[Propertalk] Fw: Sermon Resources for Mother's Day - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

Sermons for Mother’s Day: 
     John 14:23-29 – “Love and Obey” 
     Romans 16 – “Mother’s Day”

John 14 the sermon titled “Love and Obey" 

Welcome on this Mother’s Day. Someone has made a list of nine things a Mother would never say. See if your Mom would ever say these things:

1. “How on earth can you see the TV sitting so far back?” Anybody?
2. “Yeah, I used to skip school a lot, too.”
3. “Just leave all the lights on . . . it makes the house look more cheery.”
4. “Let me smell that shirt--Yeah, it’s good for another week.”
5. “Go ahead and keep that stray dog, honey. I’ll be glad to feed and walk him every day.”
6. “Well, if Timmy’s mom says it’s OK, that’s good enough for me.” 
7. “The curfew is just a general time to shoot for. It’s not like I’m running a prison around here.”
8. “I don’t have a tissue with me . . . just use your sleeve.”
9. “Don’t bother wearing a jacket--the wind-chill is bound to improve.” 

Well, someone has to make sure we all survive childhood. And usually that task falls to Mom.

I can’t imagine a better lesson for Mother’s Day than one that begins like this: “If anyone loves me, he will obey . . .” That is what Christ says to us in our text for the day. Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him . . .” 

Obedience is important to our spiritual lives. However, obedience is also an important part of helping a family run smoothly.

A professor was giving a lecture on company slogans and was asking his students if they were familiar with them. “Joe,” he asked, “which company has the slogan ‘Fly the Friendly Skies’?” Joe answered with the correct airline. “Brenda, can you tell me which company has the slogan ‘Don’t Leave Home Without It’?” Brenda answered quickly with the correct credit card company. “Now John, tell me which company bears the slogan ‘Just Do It’?” “That’s easy,” John answered, “It’s my Mom.” The shoe company surely stole their motto from someone’s Mom: ‘Just Do It’?” Why? “BECAUSE I SAID SO!”

Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him . . .”

There is an undeniable link between love and obedience. We can threaten a child to be obedient. We can punish an act of willful defiance. But the only way that our children will internalize the values we want for them will be if they know they are connected to us by a bond of love that cannot be broken. So it is in our relationship with God…

The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by joining www.Sermons.com.

______________________ 

Romans 16 the sermon titled "Mother’s Day" 

Sermon Opener - Mother's Day – Romans 16

I must candidly confess that when I was in seminary the 16th chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans didn’t do much for me. It struck me as being boring nothing more than a long presentation of people’s names, most of whom I could not pronounce; I usually skimmed over that part so I could get to what I considered to be the real Gospel. Over the years I have greatly changed my attitude about this particular chapter and I have discovered that there is much more to it than I had first imagined. For example, it is interesting to note that of the twenty-six people who Paul singles out for his personal greeting, six were women. Now that strikes me as being rather interesting, since Paul has frequently gotten a bum rap for being a male chauvinist. I think it also shows us the tremendous influence that women had in the early church. In the male oriented first century Palestine, it is tellin g that Paul could not describe the church without mentioning the significant role of women.

Verse 13 of chapter 16 is particularly interesting and it is one that scholars have struggled with over the centuries. Paul writes: "Give my greetings to Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine." Now this statement could be taken two ways. It could mean that Paul had two distinct women in mind--the mother of Rufus and his own personal mother. Or, he could be saying: "I salute Rufus and his mother, who is like a mother to me." If that is what he meant, and most Biblical scholars agree that that is indeed what he meant, then it raises some interesting speculation. When and where did Paul meet Rufus’ mother? Did she nurse him through some serious illness?  

Did she receive him into her home for an extended stay during his missionary journeys? How did this woman and Paul form such a close bond that he refers to her fondly as being like his mother? Mark tells us that Simon of Cyrene, the man who carried Jesus cross, had two sons: Alexander and Rufus. Was this the same Rufus to whom Paul was speaking? If that is true, his mother would be Simon of Syrene’s wife. No one knows for sure who this remarkable woman was who served as a mother figure for the great Paul. But it really makes no difference, because what he writes makes an excellent springboard for a Mother’s Day sermon.

Some people ridicule Mother’s Day as a lot of sentimental drivel. They say that it is nothing more than the creation of the greeting card companies and the florists. And, to be perfectly candid, there are many ministers who shun this day because, they say, it is not a religious holiday. Furthermore, they preach from the lectionary, which has an assigned scriptural reading each week, and therefore mother’s day is left out.

Well, of course, we must admit that there is sentiment to this day, but what is wrong with that? Seems to me that a little bit of sentiment is healthy.  True enough, there are some women in the Bible, such as Jezebel and the vindictive Herodias, who had John the Baptist beheaded, who tarnish the institution of motherhood. There are women today who abandon, abuse, and corrupt their children and who create a poor model, but I like to think that these are the exceptions. Most mothers do the right thing and deserve recognition. So this morning I would like to join Paul and salute all of the mothers who are with us.

1. First, mothers should be saluted for their tenacious love.
2. Secondly, mothers should be saluted for the tremendous impact they have.
3. Third, mothers should be saluted because where they are, that is where home is.

___________________________

If They Are Going to Get You…

Author, speaker and sports enthusiast Pat Williams, in his book A Lifetime of Success, give one of the best examples I know of a mother’s love.

He tells of attending a very special Atlanta Braves’ baseball home opener on April 8, 1974. It was a night game against the Dodgers and it was a complete sellout. Williams looked around to see that, seated immediately behind him was singer Pearl Bailey. Up at the plate: the immortal Henry Aaron. On the line: Babe Ruth’s record of 714 career home runs. Aaron had tied the record and tonight he was aiming to break it.

Understand that this was nearly 40 years ago. An African‑American player was about to topple the great Babe Ruth--and a lot of people in the country didn’t like it. Aaron got a lot of mail that year--more than 930,000 letters in all, far more than any other person in the country. Most were fan letters--but about 100,000 of them were hate letters, some containing death threats. 

Williams says he was on the edge of his seat when Dodgers pitcher Al Downing hurled the ball toward the plate. Aaron swung and connected. The crack of his bat echoed through the stands. The ball was gone. Home run. Babe Ruth’s record was shattered. The ballpark went nuts.

“As Aaron rounded second base,” says Williams, “a couple of teenagers--both white--jumped over the retaining wall and ran onto the field, chasing Aaron. For a moment, no one knew what they had in mind, but then it became clear: they were celebrating and cheering Aaron on. As Aaron crossed the plate, the dugout emptied as the Braves streamed onto the field to surround him, cheering and whooping it up. But amid all those ballplayers around Aaron was a short, sixty-eight‑year‑old black woman. She latched onto Aaron and wouldn’t let go of him.

“Henry Aaron turned and said to her, ‘Mom! What are you doing here?’

“‘Baby,’ said the mother of the new home‑run king, ‘if they’re gonna get you,’ (thinking of the death threats Aaron had received) ‘they’ve gotta get me first!’” 

That is love only a mother could have for her child. “If they’re gonna get you, they’ve gotta get me first!”
Pat Williams, A Lifetime of Success, (Grand Rapids. MI: Fleming H. Revell, 2000), pp. 109-110, adapted by King Duncan
___________________
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20100505/335011d8/attachment.htm>