The Mother's Magnificent Ministry

This morning, I've decided to talk to our mothers and look at the most magnificent ministry that they could ever have.

You know, we've been looking at the Creator God on Wednesday nights. It's important to realize that God, in His creation, created the specific, most perfect mother for you. He is the fashion designer of all men. He's the maker of all men. And God, as a perfect God and perfect Creator, never makes a mistake. So the mother you have is not a mistake. God didn't do an oops for you. He gave you the perfect mother that He designed for you. At the same time, mother, God has given you the perfect, specific children for you.

I love the testimony of Bruce McLean, our associate pastor who works in missions. He talked to me this past week and said, Wednesday night's sermon was the best sermon he had ever heard in this church because it helped him understand the perfect creation of his daughter, Tessa, and that God has specifically designed Tessa for he and P. He said, it helped me rethink everything. What a beautiful testimony as he sits here and listens to the fact that God is the perfect fashioner of every man and every woman that He creates.

And that God had designed he and P to be the father and mother of their daughter, their special needs daughter. Coming to that point is huge. And God has graced them in this manner. So when God gives you a child, mom, He gives you the perfect child, son or daughter. It's the perfect one because He gave that child to you as a gift, a gift. And you have the most incredible ministry ever to build into their lives. And this morning, I just want to give you the characteristics of the magnificent mother.

And if you just follow along with me, you see how they all flow together. But a magnificent mother, she loves intensely the person of God. She loves intensely the person of God. We can only love God because He first loved us, 1 John 4 tells us.

So without Him loving us, we can't love Him. But the mother who knows the Lord has this passion, has this drive, has this intensity about her life to love the Lord. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 16 that if you don't love the Lord, you should be cursed.

The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 1, verse 8, having not seen, you love. You don't have to see Him to love Him because you know Him. And the Bible says in the book of Deuteronomy that we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, with all of our strength.

And that's repeated over in the New Testament, in Mark's gospel, in Matthew's gospel because it speaks about the intensity of our relationship with the Lord. And there's a certain kind of passion that drives the godly mother to love her children because she loves the person of God. She's intense about that. Not passive, but intense. But isn't it interesting that over time our love for the Lord seems to decrease in its intensity? It's like your marriage. You've been married for a while and all of a sudden things become mechanical and you go through the motions and you kind of get into a rut and you're thinking, wow, this is not what I thought it was going to be and I thought it would be a lot better 25 years down the road, but it's not because everything's become so mechanical and just going through the motions.

We can do that in our walk with the Lord, right? That person who gives their life to the Lord and they're a new believer and you've seen them, they come and they sit right down front and they're here and they're excited about the Lord and they're here on Sundays, they're here on Wednesdays, they go to Bible study throughout the week and they want to share their faith and they're involved in learning how to pray and they're so excited about their walk with the Lord, they're so intense about it, they can't wait to be in church and wait to be with God's people and wait to open the Word and that's where they are and that's the new believer and that new believer breeds energy into the life of the church and then all of a sudden, over time, he hangs around all those people that had been saved for a long time and they became, well, I guess everybody's not nearly as excited about this thing as I am and they begin to become stale in their walk with the Lord.

Remember the church of Ephesus? Oh, they had lost their first love. Doctrinally, they were sound but their walk with the Lord was a loveless walk. That can happen. They loved what they knew about God but they didn't love God. See the difference there? I know a lot of people who love what they know about God. They know a lot about God and they love what they know about God but they don't necessarily love the Lord. There's a big difference. The person who loves the Lord has the Lord just rub off on you so that you become like Him.

And the church of Ephesus loved what they knew about the Lord for doctrinally, they were sound but the Lord had this against them and you don't want to have the Lord have something against you that they had lost their first love.

The intensity that their relationship was built on from the very beginning had begun to grow cold. I wonder if that marks any of you today. You know, the mother who loves the Lord loves the church, loves the people of the church, loves the Word, loves the Word preached, loves to listen to the Word. In fact, you love what God loves and you hate what God hates. The reason our love begins to grow cold is because we begin to love the things that God hates and hate the things that God loves. For the Bible says in Psalm 97, verse number 10, you who love the Lord hate evil.

Right? So if you love the Lord you're going to hate evil but when you start messing around in evil and start becoming more acquainted with the things that are evil your love for the Lord begins to grow cold. That's why the Bible says, you who love the Lord hate evil.

The Bible says there's a love that God hates. It's love for the world. 1 John chapter 2, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, right? Because all the things in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, you begin loving the things of the world, what happens? Your love for the Lord begins to grow cold. So if your love for the Lord is becoming cooler as the days are progressing, ask yourself, do you really hate evil? Do you really love the Lord more than you love the things of the world?

Or do the things of the world become more a part of your life? It's very important to hate the things God hates. Proverbs 6, He hates a haughty spirit. Hates lying lips. Hates those who sow discord among the brethren. Do you hate those things that God hates? Because if you don't, your love for the Lord will begin to grow cold. But when you hate what God hates and love what God loves, things become very intense in your walk with the Lord. The ministry, the magnificent ministry of a mother begins because she loves intensely the person of God.

The Lord told the church of Ephesus, you've got to remember from where you've fallen. You've got to repent and then go back and repeat your first deeds.

The solution is fairly simple. Remember how things used to be. Remember from where you have fallen. It's like when you're doing marriage counseling with a couple, right? And their love has begun to grow cold and stale. You've got to take them back to the very beginning when they first met.

And the excitement they had when they first met and were first together and went on the first date together and fell in love with one another and were so excited about what the future would hold and all the things as a man you did for your wife and all the things as a future wife you would do for your husband, you were so excited.

You've got to go back and remember from where you've fallen. Go back and do your first deeds. You've got to repeat those things. But do you remember how it was when you first got saved?

Do you remember how it was when you first gave your life to Christ? When you first started sharing Christ with other people?

When you first started being involved in missions and going on missions trips and were so excited about those opportunities and so excited about going in a cross-cultural ministry and so excited about serving in children's ministry and so excited about doing the things you do.

You were so excited about it. You couldn't wait to be here because you wanted to serve the Lord. You've got to remember from where you've fallen. Repent and go back and repeat those first deeds.

Say, but yeah, I don't want to do that. It doesn't excite me anymore. Of course it doesn't. Right? Delight always follows discipline. Right? Delight always follows discipline. You know, I have a son who trains, right? And when the person who is sluggish and overweight comes in, they don't want to work out. Right? They don't want to lose weight. That's just too much work. There's no delight there. I don't want to be here. But the discipline of being there over time brings what? Great delight. The pounds begin to fall off.

They begin to look better than they've ever looked before. Right? They can actually fit into their clothes again. Or they can buy new clothes. Smaller clothes. What a great day. Why? Because the discipline brought what? Delight. Same is true in the spiritual realm. It's the discipline of repeating the first deeds.

It's the discipline of remembering from where I've fallen because I need to repent of where I am. And once I begin to repeat those first deeds, guess what?

All of a sudden the joy begins to erupt once again. The same is true for all of us. And the magnificent ministry of a mother begins with her love life. She loves intensely the person of God. Which leads to point number two.

She lives inspirationally by the promises of God. She lives inspirationally by the promises of God. There's something about her life that inspires others. And it begins with her love life, right? You find me a person that loves the Lord, is fired up for the Lord, guess what? They're going to inspire other people to love the Lord and follow the Lord. But if you don't love the Lord, you're not going to inspire anybody else to love the Lord. But there's this life that inspires others. Why? Based on the promises of God.

They actually believe in what God has already said. Think about, think about Jochebed. When she believed in the promises of God. Think about Sarah, Rebecca, Elizabeth. How about Anna? When she became a widow at a very young age and served in the temple night and day in prayers and teaching and telling others about the coming of the Redeemer of Israel. Everything she did was based on the promise of the arrival of the Messiah. And she inspired others around her. That's what the mother does. She lives inspirationally by the promises of God.

She knows what God has promised about forgiveness and about joy, about an anxious free life. Think about that, mom. So many times we find ourselves living in fear and anxious about our thoughts and anxious about what's going to happen next. When the Bible says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.

And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds. You inspire others by living by the promises of God, believing that the peace of God is mine, the forgiveness of God is mine, the grace of God is mine, the future with God is mine in inspiring other people. What a great ministry. What a fabulous ministry. I love what it says over in Isaiah chapter 43, and I'm going to talk more about this on Wednesday night. But if you go back to the Old Testament, when God deals with Israel, what does He do?

He always takes them back to the beginning. He takes them back to Genesis 1 verse number 1. Why? If you understand Genesis 1 verse 1, your life is taken care of. If you misunderstand Genesis 1 verse 1, you're going to have a lot of problems in life. In the beginning, God what? Created the heavens and the earth. God always takes Israel back where? To the very beginning. I'm your creator. I'm your maker. I'm your designer. He always takes them back to that. Why? Because they've got all these questions about God deserting them, God abandoning them, God not being with them, God not watching over them.

So what does He do? He takes them all the way back to the beginning. Have you not heard? Have you not read? Do you not understand? That from the very beginning, this is the way it was. I'm the creator of the ends of the earth. And so in Isaiah 43 says this, But now thus says the Lord, Your creator, O Jacob. He reminds them once again. I am your creator. I formed you. I fashioned you. I made you. You are mine. He says, Your creator, O Jacob, and he who formed you, O Israel, do not fear, for I have redeemed you.

Not only have I created you, I have converted you. I have called you. Number three. He says, I have called you by name. You are mine. So when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Verse five, Do not fear, I am with you. Verse seven, Everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, even whom I have made.

He takes Israel all the way back to say, Look, you can believe in me, because I created you for this moment. I made you for this time. So when you pass through the waters, they will not overthrow you. When you walk through the fires, you will not be scorched. Notice they don't run through the fires.

They walk through the fires. Amazing. When you believe in the promises of God, guess what? You inspire everyone around you. The magnificent ministry of a mother, number one, stems from the fact that she loves intensely the person of God.

He is her everything. Number two, she lives inspirationally by the promises of God. Well, if you're leading inspirationally because you love intensely, number three, then you will lead influentially the people of God.

You'll lead influentially the people of God. A major influence. Think about Jochebed when she didn't fear the king's edict. The king's edict was what? You got a male child, throw him into the Nile River. So what does Jochebed do? She puts her son in the Nile River, but in a basket in the Nile River. Right? Because she believes in the promises of God, but she also understands that she can influence her son and influence her daughter and influence her husband and influence everyone else because she understands God's promises.

And sure enough, it was Pharaoh's daughter who saw him, it was Miriam who spoke up, and she knew a Hebrew woman who could nurse him, and she did, and she nursed him until she weaned him. And it says in Hebrews 11 that she did not fear the king's edict, and it goes on and says that Moses also did not fear the king's edict. Why? He was influenced by a mother who had no fear. See that? She influenced him in such a way. Your mother is your biggest influencer. You know, I'm big on fatherhood. I think fathers play a major role, but mom is with you 24-7, dad is not.

Dad's out working, dad's out pushing the plow, doing what he does because he's got to provide for his family, but mom is there all day. Mom is that influencer, more so than anything else. That's why motherhood describes leadership better than anything else because leadership is about influence and mom influences. That's why on TV, the athletes never say, Hi, dad. They always say, Hi, mom. Right? Why? Because mom was the influencer in her life. I remember the testimony of Michael Jordan as he got up and began to speak.

And as he began to speak, his father, of course, had died and was shot in the car, but he gave a testimony about his mother. He's a grown man. He's won six NBA championships. You know what he says? He says, My mother is the best thing that ever happened to me. My mother has influenced me. I still honor her and respect her even to this day because of the influence she had on his life. That's Michael Jordan. Well, think about all of us who know the Lord and have godly mothers and the influence they have in our lives to move us toward maturity in Christ.

What a great thing that is. That's just a wonderful thing. And so the ministry of the mother is not just to love intensely the person of God and live inspirationally by the promises of God, but to lead influentially the people of God. The people of God. Not just the people in your home, people in your church, people in your neighborhood. There's this great influence that you have over people when you walk with the Lord, when you love the Lord and want to serve the Lord. You influence your children to understand and understand submission by submitting to your husband.

Did you know that? You ever ask yourself why your children have a hard time submitting to your authority? It could be because you have a hard time submitting to your husband's authority. That's easily passed down from generation to generation. But the flip side of that is is that when you as a wife learn to submit to your husband, you're teaching your children how to submit to you as their mother and their father as their parents. That's called influence. You influence them in the ways of God, helping them understand that you submit to one another in the fear of the Lord.

You submit to your husband not because he makes all the right decisions, is a great man. You submit to him because you do it in the fear of the Lord. You do it as unto the Lord. You're honoring the Lord when you do that. And when you extend forgiveness as a mother, guess what? You're modeling to your children what it means to forgive and that influences them as well because they are able to pick up by your example. I mean, there are so many ways that a mother influences her children by the way she lives in relationship to her husband and to their father.

That's very important. Children pick up things really easily. You can influence them on what it means to trust and believe in the Lord, right? You trust the Lord when things aren't going well and you believe in what he's going to do and your children watch that, see that, understand that. So important. So, the magnificent ministry of a mother, she loves intensely the person of God. She lives inspirationally by the promises of God. She leads influentially the people of God. And number four, she lectures incessantly on the precepts of God.

She lectures incessantly on the precepts of God. Notice the order. Love, live, lead, then lecture. Yours is important. Because you see, if you want them to believe what you're saying, you've got to live what you're saying, right? Or they're going to look at you and yawn.

So if you are living, loving, and leading in a way that honors the Lord, they are in tune with the things you say because you live out the precepts you're teaching them. Listen to what the Bible says in the book of Proverbs.

Proverbs chapter 6. It says in Proverbs 1 verse number 8, also in chapter 6 verse number 20, My son, observe the commandments of your father and do not forsake the teaching of your mother. I like that. Do not forsake the teaching of your mother. My mother taught me a lot of things growing up, right? She taught me about Bible memorization because I had to memorize the Bible. So she made me be involved in BMA, which is Bible Memory Association. And every week for 10 weeks, I had to memorize 15 verses, okay?

Talk about a chore. Talk about how difficult that was. 10 weeks, 15 verses a week for 5 years. It wasn't easy. But my mom did it alongside of me. She did it too. She wanted to influence me, but she wanted to show me how important the Word of God was. So we memorized together. She had a different book than I did. She had less verses than I did. That wasn't fair, but that's okay. I was younger than she was. And so we had to memorize these verses together. And every Sunday, we would recite those verses to the person who would hear us, you know?

It was a great discipline. But my mom would always teach me. And she would do it mainly because she memorized all these verses. She would look at me some days.

She'd say to me, you know, Psalm 106, verse number 15. I told you that last week. She used to say to me, Hey, to whom much is given, much is required. So live up. All the time. Sorry, Don. She'd always slap me on the side of my arm. To whom much is given, much is required. Thus saith the Lord. Amen. So thank you, Don. She would always do that, you know? And she would remind me that the Lord has given you so much. There is so much required of you. Her voice rings in my mind every day because she kept repeating to me the truth of God's Word, moving me on toward the gospel, helping me understand the Lord.

But she would always lecture me on the things of God. So the Bible says, Do not forsake the teaching of your mother.

Bind them continually on your heart. Tie them around your neck. When you walk about, they will guide you. In other words, the teaching of your mother gives you direction. When you sleep, they will watch over you. In other words, the teaching will give you protection. And when you wake, they will talk to you. The teachings of God give you a conversation. What do you mean a conversation? The teachings of God converse with you about grace, about mercy, about love, because God's Word is a living and abiding Word of God.

Therefore, it converses with you about the things that are true about who God is. So there's not only direction, protection, and conversation. For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching is a light. There is illumination. And reproofs for discipline are the way of life. There is admonition. And then verse 24, To keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress, there is purification. Do not forsake the teaching of your mother because of the direction it gives, because of the protection it gives, because of the illumination it gives, because of the admonition it gives, because of the purification it gives, because she's teaching you the truths of God's Word.

What a great ministry. What a fabulous ministry. You know, I just can't help but praise God for the things that he did in my life through my mother. What a blessing that is. And guess what? A woman who fears the Lord, she shall be blessed greatly. And your children will rise up and bless you. Your husband will rise up and bless you, the book of Proverbs tells us, because of your godly lifestyle. But she lectures incessantly on the precepts of God. She teaches truth because she lives truth. She lives truth because she loves the God of truth.

She can't help but do those things. So, the magnificent ministry of our mother, she loves intensely the person of God, she lives inspirationally by the promises of God, she leads influentially by the people of God, she lectures incessantly on the precepts of God, and then number five, she leans intently on the power of God. She leans intently on the power of God. See, the one thing about a godly mother, she doesn't lean on her own understanding, Proverbs 3, verse number 5 and 6. But she trusts in the Lord with all of her heart.

Why? Because she wants her ways to be made smooth. But it's so easy to lean on our own understanding. We think we just know so much. I read that and I think of Job. Job had his understanding. He leaned on his own understanding about how he saw God and how he demanded an audience with God and God should come down and speak to him. So, God does come down and speak to him. But everything changes when he comes face to face with God, right? But he leaned on his own understanding. All of us have a way of doing things.

We have our own rational way of thinking. We have our own influencers around us. And we begin to lean on the things that we think is best. But it might not be best. It might not be what God wants. So, you need to trust the Lord and depend upon Him. And to do that, you need to lean on the power of God. Because, listen, we have our own understanding about how we deal with things. But usually the way God wants us to deal with them are completely different. We want to return evil for evil. But God says, don't do that.

Return good for evil. But we don't want to do that. But that's leaning on our own understanding, see? We don't want to forgive the unforgivable sins in our lives that people have committed against us. We don't want to do that. It doesn't feel good. It puts you back in a vulnerable position. I don't want to do that. But God says, you must have a spirit of forgiveness and you must forgive all those who truly repent of their sins.

You can be a forgiving person, a loving person, a kind person. As 1 Peter tells us, the woman with the meek and quiet spirit, right? Who leads in a way that brings glory and honor to the Lord, as Sarah did. She had to learn that. Sarah didn't have that meek and quiet spirit at first.

She would laugh at the fact that God would say, you will have a child a year from now, when she was 89 years of age. She had to learn to submit to her husband's leadership. But she had to lean on the power of God. That's why the Bible says that we are to be controlled by the spirit of God.

Be dominated by God's spirit. Walk in the spirit so we don't fulfill the lust of the flesh. That's what our lives should be characterized by. So often we have ways of doing things that we think are right, but bring great damage to those that are closest to us. We need to lean on the power of God when it comes to the saving of my husband. I can't save my husband. You can't do that. You can't save your children. God can. So you lean on the spirit of God to do those things. You trust Him to accomplish those things.

We don't by nature want to love the unlovely, but the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts, so we lean upon the power of God that we might be able to exemplify that love to those closest to us. We need God's power to infuse us with the strength needed to accomplish His purposes. And He will do that. And so the ministry of a mother that's magnificent, she leans intently on the power of God. I've told you many times over that the day Lori and I got married and we stood before those people before we went on our honeymoon, we just said to them, listen, we have a verse that is going to characterize our lives.

It's Psalm 20, verse number 7. It says that some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will trust in the name of the Lord our God. They are brought down and fallen, but we shall rise up and stand firm. We want our marriage to be characterized by a trust in the true and living God and nothing else. And by the grace of God for the last almost 37 years, we've lived by that verse that has guided our marriage that we might lean intently on the power of God. Number six, you know this, the ministry of a mom that's magnificent is she looks inquisitively on the providence of God.

She looks inquisitively on the providence of God. In other words, she wants to uncover the ways of God, the dealings of God, how God deals with each and every situation. She looks inquisitively at that. Job's wife did not. She wanted Job to curse God and die. She refused to look at the power of God and the providence of God.

So she's mentioned one time in Scripture, that's it. She says one thing and she said too much. Curse God and die. Why? Because she refused to look inquisitively on the providence of God. You know who did? Queen Esther. She did. She began to trust in God's providence for the nation of Israel. And guess what? God saved the nation. Because she wanted to understand the dealings of God and how it would work out in the life of a generation of a nation that had rebelled against God. What is God going to do to save the nation?

God had a plan. And the ministry that you have is to look inquisitively on the providence of God because God is working every detail out every single day of your life. And you're looking to uncover how it is God has touched this and God has done this and God has handled this and God is working here. That's a magnificent thing. Remember what Job said in Job chapter 23? He knows the way that I take. When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot has held fast to his path. I have kept his way and not turned aside.

I have not departed from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. But he is unique. And who can turn him? And what his soul desires, that he does. And he performs what is appointed for me and many such decrees are with him. He performs what's appointed for me, he says. And that's what happens to the mother who looks at what's been appointed for her and says, Lord, you've designed this specifically for me. And lastly, she longs insatiably for the presence of God.

She longs insatiably for the presence of God. She can't wait for the Lord to come back that she might reign in his presence with him. There is this steadfast hope, this enduring longing that she can't wait for her Lord to return. She lives in anticipation, in expectation of his coming again. And so there's this insatiable longing. Why is it we get depressed? Why is it we get anxious? Why is it we get angry? Maybe we've lost focus. We love to focus on the here and now, but we have set our thoughts and affections on things above, not on things of the earth.

And there's this longing that helps us through each and every day, insatiable desire. Oh, come quickly, Lord Jesus. We want the Lord to return. The magnificent ministry of a mother lives in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah, that she might dwell in his presence once again. And with that kind of perspective, you realize that your citizenship is not here, but in glory. Right? All the promises that God are going to give you, some of them are now, but the majority of them are in the future. For all the promises are, yes, in Christ.

2 Corinthians 1, verse number 20. Christ is the fulfillment of all the promises that God has for you. So you long insatiably for his return. And that, that will give you the most magnificent ministry on the planet. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for today, the opportunity you give us to praise your name, to focus once again on you. For Lord, you are everything. We pray for every mother in the room today, that you'd be with them, encourage them, strengthen them, use them in a mighty way, as they love their husbands and love their children, as they lead in their families, in unique and special ways, for the glory of your name, both now and forevermore, until you come again, as you most surely will.

In Jesus' name, amen.