Genesis 3:20 – Best Moms – EVER! – Bible study

Genesis 3:20 Best Moms EVER! I want to speak this morning to one of the largest population sectors in the world, mothers. According to statistics on mothers: There are 2 billion mothers in the world (85.4 million in the U.S.). There are 4.3 babies are born each second. A sizable minority of children in rich countries live with just one parenta parent who is likely to be female, and also likely to be working. Out of a survey of university freshmen in Australia, 40% listed their moms as the most important and influential person theyd ever known, compared with 25% for fathers, 17% for romantic partners, 12% for friends, and 6% for siblings. https://www.soundvision.com/article/statistics-about-mothers-around -the-world I. Eve – The Mother of life Gen 3:20 And Adam called his wifes name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. A. The word means to breath, to give breathe, to give life 1. Motherhood has become shameful to many women. 2. For others, it is just a small part of their life. 3. It should be neither. If granted, it should be the greatest honor of a wifes life. a. I find it amazing that so many women want to demonstrate that they are as good as any man. b. Why would a woman want to lower herself to be as good as a man when God has blessed her with abilities that no man has. c. Ladies, God made you superior to a man. (1) You can give life. What man can do that? (2) But not just life. God has equipped you with the ability to give God-like life, godly life. (3) You can give life and spiritual life! (4) You can make a life that knows and worships and imitates God. d. No man can do that. None. Not one. Never has. Never will. B. Ladies, the key is that you can give GODLY, God-like, life. 1. God has blessed women with intuition, discernment, and spiritual desire. a. Have you ever noticed how many times the women are the ones taking care of the spiritual business of the church? (It is not supposed to be that way but it often is.) b. Last Sunday, we went to Romar Baptist Church in Orange Beach. The pastor said that they have 55 members but over 10,000 visitors each year. Their choir had 5 women in it. Not 5 women among the men. It had just 5 women. (a) Im not judging or throwing any stones here, but why? (b) Women see the need, know the importance, and have the desire for the spiritual. (c) In our church, I checked the VBS sign-up sheet. We have several that have signed up and I am grateful, but for every 1 man that has signed, 5 women signed up. (d) You can see this through the Bible. (1) Do you remember who sent word to Pilate and told him not to have anything to do with Jesus? It was his wife. (2) Do you remember who was at the tomb the morning of the resurrection? It was a band of women. (3) Do you remember who sat outside the empty tomb, weeping? It would be the same one who was the first to see the risen Lord. It was Mary, a woman. (e) What does this mean? It means that women more than men have intuition, discernment, and spiritual desire. (f) Men may be preaching when the spiritual fruit is harvested but most of the time, it is a woman who planted salvations seed. 2. Mothers, I know your life can be very hard and discouraging, and I know why. a. Its because of us, men. b. If you didnt have to be married to have children you might be able to win your children to Christ. c. Husband, we ought not do that to our wives. We should not make it harder for them to get us and our children to the Lord. In fact, we should be part of the solution not the problem. 3. Ladies, dont give up and dont get sidetracked. a. God has placed you into your family to give LIFE, both physical and spiritual. b. In dealing with your family, be gracious, be loving, be obedient to your husbands, but keep moving them toward Jesus Christ. (a) Be gracious – Dont be argumentative, dont be disrespectful, dont be bitter. Be kind, loving, gracious. God has not called you to preach you family to Jesus (Thats my calling). He has called you to love your family to Christ. Dont quit. Dont get sidetracked. (b) Be obedient – As much as you can, be obedient to your husbandeven if he is lost. Dont take that as an insult. Take that has a command from God. It is. And since it is, if you want Christ to come do a work in your home, you must be obedient. (c) Be consistent – Of course that doesnt mean you arent going to have good days and bad days. Sure you will, but do your best to be consistent and to display Jesus to your family. II. Hagar – The Mother of Endurance \#Ge 16:1-9, 21:9-21\ A. Hagar was a good woman with a hard life. 1. From our first introduction of Hagar, she was a slave, a servant woman. We do not know how or why, but she was destined for a servants life from the beginning. 2. Then she made a concubine. I dont believe it was ever Abram or Sarais intent to make an object out of Hagar, but they did. She became a child mill. 3. Then Sarai becomes jealous of Hagar, who was probably at one time very close to her, and treats her brutally. 4. Then Abraham and even God seems to cast her out. 5. Although Hagar is the mother of one of Abrahams children, there is never an indication that Abraham loved her. Not once. Not at all. She was unloved and uncared for. B. But Hagar loved her son. 1. Here is a woman who had every reason to hate life and all that it had done to her, but she did not. 2. For all practical purposes, Hagars child was a product of rape. While at the time Hagar may have hoped what was being done to her would improve her lot in life, it did not. If anything, it hurt her for the child conceived was loved of the Abraham but she never was. She could have felt even more lonely, isolated, used, and abused. 3. But she loved her child and did what she could to care for him. C. Life sometimes gives us all of us some tough days (though I doubt that any of us have had a life as tough as Hagars). 1. Let me give you what I believe was Hagars motto. 2. Endure the bad. Love the good. Live for your children. III. Jochebed – The Mother with A Plan A. Jochebed was Moses mother \#Ex 6:20\. Ex 6:20 And Amram took him Jochebed his fathers sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years. B. She was a mother in a difficult time. 1. \#Ex 1:22\ Pharaoh had commanded that all the male babies born were to be cast into the Nile River. 2. She and her husband, Amram, refused to obey. 3. The Bible doesnt give us all the details for this, but it appears that Jochebed had a plan of her own, a. She kept the baby as long as she could hide him. b. That must have meant she kept her pregnancy a secret too. c. When the baby could be hid no longer, she placed him in a basket, set him adrift down the river Nile, and had Miriam, her older daughter to watch to see what would happen. (1) I do not know that Jochebed had any notion what was going to happen, but I am guessing that she did. 2) If all Jochebed expected to happen was for the basket to sink or some alligator to shallow it whole, why would she have sent Miriam to watch? (3) What mother would want one child to watch the other be killed? (4) I dont know if Jochebed knew what would happen, but I believe she knew somehow God was going to do something, (5) I believe she had prayed and that she was doing her part in obeying God and, after doing so, she was trusting God to do His part in return. C. Believe it or not, this is the only plan that any mother can have for her child and it is the only one needed. 1. What was it again? a. Jochebed prayed. b. She did what God revealed for her to do. c. She trusted God to something good in return. 2. No matter where you are in life, this is Gods plan for you! Do you begin to seek God today by being saved? The only way that plan will work is if you are saved.