MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
RIDGE CHAPEL, KANSAS, OK
(The Powerpoints used with this sermon are available without charge. Just email me at mnewland@sstelco.com and request #143.)
A. Today is Mother’s Day, a day on which mothers are specially honored. Many receive cards or flowers or candy as husbands & children try to show them just how much they are loved & appreciated. And many restaurants will experience long lines as husbands & children take “momma” out for dinner. Yes, today is a special day!
ILL. And when it comes to little children, some of them come up with very interesting ideas. Listen to what some children wrote to their mothers for Mother’s Day.
Angie, 8 years old, wrote: "Dear Mother, I’m going to make dinner for you on Mother’s Day. It’s going to be a surprise. P.S. I hope you like pizza & popcorn."
Robert wrote: "I got you a turtle for Mother’s Day. I hope you like the turtle better than the snake I got you last year."
Eileen wrote: "Dear Mother, I wish Mother’s Day wasn’t always on Sunday. It would be better if it were on Monday so we wouldn’t have to go to school."
Little Diane wrote: "I hope you like the flowers I got you for Mother’s Day. I picked them myself when Mr. Smith wasn’t looking."
And how about this one from Carol? "Dear Mother, Here are two aspirins. Have a happy Mother’s Day!"
ILL. Some time ago I came across an article entitled, "Keeping Your Mother At Home." It begins, "Do mothers really run away from home? Some do. Others in their hearts have run away from home they have given up on their responsibilities."
Then it suggests 5 ways in which a husband & children can keep mom at home:
#1, Love Mom today as though she were going to die tomorrow. Somehow we act as though our mothers will live forever. But it isn’t true. Yet, because of our example, the way we treat our mothers is probably the way our children will treat us.
#2, Tell Mom that you love her. A mother’s job is one of the hardest in the world. Ephesians 5:25 says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church & gave Himself up for her."
#3, Show your love in tangible ways. Don’t forget her birthday, anniversary, or other special days. Thoughtfulness tells Mom that you’re thinking of her & that you care.
#4, Arrange for her to have a day off once in a while. Why not? Most everyone else has days off, & mothers DO get tired.
#5, Pray for her. Mothers have faults & weaknesses just like the rest of us. Prayer will make her a better mother, & you more aware of her needs.
B. Yes, Mother’s Day is a special day. But even though we especially recognize mothers on this day, it is also a family day, for that is what motherhood is all about.
In a sense, then, this is going to be a general sermon not just to or about mothers but to mothers & fathers & everybody else who may be involved in making a family what it can & ought to be in the sight of God.
God clearly tells us what He expects. Listen to Colossians 3:18 21.
“Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.
“Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children, that they may not lose heart.”
PROP. With those words in mind, I want to talk about family security, & the lack of it; about the things that cause insecurity & the things that can cause security. There are really only two points to this sermon. But each point has several sub points.
I. WHAT CAUSES INSECURITY IN THE LIFE OF A CHILD?
First of all, what causes insecurity in the life of a child? There are at least 5 different answers.
A. #1 is conflict between parents. A study of teen aged drug abusers revealed that the #1 reason they give for starting to use drugs was because of the constant conflict they witnessed in their home between their parents.
B. #2 is lack of proper discipline. Now I’m not talking about child abuse or beating your children. I’m talking about discipline given in love. Proper discipline that says, "I care about you. So there are guidelines. And this is what I expect you to do."
ILL. The story is told of a teen age girl who went with her friend to a movie. They met at the friend’s house, & as they were preparing to leave, the friend’s mother hugged & kissed her daughter & said, "Don’t forget. I expect you home by 11 o’clock."
The first girl suddenly realized that her mother never hugs or kisses her when she leaves. And never once had her mother said, "I expect you home by such & such an hour." She wondered how late it would have to be before her parents started worrying about her. So she decided to conduct an experiment & stay out all night.
But after taking her girl friend home at 11 o’clock, she didn’t know where to go. So she ended up at the all night bus depot, waiting for the minutes to tick away.
At 4 o’clock in the morning she went home. She made much more noise than usual going into the house, & getting ready for bed, hoping that somebody would ask her why she was coming in so late. But nobody did.
The next morning she came sleepy eyed to breakfast, thinking, "Surely someone will ask, ‘Where were you all night long?’" But nobody did. Nobody asked. So she decided, "No one cares."
SUM. Insecurity can result from the absence of proper & loving discipline.
ILL. Someone asked a mother whose children had turned out very well, the secret by which she had prepared them for usefulness & for the Christian life.
Without hesitation she said: "In the morning when I washed my children, I prayed that they might be cleansed by the Savior’s precious blood.
“When I put on their clothes, I prayed that they might be clothed in the garments of salvation & in the robes of God’s righteousness.
“When I gave them food, I prayed that they might be fed with the Bread of Life.
“When I started them on the road to school, I prayed that their faith might be as a shining light, brighter & brighter to the perfect day.
“When I put them to sleep, I prayed that they might be enfolded in the Savior’s everlasting arms."
Are you that kind of mother? Are you concerned about your children & their relationship with God? Are you really concerned about their eternal destiny?
C. #3 is repeated criticism of the child. I guess all of us have high expectations for our children. But too often we have not permitted our children to be children.
By the time they’re 3, mothers are carting them off to the dance studio. By the time they’re 5 we’re dressing them up in a cap & gown & graduating them from kindergarten.
We send them out on the ball field before their fingers are big enough to hold on to the baseball, before they have enough muscles to swing the bat, expecting them to be a star.
APPL. All the things that we weren’t, we want them to be. And when they don’t match up to our expectations, we become critical of them. We want them to perform like adults & never allow them just to be kids, & once again insecurity is the result.
D. #4 We give them things rather than our love. We surround them with all the material things of the world, never really teaching them that these things cost money, & someone has to work for them. They never learn the value of the dollar or the value of things in life itself because it has all been given to them.
E. #5 Insecure parents foster insecure children. If you are going around saying that everything is wrong at work, & everything is wrong at the church, & everything is wrong with society, then all you’re doing is creating more insecurity in the home.
II. THINGS THAT CREATE SECURITY IN THE HOME
Well, that’s enough of that. Let’s get to the things that create security in the home. They’re more positive, but still tough.
A. #1 is a good, solid marriage. That sounds elementary, but this may be where modern society has failed the most miserably. It has placed so much emphasis on other things, & has treated marriage as just another convenient & temporary arrangement. And the result is conflict in the home.
ILL. In a seminar of Juvenile Delinquency officials & Child Psychologists it was discovered that they had not uncovered any pattern of deep emotional problems with children who were brought up in homes where there was a solid love relationship between the husband & wife.
APPL. Maybe it is time for us to get back to basics & relearn what God’s Word teaches about marriage, & realize that God’s ideal has never changed.
Despite what appointed judges or the President may say, God still expects one man to be married to one woman, & that they will love each other for better & for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness & in health, until death does the parting.
B. #2 is family togetherness. If you asked your children what their fondest memories are of their growing up years, I imagine that they would not remember the new toys that they just had to have, or the designer clothes that you sacrificed to buy for them.
But I think that they would probably remember those vacations when you all piled into the car & took off for parts unknown. I think that they would probably remember those nights that you slept in a tent, sometimes shivering in the cold, or laughing around the campfire, those times when you were just together as a family.
C. #3 would be a regular routine in life. Not rigid rules & regulations, but rather, a routine that says, "Here is something that you can count on. We eat at a certain time. We go to bed at a certain time. We go to school when it is time to go to school. We go to work when it is time to go to work.
Most important of all, we go to church when it is time to go to church. And you can count on that being basically the same, week after week, year after year.
D. #4 is proper discipline. God’s Word tells us that God disciplines us because He loves us. So parents discipline their children because they love them. Not abuse them, not beat them, just disciplining them in love.
E. #5 is touching your child, communicating your love, touching, hugging, loving in a wholesome way between parent & child.
ILL. Sometime ago on TV there was a news item about a place where babies born of parents addicted to drugs are kept. The parents don’t want them, & because the physical future of these children is unknown, nobody really feels safe adopting them.
The result is that the facility is overcrowded & understaffed. I believe that it was something like 1 adult to take care of every 10 children. Because of that, most of the babies didn’t have their diapers changed as quickly as they needed to be changed. Most of them weren’t fed on time.
But here was the sad conclusion to the report. It said that after a while these babies stopped crying because they realized that when they cried, no one would listen, no one would come.
F. Finally, every child needs a sense of belonging to something that counts & means something to them.
ILL. The NY Times had a story about a little boy riding the bus. He sat so close to a woman dressed in a gray suit that everybody assumed he was her son & she was his mother. Then another lady got on & sat down next to them.
And when the little boy put his feet up on the seat he got some dirt on the lady’s dress, so she turned to the lady in the gray suit & said, "Would you please tell your son to put his feet down because he is getting my dress dirty?"
The lady in the gray suit pushed the boy away & said, "He’s not my son. I’ve never seen him before in my life." The 2nd lady looked at the little boy sadly for a moment & then started talking with him. She asked him if he was traveling alone.
"Yes," he said, "I always travel alone. My mommy & daddy are both dead & I live with Aunt Clara. But Aunt Clara thinks that Aunt Mildred ought to take her turn in taking care of me too. So whenever she gets tired of me, she sends me to Aunt Mildred. I’m going to Aunt Mildred’s now."
The woman said, "It must be tough traveling alone." "Yeah," said the little boy, "it is. But I never get lost. But," he said, "sometimes I do get very lonesome. So whenever I see someone with a kind face I sit close to them, & pretend that I belong to them & that they belong to me."
He continued, "I sure hope that Aunt Mildred is home when I get there, because it looks like it is going to rain & I don’t like to be outside when it rains."
The woman reached over & grabbed the boy, hugging him so tight that it almost hurt & wished for a moment that this little boy who wanted so much to belong, could belong to her.
CONCL. Children want to belong. More than anything else, they want to belong. But something is wrong, & too often it can be traced back to problems in the home.
Maybe that is the good thing about being a part of God’s family. Here is a place where we belong, & are accepted & loved. Here is a heavenly parent who will never turn us away, whose love will always be pure & consistently the same.
God not only said, "I love you," but He proved it by sending His Son into the world to die on the cross for our sins.
We offer His invitation this morning, & as your Father in heaven reaches out to you, I urge you to respond to His love as we stand & sing together.
