OPEN: Real Mothers are special people.
Real mothers would like to be able to eat a whole candy bar (all by themselves) and drink a Coke without any "floaters" in it.
Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils are probably going to end up in the sandbox.
Real Mothers often have sticky floors, filthy ovens and happy kids.
Real Mothers know that dried play dough doesn’t come out of shag carpets.
Real Mothers sometimes ask "Why me?" and get their answer when a little voice says, "Because I love you best."
Real Mothers know that a child’s growth is not measured by height or years or grade.
It is marked by the progression of Mama to Mom to Mother...
APPLY: Real mothers are an integral part of our lives.
We wouldn’t be who we are without our mothers.
Some of the greatest people in history will tell you how important their mothers were to their lives. George Washington, for example, declared: “All I am I owe to my mother”.
This was also true of one of the greatest men in Old Testament history, a man named Moses. Moses became the kind of man he was because of the type of mother he had. In fact, who he was, was very much determined by the type of MOTHERS he had, because God gave Moses two mothers.
And they were both good mothers because they both had some of the same instincts for their roles.
For example: They both loved babies
Now, that may seem like a given… but not every woman loves kids.
ILLUS: I once read the story of a woman who went shopping for swimsuits with her mother.
In the department store, though, she was having a hard time finding one that fit. After trying on at least 10, all to no avail, she grew increasingly frustrated.
Trying to calm her, her mother said "Look at it this way: what would you rather have – the husband and three children who adore you, or a swimsuit that fits?"
Before she could answer, a faceless voice from the next dressing room stall replied
"I want a swimsuit that fits!"
Not every woman wants kids.
But these two did.
And that WAS no small thing in their day because Moses’ 2 mothers lived in a culture of death.
A decree had gone out from the throne of Pharaoh that every male child born to a Hebrew was to thrown into the Nile and drowned. And Moses’ birth mother – Jochebed – was a Hebrew woman.
Thus, she had a choice to make.
The society in which she lived made it virtually impossible to keep her child and she could have decided to simply allow her child to be thrown away. I mean - her son was not wanted.
She could have chosen death (the easy choice)… but she chose life instead.
And this was not an easy decision for Jochebed to make.
It required her to hide her child for 3 whole months always fearing that Egyptian soldiers would discover the baby… and not only would they kill her child but punish her entire family for disobeying the law.
Choosing life was not an easy decision.
But then consider Pharaoh’s daughter.
She knew who this baby was.
Exodus 2:6 tells us “She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. ‘This is one of the Hebrew babies,’ she said.”
She knew he was a Hebrew.
Her father had decreed these children should die.
Her society had decided that these babies shouldn’t live.
Common wisdom had determined that these children were a threat to their nation.
It would have been so easy to let the child die.
But she chose life instead.
Both mothers lived in a culture of death.
Both mothers lived in a society that has decreed certain children shouldn’t live.
And so do we.
ILLUS: Just last month, down in Florida, they had proposed a law that would have required abortion providers to offer pregnant mothers the opportunity to see ultrasounds of their unborn children.
That’s ALL that law would have required.
In fact, the bill did NOT require the mothers to look at the ultrasounds.
And yet that law died in the Florida senate.
Why? Because we live in a culture of death
We live in a society that decrees that certain children should die.
(AP – David Royse – May 1, 2008)
Now I want you to understand something:
God punished Egypt because of their culture of death.
Egypt’s culture of death required that every male child born to the Hebrews was to die.
When God punished Egypt He bro’t 10 plagues down upon them. Do you remember what the last one was?
God decreed: “Every FIRSTBORN SON in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill...” Exodus 11:5
Egypt decreed death for babies.
And so God decreed death for their families as well.
But Moses lived because Jochebed and Pharaoh’s daughter never accepted that culture of death.
They chose life.
Now, I usually take a Bible text and follow it the direction I believe it wants to take me, but that doesn’t mean I’m always comfortable with the destination I arrive at. I know there are many in our nation that have had abortions. Our culture has made it so acceptable that it’s often chosen before a woman or girl has had time to consider its implications. But, from what I’ve read the aftermath of that decision is often devastating.
You may know of someone who has had an abortion… or you yourself may have had one. Thus, I want you to remember that:
Our God is a forgiving God (REPEAT).
We need to engrain this into our minds and make sure those around us are aware of it. Our God is a forgiving God.
In Egypt, there were people who escaped God’s punishment from that 10th plague. They did so by applying the blood of a lamb to the doors of their homes.
Today God tells us that we escape judgment – from ALL of our sins - when we apply by the blood of the Lamb of God (Jesus Christ) to our lives. By the blood of Jesus, God removes all of our sin from our lives.
When we believe in Jesus, repent of our sins, confess Him as our Lord and allow ourselves to be buried in the waters of Christian baptism, God removes our sins as far as the East is from the West.
He buries it in the depths of the sea.
He removes it from our lives and remembers it no more.
Why would God do that for us?
He does that because our God is a God who chooses life.
Not just life for the unborn, but also for those of us who have made decisions that have brought us shame and guilt. Decisions that have robbed our lives of the joy and promise God created us to have. It’s only by the blood of Jesus that we have that hope in our lives.
Let me repeat: Moses lived… and became the kind of man he became… because his 2 mothers loved life, and loved babies.
2ndly – Moses became the kind of man he was because his mothers did everything they could for him.
Jochebed hid Moses in order to save his life.
Other Hebrew mothers probably hid their children as well, but that very rarely worked.
I mean it’s kind of hard to hide a pregnant woman.
Pregnant women kind of stick out in a crowd.
They’re usually (pause…) soooo pregnant.
And the Egyptians would have been watching. They would have been waiting for the day when she would no longer be pregnant – and then they’d come for her child.
So, if that’s true, how could Jochebed succeed in hiding her child for 3 whole months? I don’t know. But if I’d been her I’d have tried putting a pillow under her dress for awhile.
But even if she did that – that kind of deception would have only succeeded for short while. Even the Egyptians knew a pregnant woman couldn’t remain pregnant forever. Eventually they’d know she had given birth… and then they’d take her child, and kill him.
So what was she to do?
How is she going to save her baby?
Well, she decides to get a bit creative.
If Pharaoh wanted her child to be thrown into the river… that’s where she’d put him. But not before she had given her boy an edge, an advantage in life.
1. She and her husband build a little boat for him. A basket covered with pitch so it would float.
2. And she places that boat in the bulrushes along the shore of the Nile. She doesn’t put him out in the current where it could be swept downstream. No she puts the basket in a sheltered place… a place where it could be found.
3. And it’s very likely that she scouted around for the best place for him to be found. If he’s to be found… she wants him found by someone who has the power and influence to make sure he isn’t put to death. And the only person with that kind of influence would seem to be Pharaoh’s daughter.
Now, I could be wrong about some of the details… but it makes sense to me.
But no matter whether I’m right or wrong on my speculations Jochebed had done an awful lot of planning to make sure her child survived.
Jochebed did everything she could for her son.
And then there’s Pharaoh’s daughter
Moses’ adoptive mother.
She loves this boy - takes him into her home and makes him her son.
She (like Jochebed) did everything she could for this boy as well.
Acts 7:22 tells us that “Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.”
Pharaoh’s daughter wanted Moses to have all the advantages her culture could supply.
She wanted him to more than a common laborer.
She wanted him to be a leader of men/ a ruler of nations.
And she succeeded in building him into a man who was powerful in speech and action.
And so, she did everything in her power to give him an edge - an advantage fitting for the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
Both of Moses’ mothers loved him so much that they did everything they could think to do to give him every advantage he could have.
But only Jochebed gave Moses the one thing that changed his life.
Pharaoh’s daughter supplied Moses a knowledge of the wisdom of Egypt.
She got him into the best schools
She arranged to find him the best teachers
She had supplied him with the ability to be a man who was powerful in speech and action.
She had supplied him with all the training and education he needed to be a success in this world.
And yet Hebrews 11:24 tells us that the time came when Moses “…refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”
There was something Pharaoh’s daughter had not supplied him with.
Something was missing from his extensive education in the universities of Egypt
But what could it have been?
What was missing?
(pause…) What was missing was a different kind of knowledge… a knowledge of who God was.
As parents and grandparents and uncles/ aunts we need to realize that even with the most advanced education our society can supply - without God at the center of our children’s lives there will be an emptiness that nothing else can fill.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon looks at all the advantages a man can have in life.
Wealth, and education, and power, and success.
Toward the end of his book he declares "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Everything is meaningless!" Ecclesiastes 12:8
But at the very last verses, Solomon ends his book on the meaninglessness of life with this advice: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man.” Ecclesiastes 12:13
What did Solomon mean?
He meant that – without God – life become meaningless and empty.
Only God can help us to reach the potential.
Only God can help us to realize our promise and possibility.
Once we know who God is… then we can realize that we’ve been made in His image
We are part of His plan
We have been created for a purpose and we have a reason to exist.
Ephesians 2:10 tells us who are Christians: “… we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
We have purpose
We have value
We have a reason for our lives … because God is IN our lives.
And that’s what Jochebed gave her son.
She couldn’t read to him from the Bible. None of that had been written yet (except perhaps Job).
She may have told him the stories of great men like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
But I think she did even more than that.
I think she gave that knowledge of God by sharing HER faith in God.
She told him what she believed
She told him what God had done in her life… and in his
She told him what God wanted for their people (Promises)
And because God was REAL to her… God became real for him as well.
Jochebed loved her son so much that she wanted him to know the most powerful force in her life
And she wanted Moses to know this God. She did that because she knew this was a hard and difficult world. And there would be times when Moses would doubt whether he was loved by anyone.
When that time came, she wanted him to remember that he WAS loved by at least one individual: God. She wanted him to remember that God always cared for him and would watch out for him.
And that’s the reason our children/ grandchildren/ nephews and nieces need to know Him as well. There will be times they won’t feel worthy, lovable, needed. And they’ll need to know that God will never leave them nor forsake them.
CLOSE: Max Lucado has intriguing explanation of this truth in "A Gentle Thunder. p. 46ff
(given with some modification)
Moms: WHY do you love your newborn child?
I know, I know; it’s a silly question, but indulge me. Why do you?
For months this baby has brought you pain.
They’ve made you break out in pimples and waddle like a duck.
Because of them you craved sardines and crackers and threw up in the morning.
They punched you in the tummy.
They occupied a space that wasn’t theirs and ate food they didn’t fix.
You kept them warm. You kept them safe. You kept them fed.
But did she say thank you?
Are you kidding?
She’s no more out of the womb than she starts to cry!
The room is too cold, the blanket is too rough, the nurse is too mean.
And who does she want? Mom.
Don’t you ever get a break? I mean, who has been doing the work the last nine months?
Why can’t Dad take over? But no, Dad won’t do. The baby wants Mom.
She didn’t even tell you she was coming.
She just came.
And what a coming!
She rendered you a barbarian. You screamed. You swore. You bit bullets and tore the sheets.
And now look at you. Your back aches. Your head pounds. Your body is drenched in sweat. Every muscle strained and stretched.
You should be angry, but are you?
Far from it.
On your face is a longer-than-forever love.
They’ve done nothing for you; yet you love them.
They’ve brought pain to your body and nausea to your morning, yet you treasure them.
Their face is wrinkled and their eyes are dim, yet all you can talk about are her good looks and bright future.
She’s going to wake you up every night for the next 6 weeks, but that doesn’t matter.
I can see it on your face. You’re crazy about her.
Why? Why does a mother love her newborn?
Because the baby is hers?
Even more. Because the baby is her.
Her blood. Her flesh. Her sinew and spine. Her hope. Her legacy.
It bothers her not that the baby gives nothing.
She knows a newborn is helpless, weak.
She knows babies don’t ask to come into this world.
And God knows we didn’t either.
We are his idea. We are his. His face. His eyes. His hands. His touch. We are Him.
(end of Lucado’s comments)
The love a mother for her child is only a small taste of the love God has for you. When He looks at you He sees His finest creation. But there is one thing that mars the beauty that He desires for your life.
It’s called sin.
And sin is what separates you from the completeness of His love for you. That’s why we give an invitation at the end of every service…
