Godly Attributes of Motherhood

The title of today's sermon is Lessons from Motherhood. Lessons from Motherhood. You know, motherhood holds a profound significance within the Bible. The institution of motherhood serves as the cornerstone, or a cornerstone, of the family structure and togetherness. And motherhood serves as a vital societal development, as depicted in the earliest chapters of Genesis. Did you know that the very first reference to mother in the Scriptures appears in context of marriage, marriage, and not childbirth alone? God established a fundamental connection between this union and bearing offspring. It was the union that created motherhood not giving birth. And I will prove that to you, and I will show that to you in just a minute. So that is very significant.

Eve was the first woman, and she was designated as the mother of all living. That's what Eve means. The title that was bestowed on her was given to her before Cain was ever born. And it underscores the inherent and foundational role of motherhood in God's design for humanity. In other words, pay attention to motherhood. It's there for a reason. We are together. We are supposed to get along with each other.

We are supposed to learn that through God's ordination of the role of mother. So let's take a quick look at the title that Adam bestowed on Eve. The story is quite negative because this is where they took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so most of this chapter is actually quite a downer.

But in the middle of their punishment, Adam makes an observation. And I want to point out that Adam was allowed, in fact, assigned by God to grant this title. It wasn't until chapter 4 that they had children together, so Eve's name or title was prior to her having children. Genesis 3 and verse 20. Genesis 3 and verse 20. The man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Again, they didn't have kids yet. She earned the title, Mother of All Living, because she was Adam's wife. Just because she was created to be the mother of us all, she was given that title. This early emphasis on motherhood is important.

It's important to know that this was bestowed on a woman. It was God who ordained Adam to name everything. So don't make the mistake that Adam naming Eve was actually a bad thing or not legitimate, or not from God. Nay, nay. Adam was ordained by God to do that. Let's notice Genesis chapter 2. Go back a chapter. And I want you to notice something that is said. Genesis 2 and verse 19. Now, out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of heaven and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

And whatever the man called, every living creature, that was its name. This is the inspired word of God. Whatever Adam called, every living creature, that was its name. Eve was not an animal, but rather Adam's wife. But she was a living creature. The term used in the Hebrew for a creature is nefesh, which is the word most often translated in English, soul.

Just means a living being, somebody who draws or something that draws breath. It's used for animals and humans. So Adam was appointed by God to name all living beings. So the name Eve, or mother of all living, was ordained by God through Adam prior to Eve giving birth. Just because she was created in the role that connected her to her husband in that relationship gave her the title. Eve was the mother of all. And you know, she's fulfilled that special role, and a role that Adam could not fulfill.

And that's okay. Adam had his own role to fulfill. We men have our own role to fulfill, and most of us are comfortable with that. But Eve had a divine ordination highlighting motherhood's fundamental importance in the biblical narrative. And it actually sets the stage for understanding many attributes that come from this role of being a mother that come from God and that we all should have.

I'm not criticizing Adam or putting down the male role at all, nor am I even discussing the male role today. Okay? Adam was made in God's image. That's not in question today. But Adam was not complete. And God put what was missing from Adam, some of God's very own attributes, in Eve. And then Adam and Eve balanced each other out.

Genesis chapter 1 in verse 27. I've gone to this many times. Let's read this in the net version. Genesis 1 verse 27. God created humankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. He didn't create just man in his image. Our main focus will be on the connectivity of Eve. Eve was created and given a title because she was connected to Adam.

And subsequently, all mothers after her, Eve was connected. And without her, without that connection, there wouldn't have been a family. And it's that connectivity, connectivity that we're focusing on in the sermon today. Now, I'm going to make a point. It's not a controversial point, but if it's misunderstood, it would be. I'm not going to emasculate God. God is our Father. He is all-powerful. He is unchangeable. That's not in question. However, God often also uses maternal imagery to describe himself.

Not once or twice. A lot. I say this to encourage my sisters in Christ. You are co-heirs with our brothers in Christ here in the room. You're not second in line, but you are just as connected to God as men are. Notice some of the passages where God uses maternal attributes to describe himself. And this doesn't emasculate him at all. This doesn't make him less powerful, less capable, less of a provider, less of a protector. He is all of those things. But he's also this.

Isaiah 66, verse 12. Isaiah 66, verse 12. Listen to the beauty of these words. The fact that we can count on God to be merciful. Isaiah 66, verse 12. For thus says the Lord, behold, I will extend peace to her like a river and glory of the nations like an overflowing stream. Speaking of Israel here. And you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip and bounced on her knees as one whom his mother comforts. Now listen to the connection to God.

So I will comfort you. How will God comfort Israel as a mother comforts her child? You shall be comforted in Jerusalem. I'll tell you a story. When I got a bad splinter in my foot, my father comforted me by digging the splinter out with a pocket knife.

And he was a great dad. I'm not complaining. I loved my dad. He was a teacher. He was a leader. He was an encourager. He wasn't judgmental. And he was extremely kind. But he was not a comforter. You got a splinter in your leg? Puck a knife comes out. That's not comforting. Dig that splinter out with the knife. Very not comforting.

Mom, on the other hand, was a comforter. My mom made us feel better and calm when we got hurt. And that's what God compares himself to in this passage. Most of us who had good moms can relate to that, right? You don't go to dad to be comforted. Oh, there, there. Shake it off. That's what you hear from dad. Get up, dust your knees off, try again. And you need that. Everybody needs that. But you could use a hug in between. You know? You need mom as well. Here's another one. There are many passages like this, by the way. Isaiah 49 and verse 15. Isaiah 49 verse 15. Can a woman forget her nursing child? Now, listen to the imagery there, because everybody knows the answer is no. I mean, it would take an extreme case, and God even cites an extreme case here, but it would take something extreme for a mother to forget her child. And God uses that to compare to himself, because everybody's obviously going to go, no, a mother, nursing mother, would never abandon her child. Listen to this. Can a woman forget her nursing child? That she would have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget. In other words, yeah, okay. In a super extreme situation, there have been times when cities were surrounded, and everybody starved, and the children died, and horrific things took place. In that extreme case, even these may forget.

Yet I will not forget you. God's compassion and God's comfort uses a nursing mother to compare to his compassion goes even beyond a nursing mother.

God is our father, but human fathers are not the complete picture of what God truly is without a wife by his side. God is mature. God is perfect. God is complete. Human males are missing what females supply, and vice versa. In this next verse in Deuteronomy 32 and verse 9, notice that God's maternal-like care for the nation of Israel. Deuteronomy 32 and verse 9, he doesn't actually say he's a mother here. It just sounds like what a mom would do. Deuteronomy 32 verse 9, but the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. He found him in the desert, in the howling waste of the wilderness. He encircled him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest, like a mom. Right? Could be a dad. We mostly picture a mom doing this. That flutters over its young, spreads out its wings, catching them, and bearing them on its pinions. The Lord alone guided him. No foreign god was with him. Who cared for Israel and raised Israel up to become a great nation? Who comforted Israel like that? God did. So while God is our father, he is complete, and his nature not like a human male. God put part of his loving character, his loving nature, in his daughters. And with that point said, motherhood was created by God, and it represents an aspect of God's wonderful, loving, nurturing character. So let's take the balance of today's sermon and look at some remarkable and inspiring attributes that God built into a godly mother. What is it to be a godly mother? What does a godly mother look like? And what can we learn from them? So let's go through some attributes. Just really quickly, we're not going to go through too many. We're really not even going to scratch the surface. There are so many in the Bible. We're just going to do a few just to get the flavor of the idea. So the first godly character is a godly mother is nurturing and caregiving. The Bible consistently portrays mothers as inherently nurturing people, just by nature. Sometimes the Bible compares their care to the very nature of God, as we read. The Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 7, uses the tender image of a nursing mother to describe the gentleness and care that characterizes his care. Notice 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 7.

But we were gentle among you, now this is actually Paul, not God, but Paul uses this as well. We were gentle among you like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So Paul here is describing the ministry of Jesus Christ and what the ministry of Jesus Christ is supposed to be like. That analogy underscores the closeness and selflessness and commitment involved in a mother's nurturing role. Otherwise, Paul wouldn't have used the mother's nurturing role as a comparison to how he treated the brethren. In other words, if mothers weren't inherently nurturing, Paul's words would have meant nothing. But obviously, his words meant something, something deep, and underscored the fact that that's why he used the explanation, the analogy. You were just supposed to get it. He didn't explain it. Paul didn't say, now let me explain what I mean about a mother. He didn't need to, did he? Because we all get that immediately. I cared for you. Let's see, what should I use? A nursing mother. Oh yeah, everybody will get that. Mothers care for you. Similarly, God used the same analogy that we previously read in Isaiah 66 to show his divine comfort for the children. Let's go back there again. Isaiah 66, verse 12. We just read this. For thus says the Lord, behold, I will extend peace to her like a river and a glory of the nations like an overflowing stream. And you shall nurse. You shall be carried upon her hip and bounced upon her knees, talking about the land that God would bring them to and the peace that they were about to have. As one who comes, who his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. God compares himself to a mother. The use of the mother's comfort there is a metaphor for God supporting everybody. And that is universally understood. The nature of a mother's ability to soothe and provide for emotional security. So how come you have some gentle mothers and some mothers that seem to fly off the handle all the time and still be a nurturing? We'll get to that. I'll actually explain that. There's a difference. Even the mothers who fly off the handle nurture and care. They are comforters.

And you know, that comfort is a binding agent. It holds the families together. In word, in an action, a godly mother brings comfort. She brings discipline, but in a gentle way, not like dads do. She brings wisdom into her household. The use of maternal analogies in Scripture when speaking of God indicates that mothers were created to have this capacity for a selfless care that mirrors God's own character. To this day, even though my children are grown, if we take a family trip, you know what my wife does? She plans that trip out to the greatest detail and makes sure that all the needs of the individual family members are taken care of, because she's caring and nurturing. It's just in a mother's nature. The second attribute that we'll look at is that a godly mother—not all mothers—but a godly mother has teaching and guidance for her family. Teaching and guidance. You know, teaching and guidance are not just the father's job, but teaching and guidance are also the mother's responsibility as ordained by God. A significant responsibility is ascribed to mothers in the Bible—that is, to teach and guide their children in matters of faith and life principles, and to encourage her husband to be wise as well. Not that I'm saying father doesn't do that—he does—but my emphasis today is that the mother is also supposed to do the teaching and guiding of the children, and we're going to see that from Scripture today. Yes, the father is the leader of the household—that's not even in question—but the mother is the chief contributor of education of her household along with her husband. They are co-contributors together. They're a team, and they're supposed to work together. Teaching is one of the primary roles of a mother. Notice in the very first chapter of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 1, verses 8 and 9. Notice what Solomon says a child is supposed to do. If you want to become wise, Proverbs is for a young person to become skilled in life. Notice the opening comments of Solomon, verse 8. Hear my son, your father's instruction—yep, dads are involved—and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Listen to the parallelism there.

Solomon is equating dad's instruction to mom's teaching, as though they are equal in value. Separated by the word and. In Hebrew, when you have two statements separated by the word and, it's like putting an equal sign in between the two statements. Solomon is saying here, in parallelism, that your father's instruction is valuable, but not more valuable than mom's. 9. And this is the result, for they are graceful garland on your head and a pendant around your neck. A garland on your head and a pendant on your neck are seen by other people. In other words, Solomon is saying, it will become clear to everybody that you were well educated if you will listen to your dad and mom. And don't disrespect either one. Families that disrespect the teachings of their mother are missing half of their education, and their education is literally unbalanced. That proverb shows the equal importance of a mother's teaching alongside the father's instruction, and shaping a child to be moral and spiritual, to have a foundation. Notice the next verse speaks to the parents in general, both fathers and mothers. And this predates Solomon. This goes all the way back to Moses. Deuteronomy 6, verses 5 and 7. Notice it doesn't say fathers. This is for parents. Deuteronomy 6, verses 5. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. Who? Who shall teach them? Well, who is the audience of Deuteronomy? Well, you have to step back and read the first chapter of the book to find out who Moses is talking to. These are the children who were 20 years and younger, or who were that crossed the Red Sea, or those who were born in the wilderness, because everybody else was dead. Moses was retelling the law. That's what Deuteronomy means. He was retelling the law to the next generation before they went into the Promised Land. So Moses was talking to the entirety of the congregation. Both men and women were there. So who is supposed to teach their children diligently? Both. Mom and Dad. And these words I command you today shall be in your heart. You, the crowd he was talking to, shall teach them diligently to your children, and talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. I gave that verse simply to further emphasize the duty telling parents to diligently teach God's children, you know, your children God's ways would be a better way to say that, speaking to them in all contexts of daily life, that is as much a command to Mom as it is to Dad. All aspects of daily life. All day, every day, both parents. Sometimes you have situations where only one parent is in the faith.

What happens when Dad is not in the faith and Mom is? Can a child still be taught the way? Oh, yes. And that child can go on to do great things in the church, like become an evangelist and be put over an entire region of the world, over the church, raised by women. Who am I speaking of? Timothy, of course. In 2 Timothy chapter 1, Timothy's dad wasn't in the church, but Timothy learned God's way just the same. How did Timothy learn to become an evangelist who had oversight over an entire region of God's church and was one of the most trusted companions of the Apostle Paul? 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 5. 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 5. I am reminded of your sincere faith. Where did Timothy learn faith? A faith that dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, and your mother, Eunice. Now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.

Timothy's dad wasn't in the church, but his grandma and his mom were.

And they were able to teach him the faith.

That equates, just like Solomon did in the Proverbs, Mom's teaching with Dad's teaching. It tells us that faith can be transmitted by mothers, even when fathers aren't in the picture. That's not the ideal situation. That's not the way God wanted it to be. But what a powerful thing a mother's influence can be on a family.

There is significant spiritual influence and responsibility inherent in biblical motherhood. Godly mothers teach and they guide. They don't just keep it to themselves. They give to other people. And what do they give? Their faith. And the third thing we're going to cover today, and it will be the last one, is wisdom and virtue. I think I stopped at three. Yeah. Wisdom and virtue. Okay. You know, I could have done love, but everybody would have expected that, and you already know that. So I'm touching on some things that you still know, but are less known. Are less common. Wisdom. Yes. Wisdom and virtue are aspects of a godly mother. God expects mothers to embody wisdom and virtue, influencing their families through their words and actions. Wisdom meaning skill and virtue meaning accomplishment, if you will. They're to be skillful in the way of God and accomplished in everything they do and in the way of God. Let's go back to Proverbs chapter 31. The virtuous woman. And notice that the virtuous woman is a mother. Now, she doesn't have to be a natural mother. She can be a mother in the church, taking care of all the other children that come to church, even though she doesn't have children of her own. We will get to that at the end. But this virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 is mom.

Let's drop down to verse 26. Proverbs 31 verse 26. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She's not harsh. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. She accomplishes things all the time, always getting something done. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, he praises her, many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.

This is her husband and her children's opinion. It may be a biased opinion. That's fine, but it is their opinion, just the same. They're not lying. They actually believe. This woman surpasses them all.

I know I feel that way about my wife, but then again, I live with her and I know her. The term wisdom means essentially skill. Now, that's an oversimplification of the word, but that's basically how they would think about it in their terms, if they heard that in Hebrew. And the word virtue means essentially either accomplishment or strength. If you think about it, those two words are actually related to each other. She's so strong, she accomplishes whatever she wants to do. Whatever she sets out to do, she has the strength to accomplish it. The word virtue means strength, but it also means accomplishment. Essentially, it means she gets the job done. Right? She's skilled and she gets the job done. The point is, a godly mother grows in wisdom and virtue. She isn't born with it. She shares that wisdom as she learns it with her family. She teaches her children and she encourages her husband. This passage in Proverbs 31 shows the remarkable role that a mother plays through her wise counsel and kind instruction, as well as her diligence in managing her household. The entirety of Proverbs 31 gives us a description of a virtuous woman, a mom, who is often, not always, embodies the role of a mother, characterized by diligence, strength, wisdom in every single aspect of her life. So let's look at an application of this principle. To become wise, to use that wisdom to teach others, it even goes beyond your personal family to extend to your church family, especially when it comes to older women teaching younger mothers. Let's go to Titus chapter 3 verse 5. This doesn't come automatically. This attribute of a godly mother, this wisdom and virtue, this skill with the ability to accomplish, actually has to be learned.

Titus chapter 2 verses 3 through 5 tells older women to be reverent in their behavior, teaching what is good so that they can mentor younger women to love their husbands and their children, to be sensible, to be morally pure, to work, to build their home, to be kind, cooperative, in their households. Titus chapter 2 verse 3, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers. You're not always gossiping. Some older women can cannot lose the habit of gossip. They learned it when they were little girls and they just never got out of the habit. That's not who God's looking for. Older women be reverent, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. So you have a temperance, a self-control to yourself. They are to teach what is good. Verse 4, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Love comes automatic to women. Why do you need to train women to love their husbands and love their children? That's actually two different words in the Greek, because it's not the word agape. It's not the word for outgoing concern. She automatically has that. This is the word for being friendly. Oh, she may love them, but she doesn't like them. They make her angry, and she lets them know. And that has to be trained out of them. This isn't the word love. This is the word friendly.

And to be working at home controlled, pure, working at home, kind, submissive. That means cooperating to their husbands that the word of God may not be reviled. This passage gives us the expectation that mothers, particularly those more mature in the faith, will serve as examples of accomplishment, examples of knowing how to walk in the faith. If biblical mothers are therefore expected to be this moral compass within their household and within their community, influencing their families and those around them with wise words and virtuous actions.

So let me explain the difference between love and friendliness with a story. Story of my wonderful grandmother, Zoma. Zoma was an amazing woman. Loving, caring, nurturing, very unfriendly, very spicy.

Zoma lost her mother when she was eight years old, and there was nobody to replace her mom so at the age of eight, Zoma became the mother of the household, cooking for her father and her brothers and sisters. Zoma had to grow up quick. She married a man, Willie Foster, and took great care of Willie and loved Willie and her children. She had nine children, three of whom died. My father, being the oldest, is not the oldest, he's actually the fourth. He's just the first to survive. What a rough life Zoma had. Zoma, my grandmother, could cook like nobody I have ever and I've got some great cooks in my life, but you would think she was using MSG in that gravy and those mashed potatoes and she wasn't. She could cook wild game because we were hillbillies and we hunted for our food and we would bring home elk and she would slice that elk thin and she would bread it and she would fry it and pile it up really, really high on a plate and then she would take the drippings that she fried that meat in and she would make a roux and then make a gravy. And then she'd have potatoes boiling on the side and all kinds of other things going all at the same time, all served hot and fresh. And you literally, I have never put a piece of meat in my mouth that good and I have eaten at restaurants. The bill would knock your socks off. The food is phenomenal. But we made that elk meat disappear at an embarrassingly fast rate. You would be horrified to see how fast we ate that meat. Zoma loved her family. She was incredibly unfriendly. Nobody taught her to control her mouth and so she just yelled constantly. She was a great woman. She had a mother's love. But my granddad, who was hard of hearing and had hearing aids, you know, the old kind where you'd twist him and they'd whistle. He couldn't hear a thing because he worked in a sawmill all his life with no ear guards at all. So he was literally this close to death and he would be sitting eating breakfast. He was eating breakfast one day and my grandmother was in the other room just yelling at him, Willie! Willie! Willie! My brother looked up from his eggs and said, in a soft voice, so that Grandma couldn't hear, Granddad, Grandma's calling you. Oh, he heard that. He looked up and said, I know, and went back to eating his eggs. Now, they were married for more than 60 years and they were incredibly happy. Had an incredible marriage. But nobody trained Zalma. It's not enough to love. You also have to create an environment of friendship. The Greek word for loving your children is phyllotechnos. It's like Philadelphia. It comes from the word Philadelphia or brotherly love, the friendship kind of love, the camaraderie kind of love. And it's camaraderie that women are to learn to become godly mothers. It means being friendly, caring for children, nurturing them, affectionately embracing them, meeting their needs, tenderly befriending each one as a unique gift from God. Not showing favorites, but loving the uniqueness of each child, even the frustrating ones. That's what this word means, loving your children. She already loves her children. She has to learn to be friendly to them.

One kind of love is automatic. The thing that is not automatic is how to be a friend. But a godly mother uses wisdom and virtue. That's the attribute that we're on. And she learns those things over time so that she can share that information with young mothers, and they can learn it even faster than she did. Don't consider yourself a failure if you're just now learning that. That is actually a huge success. Now teach the younger generation. That's one way the church flourishes and continues on to the next generation and doesn't stop. Oh, and there are plenty more attributes we could go through. I didn't want to make this a long sermon today, so the biblical portrayal of a mother gives us a very broad and diverse set of attributes. Each one, it's like a diamond, multifaceted, contributes to the beauty that is a mother. Even if we come close to including all the biblical attributes of a godly mother, we would have to spend probably a three-hour sermon. Just going through each attribute in the Bible of a godly mother. I just wanted to give you a taste of it today, a small sampling, just to see how important the role of motherhood really is to our families and to our church. Very important! So thank you to all the mothers, the ones who gave birth to children, and the ones, even though you couldn't have children of your own, became a mother through the church, through your interaction, through your guidance of younger mothers, of children. You may not think of yourself as a mother, but I do. Notice that Jesus said that a mother could be someone who is not your natural mother. These are Jesus' words. A mother can be any woman who has these attributes and shares them with you. Mark chapter 10 verse 29, the words of Jesus. Jesus said, truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sister or mother or fathers or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold. You're going to get a hundred mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and land. In other words, a place to sit and have a meal.

With perfect, I'm sorry, a hundredfold now and this time houses brothers, sisters, and mothers plural and children and lands with persecution. It's not going to be easy. Never promised it would be. In this age and to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first. Kind of sums up being a mother. Mother often goes last, but she is held in such high regard. So thanks to all of you mothers, natural mothers, and church mothers, God commands to honor mothers found in the Ten Commandments and repeated throughout the Bible to show how important and respected mothers are in His plan. And you know what? That still matters today. Helping us see how vital and God-given a mother's role is in both our faith and in our church.