Mom's of the Bible

I would tell you to turn in your Bible. I normally say that. If you're visiting with us this morning, our church is pretty much something like 70 to 90% expository preaching where we're going verse by verse through the books of the Bible. And I've been going through the letters of John, but I interrupt for things like Mother's Day and Resurrection Day, and we have subject or topical type messages. And so I'd like to take a moment and talk about motherhood, and in particular, if you see the title, We're going to look at actual moms from the Bible, and we'll look at a couple of them twice. We'll look at them sort of on the negative side and the positive side.

These days, if you pay any attention to social media, and odds are you do because the whole world does, you'll see a lot of lists out there, you know, like the top 10 best movies or the top 15 albums by this group or those kind of things. Well, God has a top 10 too. And in His top 10 is the honor of fathers and mothers. God wants that to be forefront. It's important to Him. And so we're going to talk about that. We're going to put some— take some time and put some energy into understanding why God would have that be in His top 10.

Before I get too involved in Mother's Day, we used to joke about this, and I feel like my wife might have been the one joking, so I'm sorry if I misrepresent you, dear, but she used to joke. That on Father's Day she always loved it because she knew she wasn't going to get yelled at in the sermon. Like it was the men that were going to get yelled at in the sermon. So don't take any time off here, men, because it's Mother's Day. In fact, I even thought— I put it in my notes this morning in my review— that I could actually go to all the husbands in this very sermon and do the exact same message for the men who messed up. So you don't have the day off, husbands. Pay attention.

And also, it is important to note that And I hinted at it even in the baby dedication that a family is not a husband and wife and children. That is not a family. And I say that to you because it can be the case and often is the case that the second children are born, they become the main characters of a house. And that is not biblical. God is always supposed to remain the main character of the house, and He can be that with a couple or with the family with children. So if you have a child-centric home, you probably need to know that that's not biblical. That the children, because they're children and they're young and they're sweet, you might think, "Well, they're the most important things in the world." They're not. They're just people.

I'm so thankful that I learned that early in my faith. There was a class taught at Ceres that made that very clear, that children are just people. It's just like having someone move into your house that just needs you to take care of them. But they are just people. They're not special people. They're not better people. They're not the center of the universe. That's really helpful if you know that.

And you might say, "Man, why would he say that on Mother's Day?" Because I want moms to know there's more to life than just being a mom. You can honor God in your whole life, and motherhood is one place where you do it.

Motherhood, if you didn't know, if you've been living under a rock, is under attack. Motherhood right now in our culture is very much demeaned, dismissed. It's considered some form of slavery if you decide to be a homemaker or raise children. It's considered weak-minded. If you're a woman and you are thinking about being a traditional woman in the sense that you think about raising children and that being something you're going to do for the Lord, that you're going to raise godly offspring, our world would say you're oppressed and you've been a victim of toxic masculinity. To the point where men who might desire that in a woman might think that, you know, what I would really like as a man is to have a wife who would like to raise godly children with me, but that is considered probably fascism, and you're a tyrant and a bully.

And then you add to that the sexual revolution and feminism and abortion and the now prevalence of sexual deviancy in the LGBTQ divided by whatever culture. There is no shortage of trouble for any woman who decides with her husband to be a mother. There's opposition everywhere. And I didn't even mention those perfect Instagram moms that make you feel small, that you can't do it well.

Okay, I've decided I'm going to be a mother. I've decided I'm going to serve the Lord. I'm going to serve my home. I'm going to raise children in the Lord. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put God first and whatever He tells me in my family. And then you get on the internet and you see supposed perfect versions of that. Oh, she slept through the night just perfectly. She ate just the way she was supposed to eat. Oh, look, she's 6 months old and already cleaning her room. And people fall for that fakeness on the internet as though that is what it is to be a mom.

I almost want to tell you what happened in the Logeman family this morning that caused a little tardiness to church so we all know that that's not what happens in motherhood. It's a lot dirtier than that, a lot messier than that. Not to mention the fact when you learn very quickly that those kids have a will and that will is defiant, it's hard to be a mom. And this world doesn't want to say you should be a mom. This world looks down on motherhood. It looks down on womanhood or femininity the way God would have us understand it.

So this morning, I am going to pick on you just a little bit, moms, I promise. But I promise on the back end of it, when I'm done looking at some negatives of motherhood and some maybe poor examples or questionable examples, that on the end of the morning that I will Hopefully when we're done here, from Scripture and what God says about motherhood, you women in this room and you men who should appreciate them will all value and honor what God honors. And God honors motherhood. It's his invention. It's his idea. And I suggest that means not only that we should do it right because he says so, but we should do it right because we want to. It's exciting.

Let's pray. Father, uh, help us understand your thing. This is your thing. This is one of the very foundational, fundamental things to creation is being fruitful and multiplying and pointing our families to you. And Father, though there are people in this room that aren't mothers, everybody in the room has a mother. And it is something that we need to be attentive to because it is something that can be done wrong. Mothers can do that thing wrong. Our culture's definitely doing it wrong, but we can also not respect it the way we should and honor it the way we should. There's lessons for everybody. Every believer can learn something by looking at what you think of motherhood. Would you teach us that? Would you help us appreciate a thing that you say is valuable? And we want all of that done, not only that mothers would be strengthened and encouraged and families better off and more faithful and more obedient. More glorifying to you. We want all of that because it makes you happy, because you are pleased when it's done right. So help us, Father, see motherhood correctly and honor it the way you would have us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, motherhood is a good idea whether you believe your culture or not, because God says it's a good idea. In his top 10 that I mentioned earlier, Exodus 20, God says in the Ten Commandments, one of the top 10 is honor your father and your mother. Now, I'm going to say something dumb, but it's not dumb. So don't think I'm dumb because I say something that might sound dumb. It's actually really, really smart what I'm about to say. Don't say, "Duh, are you kidding me? This is what a guy goes to seminary for so he can say something like that?" If God says, "Honor your father and your mother," that means your father and your mother are honorable.

Now, you might be thinking, especially you kids who are wanting to be defiant, you kids who are trying to push back against the authority of your parents, you might be thinking, "Uh, maybe he didn't know my parent." You all heard my story earlier. Years ago, I always tell the story that our air conditioner was going out in our house, and I was asking a friend of ours who was a part of our church what I should do about it. And he says, "I thought you rent your house. Don't you rent your house?" And I said, "Yeah, I rent my house." And he says, "Well, tell your landlord. Why are you worried about it?" And I said, "Because the Bible tells me to honor my landlord." And he said, "What? The Bible doesn't say that." But I was renting from my dad. So it isn't just a landlord, he's my dad. I got to do the most honorable and best thing for him in that situation.

So if God says honor them, hey, that means they're honorable. It doesn't mean they're deserving. He didn't say honor deserving parents. He says, "Honor your father and your mother." It's a command. He honors them. It's a good idea whether we like it or not.

And you say, "Well, okay, what does the word honor mean? Because maybe I need some help. Maybe if you could bring the word honor down a little bit, it'll be a little easier for me to honor my father and my mother." Well, no, it doesn't help you because the Bible says, "Honor the Lord with your possessions." It also says, "Praise Him, you descendants of Jacob. Glorify Him." It'll say, "Let the Lord be glorified." All of those words in those verses I just read are the same word for honor your father your mother. So the kind of honor God expects you to give your father and your mother, and for today's emphasis, your mother, is the way you would honor Him. Not in the same way, not praise, not as ultimate glorifying, that kind of thing, but the idea is the kind, the stuff it's made of, the stuff that honor of God is made of, He wants for mothers and for fathers, the DNA of it. So we need to get that right, that honor is God's invention. He wants it for himself and he wants it for parents.

The last part of that verse in Exodus 20 is also telling because he says, "That your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you." So God doesn't actually have to give us a reason for honoring parents. I don't know if you know, but God's the boss. If God says honor them, you just have to honor them. But God is very kind in that he gives us a reason and a result and an end goal of honoring them, and that is fruitfulness. Godly offspring, a future legacy. He makes promises to people who honor him. Now, we know there are exceptions. Sometimes kids do not honor him, but the idea is, hey, to keep your kids from going off into disobedience and being worthy of capital punishment at some point in their life, honor your father and your mother. He gives commands with promises.

So the word mom is a good idea. When God says to honor your parents, It means they're honorable. It doesn't mean they deserve it. It means He tells you to give it. And sometimes when you don't have honorable parents, you have to do that on purpose. But you still must obey the commandment. So parenthood, motherhood in particular, good idea. It's God's idea and it's a good idea.

Now, this next part is kind of what I'm considering more the first half of the sermon. I'm going to do more speculation than I'm used to doing. If you're not used to exegetical, hermeneutical, technical preaching. I'm not— not that I'm any good at any of those things, but typically we very much want to get to the technical, grammatical, historical, proper use of biblical words. I'm going to be doing more speculation this morning than I'm typically comfortable doing. I'm going to be speculating on some things in the text, but I'm telling you up front that I know I'm speculating, and I don't want you to take what I'm saying as this edict, absolute authoritarian view of the things I'm going to say, because I'm going to say some things about Eve and Sarah that are educated guesses. They're educated, but they're still guesses. So I don't want you to take me saying this is the only understanding of these people and these texts.

So I'm going to say some negative things first. Now, the positive things, they're unquestionable. They're positive, and they're unquestionably positive. But the negative things that you ladies, in particular moms, you can learn from, I am speculating a bit, but just a bit. I'm not abusing the text. I'm not lying. I'm not jamming things in there that for sure couldn't be there. Okay? But that happens. Sometimes there's passages where, you know, I may be a tad reading between the lines, but it's very important that if you are going to read between the lines of Scripture, that you know you're reading between the lines. That you're not jamming stuff in Scripture that isn't there. That's called eisegesis. You don't want to put things in the Bible that aren't there. So I'm being respectful of that as I tell you.

So it's good for us, you can see in your notes, to have a healthy reality check. You know this proverb very well. It says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son," the proverb writer says, "hear the instruction of your father and do not forsake the law of your mother, for they will be a graceful ornament on your head and chains about your neck." The authors of scripture are in unanimous agreement that honoring mother, listening to mother, taking the instruction of mothers is very, very good, and it's very, very important.

And now I'm going to imply from that, and I'm going to infer from that, I think in a very meaningful way— I don't have examples in my notes, but there's lots of them— where God actually equates his own love for his people to things like a mother who nurses her baby. God uses those things as examples of his kind of love for his people. So what I'm trying to tell you right now is that if God says it is a good thing to honor mothers, it's a good thing to listen to the law of your mother, it's a good thing to obey, then it would be a very tragic thing to miss your calling as a mother. It would be devastating, women, ladies, if you knew this thing that God invented and called good, even instructs children to honor them, raise them, think of them as precious and like gold in your eyes. If God says think of them that way, oh, how tragic it would be if you missed it. If you said, "Oh, having kids, I'll lose my life if I have kids. I'll lose my freedom. I don't get to have the things I want." Or if you think what the world thinks about it, that kids are just essentially little toys of yours so that you can live your life vicariously through them, so that you can post them on social media and they can make you look good, that children are an object for your amplification. It's very easy to miss the calling of motherhood, to miss the beautiful thing that God puts this kind of attention to where he says, this is how you should think of it. It would be a graceful ornament for the children who honor their mother. It would be like precious gold if they honor their mother around their neck. So how bad would it be if they didn't have a mother who did the things that were honorable?

And that's why I'm going to give you some examples here of women. I'm saying they either missed or they almost missed, or at the very least they fell short of the calling of motherhood. And you might be surprised at a couple of them that I give you. The first one I have for you this morning is Eve. Now, you all know that she was certainly complicit in the fall of mankind. Like, I could talk about the fact that she is very much a part of all of our problems, right? And you men, of course, yeah, it is the woman that he gave her, right? It's the woman's fault. No, it was the man's fault that Eve fell. So men, don't let yourself off the hook there.

But I do want to make sure that as I zero in on Eve, I do not mean her part of what we call the fall or original sin. That's not the part I mean. I actually mean her part as a mother. Because in Genesis chapter 4, the Bible tells us that Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain. Kayin is how you say it in Hebrew. And said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. And she bore again, then she bore again, this time his brother Abel.

Abel, you know that name. Now Abel was keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. A lot is read into those things. I'm not the only one that speculates over Cain and Abel. A lot of people do. But the thing I want to zero in on, and this is what I'm saying, please hear me when I say it. Don't put words in my mouth. Oh, please don't do that. Don't make me say things I don't say. It is possible, just by virtue of their names in Hebrew, it is possible. Now, I'm suggesting it might be likely, but I don't want to go too far out on that edge, okay? That the names themselves tell me Eve got it wrong.

What do we know about Cain later in the story? Haha, so he didn't turn out good. We know that, right? We all know that. But his name could actually be translated, "I got a man from the Lord." That actually could be the core meaning of his name. That what Eve is saying is, "I got the best one." Remember, she was given a promise that the seed of woman would crush the head of the serpent. She might think that Cain was that promise. That would be a legitimate thing for her to think, that Cain was the answer. But there might be something missed here because she might be thinking all of her hope, all of her meaning and purpose as a mother is built up in this one man, this one man, the man I got from the Lord.

And do you know what the name Abel means? Who knows the book of Ecclesiastes? What does it say over and over again? Vanity, vanity. That is the word Abel. Abel's name means meaningless. Now, I don't know if that's what it means here. There's people that speculate that she might have known his end, that he was going to be murdered. I don't know all of that. I don't want to speculate more than I should. But it's very possible, I'll say it to the extreme, I might be wrong, it's very possible that what Eve is saying is, "I got a good one in Cain and a worthless one in Abel." She might be saying that. So I'm saying she might have missed her calling. She got a man from the Lord and he turned out to be what we know he turned out to be.

Now let's move on to Sarah. We know the story of Sarah. We know that God had chosen Abraham and Sarah, Abram and Sarai first, and for the purpose of bringing His people through that lineage. And God tells them in their old age that they're going to have children.

And then we know this story from Genesis 18. Sarah laughed within herself, saying, "After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" And the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Surely I will bear a child, since I am old?'" Is anything too hard for the Lord? 'At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah will have a son.'

So I guess if anybody over probably the age of 80 is not thinking that they're going to have children— and before you pick on Sarah for not listening to the Lord, is there anybody in this room that wouldn't think what she thought or Abraham thought? I think we would all think what they thought. But there's an important difference, is that God said it was going to happen. God said she was going to have a child. Abraham, in his age, was going to have a child. And that is the difference. However reasonable you might think you are, when Sarah laughed, she was wrong for laughing. I don't care how reasonable she was, she was wrong. And we know what happened with Ishmael.

We know how Abraham tried to force God's hand. We know all the trouble that came from that if you know the story in hindsight. So you know for sure that trying to tell God he's wrong and do things your own way brings lots of trouble. So I'm saying Sarah almost missed her calling. Now, this one is a little more obvious, but it's not obvious for the reason I want to bring it to you. And that is Lot's wife. You know Abraham's relative Lot, who chose the better portion of land, that land ultimately being Sodom and Gomorrah. And we know what happened with them in judgment, them being the examples of sexual perversion. They're even used even in our modern vernacular for their sexual perversions. It's in our language in our modern time for what came from that way of thinking. And yes, the most obvious example of Lot's wife not being a good wife or a good believer or a faithful person is that she turned back. Remember, you all know the story. But let's make sure we're clear. Abraham was hesitant to go too. He had to be dragged out, right? I mean, Lot. Lot was hesitant too. He was scared. He didn't want to go. He didn't want it to go that way. He was arguing the whole time. So Lot wasn't the good guy and his wife the bad gal. That's not what happened. They were all hesitant. And that is easy. It's easy to talk about Lot's family, Sodom and Gomorrah, the fact that— I love Adrian Rogers. I heard him say one time that, hey, It wasn't long before Lot's kids were cheerleading at Sodom High School. You know? In other words, he had immediately adopted the world and turned into what they were. You can hear him even willing to give up his own daughters, right, to the perverts outside. You know that story really well. But that's not the crux of the matter to me.

I'm going to look in on one particular verse or two and speculate, but I think it's safe speculation. In Genesis 19:14, Lot went out— remember, he was given the warning. The angels came and gave him the warning, the messages, right? And he goes back to tell his family, hey, family, judgment's coming. God is going to judge us. He's going to— this place is going down. It's going to be burnt down to the ground. And God is rescuing us. By the way, Abraham prayed for him. Remember that? Abraham interceded. So how about a family member like Abraham looking out for you? But anyway, aside from that, Lot goes to tell his family. Genesis 19:14, so Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who had married his daughters and said, get up, get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city. Now, let me tell you what's supposed to happen, families. When you as a family and you as a leader of your family go in and tell your family something, this is what God wants, there's only one right reaction for a godly family, and that is for the whole family to say, "Amen. What do we do? If God gave us Dad and Mom to lead us, and if they're saying we need to move, we need to move." Do you know what comes next in the text? I left it out. But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.

Now you say, this is all Lot's fault. Why are you bringing this up on Mother's Day? What are you not hearing in this text? What do we know about Timothy's mother and grandmother in the New Testament? When did he learn the Scripture? When did he learn God's things? Who did he learn them from? What do we now know about the men that Lot and his wife gladly gave their daughters to? They knew nothing about the Lord. They knew nothing about judgment. Lot had no credibility with them. And I'm suggesting to you his wife was going along with it. Why would I suggest his wife wasn't on board with the judgment of God coming? Because she's the one that looked back later in hesitation. Ladies, if you have a godly man at your house who's trying to do what God wants and he brings the Word of God to your house, please support him in that. Lot's wife did not do that. And yes, I'm speculating. The text doesn't say. She might have been arguing with him, "Oh, please, husband. Please tell them how it is. Tell them what God wants." But because of what ends up happening, I have trouble believing that's what happened. I have trouble believing that Lot is there telling— or Lot's wife is telling Lot, "Oh, please, kids, listen to dad. He's trying to help us. I don't think she's doing that. I think the evidence is clear that they had been fully immersed in the world's culture, in Sodom and Gomorrah's culture, so that now Lot gets a message directly from God, an answer to prayer, and nobody's listening to him. So yes, Lot failed for sure. But I'm suggesting to you that behind every failure of a man, there could be a less-than-biblical woman. Maybe the women in this room, the mothers in this room would say, "Oh." If my husband were ever to go south, I want to be better than that, different than that. I want my husband to lead correctly. So these might not be bad examples. I might be speculating. All three of them, Eve, Sarah, and Lot's wife, maybe they all did great. But I'm suggesting there was something upside down in their family. Something— the rules, the typical rules were either exceptions here or they didn't fulfill the rules.

Now, let's go the other way. Let's get you some good news before we send you home today. I already said that God approves, God honors mothers. Paul tells Timothy to tell the church at Ephesus there where he was the pastor, "Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, and older men as mothers, younger women as sisters with all purity." So in the household of God and the people of faith, God is still exalting motherhood. Do you see that? That he's using motherhood in the church, not just the Old Testament, but in the church as something to be honored and respected. Make sure you, Timothy, pastor, tell the people to honor mothers, to honor the older women as mothers, honor them. And by the way, that's special because it's— I don't think it's all biological mothers. It could be spiritual mothers. So God gives grace. He gives strength to moms who obey. He approves. He blesses. He says to honor them because he does. And we want to give him full weight. To glorify Him.

Now, let's go back to Eve. I said she might have failed. She might have not been the best example. She might have almost missed her calling as a mother. But I also know her name means life. And I also know that God still gave her, well, that really good name, Seth. That even though there might have been a failure there, even though there might have been a hiccup, she might have seen Cain in a way that she shouldn't have correctly. Or maybe she just didn't have balance, or maybe she saw it all exactly right and I'm wrong. But I do know one thing, that when God fixed and corrected and redeemed, she was there for it. She was attentive to it. And she named that next son essentially like a replacement. Seth was essentially the good replacement. And if you ever study anything in theology, we always talk about the Seth, the war of the seeds, and Seth being the beginning of that with Abel. Abel and Seth and the war of the seeds and the seed of Cain and the seed of Abel. It's not a real thing. Don't take that literally. But it is the idea that there are God's people and everybody else, right? The people that God blesses and chooses. So Eve, her name means life, and God gave her grace. He didn't wash his hands of her. He still gave them Seth and brought the lineage through them. So there's God's grace to Eve.

How about— I'll use Moses' mother. How about Jochebed? Remember that wonderful story of her protecting him and then the providence of her sending him downriver and then the Egyptians finding him and then using her as the mother to feed him and to nurse him and all of that wonderful things? Well, what was Moses like when he grew up? Moses wasn't perfect. We know this, right? Moses wasn't perfect. In fact, Moses was insecure in other things. But the one thing we knew is that when the time came for God to call Moses, Moses didn't act like it was the biggest surprise in the world. He did not say, "Who's God? Who hand-raised that kid from infancy even though he should have been killed by the Pharaoh?" His mother, Jochebed, took care of him, nursed him, all that amazing things that happened in God's providence, but then Moses turned out to be the deliverer. I think she planted seeds so that he was ready and prepared for what God had for him in his age.

Maybe I'll say that to the new moms, the ones we just talked about a little bit ago. Moses the baby did not have the easiest start, but Moses the man finished well, didn't he? The servant of the Lord. Do you care most about what college your kid goes to, or do you care that they finish strong in the Lord? Do you care about your child's happiness? Because I can tell you it wasn't happy for Moses to stand before Pharaoh. If Jochebed was most concerned about his happiness, she would have said, "Get out of here. Run away. Stay away from Egypt as much as you can." Don't answer the call of God. Do I have to say this? Oh, it hurts me to say it. What if God calls our kids to missions? Are we ready for that? If God has a plan for my child, am I ready to raise my child for God's plan, not my plans? Well, Jochebed raised Moses, and Moses was the deliverer.

How about back to Sarah? She laughed once and shouldn't have. How about the second laugh? Well, God has the last laugh if you want to use the joke. Sarah said afterward, this is after the correction, after everything God said, "No, I am going to do this." And Sarah said, "God has made me laugh, and all who will hear will laugh with me." This is not a laugh of incredulity like the first one. This is a laugh of joy and happiness and almost to say, "Ha, man, you got me, Lord. You win." Right? The laugh is like, "Okay, I tried to fight Him. You can't win." So she laughed. She also said, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?" 'For I have borne him a son in my age.' She's in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11, isn't she? Isn't she? The one who laughed at the thought that she, as an older woman, could be a mom, that one that laughed is later laughing at the funny and the joy and the beautiful thing that God did by giving her a son. That laughter of incredulity and maybe sarcasm turned into a laughter of joy and approbation of God. And then she's called a person of faith later. So she finished well. Sarah finished well even though she started with incredulity.

We could go on and on. I got a bunch, but time is short. I have Hannah. Do you remember Hannah's son? What was his name? His son was— her son's name was, "I asked him of the Lord and he gave him to me." That was her son's name. Now, I'm sure if he was acting up, that was a hard thing to yell at him to get him to calm down, you know. "Your name is, 'I asked of the Lord and he gave you to me.'" That's a crazy thing to yell at your kid, but that was Samuel's name. Why? Cried out to the Lord and said, "If you give me a son, I'll give him to you." What a great example of motherhood. And I would suggest all of you name your kids Samuel. Now, I know that would be weird for the girls, and I also don't mean literally name them all Samuel, but I wish you would all say something like Sarah did. If you give me children, I will give them to you. They will serve you. That will be my goal as a mother. I will raise those kids to serve you.

Now you might say, well, there's a lot of women in this room, PJ, Pastor Johnny, that aren't moms. Maybe they didn't have kids, maybe they're single, maybe they're in their age and they're not going to have kids or grandkids. Well, then let's talk about Jehoshaba, a name that doesn't get mentioned very much. Do you know who Jehoshaba is? Maybe you haven't read Kings in a while. I hadn't. I had to review it. In 2 Kings, we know all the crazy story with Jehu and all all those things happening there in that story. But most of you know the name Jezebel. How was Jezebel as a mother? She would be a person who I could have put on the first list of bad examples. But in Ahab's family, they were evil. Those people were evil, and their family was set, dead set against the kingdom coming in another way except the way they wanted it. They were willing to kill all of the people of Judah. They were trying to wipe out the tribe of Judah. And this young man was born in that family, in the family of Judah, the tribe of Judah. And by the way, who else was of the tribe of Judah? Your Savior was. So this plot to wipe out the people of Judah, it affects you too, by the way. But here comes this woman, Jehoshabaath, who is the sister of Athaliah, who is in on that plan to wipe everybody out. And this aunt, who is not the mother This aunt hides the young man, the baby Joash. She hides him for 6 years. She hides him even in the house of the Lord. Now you'd say that would be the most ridiculous place to hide somebody. Why would you hide somebody? Like, why would you hide somebody at church? Well, if all the people around you are evil, where are they not going to look? The safest place for a godly person is in the house of God. The evil people don't want to come through those doors. So it was a great place to hide Joash. In that room of the house of the Lord. So she hid him for years, protected him, and Jehoshabaath saved Joash's life, who became the good king of Judah.

So there is somebody who's not a blood relative who is a spiritual mother to Joash. So women, if you think, "Well, I don't have kids. I don't have to hear this sermon." Oh, yeah, you do. Do you know how many of you are my spiritual sisters and mothers who I didn't have in real life. There's a reason that Pearl's middle name is Ellen. Because you are my family. You are my Jehoshaba. I didn't have it in my family. I didn't have people to protect me. I didn't have people to point me to the Lord. So I needed God's people to do that. And there she is. Maybe you aren't going to have kids, but at least be a mother anyway. Don't take time off. This world needs women of God to point young people and children to the Lord to see what real womanhood looks like. And you don't act like just because you don't have biological children that you don't count in that. You count a lot in that. And some of us have been watching a long time.

In fact, what I've told you already should tell you why I have hope, why I'm excited. The other day, Jamie and Pearl were over at Abby's, and Pearl sends me a picture of Jamie holding Joanna. And I lost it. I just fell apart. Now, I'm emotional anyway, you all know this. But there's a very specific emotion I'm experiencing in that moment. We're not supposed to tell our ages, but let's just say I'm 53, and my wife and I are close to the same age. Both of us are older than our mothers when they died. Jamie's mom died at 52 of cancer. My mom died of years of substance abuse and everything else in an ambulance, right? So I'm looking at my wife who is older than our mothers holding my granddaughter. A granddaughter who was born to these people I adore who serve the Lord, who I respect tremendously, who I have so much confidence in. To raise that little girl in the Lord. And in that moment, as I'm just sitting there in my office, I'm taking stock, I'm reflecting on God's goodness to me. I'm reflecting on how he gave me this incredible family and my extended family, people who love the Lord, people who serve the Lord, people who are allies of mine in the Christian thing we do called faith. Allies. I'm not fighting an uphill battle. Joanna's not fighting an uphill battle. I have good examples. I'm thankful. That's the person I want holding my granddaughter, and that's the granddaughter I want my wife to be holding. This is just how it's supposed to work out. And I know you don't all have that. My family didn't have it either for generations. But do you know the difference? The difference is to accept what God tells you to do.

To take a page out of old Sloan's book, that when I walk into my house, especially after a tough day of counseling, a tough day of having to rebuke someone, a tough day of having to call people to repentance, a tough day of trying to point people to the Lord, and I walk in my house after all these years— my kids and family don't know all those stories, by the way. Those of you who confided in me, my family doesn't know what you went through, just so you know. I don't share that with them. They're my family. They're not my therapists. But I do walk into my family sometimes, into my home, and I yell out. Now they don't even fall for it. Before I talk, they do it before I talk now. But back in the day when they were little, they fell for it. And I would walk in through the front door, I'd walk in through the garage after parking the car, and I would walk in and I would say, "If the Bible says to do something," and they're supposed to yell in that house back to me, "Do it!" And I'm telling you, I'm so thankful that my family does it. And I'm telling you, women, do it. Please don't fall for the lie. Please don't fall for the lie that the world will keep its promise to you. Don't fall for the lie that you're weak if you embrace family and motherhood. By the way, that doesn't necessarily mean you don't have to have a career. There are career women too. Read Titus chapter 2, there's career women. Proverbs 31, there could be career, but if your family is suffering because of your career, please rethink your career. If your children don't serve the Lord or you're not pointing them to the Lord or worship and service is not first, then your career might need an examination. By the way, that's true of you men too. But please, take a page out of these women's book. I didn't even mention Elizabeth and Mary. Hey, moms, are you worried about having to be a super mom? Was Mary a super mom? No. She was a kid. Elizabeth, was she a super mom? No, she was older too, kind of like Sarah. These normal women that God did extraordinary things with because those women said, "We will do it. We will do it. God said to do it, we'll do it."

I need to raise my children. I need to point them to the Lord. I need to explain the law of God to them. I need to explain the grace of God to them. I need to explain to them the gospel every day. I need to evangelize my kids, but I also need to love my kids. They need to see grace and they need to see justice. They need to know what the ethics look like in the Christian kingdom. They need to know what it looks like when God gives grace to people who violate those ethics. They need to know the gospel. But women, be like Mary. And if God has given you favor like Mary, that who found favor in his sight, take that favor for all it's worth. If God gives you grace, drink it in. Lord, give me the grace because it's not easy ever to be a mother. It's definitely not easy in 2026 to be a mother. You could go— we could go through every scenario. How about the woman who just has children and just gets saved but her husband is not saved? How about the woman who has a child and the husband dies? We could go through all the scenarios. But ultimately, do you want to finish it for me? If the Bible says, do it. Do it. Do it.

All these women who are heroes in the Bible were not super. They were graced. God gave them the grace for their task. Just like you need grace for salvation, you need grace to do the things that God calls you to do. Charles Spurgeon was— he was walking with a pastor in England at the time, and there was a lot of division in the Church of England and the other congregational churches and Baptist churches, and it just— Christianity looked a little bad in England at the time. And this pastor said to Charles Spurgeon. He said, "Brother, I'm afraid if they were burning Christians at the stake, there wouldn't be any worth burning." Because the Christianity looks so weak. He was saying that Christians are so not committed, not faithful, lacked conviction, that they wouldn't go to the stake for the Lord. They wouldn't suffer for the Lord. And Spurgeon corrected him and said, "Oh, no, no, no, you have that wrong. You have that all wrong. God gives burning grace." for burning moments. The reason it doesn't look like people will go to the stake is because people aren't being burned right now. But I promise you, if England started burning people, there would be lines around the corner of people ready to be burned. And right now, in your culture, motherhood is being spit on. It's being seen as less than. It's being dismissed. It's being ridiculed. It's being minimized. You are considered weak if you choose to be a mother and raise children. Oh, I pray for burning grace for you. That you stand in the face of all of it. That you don't adopt the social media ridiculous world of trying to make your children some sort of banner of you. That you point your children to the Lord and you say, "In this house, we serve the Lord."

And men, can I just ask you? Make that easy for them. Make that easy for them. Make it easy to serve the Lord in your house. What I mean by that is don't be a hypocrite. Don't give priorities to your families where your wives are having trouble pointing them to the Lord. Don't tell your family that we can have the world and the Lord too. No, no, no. Men, lead by example. Make it so that when your wife says, "We serve the Lord in this house," your kids look at you as men and say, "Of course we do. Look at Dad." So men, don't be off the hook here. Don't go home and say, "Yeah, do what Pastor Jonny said for our kids. I'm going to go spend too much money. I'm going to go spend time at work instead of with you. I'm going to go make other priorities, but you, wife, raise our kids so that they're good Christians." All men, don't do that. It's your responsibility to lead your home. So please make a home that is easy to serve the Lord in, joyful to serve the Lord in. Be an example. Lead from the front so that your wives say, "Kids, look, Dad's doing it. We're all doing it together. We're serving the Lord."

Let's pray. Father, we want homes that serve you, and it's pretty clear from your word that that doesn't happen by accident. And I would just ask that you would give us all the grace that the homes represented in this church would indeed be homes that are approved of by you, that the mothers of this church would not only be honored, but they would be worthy of that honor. And Father, strengthen them for it. Remind them Not only is it not a waste, but it is honored by you, that you honor women, that you honor motherhood, that it's important to you that they're honored. So help us now reflect that in our lives too. In Jesus' name, amen.