Calvary Road Baptist Church
“PROFILE OF A GODLY MOTHER”
This morning I would like to bring a message from God’s Word that, I hope, will shower some praise on godly mothers. This is a very difficult message for me to deliver because my own mother, who I deeply loved, was not in any way, shape, or form, a godly mother. I love and greatly miss my mom. Most of you know that I am my mother’s firstborn son, and that I had a deep affection and regard for her. Therefore, it is especially regretful for me that she rejected my Savior and sentenced my family and me to the certain knowledge that we will never, ever see her again. I have a serious issue with mothers who seem to otherwise love and cherish their children, but who are willing to reject the only Savior of sinful souls who can keep mothers and their children together for eternity.
The godly mother, on the other hand, ensures and assures that, by God’s grace in Jesus Christ the Lord, she will ever and always love and be near her children who follow her example and urging. May I also say that it is never too late for mom? Live your life for sin and selfishness and then turn to Christ in your final hours before passing over to eternity and, I promise you, God will make everything all right. And I do mean everything. Let me plainly state that there is a great deal of confusion among Christians and unbelievers alike on this subject of godliness. So many Christians, as well as nonbelievers, fall into the trap of measuring another person’s spirituality by their own standards instead of God’s standards. I seek to address that matter this morning.
Eusebia is the particular word used by the apostles Paul and Peter to express the idea of awesome respect accorded to God, devoutness, piety, godliness.[1] The question is how do we know whether or not we are pleasing God, because whether or not someone else is pleasing God is that other person’s business. There is only one way you and I can be sure, and that is by studying God’s Word. If we study God’s Word for very long on the subject of motherhood, or on the subject of godliness for that matter, we will find that a great disparity exists between someone who is a biological mother who delivered a child and that woman who could rightly be described as a godly mother.
I am not going to preach on what a godly mother is today. Rather, I am going to spend our time together this morning dealing with the attitude of a godly mother. We need to understand that a godly mother’s thoughts and attitudes are quite different than those of an ungodly mother, or even a Christian mom who is a spiritually less mature mother. Perhaps such a woman’s attitudes, leading to her actions, makes the godly mother deserving of a little more honor than the honor that is due every mother. To illustrate this we will look at the position, the problem, and the purpose of motherhood, as seen through the eyes of a godly mother.
The position of motherhood is seen by a godly woman to be exalted.
Is it not an astonishing thing that there are women in advanced civilizations who do not want to be mothers? Among the poorest peoples of the world, this alarming and wicked notion does not exist. However, advanced countries, such as Japan, Italy, Germany, France, and even the United States, have sunk so low spiritually that vast numbers of women opt out of motherhood.[2] It is certainly a reflection of Romans 1.31, symptomatic of being without natural affection. What else could it be? Thankfully, God’s Word shines the light of truth and proper values to show us the exalted place in our thinking mothers ought to occupy. Certainly, in the mind of God the mother is exalted, and rightly so, because:
Number #1, she has been placed by God into a position of service. It may be a surprise for you to think of motherhood in this way, but it is a truth born out in Scripture. The godly mother’s entire life is seen as a life of service. Of course, being a child of God means that you are called to a life of service to God. To think otherwise is to completely misunderstand what Christianity is all about. When someone acknowledges Jesus Christ to be both Lord and Savior, it means that Jesus Christ, being Lord, must be served. Of course, service and ministry are looked down on by so many. But such thinking is misguided. How anyone can belittle the life of service to which every Christian has been called, is beyond me. How can you not love to serve someone Who died to secure your salvation, Who shed His blood to cleanse your sins, Who gave His all to keep you out of Hell? Mothers, as well as you and I, need to serve the Savior. The mother who is married has also been called to serve her husband. This is a capacity of motherhood which has really taken a beating in recent years, among and because of the ungodly. But the fact remains that mothers, as their husband’s wives, have been given a rare opportunity to serve as the fit helper of a husband. Pay careful attention to that word opportunity. It was selected intentionally. Paul himself pointed out in First Corinthians and other epistles, he wrote that rebellion in this area is merely rebellion toward the Lordship of Christ in your life. Feminists who shout that these things are demeaning or that women serving their husbands suggest inferiority, do not know what they’re talking about. And you will see why in a minute. Finally, the mother is the servant of her child. Who can deny this? Who serves the child more than his own mother? Who needs service more than the child who is helpless to serve himself in an area of need? It is this example from everyday life that shows, alongside Christ’s example as a servant, that service is not the same as inferiority. Does a mother serve her child because she is inferior to that little one? No. She serves him and meets his needs because she loves him and because he is not yet fitted to meet those needs himself. Over time, a godly mother will reduce her service to her child as she trains her child to become a servant. A godly mother will certainly not spend her child’s early years enabling her little one, but serving, and then training, and then eventually being served by her child. Service toward God, because we love Him. Service to her mate because she loves him, because he has needs only she can meet, and because it is God’s will for her life. Service toward her child, because she loves her little one. Because only she can meet her child’s needs. And because it is God’s will for her life. So you see, service implies capability. Service implies competency. Service implies love. Service implies obedience. A position of service is actually an exalted position.
Number #2, in the mind of God the mother is exalted because she has been placed into a position of honor. In God’s Word, in both the Old and New Testaments, God has directed His people to give honor to mothers. In Exodus 20.12, the fifth commandment directs the Jewish people to honor their mothers. That commandment is accompanied by the promise of long life for those who obey. This same commandment is echoed by the Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians. Do you think God is serious about honoring mothers? I do. As a matter of fact, God is so serious about this business of honoring mothers that He established the death penalty as punishment for anyone in the nation of Israel who cursed his mother. I remember with delight the time I sassed my mother and she without hesitation, as fast as a gunfighter, slapped my face for talking back to her. I was thirteen at the time, and it was a lesson well taught. Mothers must insist that their children honor them, and fathers properly deal very strongly with children who dishonor them by disrespecting the mother of their children.
Number #3, mom’s position is exalted because she has been placed into a position of blessing. Was it not a great blessing to Sarah to be given Isaac? And was not Rebekah greatly blessed with Jacob and Esau? They seemed to think so. And does not God’s Word reflect that reality in Genesis 9.1?
“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”
Do you remember how much Hannah prayed for a child? God answered her prayers with a child named Samuel, who became the great prophet-judge of Israel. What has become of us that some women do not want children and do not see them as a reward from God and that so many men think little of fatherhood and are no longer ashamed of being childless, as Psalm 127 suggests? I pity women who have been so brainwashed by feminism that they think unborn children are theirs to control or to abort, and once children are born they are looked upon as a ball and chain that prevents mom from realizing her true potential. Are such thoughts pleasing to God? No. Concepts and thoughts such as these are so foreign to God that such beliefs only serve to showcase the depravity of lost humanity, to demonstrate how warped our thinking is when seen alongside the truth of God’s Word. Women who don’t think motherhood is a blessing ought to ask women who don’t have kids. Ask them if they would like to have children if any would like to be mothers. Ask God in His Word if kids are a blessing. He says loudly, “Yes.”
Number #4, motherhood is exalted because it is a position of extreme responsibility. Only the godly mother truly realizes the heavy burden that has been placed upon the shoulders of every mother by God. Think of it. Responsible for the nurturing, the training, the teaching, and the personality formation of another human being. You are answerable to God for the kind of start your kid gets in life, mom. It is you who will have the greatest impact on setting up the values of another person, who will start an individual out and point that person in the moral direction that might very well be taken for the rest of his life. Who can bear that responsibility like you can? Who would dare to try? I shudder at the thought of trying to do a job that God equipped only the mother to do. Yes, motherhood is an exalted position, but only a godly mother can truly appreciate that position. For only she has the spiritual eyes and the spiritual discernment to see things the way God declares them actually to be.
From that exalted position of being a mother a godly woman can see other things as well. And the one thing she sees which causes her the most heartache, the most tears, is something which less spiritually mature mothers see only dimly IF AT ALL. What she sees is the greatest problem of a mother. She sees the problem of sin.
First, she sees the sin in her own life and wonders how to cope with it. She sees the problems that she can cause in her child’s life . . . as a result of her own sinfulness. Who among us have no personality traits we fear our children adopting as their own? The godly mother understands her shortcomings and weaknesses. And only when a mother knows her weaknesses to live for Christ can she claim God’s power and seek God’s grace as a mother and raise her children in a way that pleases God.
Second, she sees sin in the life of her husband. If she is married, she knows that her mate is a sinner. In the best of circumstances, he is a sinner saved by grace. In the worst of circumstances, he is gone. She also knows that he was given to her child to be a father, and a leader, and an authority figure in that child’s life. Therefore, she will use the utmost discretion when her child becomes aware of that father’s shortcomings. She would not think of setting her child’s father up as a god to her child, but neither would she deny her baby by her words or actions a father to honor, respect, and love. And she will cry out to God for wisdom, strength, and grace to enable her to be the right kind of wife to the man and father that God has seen fit to give her and her child because she can’t do it without God’s enabling. Sin in her life, and her husband’s life. Even more difficult if she struggles to raise her child alone. But God’s grace is sufficient.
But there is sin in the life of yet another person that will cause the greatest grief to a godly mother. This is when she sees the sin in her child’s life. The godly mother, being godly, places her trust in God’s Word as the final settler of all disputes, and the final authority on all questions she might have about the nature of her child. She can have personal opinions, which is good. She can listen to all of the experts, which is also good. But when all is said and done she knows that God’s Word is the only rule of faith and practice that is reliable. And what does God’s Word have to say about her baby’s relationship to sin? What does God say about your baby’s heart, mom? God tells us, and the godly mother believes that sin was planted in the human race by the sin of one man named Adam, who followed his wife in sin. Why did Adam introduce sin into the race when Eve was the first sinner? Because Adam was the head, not Eve. Paul sums up what Genesis chapter three records for us, that one man brought sin into the world and death by sin, Romans 5.12. And we know that one man to have been Adam. The godly mother also knows from God’s Word about the propagation of sin through the human race. Romans chapter five asserts that all mankind has inherited the sinful heart of Adam. Romans chapter five asserts that before a human being is reconciled to God through the blood of Christ, he is an enemy of God. No matter how young. Romans chapter five asserts that mankind did not become sinful by committing sins. Only Adam became a sinner . . . all other men were conceived sinners. It is Genesis chapter 25 where we get a glimpse of the possibility that children have a sinful nature even before they are born. We glimpse this when we read of the strife between Jacob and Esau before they were brought forth from their mother’s womb. In Psalm 51.5 this truth is confirmed by King David. Legitimately born of an honorable Jewish mother, he nevertheless states that
“I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
And he says that to explain his sinful behavior with Bathsheba. He did not become a sinner by sinning. He knew that he was born a sinner . . . by nature. So the godly mother sees, from God’s Word, something that God did not create, but that has, very definitely, become a part of every child fathered by man, a sinful and wicked heart. As if this weren’t enough of a burden for a mother to carry, the godly mother sees yet another truth. She sees the penalty that God justly demands for sin. Romans 6.23 pierces her heart as she reads,
“For the wages of sin is death.”
Or John 3.18, which reads,
“but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of only begotten Son of God.”
She doesn’t delude herself into the false notions that the infant child is innocent, for she can both see sin in the little child’s life and she can read the clear teachings of God’s holy Word. What good could it possibly do her or her child to avoid the truth of God’s Word? Being a godly mother, she knows that denial of the truth is futile. She knows that she must rely on the love and wisdom of an infinite God to provide a solution for the dilemma that she and her child must face together.
It is this reliance upon the wisdom and love of God which brings me to my final point this morning. And my final point is this: The godly mother knows her Lord.
She knows Him to be tender and kind, loving and merciful, holy and righteous. This knowledge gives her comfort and assurance. All of this together causes the heart of a godly mother to beat beneath that tender breast which has comforted her child so many times. And as that heart beats, it beats with the understanding that the purpose of motherhood, as ordained by that wise and loving God she knows so well, is to prepare young lives. She is the solution to her own problem.
She must prepare her child for salvation. She is the one human being with whom her child has the most intimate contact. She has been given the opportunity, by God to teach her child about the love of God which longs to save, about the righteousness of God which demands salvation through Christ alone, and to point her baby to the bloodstained cross on Golgotha’s brow. The godly mother will never relinquish her duties to another. Oh, she will accept the help of a Sunday School teacher or a pastor. But she knows the job is ultimately hers alone. She prays, studies, teaches, and lives as an example. All for the day when that little child comes to her and says, “Mommy, I want Jesus as my Savior. I want my sins forgiven.” This will be a major focal point in a godly mother’s life. And what about the average mother? Oh, she’ll be concerned with more pressing matters of the day. The godly mother knows that is the day she has waited for since her baby was born.
She must also prepare her child for service to Christ. The godly mother knows that faith without works is dead. That a profession of faith in Christ without a life of service is a paradox. She knows her child will never amount to much for God unless that child is trained and prepared for Christian service. How is this done? Understand that children are trained to serve God even before they come to know Christ. To that end, the godly mother will discipline her child. She will even spank her child when it is called for. She knows how difficult it is to serve God when one has no self-discipline. And she knows that self-discipline is an outgrowth of parental discipline. Proverbs says, “He that spareth the rod hateth his child.” And allowing a child to run wild is ungodly, at best. The godly mother will serve Christ herself. She will teach by example. She will show by her whole being that Jesus Christ deserves to be Lord of her baby’s life because she has lived her own life showing Jesus Lord is her lord.
Finally, a godly mother must prepare her child for marriage. She prepares her daughter for the day when she will leave home and become one with a man of God. She will teach her daughter to avoid considering any unsaved man for marriage because it is not God’s will for her life. Rather, it is the road to ruin and heartache. She will prepare her daughter for her role as a godly wife by being herself a godly wife, as she has the opportunity. She will train her daughter to honor her future husband because her father was so honored and respected by her own godly mother. She will train her daughter to marry, bear children, and be a mother devoted to God, First Timothy 5.14:
“I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.”
Should she have a son, the godly mother prepares him for an entirely different role in life, the role of a man of God. She teaches her son to be tender and kind, not afraid to shed a tear of compassion or to weep from a broken heart, for that tenderness of heart is pleasing to God. She desires that he be quite different than his mother. For he will be the head of his home. His duties before God will be like his father’s, not like his mothers. For this reason, a godly mother will be very careful about usurping any authority from her husband. She will pray for her son and teach him to seek God’s face in all matters, to love the Lord his God with all his heart, and to give preeminence to the Savior. Her son will never marry an unsaved woman because he knows that no woman could be like mom is without the power of God in her life. Besides which, why would the son of such a godly woman even consider an unsaved woman as his wife? No, a godly mother’s son will want a godly wife, like his mom. He won’t want someone who will always fight him in public, who will strive with him for the headship in their marriage, or who shuns motherhood. No, a godly mother will have taught her son better. Her son will see what a good wife and mother she has been, and will want a wife and mother for his children who is just like his own mom.
Do you see the difference between a godly mother and an ordinary mother? Sure, all mothers are to be honored and cherished. But do you see how the hand of God is upon the godly mother? Her attitudes about being a mother are so different than most mothers. This is because, throughout her life, she has never placed her children as the most important thing in her life. She could not do that and be the woman she is, for God’s Word tells her that Jesus Christ must have the preeminence in her life. And that of all human beings she will ever know, her husband must take precedence before her children. Then, in their appropriate role, comes her children who occupy their proper priority in their mother’s life. Are you a godly mother? If so, I salute you. You need to be for your sake. You need to be for your children’s sake.
We conclude by turning to Second Peter 1.5-7, where is provided for us the ascending ladder of spiritual maturity:
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
Do you see godliness? Take note of what must come first, going back to the beginning of verse 5. That word is faith. Before you can ever hope to be a godly mother, or to be a godly anything for that matter, you must have faith in Jesus Christ. You must be saved from your sins. If that has never occurred in your life, whether you be a mother or father, it must happen before you can be the parent before you can be the grandparent that those children need to have in their lives.
Are you saved? I urge you to consider the claims of Jesus Christ. If you come to faith in Jesus Christ the beginnings of you becoming godly has occurred. After you come to Christ, I would urge upon you a serious consideration of being discipled by one of our godly moms, so you can be taught how to love your husband and to love your children, Titus 2.4. Are your kids grown? Are you a grandmother? Have you reached the place where you think it is too late for you to be a godly mother? May I gently correct you on that point? It is never too late. So long as you have breath, you are a candidate to becoming a godly mother. You see, if your sins are forgiven, if your sins are washed clean away in the precious blood of Jesus Christ, He will make the end of you far better than what preceded.
I know women who came to Christ after their children were raised. I have seen what God can do when mom, or a grandmother, becomes a Christian and asks God to undo her former bad influences and replace them with good influences in the time remaining in her life. And you know what? God does such things. So God bless all you moms today. May God richly bless you, and may He give you faith to trust Him to make the end of a thing better than the beginning thereof.
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[1] Bauer, Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), pages 412-413.
[2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/12/us-births-decline/1880231/ 2/13/13
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Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church