True Motherhood

I want to echo those before me in wishing all of our moms a Happy Mother’s Day. I appreciated Thomas’s prayer this morning because it also acknowledged how Mother’s Day can be a difficult day as well for some…there can be a number of reasons why that may be the case, and we want to be lifting you up on a day like today as well…

I want to welcome all of you who may be here for the first time I am so very glad that you received the invitation to come and that you chose to accept that invitation because we want to be a blessing to you. My prayer is that the worship has been uplifting, the testimony encouraging and now through the message, that what you would hear is God’s truth.

I can think of no greater gift that we could give than the gift of truth…that we would speak the truth and teach the truth in a way that might be a blessing to all who would hear.

Now, if I am going to make a statement like that, we need to understand what I mean by truth…

I have to admit, if you had asked me 40 years ago, I would have called you crazy to think that we even needed to make a statement like “we need to understand what I mean by truth.”

• We are not talking about truth like where to find the best pizza…

• On Tuesday, when I was writing this, Alfonso picked up some Little Caesar’s – which leads to the question where do you find the best pizza?

• David looks at Little Caesars – you call that good pizza? – if you want good pizza, you won’t find it outside of Brooklyn…NY Style…slices so large they have to be folded twice

• Of course Alfonso – He wants deep dish and Heather says the best deep dish pizza is in Chicago at Giordano’s…

• But of course, I know the truth…the best pizza comes from a little shop outside Naples in Italy called Pizza Core’, translated Pizza on the run…Enzo was king, we couldn’t go more than a week without going to Pizza Core’ when we lived there.

There we just wasted 30 seconds and no truth at all …but we certainly can treat our opinions and preferences as truth…

So let’s think then about what we really mean by truth.

• If you find yourself embroiled in a social, political or religious discussion and it begins to boil over into an argument, the reason for that is likely because of a difference in what each person is defining as truth.

• When someone says – “it just my opinion…” it is far easier to say that we can agree to disagree on that concept, but when someone tries to tell me that what I know to be true is just my opinion, well…standby…

• The issue of truth can be one of the most vexing problems that we face today….

• In my last job in the Navy, I had the privilege of teaching young men and women who were studying to become Naval Officers.

• In the course that I taught, we spent a great deal of time discussing issues of ethics and how a person determines what is right and wrong, which ultimately caused us to navigate the question “What is truth?”

• It always amazed me, but it never shocked me the answers that I would get to this question.

• The question itself seems timeless…

• The great thinkers of philosophy, sociology, economics, religion and even history have all contemplated the question “What is truth.”

• While questioning Jesus, even Pontius Pilate asked “What is truth?”
  
  

• Post-Modernism has sought to argue that “nothing is true,” while the relativist would argue that one thing can be true for you while the opposite might be true for me.

• But can that be?

• In our hearts, we all know that something must be true. And maybe, just maybe, I am not big enough, smart enough, wise enough, enough of anything to be the one who can determine truth.

When explaining to his disciples what was to come, Jesus said to them, “I am the way, the truth and the life…”

• That is a bold statement by any man, but Jesus wasn’t any man, He is fully man and fully God. There is a full sermon series needed on proof and meaning of that statement, but for the purpose of what we are talking today, it helps me to see….

• Truth is, most simply, the way in which God sees things. Truth is that which corresponds to reality.

But, our world can be filled with lies…lies that intend to influence and manipulate you and your family…

Sometimes, it’s obvious, how could we think it is true…

Think about a Red bull commercial… Redbull gives you wings… 10 years later the company was being sued because the plaintiff had neither grown “wings” nor had they developed any improved intellectual or physical abilities… Red Bull settled the suit and then denied that it was a lie…

Or maybe it is not so obvious…such as those commercials that claim their product can solve male-pattern baldness…but if that were true…I can tell you…many of us here today would…well…look a bit different.

But what really matters is the truth that sets the foundation for everything else that we believe

even the truth about who gets to be the one to decide what is true…

The answers to those questions will impact every inch of our lives and today, we are seeing the impacts of the eroding of truth all around us…

As our society continues to move further and further from God’s word…finding out what is true becomes even more difficult.

At this point – you may be thinking – so much for Happy Mother’s Day – where is the pastor taking us…

This morning, we are stepping out of our series on Hope in Everyday Suffering, our study of 1 Peter, to take a look at Mother’s with our annual theme of

Hope for Everyday life…

and one way in which we find hope on Mother’s Day is by celebrating God’s call for Mothers and the truth behind God’s commands for Mothers that can break through the hopelessness and the uncertainty that a post-modern world-view presents…

Title: True Motherhood

So we want to consider what it means to be a True mother. Meaning, a mother that lines up with what we see in the Word of God.

There are a lot of Mom’s here today, who have a lot of voices telling them what it means to be a great mom.

The world will tell you that to be a great mom…you need to:

• Make sure your kids are in all the sports

• Your kids grades are 4.0

• Your home looks a certain way

• And you simply have everything under control

Well, if that was the standard, we would have to retitle this “Supermom.”

But God presents something far more achievable, something that he can help us to realize in our lives.

So, the question that we want to consider is, “What does the Bible say about being a true mother?”

And I want you all to know that this message is not just for the moms in the room…

Join me as we read God’s Word together to unpack

Proposition: 3 Aspects of Mom’s that we all can celebrate and emulate

READ 2 JOHN 1-13

As we begin, let’s start by taking a couple questions off the table.

Who is John and why is he a good source of truth?

John, one of the first disciples and then we watch as John becomes one who is closest to Jesus…he is there to see the most private moments of Jesus’ ministry, the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the transfiguration, even to see Christ’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane. All of this puts him in a position to witness to the truth.

But then who is the chosen lady. The term lady was chosen not just as a synonym for a woman but as a way of showing honor. Depending on the commentary you chose, you may find the chosen lady to be described as a godly mother while others consider this greeting to be to the local church. Based on the length and nature of the letter, I lean towards this being a personal letter where John speaking with the inspired Word of God, encourages her and to her children in a latter that is also a timeless encouragement to the church and all who believe…as such as we unpack these truths, we can find 3 aspects of Moms even today that we can celebrate and choose to emulate…

The first of those aspects as described in John’s letter is that…

I. A True Mother Loves the Truth

This is where we will come back to the question of “what is true.”

John’s understanding of truth was based on his direct observation and revelation from the Son of God…

Look at how he begins his first letter…’What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life – and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.

John was a witness and what he writes is truth.

From that text, truth is that which adheres to reality as is revealed to us through creation and by God himself in his Word and in the very revelation of Jesus Christ through his words and actions.

And in John’s writing to the chosen lady, we begin to see that True Motherhood begins as a mother knows the truth.

She Knows the Truth

2 Jn:1 The elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth; and not only I, but also all who know the truth

In a world that is seeking to redefine the truth and replace the foundation from which to determine truth – resulting in a truth that is ever-changing and taking us in any number of directions, paths that do not lead to hope because at any time, you may find the foundation to shift…

But not so for the truth of the chosen Lady…The truths that she stood upon included…

• The truth about God. That God is a perfect and Holy being, the creator of the heavens and earth, the Almighty God who is sovereign over the universe with authority over me and what I believe about the truth.

• She also knows the truth about herself, or in a more general sense, the truth about mankind. We were created in the image of God, to represent God and give Him glory, but in our sinful nature, we have fallen short of His glory, we have turned away from Him because we want to seek our own truth, and so we disobey God. As such, she knows that without the revelation of God, we are incapable of determining the truth on our own and that when we believe the lies, they will lead us to destruction…they lead us to death because of the penalty for our sin that we can never pay on our own.

• But in True Motherhood, we don’t stop there because it would leave us with no hope,

• Rather it points to a key third truth, the truth of Jesus Christ and God’s love which sent His only Son to live a sinless life and speak the truth revealing that He needed to die a death upon the cross in order to pay our debt and restore our relationship with our Holy God.

• What I am describing here are the basic truths of the gospel – the good news…that truth about me doesn’t sound like good news when I hear that truth isolated from the rest, but when I see the whole of the gospel – the truth truly does become good news like no other.

But if we choose a “truth” that chooses to call any of these things false, everything else will crumble around us…

This is why is important to not only “know the truth”…factual knowledge is not enough…

We must also rest in the truth…that’s why John says

She abides in the Truth

2 Jn:2 for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever:
2 Jn:9 Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.

We can know many things

• I know how to hit a golf ball, but the inconsistency in where it will go certainly does not provide me with hope.

• I can know all the players and the statistics for my favorite sports team, and those facts may all be true, but they cannot impact my greatest problems,

• as a Minnesota sports, fan, they can only lead to disappointment.

How do we moved past simple knowledge “of the truth” to truly “knowing the truth?” This is where we must choose to abide in the truth.

What does that look like?

• To allow the truths of the gospel to soak into our lives, we have to spend time with them…far more than studying for a test to know the facts of World history so that I can repeat long enough to get a good grade.

• To abide in the truth is to rest in God’s Word in a way that allows it to influence and permeate our hearts, our thoughts, and our actions.

• To abide in the truth is to allow the gospel to be the central truth that impacts my very being…

• How do I get there?

• I spend time in Worship – not just on Sunday from 9:30 to 10, (11 to 11:30) but worshipping God for who He is throughout the week, when I rise in the morning and as I lay my head down at night, I praise God because He is Holy, because He is Mighty, because he is loving, because he is true.

• I spend time in His word, reading it for more than just the facts.

• Ask yourself, how often do you open your Bible?

• How long do you spend abiding in His Truth,

• for this will impact our relationship with the truth and how we share it with others…

• If you want a wonderful resource to help you rehearse the gospel every day, very simple to read, very clear about the truth of the gospel…

• even though it looks like it is an ancient text, it was written about 20 years ago by a pastor helping his church to see the gospel in their daily lives and it can helps us to do the same…

Because a true mother knows the truth and abides in the truth, it is natural for her to also…

Instructs her Children to Walk in the Truth

2 Jn:4 I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father.

• The commandments that we have received from the Father are not just a to-do list for our children…they are also commands for us as parents that should cause us to both abide in the truth and instruct our children in it…

• In Deuteronomy 6, Moses shares this truth with mothers and with fathers too in Israel that we are commanded to “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deut 6:5-7)

• When we love the truth, when we understand the gospel, including the bad news about our children’s nature and natural tendency to walk away from the truth, we must see that it is our responsibility to teach truth.

• When John encouraged the chosen lady saying he was glad to see some of them walking in the truth, he was both acknowledging that we cannot take this for granted and that God has given a calling to True Motherhood that would share the truth in which they know and abide…

• God did not leave that responsibility to pastors or Sunday school teachers. In fact, He commends the mothers and blesses the parents who choose to instruct their children on walking in the truth.

That is the positive side that brings us to share the gospel with our children but then there is also the dangerous truth that the world does not want us to walk this path….recognizing this…

She is guards herself and her children from deceivers

2 Jn:7-8 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.

• The world is filled with deceivers and influencers and people with power and a voice in our lives and in our children’s lives…

• If you are questioning whether these voices are really dangerous…

• look at how John describes them…

• the deceiver and the anti-Christ.

• He is not referring to the individual known as the Anti-christ in Revelation, but he is describing their message,

• a message that wants to alter the truth and deny the gospel, to deny the truth about Jesus Christ.

• When the subject of religion arose, Mr. Webster boldly affirmed his belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God…to which one man replied.

• “Mr. Webster, can you comprehend how Christ could be both God and man?”

• Webster’s reply: “No sir, I cannot comprehend it. If I could comprehend Him, he would be no greater than myself, I feel that I need a Superhuman Savior.”

• but it does glorify God when we stand and affirm the truth of the gospel.

• So let me ask you

• Are you in the Word of God?

• If you say yes – how many times during the week?

• let me challenge you - whatever that number is for you today…add 2…if you are already at 7, what about mornings and evenings?

• Then when you are in the Word, are you abiding with Christ, or are you rushing to the next thing?

• Are you making sure that there is time for Biblical instruction in your life and the lives of your children? Are you in a Faith Group?

• Then outside God’s Word - How careful are you being about guarding what you and your family are ingesting or listening to?

• What lies are your children hearing – How will you affirm the truth in a way that draws them to Christ.

Then because a True Mother loves the truth…then

II. A True Mother’s Love Flows from the Truth.

God’s Word has much to say on what “True Love” is.

2 Jn:5 Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another.

• Again -the world also wants to define what we think love means…we see it in song titles everywhere.

• All you need is love

• Crazy little thing called love

• Love Stinks

• Or A Groovy Kind of Love

• And feelings change…

• But God’s Word tells us all we need to know about True Love –

• Love is a choice, Love is an action, Love is not hooked on a feeling…

Matthew 22:37–40 “And He said to him, “ ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.””

• Love begins with a focus on God and the truth of who God is…and because He is Holy, because He is with Worthy, we are called to love God, to choose Him and to believe Him before and above all others.

• I am so thankful also that when Jesus declared the second greatest commandment, he did not leave us without further explanation so that we would be left to ask “how do I love my neighbor?”

• He told us the answer lies within the whole of the Law and Prophets – Every command that we see, Every command that had been given, is to help us to love God and Love our neighbor

• As such, the example we see in True Motherhood for all of us to follow does not come simply in the care and affection of a loving mother…the most loving thing a mother can do is to demonstrate and teach her children what it looks like to Love God and to love their neighbors

• How does she do this?.

Love is Walking in the Commandments of God

2 Jn:4 I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father.

• It gave John joy to see the result of this mother’s love lived out in her children.

• And what he saw was not the evidence of the wisdom and insights of the chosen lady…

• It was not the reflection of her creativity or the teaching of the children in her own ways…

• What John observed was the Love of this mother walking in the commandments of God.

• 2 Jn:6 And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.
  
  

• “Just as you have heard from the beginning.” John was reminding them the importance of the whole of God’s Word,

• we may be a New Testament Church, living under the New Covenant in Christ’s blood

• But we are commanded to know and live according to truth that has been revealed from the beginning…All of God’s Word from Genesis to Revelation.

• Our love is a reflection of knowing the truth in a way that results in more than just awe and wonder…

• Jesus told his disciples

John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

• As we consider how our love flows from the truth…we can ask ourselves some simple questions…

• Is there regular evidence in your life that you are a doer of the word and not just a hearer?

• Based on what I hear on Sunday – How does it change my Monday…and Tuesday, through Saturday as well.

• Do you want some practical Homework?

• Consider taking the time to Abide in God’s Word…

• Then list the commands that God is giving.

• Write out how it is loving to God and your neighbor to follow that command

• Then pick one of the commands you found and write a list of ways that you a committing to grow in loving others based on the truth of God’s Word

As we look to the end of this letter, considering how true Motherhood loves the truth and that a mother’s love flows from that truth…a final aspect that we can learn from is that…

III. A True Mother Understands What is at stake.

• When we slow down enough to truly see the beauty of the gospel and the love of Christ poured out on the cross for our sins, there is also an ugliness that we must acknowledge…

• Ask yourself – Why was the cross the only way?

• That heart, for which God destroyed every living being except those in the ark, still exists in the heart of man today.

• The problem was too great to ignore and it was not yet God’s time to provide the final solution for our sin…

• Even so, God saved Noah and his family because of His love for all mankind and the abundance of His grace to carry out His plan that would one day force Him to give everything by sending His Son to pay our debt…

• That heart of man still seeks to deny the truths of the gospel

• That heart denies God’s goodness and holiness

• That heart denies it’s own lost and sinful nature

• That heart denies the work of Jesus Christ

A Great Danger

2 Jn. 9-11 Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.

• A true mother understands what is at stake and chooses to Love God and Love others by affirming the truth of the gospel.

• Sometimes that means that a mother must stand against the culture, against the world to not allow the deceiver and the anti-christ into their home, inside the bounds of their family.

• Sometimes that also means that we cannot affirm the lies that a son or daughter wants to bring into the home.

• They may push back saying – If you love me, you won’t tell me I am wrong. If you love me, you will love the things that I love, you will love the people I love…

• Sadly, what they are saying is…if you love me, you need to love the false god that I love and in doing so they ask us to deny our God…for we cannot love them both.

• To affirm and support a destructive path, any path that denies the truth of the gospel is the most unloving thing that we could do because of the eternal implication.

• Let me pause briefly,

• This is not a call to cutoff those relationships –

• We must remember that in out sin, we began in that same place

• And there is no sin that Jesus would say was too much for Him to carry on the cross.

• There is always hope…

• In love we want to keep the relationship as best that we can – because without the relationship, we may lose the door through which we need to carry the truth.

A Great Reward

2 Jn:8 Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.

• Lastly we hold fast to the truth of the gospel and the promises of God that are given to His children…

• The great reward – that everyone who believe in Him, who knows and loves the truth, will not perish, but have eternal life…

• The rewards are many,

• but none greater than how Jesus himself described it.

• “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”