at home. Yet, at the same time, the young Scotsman went on to become a very successful doctor, rising to the head of the largest hospital in Edinburgh.  Forsaking his upbringing, he became a committed infidel, and was even elected president of a society of atheists in the city.

One day, an accident victim came into his hospital and was under Dr. Mackay's care.  The patient, learning that he only had a few hours to live, asked Dr. Mackay, "Will you please send for my landlady, and ask her to send me the Book?" The doctor agreed, and within a few hours the landlady arrived with "the Book

Within a short time, the patient died. Dr. Mackay was curious as to what kind of book the patient wanted. He asked the nurse, "What about the book that he asked for? The nurse replied, "It is still under his pillow." The doctor reached under the pillow and pulled out "the Book."  When he opened it, his eyes fell immediately upon the front flyleaf.  To his amazement-- it was the very Bible he had received from his mother that he had pawned years before. He saw his name, his mother's name and the Bible verse she inscribed.

Overwhelmed, he slipped the Bible under his coat and rushed back to his office.  There, the doctor, who had become a wicked infidel and atheist, fell to his knees praying that God would have mercy on him, and save him. He asked God to forgive him for his sinful life.

God had used the Bible she gave him to dramatically answer her prayers. By the grace of God, William Patton Mackay, a world renowed doctor went on to become a preacher,  author and songwriter.  If the name WP Mackay is slightly familiar to you it could be due to the fact that he wrote the hymn we still sing, Revive Us Again

We praise Thee, O God!
For the Son of Thy love,
For Jesus Who died,
And is now gone above.

We praise Thee, O God!
For Thy Spirit of light,
Who hath shown us our Savior,
And scattered our night.

Revive us again;
Fill each heart with Thy love;
May each soul be rekindled
With fire from above.

Refrain

Hallelujah! Thine the glory.
Hallelujah! Amen.
Hallelujah! Thine the glory.
Revive us again.

    Perhaps this morning you'd like to be an investor like Hannah, an instructor like Eunice or an interceder like Rizpah.  Start by going to the Lord and giving yourself fully to him. And then after you've done that give Him what is rightfully His anyway your children and family.

    Perhaps you are here this morning and something has reminded you of a mother who poured out her life for you and more than anything else wanted you to know her savior Jesus Christ.  Wouldn't you like to know more about the person who meant so much to your mama?  Come down this aisle this morning and let me introduce you.  If your mother's here take her hand and walk together to come and meet Jesus.