down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me. But showing steadfast love to the thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You should not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourners who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's. Let's pray. Gracious Father we wanna thank you for giving us this day where we can honor you by honoring our mothers.

We thank you Father God that you've given us your grace. Christ Lord God who forsook his position and became one of us Lord God and walked this earth. We thank you Father God that we have mothers who guide us and teach us to know about who Christ is. And so we pray for this morning that you would strengthen our church by strengthening the family.

And ultimately Lord God that our mothers would feel appreciated and strengthened because of this day. In Jesus name we pray, amen. I was talking with Esther this week and I was talking with Pastor Henry also that when Mother's Day comes around I would have to say personally that one of the hardest sermons to give is Mother's Day sermon.

So it's always difficult because every time we get onto this subject it's like what can I possibly say that I haven't said already? And it's hard to look for a text where it just kind of stands out and say this is, you should honor your mother. There are a few texts that we can look at but again it's a general teaching about obedience to parents and to honor them.

So every year I kind of wrestle with like okay what am I gonna say this year? And so the temptation is to kind of like you know what let's forget this. I'm just gonna go and plow through the Thessalonians and talk about the second coming of Christ and how mothers should look to Christ.

You know, I'm gonna work this in so I don't have to talk about this. But again even though there's a temptation to do that the reason why I plow through it because it is very important for the church. For the health of the church, for the ministry of the gospel.

For everything that we're doing in the church that we set apart this day to honor our mom. It's not simply because somebody in American history decided to do this and we wanna be consistent with what everybody else is doing. But what we're doing this morning is consistent with what we see in scripture.

But I wanna qualify before I start this because we're not setting apart this day to honor our mothers. And I don't know if this was mentioned or not but if you are a mother just kind of making sure that you understand. Afterwards we have a lunch provided for you even if you are, the baby is not born yet you're welcome to come and sit with us and our church family has prepared a nice meal for you.

So please do not go and help us to serve you, okay? We're setting aside this day not simply because it's Mother's Day and again not simply because the world is doing this but it's because it's very important that we establish honor for our mothers and our fathers but in particular today because it's Mother's Day our mothers because it has everything to do with what it means to be a Christian and follower of Christ.

It is directly linked to the message of the cross and hopefully we can kind of look at this and get that understanding. But again I wanted to qualify that what we're doing this morning is we're not elevating the mother with Jesus. You know, it's like well we all these other weeks we talk about Jesus so we wanna spend one day and set aside and honor our mothers.

You know, that's not what we're doing this morning. We're not doing that because you know we wanna take this day just specifically aside from Christ remember our mothers. But remembering and honoring our mothers is directly linked to honoring our Father in heaven and the scripture makes that very clear.

So hopefully you understand that what we're doing this morning is not simply about motherhood. It's about worshiping God. It's about a proper response to what God has done for us. I think it's extremely important especially in our culture, especially for a church that desires to proclaim Christ and be a light in this dark world because we live in an age where parenting is not highly valued.

You know, automatically when you have a child it's a disruption to what we want in life. And if you look in the media parents are always portrayed as fools. You know, especially the dad. Dad's always the idiot in the family, you know and mom kind of rescues. But as a whole in the family structure the cool, cool person, the wise one is the teenager.

You know, who's rebelling and he doesn't listen to anybody. He just, you know, makes his own decision, does his own thing. And I noticed that more and more because now we're raising a teenager and just this week or last week we had to take our oldest son, Jeremy to his high school registration and just the environment.

You know, as soon as we step into the school he needs to have about five foot distance. You know what I mean? 'Cause all his friends are around and we're in his environment now and parents just don't fit in, you know, into that environment. And I understand that there is a tremendous pressure for teenagers, you know, to be cool.

And I think for teenagers, you know, to be uncool is like the biggest, you know, tragedy in life. But all the more why the church needs to take this time to establish what God has established in the community of his believers. The scripture says, "Honor your father and your mother "that your days may be long in the land "which the Lord your God gives you." Out of all the commandments for God to set aside this particular commandment, say if you wanna live long and you wanna live prosperously in the land that you're about to enter, make sure that you honor your father and mother.

You know, at first glance, it looks kinda strange because out of all the commandments that God gave, right? Every commandment that God gives, there is a practical ramification. Whether it is dietary loss, you know, when God first gave those commandments, people didn't know that certain animals were not good for them, certain kind of fish were not good for them.

Way hundreds of years down the line, as the scientists were examining these animals, realized that a lot of these things were physically not good for you. You know, God's command for us to rest and how important rest is for human beings, for our health, whether it is when you went into the Canaanite land and not to intermarry with the Canaanites or the Midianites, because how that was going to introduce pagan worship.

And so every command that God gave us, God didn't just kinda pull that out of the air. He didn't just simply say, okay, I'm gonna draw this line here, and just to test your obedience, just to see if you're gonna do this, I'm gonna say you should do this or you shouldn't do this.

Nothing that God tells his people is just pulled out of the air. There is practical ramifications if we don't obey it. So when we look at the commandments, the commandment that we're looking at is the fifth commandment out of the 10 commandments. The first four commandments is about loving God, to worship him only, to not to use his name in vain, to not to make carved images of him, you know, keep the Sabbath holy.

It's all about proper worship to God. And then the next sixth commandment is about loving our neighbors. Now, out of these commandments, we would think, you know, if there's gonna be a promise that's gonna come with a commandment that's gonna come with a promise, you would think it would be do not murder, right?

If you disobey that commandment, you're not gonna live long, obviously. You commit murder, you die, people are gonna die, you're not gonna live long. That's practical ramification. Or if you commit adultery, right? You're gonna die from that too, right? Somebody's gonna kill you. You commit adultery. Or how about coveting?

If you covet other people and it causes discord in the culture or bearing false witness and out of greed, you're putting people into prison and maybe even execution out of, you know, lying for selfishness. You would think any one of those commandments, we say we can see the obvious ramifications of not obeying those commandments in the culture.

So if you disobey any of that in the new land, you're not gonna live long. There's not gonna be prosperity to you. But the commandment that he chose to set aside was the first one, honor your father and your mother, that you may live long in the land. What practical ramifications does it have that that would be said above do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not bear false witness?

What is it about that? Well, you look at it in Paul's writings in 1 Timothy 5.8, Paul tells the church, he says if an individual does not take care of his widowed mother, he is worse than an unbeliever. He said that a believer, one of the first things that we need to be responsible for in loving God and worshiping God is to take care of our widowed mothers when they are in need.

Jesus rebukes the Pharisees in Matthew 15, 3 to 6. And he says, why do you break the commandments of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother what you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.

For the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. And God, Jesus keeps on bringing this up to the Pharisees, saying that for the sake of your tradition, you are breaking this commandment. So not only is this commandment true in the Old Testament, but even in the New Testament.

It wasn't just given to the Israelites. We see it of the new covenant people. In fact, that same phrase, that same commandment is repeated again in Ephesians chapter six. So why this commandment is set aside above other commandments, say if you want to live long. Well, the practical ramification of obedience and honoring our parents is directly linked to how God has designed our family structure to be built up.

So if we are truly committed to building, not just an individual worships God, but a community of people that worships God, we need to first be able to honor and obey how God has designed it. You know, we talked about, you know, if you want to build a healthy marriage, anytime there's marriage counseling, we always talk about the role of the father and the role of the wife, and how these are building blocks of a healthy Christian marriage, and how Jesus and the church is the reflection, and that's the model that we are to follow, how Jesus loved the church unconditionally and gave himself for the church, and how the church should submit to Christ, right?

And how the wives should follow that as a model to submit to their husband. Well, that's in the family structure, but as the structure that goes beyond that is the relationship between the parents and their children. If the family structure is to be honored by God, if it is to reflect the gospel, it needs to follow what Christ teaches us in the scriptures.

He said, "To honor our father and mother "has practical ramification in building the kingdom of God," building a healthy church. When parents begin to devalue children and children begin to rebel against their parents, the very fabric of what God intended in the church begins to break down. If you see the Old Testament law, this is something that is very, very difficult for modern thinkers to accept in our way of thinking, because in the Old Testament law, one of the law that may sound strange and probably many people would be repulsed by is if a teenage son, if a son rebels and curses his father and mother, the penalty for that was capital punishment.

They were to take the child out and stone them publicly. Now, you look at that and say, "How can you possibly think that that is okay?" Especially in our culture where we are taught even spanking is wrong, right? You can't spank your kids. It's gonna make them violent children.

That's not grace, that's not love. Yet in the Old Testament, it was capital punishment. So on the surface, when we look at that, we say, "That's difficult to understand. "That must be one of those ancient barbaric things "that they did, but now that we know a gracious God, "He has changed." I think the reason why God gave such a harsh punishment for that is because those are the beginning signs of the unraveling of the people of God.

When we do not honor our fathers and mothers, that is the beginning signs that creeps in and eventually the rebellion against father and mother is only a reflection of the rebellion against what is above them. Typically, when we rebel and do not honor our father and our mother, that's a reflection against all the authority that is above us.

Our culture values independence and it values rebellion. Like I said, in order to be cool, look at the songs that they sing. I don't know the modern songs today because I don't know what the kids listen to, but I remember when I was younger in high school, there was a song called "We Don't Need No Education." We don't need no teachers and their dirty rules.

We used to sing that and say, "Yeah, we don't need that." You know what I mean? I don't know what they sing today, but I'm pretty sure it's gotten much worse than that. Teenagers, this is what they value. This is what our culture teaches. So if the church doesn't stand up and stand up with what the scripture says and stand up and say, "This is what God, "this is the practical way for us to honor God," then it'll be impossible for us to build a church that ultimately values true worship of God.

Some of you guys may have read or heard of this poem. This man wrote about everything I learned, I learned in kindergarten. Any of you read that or heard that before? I've read it in service, so you must have heard it. Let me read a portion of it for you where it says, "Everything I learned, I learned in kindergarten.

"Share everything, play fair, don't hit people. "Put things back where you found them. "Clean up your own mess. "Don't take things that aren't yours. "Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. "Wash your hands before you eat. "Flush. "Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. "Live a balanced life.

"Learn some and think some and draw and paint "and sing and dance and play and work every day some. "Take a nap every afternoon. "When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic. "Hold hands and stick together." And he goes on. You look at that and say, "Oh, what a cute story.

"Everything that we learned, how to be a good citizen, "how to be a good person, we learn in kindergarten." I say, "Absolutely bogus." If you are a mother sitting in this room, you should be offended by this poem. Kindergarten didn't teach you to flush the toilet. You mean until you were five years old, you didn't know how to flush the toilet?

Your mother taught you that. Hold hands when you walk across the street. You think until five years old, you just ran straight into traffic because you weren't in kindergarten yet? That's ridiculous. You didn't learn this from kindergarten. You went to kindergarten for what, four hours each day and all of this stuff, all of a sudden, you couldn't do any of this stuff, right?

No, all of this, all the fundamental things that make you a human being was taught by your mother with the help of the father, right? So we need to give credit where credit is due. Our mothers did that. Our mothers labored. The theologians say that Christians, we have special grace because we have been given the knowledge of Jesus Christ through the special revelation of the word of God.

But all human beings, whether you are Christian or non-Christian, is under common grace until the judgment day. And common grace basically means that because God is withholding his judgment, that there are still reflections of his goodness, of his righteousness, that everybody enjoys until the day of judgment. And one of the greatest of the common grace is that every Christian, every non-Christian has a mother watching out for them.

And that's by the grace of God. We would not be here without somebody laboring in our lives. We would not be here. We would not be able to eat. We would know how to put socks on. We would know when to flush the toilet. You would still be wearing diapers.

Somebody taught you that, right? And it was not kindergarten. You learned that way before you turned five. I hope you did, right? We need to give thanks where thanks is due. That's what, isn't that what it says in Romans 1? It says judgment is coming because they gave thanks to the creation rather than the creator.

So again, I wanna emphasize that our thanking of our mothers ultimately is not about the mom, really, because even the moms are stewards. But we don't bypass the stewards. We need to thank them. We need to honor them. But ultimately, if our thanksgiving stops there, we're no different than Romans 1, giving thanks to the stewards rather than the person who put the steward there in our lives.

Nonetheless, we need to be thankful. We need to honor them. It is our duty. It is our responsibility. Ultimately, it is a reflection of genuine worship to God. By honoring our mothers, we are taught from early on to respect those who are elderly. And it is a huge part of what it means to be mature, not only to respect those that you can gain something from, but respecting those who labor in your life, respecting authority.

These are huge, huge things that we need to learn. When you get a job, of course, you have a resume. But one of the things that they ask you when you go to an interview is, can you work with authority, right? One of the things, are you a good team player?

Can you work with your peers? But another important question that they ask you is, do you have problem with authority? Meaning that, can you take orders? Can you work under a manager? And said, no, you know, it's like, I do whatever I want. Right, you're not gonna get hired.

See, practical ramification of honoring our father and mother is that God has given us, whether it is the government, which God tells us to submit to, because God's the one who establishes all authority, and the most practical authority in our lives is our mother and father. And this morning, we are dealing with our mothers.

In Ephesians chapter six, verse one, when we are called, said, "Children, obey your parents." That word children there is not referring to little kids that we saw in the video. There are two different words for children. One is paidio, which is talking about young little children, and the other word is technon, and the technon is referring to anybody who has a mother and father.

So that passage in Ephesians 6, one is not referring to just little kids. He's talking to the grown-up church. He uses the word technon, and he tells the technon to obey your mother and father, your parents. Some people think that because now that I'm married, and the scripture tells us to leave and to cleave, to leave means that we're no longer obligated to obey our parents.

That is not true. That passage in Ephesians chapter six clearly says to adult children that our responsibility to honor our father and mother remains, whether you are married or not married. It's just a matter of priority, that this is now your first family, but our responsibility to care for our parents and to honor them never leaves us, just as the responsibility for parents will never leave them.

Then those of you guys who are in your 20s, that's the period when a lot of people have a hard time with their parents because you see yourself as an adult, but the parents have a hard time seeing you as an adult, so there's a lot of tension during your 20s.

A lot of times you think that that rebellion ends with teenage year, but what I've noticed is that in your 20s is where the transition takes place, where you're not a child, but it's hard for parents to just kind of let go. And I can honestly say, now from a parent's point of view, that I wiped this kid's butt.

You know what I mean? This guy, I raised this kid since he couldn't do anything, and all of a sudden now he wants to make his own decision and do everything. That's very unsettling to me. And so I can imagine from parents, I don't have kids who are in their 20s yet, but I can imagine parents having a hard time just letting go like that.

And one of these days when you're parents at that point, you're probably gonna understand much better some of the conflicts that you may be going through right now because you are in your 20s. It's absolutely essential and important for us that we are to honor our mothers. When I think about honoring mothers, their very first person example that I think of in the New Testament is Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Now, the Protestant church is very hesitant to talk about Mary because whenever the subject of Mary comes up, it's usually about how we ought to not worship her because of the Catholic church. The Catholic church venerates her to the point where they call her co-redemptress, that Jesus is the only mediator between us and God, but we have a mediator between us and Jesus, the mother Mary.

And so because of that, that wrong doctrine, that heresy, that Protestant church, whenever we mention Mary, we have a tendency to kind of say what you should not do. But I wanna see Mary as a human being and to sympathize with her and see what God has done and through her.

She shows up in Luke chapter one and the angel says, "You are graced, you are highly favored." And that word literally means that you've been graced by God. Mary knew from early on that she was not carrying an ordinary child, obviously, she was immaculate conception so that does not happen.

If you have a child and you didn't have the intercourse or whatever that normally comes by that way, you know something is special. But not only the way that she got pregnant, but the angels came, made it very clear. Then Luke chapter two, she meets certain prophets that prophesize for her that your child is gonna come into this world and he's gonna be the Messiah, who's gonna deliver the nation of Israel.

So Mary knew from the very beginning that she didn't have an ordinary child. Can you imagine raising a perfect kid? The parents always talk about how our kids, he's so rambunctious, doesn't listen and how difficult it is because so strong willed. But I would rather raise a difficult child than a perfect kid.

And that's what Mary had to do. Mary raised a perfect child 'cause he's the son of God. In Luke chapter two, 48 through 49, we see a scene where he's 12 years old and Joseph and Mary are taking him to the temple to dedicate and to worship. And in the hustle and bustle, they lost him.

And they said they lost him for three days. Now, any of you who are a parent know exactly what that feels like if you've ever lost your child. I think Esther and I lost our kid maybe once or twice and both times was Zachary. He was just, our second kid, I mean he just was full of energy.

And I remember we were, this one particular time, we went to the INS office and my mom was watching him. Just for a second, he turned around. He was probably no more than about two, two and a half, about Isaiah's age now. He ran into the elevator, we weren't paying attention and he just disappeared on us.

We turned around, my mom didn't know where he was, Esther didn't know where he was and I didn't know where he was. So that was probably about a good, maybe about six or seven minutes. We were frantic. And you have to remember, this is not an empty building. This is a building full of people that we don't know.

So we're thinking, oh my gosh, what happened? And then in the middle of all of this, we see the elevator door opening and the security guard basically found him at the basement 'cause he ran out and he was running all over and said, this kid doesn't belong here. So he said, this must be from that floor.

So he brought him up. So I can imagine, and again, any parent who's lost their child, even for five minutes, they know what that feels like. Well, the scripture says they lost him for three days. They couldn't find him for three days. And then they finally go back to the temple and this is the response in verse 48.

And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, son, why have you treated us so? And again, any parent would say that. I think that's an understatement. Son, why have you treated us so? Maybe that's the cleaner version. 'Cause I would have said, what is wrong with you?

Three days. You told your father and I have been searching for you in great distress. And you would expect the child to be like, oh, I'm sorry, I was playing with my friends, I lost track of time. But Jesus turned around and he said to them, why were you looking for me?

Because you were gone for three days. Did you not know that I must be in my father's house? And only Jesus, don't ever say that. You would never train a child to turn around and say, why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I needed to be with my friends?

Only Jesus can say this, right? Did you not know that I need to be in my father's house? And what the response is interesting after that is that it says Joseph and Mary did not, at that time, understand what Jesus was saying. So we don't know what happened after that 'cause it doesn't say.

'Cause Joseph and Mary did not understand what he was saying. Now, remember that this was clearly prophesied to Joseph and to Mary who Jesus was. And so Jesus is only repeating what they should have known. He said, did you not know? This is who I am, that I needed to be at my father's house, but they didn't understand.

But you know what that teaches me is that Jesus and Mary raised Jesus like any other child. Even though he was the prophesied Messiah, they weren't thinking like, the Messiah, he's gonna be at the temple. They were looking for their 12-year-old kid that disappeared. And then when he says this, they say, hmm, what are you talking about?

In John chapter two, three to five, we see another intimate scene with Jesus and his mother Mary. Where they're at the wedding and the wine disappeared. And this is a huge disgrace to them who were throwing this party 'cause they ran out of wine. So Mary calls Jesus and says, hey, Jesus, we're out of wine.

Can you do something about this? And Jesus' response in verse four, chapter two, says, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. We know what Jesus is talking about. Jesus' mission was very clear. It was prophesied. It was made clear to Mary and Joseph.

And it was prophesied for hundreds of years even before Jesus showed up. So when Jesus says, it's not my time, meaning that it's not my time to be doing this because the reason why he's performing miracles was to prepare himself to go to the cross. He says, not my time yet.

Again, what this teaches me is Mary is responding like any other mother. And I'm thinking, Jesus probably performed some miracles. He probably did some stuff that Mary knew about. And he said, wow, my son, he has a special gift. And so that's probably why he's saying, if anybody can fix this, my son Jesus can fix this.

And that kind of reminds me of any mother. If your son's a doctor or a lawyer and you have a close friend who has problems, say, oh, my son will take care of you. Don't worry about it. You know what I mean? And that's the scene that I see in John chapter two in the very first miracle.

Jesus, Jesus' mom just being mom. That's my son. Oh, you don't have wine? My son could take care of it. And Jesus is like, wait, wait, wait. All these things, ultimately, is to lead me to the cross. Again, the picture that I see with Mary, and when the angel said to Mary that you are blessed, that you are particularly chosen, and I know birthing the son of God is a special privilege that no one else but her was able to experience.

But I think the true blessing of Mary with her is that her affections for Christ went way beyond him being the Messiah and the Savior. That was her son that she raised. And yet, the reason why we venerate her, and the reason why the Catholic Church, again, in confusion, decided to venerate her was because from the very get-go, when Mary died, and this is according to church history, that as early as Mary's death, the people began to venerate her and say, wow, she must have been a special woman, and then that kind of evolved in the fourth century in Arabia, turned into an actual worship of Mary, and then that kind of crept into the church gradually, where it is what it is today, where they call her co-redemptress.

So that part of it, we need to be very careful. But the fact that Mary was chosen to raise a child, and at the end had to give him up and sacrifice, even though it was the Father who sent him, Mary was at the cross. Mary saw him being crucified.

And was with him to the very end. When we look at all the mothers, when I look at the scripture and look at all the mothers that we would choose as examples, any one of these mothers, I could spend this whole day talking about how this is a great mother, and how we ought to venerate them and honor them.

There's a unifying factor in every single one of these mothers that is mentioned in scripture. We don't normally talk about them because they're always in the background. We talk about their son. We talk about their children. Because God used them to bring them about, so the main character is the son.

But there's always a mother in the background. And one of these ladies that stand out is Hannah. Hannah didn't have a child until she was way late in years. She cried out to God and said, "If you give me a child, I will sacrifice him, "and I will dedicate him for your service." So God hears her prayers.

So she's able to have a child in her old age. And then the scripture says that when he was strong enough, that he delivered, he had to drop off this child at the temple to the priest Eli, and then go back home. Can you imagine that? Having a child and then raising him, going through the hardship of weaning this child, and as soon as he's strong enough, you take him to the temple?

Well, that's what Hannah did. And that's what we remember about Hannah. And one of the most touching scenes, to me, that I see in scripture about the mother's love is mentioned in 1 Samuel 2, 18-19. Because she dedicated Samuel to the service of God, and God raises this prophet up in a period of Israel that was in desperate need of prophets who were gonna speak up for God and not be afraid of man.

Well, she delivers him up to the temple, and it says she never forgot about him. Every year, she would go up and visit him. And this is what it says in 1 Samuel 2, 18-19. Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy clothed with a linen ephod. And his mother, Hannah, used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.

You say, "Oh." (laughs) Right? You see a picture of Hannah, never forgot about her son, Samuel. And Samuel's ministering in his little robe, and his mom is at home every year making this little robe so that Samuel can wear. And every year, she says she went and she made this little robe to give to him.

Can you imagine the sacrifice for Hannah? Again, it's biblical history, and we look at it, and we just kind of skim over it. But put yourself in that situation, right? Hannah sacrificed for the service of the Lord. We look at Elizabeth. Elizabeth's another lady who was in old age, and God hears her prayers.

And so John the Baptist comes from her, and she raises this prophet up. And when the right time comes, he prepares a way for his cousin Jesus, and then when his work is done, he's beheaded and he's gone. And behind this great man, according to Jesus, the greatest man who was born of a woman, John the Baptist, there was a mother behind him who raised him, took care of him.

You look at Salome, the mother of James and John. This is the mother who was following Jesus from Galilee and was begging Jesus, "When you go to your kingdom, "you make sure you sit on the left or to the right." And Jesus kind of gently rebukes her and says, "Well, I don't have the power to do that.

"My father will do that, but what I can give you "is that can you drink the cup that I drink?" And not knowing what he was talking about, he said, "Yes, we can do that." Well, we can be harsh on them, but later on we see when Jesus is hanging on the cross, Salome was one of the mothers who stuck with Jesus to the very end, ministering to them.

All those times that they were traveling for three years, there were mothers traveling with them, cooking for them, cleaning for them, picking up after them. See, mothers were there from the beginning until the very end, and then later on, we see those two sons, they're the one that she wanted to sit on the left and the right, right?

And John is cast out into the island of Patmos for the rest of his life, and James becomes the first martyr among all the disciples. Not the first martyr to mention in Acts, but the first martyr among the disciples. And behind these great men, there's these women. The last person I wanna mention is Eunice.

Eunice is Timothy's mom, and then the grandma is Lois, and we see Timothy shows up on the scene in Acts 16. In Acts 16, Paul comes to the city of Lystra and recognizes this young man who is great of faith and chooses to take him with him on his journeys from that point on.

Most commentators believe that Timothy was probably no more than about 15 years old at that time. Can you imagine letting your 15-year-old child go with this apostle? And I know he's an apostle, and he's already famous, but everywhere he went, if for every one person that loved Paul and followed Paul, there probably was 100 other people that wanted him dead.

And Paul didn't have a good track record. He was already beaten, imprisoned, persecuted, chased out of every city. Can you imagine a mother offering your child to follow this man? There's a good chance that this man is going to die, just like Jesus died, and offered him up to him.

And we see in 2 Timothy, as Paul is dying, and he's giving the baton to his disciple, it's Timothy. Most people believe that Timothy probably didn't have his dad from early on. That's why his name is not mentioned. So most likely, Eunice raised him as a single mother, and then Lois, that's why the grandmother is so prominent in his life, because the father probably was not there.

So imagine being a single mom, raising this child, maybe thinking that after he gets old enough that he's going to take care of you or something, and then because of the love for Christ, because they were so deeply affected by the gospel, not only were they willing to follow Paul and to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, they gave up their son that he may also follow.

The unifying thing that we see with all of these moms is that their faith was great enough that they would give their children, they dedicated their children for the sake of God's service. Now I would say this to all the young moms in this room. There is a great temptation when you become a mother or father for the first time.

And you get to that point in the road in your life where you have to make a decision. And when you first meet Christ, you make that decision. I want to follow Christ, and I don't care if I become rich, I want to pick up my cross. But when that child comes into your life, all of a sudden you have another reason to become worldly.

And I must honestly say, every temptation that I have in life is directly related to my kids and my family. I've never desired to have nice things until I had kids, because I wanted what's best for them. I want to provide what's best for them, I want to give them the best education.

I don't want them to feel left out at school. So there is a great temptation. And the warning and encouragement that I give you is a lot of times the temptation that we have is because it's our kids, it's for our kids. And our kids become our idol. And you live the rest of your life, everything that you wouldn't do for yourself, you're doing it with the excuse for this kid.

And all of a sudden, you're living for your child. And everything that you're buying, everything that you're doing, every decision you're making is justified because you say you're being a good dad, or you're being a good mother. Scripture says, what good is it if you profit, if you gain the whole world, and you forfeit your soul?

Any mother in this room, no matter how strong of a Christian you are, however you are struggling with your faith, every mother would say, what good is it if you provide everything that you can provide for this child, and yet he does not know Christ? Let me wrap up with this illustration.

Parenting is kind of like daycare. If you take your child to a daycare, you don't drop the kid off and say, hey, my work is done. Now is your responsibility, hopefully things will work out. You drop off the kid, and what you would tell the daycare leaders is that, hey, the best that you can hope for the daycare is to represent you in that situation because you can't physically be there, to love that child as you would love that child, to teach that child as you would teach that child, to take care of that child as you would take care of that child.

And you wouldn't want to put him in any situation that that daycare person is gonna contradict what you're gonna tell him because you're a steward. And in the same way, that's what parenting is. You and I are only stewards. The real Father is up in heaven. We have these children for a brief period of time, and the best job that you and I can do is to reflect their heavenly Father so that when they are thankful to me, the greatest thing that they will be thankful to me is that they were able to meet their heavenly Father up in heaven for eternity.

We only have these children for a short period of time, and during this short period of time is to prepare them so that they can meet their Father. Our greatest responsibility as parents and as mothers is to introduce the love of Christ, what you and I cannot possibly do.

As great as your love may be, you will never come close to the love of Christ. And if all they see in life is that they're thankful to you, but they're not thankful beyond you, then at the end of your life, you have not done them service. It's no different than a daycare who pulls this child away from his parents, said, "I'm doing a great job caring for them," but they never know their parents.

See, every one of these great moms in the Bible, there's a unifying theme of each one. They were behind the scene, and they sacrificed greatly in order that their children, whether it was Jesus, John the Baptist, Samuel, or Timothy, that every single one of them gave sacrificially in order for that they may be used for God's glory.

Again, so I wanna encourage all of us this morning, especially because there are so many young families popping up left and right. And the trend is that when you have your first child, that that child can easily become your idol, and that your life and your walk with God begins to drift, and all of it justified because of this child.

So my encouragement to you, my challenge to you this morning is that make sure that Christ is what you are representing to this child. And it doesn't matter how many Sunday school lessons you give, it doesn't matter how many Bible memory verses, and a lot of times parents get angry because the children are a certain way, and they blame the Sunday school.

They only spend Sunday school one hour a week. They're with you the rest of the time during the week. They will learn more from what you are doing than what you are saying. So again, this is a tough job. This is an extremely tough job. I stayed home with Jeremy for about a year and a half when he was a little kid, and I honestly say, I've had all kinds of jobs, cleaning toilets, washing cars, digging ditches, I've had all kinds of jobs.

And I have to honestly say from the bottom of my heart, that was the toughest thing I've done. A year and a half, I was home with Jeremy. And we just financially, we just couldn't handle it. And so Esther was at work, and I remember very specifically, 3.30 came around, 'cause that's when she got off work.

We were by the front door, and I had Jeremy with me in my arms, when that door opened, hello, Mommy. And it was that draining. I mean, especially for a father, it's just not second nature to me. So the work for the mothers is extremely difficult, and that is why the church needs to honor them.

'Cause if our mothers are not honored, and they cannot do their job that God called them to do, then it is not just the mothers who will be discouraged. When the mothers are discouraged, then the families will fall apart. When the family falls apart, the church falls apart. When the church falls apart, God is not glorified.

So this is not just about mothers. This is about being true worshipers, honoring God, spreading the gospel, exalting Christ. And that's why this day has to be set apart, where we are honoring our mothers. Let's pray. Gracious Father, we wanna continue to bless and thank you for who you are and what you give us.

And I pray, Lord God, that you would use this day to encourage the discouraged, to strengthen those who are weak, to remember those, Lord, who are laboring the most in our lives. We thank you for them, Lord God, who we are able to see the tangible love of Christ because of their tangible work for us.