Hello, Toby. This is our Mother’s Day message, Sunday 5, 1125. As we said before, happy Mother’s Day. It is so good to be with you here today. And today I want to talk about the legacy of godly mothers. And we’re going to look at five biblical characteristics that shape generations. Hallelujah. You know, my mom is.
I’m the oldest of four boys, so my mom had four boys two years apart, bless her heart. And my brothers and I laugh sometimes and say it’s a wonder Mom’s still sane, putting up with us all those years. And. But we love our mother and we so appreciate her. And the things I’m going to be talking about today, she exemplifies even to this day. Not only has she raised us, she’s become quite the grandmother to all of her grandchildren and great grandchildren. And she is known in our family as having a direct line to the throne of God. And we’ll talk more about that in a moment.
But, mom, we love you. And I just want to say happy Mother’s Day and so glad that we’re all here and doing what we do because of you and we love you very much. You know, the Lord brings mothers into our life for a reason. And we’re going to see as we talk today about some of those reasons and mothers, why you are so important. And we so value godly mothers. So the first characteristic I want to talk about today is is this that godly mothers demonstrate nurturing and loving. So that’s our first characteristic, nurturing, love. A mother is one who produces another, shaping them spiritually, mentally and physically.
So much like God produces all of us, a mother who’s shaped and formed in the image of God produces children. She gives birth to children, but not only does she give birth, she has influence. And we’re going to talk about influence later on. And so much influence and input into the lives of those that she produces. And so she shapes them spiritually, mentally and physically. That’s what a godly mother does. She shapes the person she produces spiritually, mentally and physically. And I want to go ahead and say this is that a lot of times mothers, it’s not just your own children, it’s those other people God brings into into your life, and you become a mother to them also.
And we all have those people in our lives who are who mother us or father us or are there for us, even though they’re not our biological parents. God brings those people into our life and we thank God for them. And so the key way that A mother shapes someone spiritually, mentally, and physically is through nurturing and loving. That word nurture is defined as to feed and nourish. And so you can do that physically. And that’s what we think of most of the time. When we think of someone who nurtures us is they’re feeding us and nourishing us physically, but someone who nurtures us, a godly mother not only feeds us and nurses us physically, but they feed and nourish us spiritually also. It goes on to say this about a mother, a mother or a nurturer, one who nurtures means to educate, they instruct, they promote growth, and they train.
That’s what it means. To nurture is to educate, instruct, promote growth, and train up physically and spiritually. Wow. I read that definition there, and I think, wow. Mothers are doing a whole lot more than we realize. And because of this connection, what we find is through this nourishing love that mothers are giving, mothers are connected to their children in ways no one else is. And I could talk about this for a long time. There’s research on it.
But somehow mothers know. They know their children. And even though they may not be in the same state, they know something’s going on with their child. They can sense it. They’re very, very connected to them. And so mothers are connected to their children, much like God is connected to us, because God’s always aware of us, knows where we are, how we’re feeling, what we’re going through, what we’re facing, and he is always there for us. So godly mothers are not just caretakers in the sense of feeding and nourishing physically, but they are spiritual nurturers. Spiritual nurturers.
And in every moment of their day, whether they realize it or not, they’re feeding our spirit and nurturing our spirit also. One of the ways my mom did that with my brothers and I were every night, every night as we were growing up, we would do a bedtime story, and she had a book of Bible stories that she read from. And we got a Bible study, or not a Bible study, but a Bible story every night as we were growing up. I’ll never forget it. And all my brothers and I still talk about that today. But not only would she read the Bible sword to us, then she would ask us questions. What does that mean to you? What did you hear? What do you think about this or that? And she would take that time to pour into us and nurture us spiritually and feed us. And I’m so grateful for that time that she did that with us.
So what we see here is this true love is shown in selfless, God centered nurturing. Selfless, God centered nurturing. And we’re going to see throughout scripture here as we move forward many godly mothers who did just this. They nurtured and loved their children and they were selfless in the way they did was very much a God centered nurturing that was going on because they were helping to prepare and shape their child for the destiny God had for them. Mothers, let me encourage you with this. Whether you realize it or not, you are having an eternal impact through your daily nurture and loving care that you’re giving to your children. And so sometimes when you feel it’s rough, just take a moment and stop. Say thank you Lord for how you’re using me to nurture my children here spiritually and for the eternal impact that they’re going to have as they move forward.
Thank you for this privilege and honor. Just take some time to worship him and rejoice in it. The second characteristic I want to take a moment and talk about is this. Godly mothers are faithful and God fearing. Faithful and God fearing. Let’s look at this. In Exodus 2 we see the story of Jochebed who was the mother of Moses. And Jochebed was.
Had married Moses father. Moses father was from the tribe of Levi. So he was from the priestly tribe. And Jocko Bed was also from the police priestly tribe of Levi. And so was. So Moses was also. But there had been a decree because the Israelites were in Egypt, of course. And this was after Joseph died.
And, and so the Pharaoh at the time didn’t really know how they got there. It was a long story. Didn’t know Joseph and all he had done to impact Egypt, but he knew this, that these people are outgrowing us. They’re prospering and being blessed and outgrowing us. So Pharaoh did this. It says this in Exodus 1:22 and I’m reading from the Amplified today. And so Exodus 1:22Amplified. Then Moses charged all his people, all the people of Egypt, saying, every son born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the river Nile, but every daughter you shall allow to live.
Wow. And so this was a very heavy thing because if someone saw an Israelite bear a son, Israelite mother bear a son, they would take the boy and throw him into the Nile river where he would drown and be eaten there by the, the animals that were in the river. And so there was a lot of hurt and torment and, and distress. Going on in Israel because of this, in the children of Israel. But let me read you this story here of Jochebed. And it says this and this is From Exodus, chapter 2, verses 1 through 4. Now Amram, a man of the house of Levi, the priestly tribe, went and took as his wife Jochebed a daughter of Levi. And the woman became pregnant and bore a son.
And when she saw that he was exceedingly beautiful, she hid him three months. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark or basket made of bulrushes or papyrus, making it watertight by daubing it with bitumen and pitch. Then she put the child in it and laid it among the rushes by the brink of the river Nile. And his sister Miriam stood some distance away to learn what would be done to him. So let’s just stop right there. Here’s what we see. Jochebed trusted God. She was God fearing and faithful to the Lord, even though the circumstances were desperate.
She trusted God by placing Moses in the Nile and this little basket that he would float in. So here’s an insight that comes from this I believe faith doesn’t mean the absence of fear. I’m sure she was afraid and concerned, but it means moving forward despite the fear. It doesn’t matter what the fear is. We overcome fear by stepping out in faith and being faithful to what we know God has asked us to do. So let’s continue reading here. We’ll read Exodus 2, 5, 10 in the Amplified. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, and her maidens walked along the bank.
She saw the ark among the rushes and sent her maid to fetch it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby cried. And she took pity on him and said, this is one of the Hebrews children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, shall I go and call a nurse of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you? Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, go. And the girl went and called the child’s mother. Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed it, and the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called him Moses.
For she said, because I drew him out of the water. Now there’s a lot I could get into with those few verses, but one key thing I want to talk about is this. A mother’s faith can protect, prepare and position her children for their divine purpose. Hallelujah. And guys, I’ve seen that so many times. I’ve seen that in my life with my mom, things she did and said and prepared and did for my brothers and I that actually set us up and positioned us for God for where God was taking us. And as a godly mother, your faith and trust in God can do the same thing for your children. Protect them, prepare them, and position them for their divine purpose.
And another thing I see in this, God has a purpose and a plan for everyone. So even though Pharaoh’s daughter was, quote, adopting Moses, God set it up so that it was Moses’s mother who nurtured him, nursed him, and spoke into him till he grew to the point that he could go live in the palace, the place God had prepared for him and positioned him for. Wow. God has a purpose and a plan for each one of your children. Never forget that, Mom. Trusting God, even when outcomes are uncertain. I know, Jochebed, she didn’t know for sure what was going to happen here. And most of the time in life, we’re not sure.
I like to say we wake up every day and step into the unknown. As much as we know about our day, we’ve got 24 hours. The sun will rise, the sun will set, the moon will come out. This or that will happen. There’s still much of this day that is unknown to us. And so we have to trust God in each and every day. So even when the outcomes are uncertain. Mom, trust God with your children.
He loves them and he will protect them and keep them. The third characteristic I want to talk about here of a godly mother is they are wise and influential. Now, the word wise there means this. It means having the power of discerning correctly between what is true and false, what is proper or improper, and what is best. The moment. Being influential or an influencer means this. It means the power of someone or something shaping the heart and the mind, rational faculties or will, and persuading or dissuading. So let me read that again.
It’s the power of someone or something shaping the heart and the mind, the rational faculties or will in persuading or dissuading. It is power whose operation is invisible and known only by its effects. And one of the places that we see this demonstrated in Scripture is in John 2. And John 2 talks about Jesus being invited and his disciples and his family to the wedding at Cana of Galilee. And I know you’ve heard this many times before, but let Me read these few verses here to you. John 2, 3, 5, from the Amplified. And when the wine was all gone, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no more wine. Jesus said to her, dear woman, what is that to you and to me? What do we have in common? Leave it to me.
My time, hour, to act has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it. Oh, wow. This verse speaks so much about the influence of the mother of Jesus. Wow. How she is influencing him. Because whether anybody knew it or not, Mary sensed the time was right. And her response to Jesus’s statement influenced his choice to follow through.
I mean, think about it. Your mom’s saying, we need to do something here, and you’re going, I don’t. I don’t think this is the right time for this, Mom. And she doesn’t even respond to you. She just turns and looks at everybody around her and says, whatever he says to do, do it. And so they’re all looking at you. Now, here’s my thought about that. Mothers are spiritual strategists, often influencing behind the scenes.
Again, I’ve seen that happen many times. I’ve had it happen in my life personally also. But what we see here is this influence, used wisely and prayerfully, can and will help shape destiny. Mary’s influence in Jesus’s life help begin his ministry and his display of the glory of God at that time. It helped shape his destiny and where he would go from there. Mothers, I want to encourage you, be intentional in shaping your children’s values and direction by your words that you speak every day. You can encourage them, you can edify them, you can equip them and empower them to step out and be who God created them to be. Now, I could.
I think I have shared a whole message on this before, but let me real quickly make a point here. By your words every day, your words are powerful. They have influence and power in the life of your children. And the word encourage means to give courage. You can give courage to them, to help them overcome that fear of, I’m not sure if I’m good enough. I’m not sure if I know enough. I don’t know if I can do this. That second word, edify, means to build them up.
Not only can you give them courage, you can build them up so they walk in confidence and faith themselves. Then equip means to furnish them with all they need, the skills and the information they need to go out and succeed. And then the last word there, empower Empower means to authorize with the authority to go be and do. They know they can go forth and do this. God is calling you mothers to shape your children’s values and directions, to encourage them, edify them, equip them, and empower them so your children can step out and be who he created them to be. And you have everything within you. You need to do that. The fourth characteristic we see here in Godly mothers is they are protective and courageous.
And I love this story here. It’s from Matthew 15:22 through 28, the amplified and it’s the of the Canaanite woman. And behold, a woman who was a Canaanite from that district came out and with a loud, troublesome, urgent cry, begged, have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David, my daughter is miserably and distressingly and cruelly possessed by a demon. But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and implored him, saying, send her away, for she is crying out after us. He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she came and, kneeling, worshipped him and kept praying, lord, help me. And he answered, it is not right, proper, becoming or fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.
She said, yes, Lord. Yet even the little pups eat the crumbs that fall from their young master’s table. Then Jesus answered her, O woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you wish. And her daughter was cured from that moment, even though she faced cultural and spiritual barriers to reach Jesus, she didn’t stop. She didn’t give up. She pressed in, she pressed on, she pressed through. Here’s one thing I know about godly mothers.
Mothers are prayer warriors. You know, I said earlier that among our family, everybody says that my mom has a direct line to the throne room of God. I can remember, and my brothers and I would tell you mom had a time every day that she would go in and she would read her Bible, do her devotions. But then she’d spend at least an hour in prayer, if not more praying for everyone in our family, but especially for her children. My mom hadn’t stopped that. She has not stop that. This year she’ll be 90 years old and she’s still in there every day praying over us. She’s our prayer warrior.
Wow, what a powerful thing. The second thing here that we see, because she was tenacious, because she was persistent, she didn’t give up. She honored Jesus by worshiping him and continuing to pray. And Jesus honored Her faith and her daughter was set free. God honors persistent faith filled intercession. God honors persistent faith. Faith filled intercession. So I want to encourage you.
Don’t give up. Keep praying, keep believing. Sometimes courage. Being courageous is never giving up on your child. And I can tell you, persistent prayer produces. My wife and I have seen it in our life and in our family. I don’t know how many times we’ve been praying for one of our children about something and we’ll get up, get a text, hey, this happened or this is done, or, or, you know, I decided I need to pray more about this. God is faithful and your prayers matter.
Never stop praying. Your bold, persistent prayer will bring transformation in the life of your children. And then the fifth characteristic of being a godly mother, the last one we’ll look at here is this. Godly mothers teach and disciple. And as we talk about this, I want to talk about generational influence. One of the things that the culture, the Jewish culture had, and many of us, our culture had this growing up, was not only were we influenced by our mothers and fathers, our parents, we had grandparents and even great grandparents and aunts and uncles all around us. The family was close. And so we had generational influence.
I remember growing up, my brothers and I laugh about this now, but we knew if we got in trouble, there was a consequence to pay and mom and dad were going to punish us. But the other thing we knew was this. If we got in trouble, my uncle would punish me, my aunt would punish me, my grandmother, they all had a right to bring me back into alignment and, and, and walking. Right? But generational influence is important and it’s something in our culture today we don’t see a lot of. But this example of teaching and discipling I’m talking about comes from the book of second Timothy. And Paul is talking to Timothy here. Now let’s look at this. This is second Timothy, chapter one, verse five in the Amplified.
And it says, I am calling up memories of your sincere and unqualified faith. The learning of your the, or the leaning of your entire personality on God in Christ in absolute trust and confidence in his power, in his wisdom and goodness. A faith that first lived permanently in the heart of your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. And now I am fully persuaded, dwells in you also. Wow. The faith that Paul saw in Timothy, he saw in Timothy’s grandmother Lois and Timothy’s mother Eunice. Their faith lived in Timothy because they were teaching and discipling, shaping and preparing him for what God had for him. And I know when they started, they didn’t know that Timothy would be one of Paul’s associates.
They didn’t know that Timothy would be speaking into the churches there in his region and that he would pastor one of the larger churches there. The word teach here means to instruct, to inform, to communicate to another the knowledge of that which he was once ignorant of. And so before we know, we like to say we don’t know. Before we’re knowledgeable, we’re ignorant. Being ignorant of something is not a bad thing. It just means you don’t know yet. And that’s why teaching and instruction is important, because it empowers us to know and to learn so we understand. But disciple goes on from that.
It means to teach, train, or bring up in a way of being, doing or living. It goes beyond just learning about something, having me teach or instruct you about something. Now, discipleship works to empower you to go, be, do and live in this way. It means to equip and empower someone with the skill to walk in a certain way of life. And that’s what Timothy’s grandmother and mother did. By them teaching and discipling him and building faith in him, they equipped him with the skill to walk in the way of the Word, in the way of Christ. They grounded him in Scripture from his childhood. And Paul mentions this here in chapter three, second Timothy, chapter three, verse 14 and 15.
This is from the Amplified. Paul says this. But as for you continue to hold to the things that you have learned and of which you are convinced, knowing from whom you learned them, and how from your childhood you have had a knowledge and have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you and give you the understanding for salvation which comes through faith in Christ Jesus, through the leading of the entire human personality on God in Christ Jesus, and absolute trust and confidence in his power, wisdom and goodness, teaching and discipleship work together. And here’s a true point to make. Teaching and discipleship TP Teaching and discipleship do not require a pulpit or a classroom. They can just be a kitchen table, conversation, a ride in the car, a walk, or as I mentioned before, a bedtime story. Paul ends this chapter by saying, because his grandmother and mother did this for him, and because they built into him this great faith, Paul says the Word is there in you. And second Timothy 3, 17, the amplified, he says, so that the man of God may be complete and proficient, well fitted and thoroughly equipped for every good work.
What Lois and Eunice, his grandmother and mother, did for him, equipped him for every good work God had for him. Consistent faith filled teaching and discipleship builds legacy. Moms. You’re building your legacy. Mothers do. Every day of your life, you have moments. You teach and disciple. And in the process you’re building a legacy that impacts eternity.
And here’s one thing I’ve learned many times. You’re teaching and discipling and you don’t even realize you’re doing it. It’s just happening moment by moment throughout the day. But as you interact with your kids, as you nurture and love them, as you’re faithful and God fearing, as you’re wise and influential with them, as you’re protective and courageous, as you’re teaching and discipling them, you’re building into them all they need to be who God created them to be to fulfill their destiny. And you’re building a legacy for yourself. These five characteristics work through mothers to shape generations. Godly mothers are shaping the generations to come. These traits point us not only to great mothers, to godly mothers, but they point us straight to the heart of God himself.
Because this is God’s heart flowing through and working through and influencing children through their mother. Here are a couple questions for you today, mothers. Which of these traits is God cultivating in you right now? What is God calling forth and calling out of you right now? How can you go nurture all those around you? And to all of us, the rest of us, I want to remind you of something. Deuteronomy 5:16, and this is from the new King James version. Deuteronomy 5:16 says this. Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you that your days may be long and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. Now, this is the fifth commandment. And it said it’s the first commandment with a promise.
And the promise is this. If we honor our fathers and our mothers, and today we’re honoring our mothers, God said if we do this that our days will be long and it will be well with us. Our days will be long and life, our life will be well. It will be well with us. So the second question is this. And this is for everyone else. How can you honor and support the mother or the mothers God has placed in your life? And like I said earlier, we all have our own mother. But we’ve also had other spiritual mothers that God has brought into our life to help shape us and influence us and empower us to be all he created us to be.
So I want you to find a way today to honor your mother and love her. And to all the mothers, I say this. We love you. We appreciate you. Happy Mother’s Day. Now go celebrate. And you sit and enjoy life and make everybody else cook and feed you or take you out to dinner, whatever you want. All right? Happy Mother’s Day.
Pastor Kanye’s coming right now with a closing thought and a prayer. God be with you this week. Let me pray for you. Father, we thank you for our mothers. How they’ve loved us, how they’ve influenced us, how they’ve poured into us and nurtured us. I pray that you bless them back a hundredfold and even more. Father and I thank you, Lord Jesus, that as they live out their life, their legacy will shine before them. Father and I thank you, Father, for the lives they will influence and shape.
For the kingdom of God and your purpose and your plan. We bless our mothers now in the name of Jesus, and may all their days be blessed beyond measure. Thank you, Father. Amen. God bless you. Have a great week.
