EVE: MOTHER OF LIFE

EVE: MOTHER OF LIFE Genesis 1:27-28, 3:20, Matthew 1:21 May 14, 2006 Mother's Day Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction There is so much I don’t understand about women and mothers, so please give me grace as I speak. I believe the wisdom of God’s Word can still sneak through. I recently read a great little piece of prose that gives a hint of insight into how women sometimes feel, both as wives and mothers.   I Wish I Were a Bear   If you’re a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could get used to that   And another thing: before you hibernate, You’re supposed to eat yourself stupid. That wouldn’t bother me either.   If you’re a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business; You swat anyone who bothers you or your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them, too.   Your husband expects you to growl when you wake up. He expects you to have hairy legs and excess body fat. He likes it!   I wish I were a bear 1. The Wisdom of God and the Plan of God - Genesis 1 On the sixth day of creation God demonstrated His wisdom and His plan creating man and woman, the perfect team. God had worked into all of His created order the arrangement that living things should replenish themselves—seed-bearing plant after their kind, birds and fish to whom God said, “Be fruitful and increase in number,” and arranged that all animals should multiply similarly. Botanists and zoologists will tell you, no matter what part of God’s creation you’re talking about, replenishment is sexual. Then, saving His very finest work for last, God made human beings, and He made them sexually reproductive. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. (Genesis 1:27-28) Making babies would require and man and a woman—reason number one among dozens why homosexual behavior is unnatural, ungodly, unbiblical and clearly condemned as immoral by the Word of God. Far above the regular patterns of coital conception found in the rest of nature, God built in even more of His wisdom and plan with these special creatures who were alone made in His image and likeness.   He added the awesome dimensions of love and unity. With the physical pleasure and soul-blending fulfillment that only human sexuality can produce, and that especially in the confines of a loving, trusting relationship of commitment and marriage, a husband brings to the womb his part of the miracle of life and God makes another human being in His image and likeness. To borrow the praise prose of the apostle Paul, Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! (Romans 11:33) And part of that inscrutable wisdom was that the woman would carry, bear and nurture the child in a way that the man could only assist, but never replace. So mother- hood was created in the majestic wisdom and plan of God. And so this one, the softer half of the human pair, the one exquisitely designed with the kind of sensitivity, spirituality and squeezability that would be necessary—this one God chose to call mother. And to her was given a precious and unique role. 2. Sin entered our world and complicated God’s Plan - Genesis 3 As I’m sure you know, the story of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve is narrated in chapter three of Genesis. There our grandparents fell out of favor with God by their overt disobedience to the clear command of God. Then and there they became sinners, introducing fallen-ness to the world. Romans 5:12 says sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. This is what we theologically call the Fall. As God pronounced punishment for sin, including banishment from the perfect garden, toil and hardship, He specifically tells Eve that her pain would be greatly increased in childbirth and He added severity to her subjection to Adam. From then on being a wife and a mother was radically less than what God intended, and radically harder than God intended. Ladies, life is not easy when you’re a sinner and you’re married to a sinner, and your children are sinners! We believe the foundational message of the New Testament that when people come to faith in Christ a wonderful process of sanctification begins in them, so being married to a Christian husband and raising children in the faith becomes an immeasurable blessing, but let’s face it, we still live in a sin-soaked society and we feel the effect of evil all around us. Here is an important message from Eve, who, by the way, did not even receive that name until after the Fall. She struggled in her post-Fall, post-Edenic roles as wife/mother, but she still glorified God in these roles. She was still God’s special creation, still ruler with Adam over creation, still just a little lower than the angels, still called to the wonderful co-creative role with God of bringing life into this world. And, mothers here this morning, so are you. God knows the trouble you face. He knows the way your husband often misunderstands you and your kids often disrespect you. He knows and His promise to you in Christ is that he will faithfully give you all you need. When the kids are fussy and their diapers are dirty and the TV is blaring and chaos is everywhere, turn to Him. Open your heart wide and invite the God of all comfort and peace to do what only He can do in you. I read about a woman who telephoned a friend and asked how she was feeling, "Terrible," came her reply, "my head's splitting and my back and legs are killing me. The house is a mess, and the kids are simply driving me crazy." Very sympathetically the caller said, "Listen, go and lie down, I'll come over right away and cook lunch for you, clean up the house, and take care of the children while you get some rest. By the way, how is Sam?" "Sam? Sam who?" the complaining housewife gasped. "Your husband, Sam.” “I have no husband named Sam." "My heavens," exclaimed the first woman, "I must have dialed the wrong number." There was a long pause before the harried mother asked her hopefully, "Are you still coming over?" Nancy Ortberg of Willow Creek Community Church, shared an insightful teaching. I want to read a lengthy quote from it, because I believe it will minister to some here today. In Robert Louis Stevenson's work, Jekyll and Hyde, unfortunately, the darkness of Mr. Hyde's character overshadows the goodness of Dr. Jekyll. But let's look at the Jekyll character. He was a good person. The book says that he was a physician, surrounded by good friends who hated to leave his dinner parties because he was so good to be around. When I became a mother, I found a Jekyll inside of me. For the first time there was a person in my life whom I loved more than I loved myself. Before I had kids, something I struggled with, and still do perhaps, was my selfish tendencies. My life went on my schedule. I did what I wanted, and I did it when I wanted. Now all of a sudden there was this other person in my life, and I didn't want to be selfish any more. Even though I was hungry, I wanted to feed her first; I was more concerned about her schedule, her sleep, what she would wear. I was doing unselfish things because I wanted to. I was becoming a patient and kind, calm, reasonable, generous, thoughtful, loving person. I thought, This is a good thing, this person who is emerging. I loved being a mom. There is another person who comes out sometimes when I am a mom, a person I don't know, and I want to say, "Who is she? What does she want? How can I make her go away?" Lest you think you are alone in this struggle, the apostle Paul describes this internal struggle of the good and the evil in us. "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good." In other words, I need restrictions to keep my behavior in line. "As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." I think Paul was a mother. He hits the nail on the head. There is that constant struggle inside of me where a good person responds to my children, and then this creature I don't know comes out. I remember one day in particular, although I'm not sure why it stands out in my mind because there were many days like this. I had a 3 year old, a 2, and an infant. I awoke to the fussy baby. He clung to me like a baby monkey hangs onto its mother and would not let me put him down. While Johnny was clinging to me, my toddler was wreaking havoc. She had this game she liked to play with the toilet paper; she would unwind it and do designs in every room of the house. While she did that, she would take all of the books off the shelves and start tearing pages out of them. While this was going on, my 3 year old was begging me to play Candyland. I hate Candyland. There was a mound of dirty laundry threatening to suffocate me. John walked out saying he had no clean underwear. There was no food in the house, and I had to go to the grocery store. At the grocery store, I had a baby clinging to me, a toddler in the grocery cart, my other one running up and down the aisles; and the grocery cart was so full I had to kick the pad of diapers down the aisle. In the toilet paper section, I fought to hold back the tears and to keep from running out. I stood there thinking, What am I doing with my life? Look at me. Back at home, I unloaded the groceries, fixing lunch while the ice cream melted. Then I took the kids to the park before rest time. A park with three children is not fun. I kept counting, One two three. I came with three; I've got to leave with three. By the time I got home and it was rest time I was a wreck. I hated myself. I hated my children. I hated my life. I put them in their rooms and shut the doors. Of course, none of them slept. And I went into the garage, and I cried. I don't know why. I just thought I was going to lose my mind. I knew that that day at four o'clock everything in the house would look exactly like it did when John left at seven o'clock that morning. I felt like I was becoming an impatient, frazzled, rude, angry, frustrated mom; and I was splitting into two people. Not all moms are like that. I know moms who are patient and kind toward their children almost all of the time. I admire them. I don't like them, but I admire them. That is not me. I used to think that my kids were doing this to me, or maybe it was somebody else's fault. But God was holding a mirror up to show me these two people who lived inside of me, to remind me that this Hyde character had been there all along. I looked at these two faces, and I was left with a question: "What do I do with these two people?" Listen, God is probably using fallen motherhood to teach you how much you need Him. The bad news is that Mr. Hyde lives in all of us. But there is good news—Jekyll lives there, too. And for those of us who are in Christ, we may become more Jekyll-ish by His Spirit every day. Sin entered our world and complicated God’s plan but it did not frustrate God’s wisdom. 3. God certified His wisdom and His plan when a woman bore His only Son - Matthew 1:21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. I just want to insert this thought briefly: God chose a sinner to be the earthly mother of His only begotten Son. There are some people who believe that Mary was sinless, a perfect woman, but that is not the Bible’s message. She was a sinner just like you and me. Mary, like Eve, was used of the Lord, in spite of her condition. He will use you, too. You may feel like the worst mother in the world, but God is willing and faithful to work in you and through you if you will trust Him. I spoke with a woman not long ago, whose three grown children are all strong believers. I mentioned how happy it must make her to see them all loving and serving Christ so faithfully. I was surprised when she burst into tears instantly. She confessed, “I don’t know how it happened—I was a terrible mother and a lousy excuse for a Christian! I spent the next few minutes encouraging her that it is God’s faithfulness to our often feeble efforts that makes the difference. Listen, God’s power to redeem our efforts and answer our prayers for our kids is not dependent on how perfectly we perform or how wonderfully we pray. But He is faithful in spite of our 4. Motherhood is a noble and honorable calling A little boy forgot his lines in a Sunday school presentation. His mother was in the front row to prompt him. She gestured and formed the words silently with her lips, but it did not help. Her son’s memory was blank. Finally, she leaned forward and whispered the cue, “I am the light of the world.” The child beamed and with great feeling and a loud clear voice said, “My mother is the light of the world.” Most of us dutifully and meaningfully honor our mothers on Mother's Day by buying lavish gifts and going to expensive restaurants for dinner. In fact, never in history has so much money been spent on Mother's Day's yet never have mothers been so dishonored as they are today. Tony Campolo, Christian sociologist and and distinguished professor, wrote about his wife’s attitude toward her role as a mother. Too many times, he says, women are made to feel that they should apologize for being mothers and housewives. In reality, such roles can be noble callings. When I was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, there were gatherings from time to time to which faculty members brought their spouses. Inevitably, some woman lawyer or sociologist would confront my wife with the question, "And what is it that you do, my dear?" My wife, who is one of the most brilliantly articulate individuals I know, had a great response: "I am socializing two homo sapiens in the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they might be instruments for the transformation of the social order into the teleologically prescribed utopia inherent in the eschaton." When she followed that with, "And what is it that you do?" the other person's "I’m a lawyer" just wasn't that overpowering. Let’s not forget God has not commanded us to keep a day for our mothers—that is a ritual dreamed up by well-meaning individuals like Anna Jarvis who conceived the idea in , and perpetuated by everyone who stands to gain by it, from Wal-Mart to Hallmark. Not that God has discounted the idea of honoring mothers—in fact, He is most emphatic and clear about how to do it. Honor your father and your mother (Exodus 20:12). Paul applies this fifth commandment specifically to children in Ephesians 6 (6:1-2), but we should be reminded that this commandment was given to adults. Honoring parents is so instinctive in all people and cultures, that it is found in every moral code. It is not reaching too far to say that families, societies, churches and nations stand or fall on whether or not this commandment is being obeyed. To this commandment alone is a promise attached—that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. [webmasters note: Ephesians 6:3] It is well and right today to remind ourselves to honor our mothers. Thank God for your mother. Then thank your mother for all she is and all she means to you. Proverbs 31 is a wonderful chapter describing the wonderful qualities of a godly woman, but in a very real way it is fulfilled in verse 28 – Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. And, by the way, kids and husbands, never you mind that your mother is not perfect—neither are you. Conclusion God’s plan will not, cannot be frustrated by sin. He will show Himself strong in spite of, and through, our weakness. Let’s be real, Moms. This fallen world offers you little encouragement and fallen children are more than you can usually handle. But by God’s grace this magnificent task of raising God’s babies into God’s servants gets done, in spite of your feelings of inadequacy. Here are a couple of lines by the inimitable Erma Bombeck: You don’t love me! How many times have your kids laid that one on you? Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic motivation a mother, I’ll tell them: I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going and what time you would get home. I loved you enough to let you discover your friend was a creep. I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your bedroom, a job that would have taken me 15 minutes. I loved you enough to ignore what every other mother did or said. I loved you enough to let you stumble, fall, hurt and fail. I loved you enough to accept you for what you are, not what I wanted you to be. Most of all, I loved you enough to say no when you hated me for it. Some mothers don’t know when their job is finished. They figure the longer the kids hang around, the better parents they are. I see children as kites. You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you’re both breathless...they crash...you add a longer tail. You patch and comfort, adjust and teach and assure them that someday they will fly. Finally they are airborne, but they need more string, and you keep letting it out. With each twist of the ball of twine, the kite becomes more distant. You know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that bound you together and soar free and alone. Only then do you know you did your job. Erma Bombeck, from “Forever, Erma,” quoted in Reader’s Digest, March 1997, p. 148   [Back to Top]