[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our
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[00:00:24] Speaker B: Ashley did a beautiful job on that song in, and I always love to hear her sing, but it's especially heavy for her today. This is her first Mother's Day with her mother in heaven, so this was kind of a tough thing for her to lead worship through and a tough song for her to sing. I thought she did a beautiful job. I'm just curious how many of you. I know. I do. How many of you have a mother who's already in heaven this morning and today? Yeah. Look around the room. So many of you. Many of you at home. Yeah. It's kind of a bittersweet celebration. We are so thankful for the memories and grateful for our heritage. And so when we come up on these special holidays, it's always important to pause and just to give thanks for the memory and give thanks for the legacy that our moms have left us. And then we have these beautiful women in the room. Many of you watching online, you're still. I mean, you're still in the trenches. You're still working. You're still doing your thing, raising these kids and influencing your grown kids. And we're here to celebrate you.
So how many mamas, if you would just take a moment and stand, remain standing. I want to pray over you. How many mothers are in the room? Would you take a moment, just stand with us? We want to celebrate you right now.
All right, Ladies, if you'll just remain standing, I just want to pray over you. And Father, thank you for these beautiful women. Thank you, Father. That they have given part of their day to be here to worship you, to serve you, to set that example before their children and their family. And so today, Father, we just bless them in your name. I pray you will lift any burden that they carry. Let them know, Father, they are never alone, that you are with them. You are for them. You are guiding them and guarding them. And I pray, Father, you will protect them, protect their hearts, and just make this a wonderful day. Help us as families to be careful, just to love them and to celebrate them and to let them know how much they are valued and appreciated. And we'll give you thanks and we'll give you praise. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Let's give them another big hand. Thank you. Ladies.
Heard about a mom. Mom was in the grocery store. And don't you ladies hate that moment when you got to go to the grocery store with a little one? You had a little one, she's in the grocery store with her little one. And this little girl of hers was having a very, very bad day.
She's going down the aisle and every time she gets close to the items, her little girl's pulling things off the shelves. Many of you relate to that. And then she's crying and fussing and screaming and carrying on. And the mom is just so patient. She's going, be patient, Katie. It's okay, Katie. We're gonna get out of here soon. Katie. Don't lose your cool, Katie. It's gonna be okay, Katie. And this woman came over to her and said, I just wanna compliment you, what a great mother you are. You are so patient with little Katie. She goes, you don't understand. I Katie, sometimes ladies, you gotta talk to yourself. You know what I'm saying? If nobody else is gonna brag on you, brag on you, you just brag on yourself.
But I am so thankful to see you all here this morning. You know, really, the parent in particular this morning talking to moms is the first image of God that your children ever, ever get. You're the first authority figure that they ever see.
And a lot of times, moms and dads in particular this morning, moms can shape the way their kids ultimately view God.
They'll see him as loving and nurturing, or they'll see him as cruel and vindictive. And so much of the view that our children get of their heavenly Father is shaped within the home. And the influence of a parent cannot be minimized.
In fact, I believe a mother is the heart.
And I believe the most significant thing that a mom can do is to pour into her children and to raise healthy children that will make a difference in their world.
In fact, when you think about how God wired up our kids, we talk about this in 1st Thessalonians 5, that we are a spirit and a soul that inhabits a body.
Think about your child as being a physical being and think about your child as being an emotional being, but also think about your child as being a spiritual being.
And if you're going to raise a well rounded child, then you need to give attention to all three aspects of your child's development.
Now, every mom in the room would Tell you I'm interested in my child being healthy. I want to make sure they eat well and I want to make sure that they're doing well. And every mom in the room would, would, would give great attention to the physical well being of your child.
Every mom in the room would also say, I give attention to the emotional well being of my child.
And women, you have a natural innate sense of when your child is not doing well. We dads sometimes can miss the signals, but if your child is having a bad day, you pick up on it. You're intuitively, instinctively in tune with your child in a way that we dads are not always in tune.
And so you can tell if your child is not doing well. And that's important to you moms, right? Because you want your child to be healthy emotionally.
So that involves the friends that they make, that involves the people they hang, the places they go, even the music they listen to. All of those things impact the emotional health of a child.
But in you being here today says to me that you care about the spiritual health of your child. And I just salute you and I compliment you for that. Because not every mom and not every dad sees the value of, of the spiritual dynamic of their child.
And what's so important is to realize that our children will make a decision for Christ more likely than not while they're very young.
Statistics bear that out.
In fact, more than 80% of the people who know Jesus as their Savior today made that decision before they were 10 years of age.
And it becomes a diminishing return the older they get. Life happens, cynicism sets in.
Sometimes they just move farther and farther away from God the older and older that they get. So it's important that we bring our children into an atmosphere like a church environment where they can hear about Jesus. And then you end up reinforcing that environment in your homes where they see Jesus model, because those decisions that they make early in life are very significant.
I believe that the spiritual life of your child is the foundation upon which everything else builds. You say, well, of course you'd say that, you're a pastor, but I support that. This way, if you teach your child to build their life on their physical well being and then it's all about how healthy they are and how strong they are and how much of a physical athlete they might be, that's the foundation upon which they're building their life, then what happens? God forbid, but the child is in an accident or the child becomes sick, or all of a sudden the physical well being of that child is certainly disturbed suddenly. Disturbed suddenly. Not only does that affect them, it affects their foundation. They were building their life on that.
That was what they were building on, was their physical well being.
So the physical well being is certainly an essential element. And I'm not minimizing. I'm just saying I don't think it's foundational, nor do I believe the emotional health of our child is foundational. Here's why. Because emotions are probably the shallowest part of any of us.
How many of us have been all over the page emotionally since we woke up?
And if you get out and you drive a little bit, I'll tell you, when you get out here in a little while and we leave this holy huddle and you get back out on the real world and you navigate one of those roundabouts, it's gonna test your grace gauge. I promise you.
All of a sudden you're gonna get stretched. Why? Cause you're emotional. And you can be happy and sad. You can be good and bad and all those things. And that can all happen within morning.
So I'm just saying. I'm saying that if a child is building their life on an emotional foundation, it's probably the most unstable foundation they could build on.
Here's my point. In First Corinthians 3, Jesus said, There's no better foundation that can be laid than the foundation which is laid. And that foundation is Christ Jesus.
So when our children are building their lives on their faith, they're building their lives on something that is immutable, unshakable, that will not go away. And they can fall physically, they can fail emotionally, but if they're on the right foundation, they can build again.
And so I'm challenging moms today to hopefully, I'm reinforcing what you're already doing, but to realize the value of imparting a spiritual heritage to your children.
Here's what I know.
We can make a lot of decisions for our kids, and we have to when they're young.
But when your children get to a certain age, the one decision we can't make for them is that decision to either accept or. Or reject Jesus.
They've got to make that decision.
God has children. He doesn't have grandchildren.
What I mean by that is you cannot receive him on a My faith will not be enough to merit salvation for my children.
They have to personally own their faith, and they have to know him as their heavenly Father, not as that's my dad's Savior. They're therefore, I am a grandchild of God, it doesn't work that way. So what we hope happens. What we hope happens is that we expose our children at an early age into a home where God has talked about, where he is discussed, where we invite him into our home.
Joshua said, as for me and my house, I'll serve the Lord so he is a priority. And then hopefully you come alongside of a church that shares your values and that teaches God's word so that your children have that environment as well. And in all of that environment, the prayer is, they'll make a decision to trust Jesus while they're young.
My dad was a pastor. My brother and sister and I, we all naturally, we received Jesus young.
About the only place we ever went was to church.
And we didn't do anything if it interfered with church.
Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, Tuesday night, visitation. Saturday morning, bus visitation. I'm telling you, I was carried to a mission field when I was still a baby. I was around this stuff all the time.
And so naturally, as a child, I remember knowing that I needed to invite Jesus into my life. And one Sunday morning, I tugged on my mother's dress tail setting. If this were that auditorium, I was sitting right over here next to my mom, walked down the front. My dad stepped down from the pulpit with his Bible in hand and knelt beside my mom and dad and received Jesus as my Savior. Did that very young.
Somebody says, well, don't you think a child needs to be a certain age before they make that decision?
Well, once they are old enough to discern right and wrong, once they are old enough to know about Jesus, love for them and understand the impact and the import of the cross, once all of that is clear in their mind. And children develop at different ages and different stages. And as a parent, you'll kind of know when your child has that they're at that point of comprehension. And I'm saying as you expose them to that earlier on, they'll probably make that decision early on. And here's my defense of them when they do.
You don't have to wait till you get a PhD in sin to come to the Savior.
Jesus said, permit the little ones to come to me and don't forbid them, don't keep them away, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. I'd put it to you this way. You don't grow up and receive Jesus. You become like your child to receive him, humble, teachable, trusting and willingness. And him that comes to me, Jesus said, I will in no wise cast out. So what am I saying, Moms, I'm saying one of the most significant things you can do is pass a spiritual heritage onto your children.
When you read Deuteronomy 6, that was really something Jesus was interested in. He was interested in his people passing a spiritual heritage down to their children. Here's why sociologists will tell you, and certainly the biblical record will support this, that each succeeding generation will move farther away from the values of the previous generation. If they're not reinforced and taught.
Then each successing generation, successive generation by the third generation will move so far from that of the first generation that it will hardly be even recognizable.
I'll illustrate it this way when. When you read the book of Judges.
In Judges chapter two, the people of God were sharing something with their children experientially. Read Judges 2. 7. It reinforces this. They were sharing something with their children experientially that the children could see firsthand and know about without a shadow of a doubt. For example, when Israel crossed the Red Sea, can you imagine all those kids? And there were a lot of kids there.
And when all those kids were at the Red Sea, can you imagine the stories that they told as they grew up later on in life?
They said we were at the Red Sea. I mean, the waters were impassable, it was uncrossable. And all of a sudden somebody at the back of the group said that Pharaoh and his army are coming after us. And we were terrified.
And that old man with that white hair and that cane, he stood out before those waters and all of a sudden he stretched his arms out and you.
I'm telling you, I'm not lying. The waters parted and we walked through on dry ground. You would never convince those kids who were now grown sharing that story with their kids. You would never convince them that that didn't happen. Why? They were there.
They experienced it. They saw God move firsthand.
Well, if the next generation doesn't experience it, then the only thing they're going to do is they're going to hear about it.
And you see that in Joshua 24, they didn't see this happen. They weren't there. They heard mom tell about it. They heard granddad tell about it.
They didn't ever really see God work in their personal lives. They had a secondhand knowledge of it. They heard about it.
And by the time you get to gosh, you get to Judges chapter 2. Let me see where I gave you verse 10 on this one.
The third generation, not only did they not see it or experience it, they didn't even hear about it.
And so each successive Generation moved farther and farther away from God because the generation didn't do a good job of transferring a spiritual heritage to their children.
That can happen.
You say, well, Bill, how do I do that? Let me give you a suggestion.
Here's what I would tell you.
I would tell you to incorporate your spiritual values into your family life. Meaning do it this way as a family. Pray about certain things. Involve your kids in that prayer.
I remember when Cindy, when our kids would have a test, she would write on their mirrors in the morning some verse and say, I love you. I'm praying for you as you take this test today.
When they would pack a lunch, she might put a post it note in their lunch to say, I'm hoping you have a good day. Here's a scripture and read this throughout the day. What was she doing? She was more spiritual than me. Now I'm admitting that. But she was putting some spiritual values into our children. She wanted them to experience it firsthand.
It wasn't enough for me to say to my kids, my dad was a pastor and I was raised in this kind of a home. And these were our values and that kind of thing. But I don't model it to my kids. And if I don't model it to my kids, by the time they have kids, not only do they not model it, they don't even know about it. It's the third generation. Do you see that? And so the value of transforming, transferring a spiritual heritage is so significant.
Because it's hard enough to serve God when you're doing those things purposefully and intentionally. Cause all hell will come against a mom who has those values and has that desire to communicate that value and those desires to her children.
You see this cycle throughout the scriptures, close to God, walking away from God. God sends chastisement. I'm sorry, God, I'm coming back. And this is exactly what happened in the Book of Judges.
They had moved away from God, that third generation. They didn't experience anything. They didn't hear about anything. And so they're away from God. And guess what happens?
God sends them through a period of chastisement. The Canaanite people rise up against them. They disarm them. They Lord over them. And all of a sudden the people of God are subservient to the Canaanite people. And they're crying out to God, we know why this happened. We're sorry.
Please restore us and deliver us. We won't do this again. We're so sorry. And so God does something remarkable. He does something just like Himself, he hears their prayer and he restores them. And this is the heart of what I wanted to tell you. He uses a woman to do it.
In fact, he uses a woman who will describe herself this way. I was a mother in Israel.
Now, what did that mean by that? She had a mother's heart. She was a mom.
But this mom, who had a mother's heart was also a mom who had a heart for her country, for her community, for her neighbors.
It's interesting when you look at how God describes himself.
He often describes himself as a mother.
Listen to Matthew 23, verse 37. Jesus said, I would have longed to gather you as my children, as a hen doth gather her chickens.
But you wouldn't.
God said, I want to protect you like a hen protects her chickens. So there's that instinct of moms to protect her kids.
I was watching a National Geographic thing and there had been a terrible wildfire. And the fire team, after they got it kind of under control, they were going behind where the fire had burned, checking for hot spots. And. And a park ranger had a probe, and he was walking along kind of around the trees to make sure these hot spots couldn't regenerate. And the fire started again. And he noticed, at the base of a tree, he noticed this bird.
And she had cupped her wings and she had burned to death.
And he took the little probe and he just kind of poked the mother bird. And when he did, out from under her wings ran several little baby birds.
That's a good story, right?
Well, here's the point. God says, that's the kind of protection that I wanna provide to my children.
I wanna keep you from the fire. I wanna keep you from the enemy. I wanna. And so Jesus was saying, that's the love I've had for my kids.
I would often do that. But you've resisted that. But this is the kind of protection I would have over you.
So he's often called a protector, as a hen protects her chickens. Here's another time God is referred to as a mother in scripture. It's in Hosea.
Now, that's going to be back where the pages of your Bible are stuck together. Hosea13, here's what it says. Like a bear robbed of her cubs. Talk about a mama bear. This is where that comes from. Like a bear robbed of her cubs. God said, wow, this is wild. I will attack them and rip them open. Wow. This is God, our loving heavenly father, saying, you mess with my kids and I will attack them and rip them the sweetest, most mild mannered woman in this room, that's a mama. You become a different personality when somebody messes with your babies. Wouldn't you agree?
And God says, I get you.
I understand that. He says, I'm like you. I am a protector and I am a provider.
And so here in this beautiful story of Judges, when God has heard the call of his people to be restored, the person he will use as the point person. Person will be a mom, a mother in Israel. Look at the text and we'll go quick. Cause I about burnt my clock here. Judges 5. Look at verse 3. It's a song that Deborah has written celebrating what had happened in the previous chapter, which was the victory over the Canaanites. Here's the song she wrote. I will sing to the Lord. I will sing praise to the Lord God of Israel. Lord, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the field of Edom, the earth trembled, the heavens poured, the clouds also poured water. The mountains gushed before the Lord. This Sinai, before the Lord God of Israel. In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted. The travelers walked along the highways. Village life ceased in. It ceased in Israel. Until. Here's the pivotal point. Until I. Now, this is not a braggadocious statement. She's just saying this is what happened. I, Deborah, arose. I arose as a mother in Israel.
Here's a beautiful paraphrase I want to share. I think you ladies will like it. Here's a paraphrase of this song of Judges 5.
Here's the paraphrase. I did not arise initially as a warrior, or as a judge, or as a prophetess. I arose as a mother.
The spirit of motherhood came on me as a mother. I decided, enough is enough. You're not going to send my babies down that road. That road won't lead to life, freedom, or victory. And that road won't lead to God. So if the men refuse to change the state of the nation and the direction that our children and our children's children are going to, then it's time for mothers to stand up. That's a pretty good paraphrase, girls. And that's exactly what happened with Deborah. Notice quickly. I'll give you this for my note takers. Here is the woman that God chose.
There's at least four things about her the Bible says. First of all, she was a wife.
Her husband Lapidoff is mentioned, and I think he's mentioned for this reason. He was married to a very secure and a very strong Woman, which means he had to be secure in himself.
He wasn't intimidated by her gifting. He recognized God had a special calling on my wife. She has a supernatural ability that God has given her that's going to make her very unique among other women. She's going to stand out. And I'm here to celebrate all that God's doing in her life. He wasn't intimidated by her. He didn't try to put her down. Instead, he supported her and he celebrated her as a husband. And so it describes her as a wife. It describes her as a mother.
She's called the mother in Israel. Not only was she a mother to her children, which motivated her to take action as a protector and a provider, she became a mother to a nation.
The third way the Bible describes her is as a warrior. And we're gonna see in a moment how God used her to influence an entire army that rose up against the Canaanites. She was a warrior. And here's the fourth thing. She was. She was a prophetess.
A prophetess. God actually spoke to her and through her, to his people.
And God used this remarkable woman to turn the course and turn the tide of an entire nation. That's the woman God called. Here's the second thing I don't want you to miss about her. Notice the warrior that God calls. Here's the woman he chose. Here's the warrior that he called. In fact, when you read the narrative in Judges four, it's an incredible story.
Barak was the leader. He was God's man to lead the army of Israel against the Canaanites. They were outnumbered. The Canaanite army had better weapons. Remember I told you they had disarmed Israel. So Israel just had homemade weapons.
So the canaanite army had 900 chariots of iron. I mean, humanly speaking, an impossible situation. But God tells Deborah, you go to Barak. He's the guy. I want to lead the army and call out an army of 10,000 of these Israeli soldiers. And I want them to go against Canaan, and I want him to lead them.
So Deborah goes to him and said, this is what God has told me to tell you.
God has called you to say no more. We're standing up against the enemy. We're standing up against these oppressors. We're not going to turn our children and our grandchildren over to this enemy. God's hand is upon us. Now is the time when we're going to declare victory and we're going to take the victory. And so Barak hears her say that, and he responds to her when she says that. Look at Judges 4, verse 8. He said, if you will go with me, then I will go.
But if you don't go with me, I'm not going.
Now, what's in that statement. What's in that statement is the confidence that he had in Deborah's walk with God and the anointing of God that was on her life.
He recognized, if I have this woman of God who will stand by my side and go with me into the battle, we can't lose.
But I'm not spiritual enough, and I don't think I'm strong enough spiritually to go against this enemy if I don't have some support and I don't have some help.
And so not only was this woman a remarkable woman in that she was a great wife and a great mother and a great warrior, but she was an influential leader. And. And so here Barak is saying. And notice what she says. She says, okay, I will surely go with you. Judges 4, 9. Nevertheless, there won't be any glory for you in the journey. It's gonna be a hard thing. But the Lord will sell Sisera, that's the leader of the Canaanite army, into the hands of a woman. He's going down. And it isn't gonna be Baraka or any of you guys that's gonna take him out. There's gonna be a woman that's gonna take out the general of that evil army. And here is a beautiful story of how God's hand was on the life of a woman who described herself as a mother.
And she challenged an entire nation to fight against the oppressive enemy that had tried to destroy them.
It was the woman God chose.
It was the warrior God called. And here's the last thought. It was the wonder. The wonder that God caused.
What was the wonder? Well, when it came time to go to battle, I told you they had 900 chariots of iron. Guess what happens. It's in judges four. All of a sudden, God sends a rain.
And it rained so hard that those chariots bogged down to the axles. They were worthless. They couldn't move. They couldn't strike. There was nothing that they could do. And 10,000 of that Israelite army routed that Canaanite army.
And that general fled.
And he went into the tent of Jael.
And Jael took a tent spike and drove it through his head.
This is gruesome. Gruesome. Boys love it. And the Bible describes it as. Not only did she drive it through his head, but she took a mallet and nailed his head to the ground. That's a mean mama right there.
And just as God said would happen, it was a woman that took out this evil leader. It wasn't the guys. It was the girls.
You talk about bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan. I mean, these are some strong women.
And what was incredible about this wonder that God performed is he restored the nation.
He brought them back into his favor. And when you read the record, and it's there in Judges 4 and 5, for the next 40 years, Israel walked with God in new peace. What does 40 in the Bible represent? It's a generation.
So here a generation was impacted. Why?
It wasn't because of the men. And the men were significant. They couldn't have won it without the men. The men were important, not minimizing the men.
But the Bible says there was a generation that was restored. There was a generation that walked in favor. There's a generation that had a story to tell to their kids and their grandkids. Why? Because there was a mother in Israel that said, not my kids, not my grandkids.
God has called me, and I'm gonna stand up and speak out, and I'm gonna do what I can to make a difference.
And she did.
Let's pray together.
Father, I again, just thank you for the women in this room who have a unique calling on their lives.
The highest calling in the world you've placed upon them is to be a mother to their children.
Some of them are grandmothers, some are great grandmothers.
And on this day, we celebrate what you're doing in and through their lives. Thank you for them.
I pray you'll give them courage.
I know how hard that can be and how hard on their hearts it can be. So give them courage. Today you've said in your word, don't become weary doing well, because in due season we will reap if we just don't quit.
So, Father, help them to know that you're with them.
Help them to rely on your strength.
Help them to lean into you day by day. Bless their children.
And I pray, Father, that if there's one in this room, one mother in this room, one watching online, who never has trusted you as savior, that this would be the moment when they humble their heart and they pray a simple prayer like this and say, lord Jesus, with all that I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you.
Come into my heart.
Forgive my sin. I receive you as my savior. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: It.
