Psalm 113:9 – The Greatest Influencer – Bible study

Psalm 113:9 The Greatest Influencer – Mothers Day Social media has caused us to add new words to our lexicon. One of them is "influencer." I read an article about a young man who decided in his middle and high school years that he wanted to be an influencer. He created a website with no problem but the question was how to get traffic to it. He spend years studying that, even majoring in fields he thought would help in college. In his mid-twenties, he found "it," whatever algorithm or secret "it" was. Now weekly, he gets millions of hits on his website and so is a millionaire. However, there is an influencer much greater than him. Psalm 113:9 He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD. Without doubt, being a parent is both a joy and responsibility. Sadly, for many in our day, parenting has become less of a joy and much more of a responsibility. So many evils are pulling at our children in so many different ways, that joy has been replaced by fret, fear, and frustration. The Lord has given us several tools to help keep our children on the straight and narrow. Love, reason, and spanking: just to name a few. All of these are powerful tools in rearing a child, and they all need to be applied in their time, but there is one that I think is often overlooked. It is simply called influence. Believe it or not, God Himself puts more stock into the power of influence than He does in the power of force. Although God is all powerful, He does not force us to do things. He encourages or influences us to do them. 1. God has never forced anyone to be saved. a. Indeed, God commands Christians to witness and calls preachers to preach to influence people to salvation. b. God never has and never will force a person to be saved. 2. God has never forced anyone to serve Him. What are some of the things we can do to influence a person? Lets notice what some godly mothers did to influence their children. I. Sarah influenced her family with her godly life. 1Peter 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; 2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. A. The "conversation" refers to lifestyle. 1. God described the influence that a wife has over her family and then gave Sarah as the example of one who used that influence skillfully. 2. Sarahs chaste (that is pure) lifestyle, coupled with her respect for God and her husband, influenced her family to do right. B. Mothers, one of the most powerful influences you have is the way you carry yourself every day of your life. 1. Granted, it takes a whole life to have a whole lifes worth of influence and having the patience to wait for that to kick in is sometimes difficult. 2. However, your whole life is going to register on your children in one way or another. 3. What will they remember about you? a. Mother lived her life holy and pure? b. Mother was a party girl? c. Mother was up and down? C. I find it interesting that many people today have patterned their lifestyle on the slogan, "LIVE OUT LOUD!" 1. The slogan means live to be noticed, and women do. a. They wear the clothing that will get them noticed. b. They mark their bodies with tattoos, strange hair colorings, cuttings, and piercings to get noticed. (Some people look like a walking bait-and-tackle shop!) c. Others deliberately talk and laugh loudly so people will notice them. s. I suspect one of the reasons people are so vulgar today is to get attention. 2. Yet, the Bible says the greatest influence you can exert is to have a meek, quiet, and godly spirit. 1Peter 3:3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; 4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. 5 For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves. a. A godly spirit is a god-like spirit. It speaks of a pure, holy, righteous lifestyle. b. A meek spirit means "not domineering." (1) A meek person is a person who has power but does not use it. (2) Any woman can be bossy, domineering, and loud. It takes a godly woman to be a lady. c. A quiet spirit means she is quiet. (1) A quiet spirit is not a silent spirit, but a soft-spoken spirit. (2) While some women want to thunder before the world, its those who are soft-spoken before the world who thunder before God. II. Hannah influenced her family with her prayers. 1Samuel 1:9 So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD. 10 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. A. Hannah and her husband, Elkanah, could not have children. 1. Many couples today know the pain of infertility. 2. The despair and heart break of a condition like that can easily drive a person to depression. 3. Hannah let it drive her to her knees. a. Now understand. Hannah did not just pray a prayer. b. Her broken heart made her a woman of great prayer. c. God is not recording her only prayer, just her last prayer on the subject. 4. As a result of praying, Hannah gained to herself six children \#1Sam 2:21\ and one of them was the godly prophet, Samuel. B. It is sad today but one of the most powerful tools God has given to parents has become one of the least valued – prayer. 1. To most Christians, prayer is what you as a last option. 2. What we fail to understand that prayer is what energies every option. 3. If we would bath our options in prayer, we would never get to our last option. 4. Prayer not only gave Hannah a son, prayer gave her other children and kept them all living like God would have them live even in wicked times! C. The world has been attempting to use science as a means to prove that God does not exists. 1. Science cant prove that God doesnt exist. a. First, because He does. b. Second, because all science can study is how things work now. You can study mechanics until you know every aspect of how a car operates, but that wont tell you how the car got here. 2. But there is a much simpler way to prove that there is no God.: prayer. a. If prayer doesnt work, there is no God. b. God has hung His reputation on answered prayer. (1) In the Old Testament Jeremiah 33:3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. (2) In the gospels Luke 11:9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. (3) to the last books of the Bible 1John 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. c. If prayer doesnt work, the Bible doesnt work, and there is no heaven or hell. (1) There is no sin for which to be judged or right for which to be rewarded. (2) There is no Satan who tempts us, and there is no God who loves us, listens to us, and redeems us. 3. You dont need scientists, humanists, and evolutionists to prove there is no God. a. All you need is prayer. b. The unanswered prayer of godly believers will settle it once and for all. D. Yet, prayer does work. 1. I have seen it work. 2. It gives good health, protection, wisdom, encouragement, resources, money, strength, deliverance, and power. 3. Some years ago while driving in town, I turned the radio on. I did not get to hear the beginning or end of the mans testimony so I cannot tell you who he was, but he was describing his life as that of a wayward prodigal. I heard him make this statement: "My mothers voice was in Gods hear every day!" And then he lowered his voice and spoke the words that he had heard the meek, quiet voice of his mother pray so many times. "Dear God, remember my son!" He said, day after day that voice beckoned in the ears of God Almighty until one day, God reached down from heaven and rescued him from the muck of sin he had so willingly walked into! 4. Is not this the point that Jesus was making when He closed the parable of the man who came needed bread at midnight? Luke 11:8 I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. III. Ruth influenced her family by her devotion. A. Ruth was a Moabite, belonging to a nation that God had cursed \#Deut 23:3\. 1. Yet, during some very difficult days, Elimelech, Naomi, and their two sons journeyed into the land of Moab. 2. While there, the two sons married Moabite women, but soon all the men had died. 3. Naomi decided to return to Israel, but before she did, she told her two Moabite daughters-in-law to stay in Moab. 4. One daughter-in-law did stay in Moab, but Ruth insisted on returning to Israel with Naomi. Ruth 1:16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: 17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. a. She must have really loved her husband because her love for him gave her a love for her mother-in-law and their God. b. She was devoted to both. B. What is devotion? 1. Devotion is defined as "commitment to a purpose, ardent love, zeal." 2. My definition is," Devotion is the distance between your first and second." 3. Ruth loved her mother-in-law so much that she left her family, her false gods, her land, and everything else to go with Naomi. 4. That kind of devotion makes for a selfless person. C. To what should we be devoted? 1. Mothers, you should be devoted to Jesus first. Matthew 10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 2. You should be devoted to your husband second. 3. You should be devoted to your children. a. I have often preached on the selfishness of children. b. However, the sin of selfish parents is even more revolting. (1) Parents who will not give up their careers, their comforts, freedoms, their time, and their sin for their children are indeed selfish. (2) What an awful generation our country has produced! IV. Abigail influenced her family by her wisdom. \#1Sam 25:14-39\ A. Abagail was one of the wisest women to ever live. B. She found an angry man who had been wronged too many times, pushed too far, and has blood in his eyes, and she stopped stopped him with gentle words and few loaves of bread. C. David was the man, and he was so taken with Abigail that he later married. V. Esther influenced her family and her nation by her sacrificial spirit. A. \#Esterh 4:16\ Fast for me and I will go see the king, and if I perish, I perish. B. Who could not be moved by such a spirit? VI. Rebekah influenced her family by making good choices. A. Rebekah was Isaacs wife. Of the patriarch, less is written about Isaac than any other and even less is written about their wives. B. But two of Rebeccas decisions are recorded. 1. \#Ge 24:58\ Rebekah was given the choice of whether to go with Abrahams servant and marry Isaac or not. She choose to go. 2. \#Ge 25:22\ When she was having a problem with her pregnancy, she choose to go to God to find out what was wrong. 3. Rebekah was a woman who had wisdom to make the right decisions. C. Some people spend their whole life making the wrong decisions. 1. They choose not to study at school. 2. They choose the wrong friends. 3. They choose to engage in the wrong behaviors. 4. They choose the wrong mate. 5. And when it comes to living for Jesus or living selfishly, they choose themselves. Today, God offering help to you through His Son, Jesus Christ. It does not matter whether you are rich or poor, happy or sad, in trouble or on cloud nine; you need Jesus and you can have JesusIf you will make the right choice.