“IN HONOR OF MOMS WHO GIVE THEIR BEST”Because Your Family Matters

May 10, 2015Cornerstone Community Church

After graduating from the Naval Academy, a young Jimmy Carter applied for a position in the Navy’s fledgling nuclear submarine program. He was interviewed for the job by Admiral Rickover, known as the “father of the nuclear navy,” a man Carter greatly admired. Looking down at Carter’s resume, the Admiral asked, “Where did you come in your class in the Naval Academy?” With a measure of pride Carter said: “Sir, I came in 59th in a class of 840!” Jimmy Carter said he expected to be showered with praise but instead he was confronted with the penetrating follow-up question: “Did you do your best?” Carter was about to reply almost automatically with his, “Yes, Sir,” but he thought about it for a moment and said, “No, Sir, I didn’t always do my best.” After a long awkward silence, the Admiral said: “Why not?” and then promptly got up and left the room, leaving Carter to answer the question for himself.

It’s a good question, isn’t it? Why not give your best? And most of us do. We give our best at school. We give our best on the playing field. We give our best at work. But here’s the thing – we’ve only got so much to give. We can’t be running full speed all day, every day. There’s got to be some down time; we’ve got to pace ourselves a little bit. And the natural place to pull back a bit, to coast a bit, is at home. After all, if we don’t give our best at work, we could get fired. If we don’t give our best at school, we could fail. But what are our families going to do? They have to love us, right – it’s part of the job description!

But we don’t really think that way, do we? Oh, it’s true – we don’t always give our families our very best. There are days when it’s very much the case that we simply don’t have much left in the tank to give to our families. But that’s not at all how we want things to be. We want nothing more than to give our families our best. No one matters more to us than our families. If every other part of our life is going well but our family life is messed up, then our whole world is messed up.

So for the next seven weeks we’re going to explore what the Bible has to teach us about giving our best to our families. How do we do that? What does that look like? And we’re going to start this morning, on Mother’s Day, by honoring our moms who so consistently do what each of us in the family should do for each other – they give us their very best.

By the way, here’s how, according to the experts, you know if you’re a mom who’s giving parenting her very best:

You count the sprinkles on each kid’s cupcake to make sure they’re equal. You run toward projectile vomit rather than from it. You’d rather have a 103 degree fever than watch one of your kids with it.

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You can’t remember the last time you ate a meal while it was still hot. You take it personally when strangers don’t wave back at your baby. You know the names and super powers of every single Marvel character. You cook as much with the play kitchen as the real one. You’ve convinced your kids that vacuuming is a “game.” You’ve Googled the phrase “how to remove Desitin from carpet” You pray. About everything. Because you’ve learned you can hardly control

anything.

This morning we want to honor our moms for giving us their very best. And as we get started let’s be sure we acknowledge this point – moms come in all shapes, all colors, all sizes and all backgrounds. Each mom has her own style and her own idiosyncrasies; you don’t have to dress a particular way or act a particular way to be a mom who gives her family her very best.

Moms Who Give Their Best Model Grace

Let me share with you three ways our moms give us their best. Here’s the first one – moms who give their best model grace. My favorite definition of grace when I think of the grace of God is this: “Grace means there’s nothing I can do to make God love me more, and there’s nothing I can do to make God love me less.” No matter how good I am, no matter how well I perform, there’s nothing I can do to cause God to love me more than he does, because his love for me is already complete. And no matter how bad I am or how poorly I perform, there’s nothing I can do to cause God to love me less, because he already loves me as fully as he possibly can.

Many of us have a hard time believing that. Many of us are quite convinced that we have to earn God’s favor by doing good things, and that when we do bad things God’s love for us diminishes. Not true, says the Bible. God’s love for us is wholly independent of our performance. He loves us just because.

And moms who give their best model that for us. They model grace by loving us just because. Moms who give their best teach us that there is nothing we can do to make them love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make them love us less.

So what does that mean practically? Does that mean that a mom should never correct her child’s grammar or discipline her child for misbehaving? Of course not. In both Proverbs and in Hebrews the Bible says this: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves.” (Proverbs 3:11-12; Hebrews 12:5-6) God’s love for us is perfect and unconditional, and it is because he loves us – not in spite of his love for us – that he disciplines us. And a mom is the same – she disciplines us because of her love for us. If your toddler tries to stick a fork into an electrical socket, you tell him no. If he disobeys you and tries again to stick the fork into the electrical socket, you discipline him and you do it not because you’re mean but because you love him.

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But moms who give their best are able to communicate to their kids even when they discipline them that they love them just the way they are. Moms know how and when to be tough and how and when to be tender.

Here are three things I’ve observed about moms who give their best when it comes to modeling grace – they consistently express affection, are generous with affirmation and are eager to offer their acceptance. First, moms who give their best consistently express affection. This is where moms are generally much better than dads. Many of us dads have a hard time expressing affection … unless we get a new car. Then we can get pretty emotional. But expressing affection to other human beings can be a bit of a challenge for us. Moms, on the other hand, are so much better at this, and our kids are so desperate to receive it. Moms consistently tell their kids they love them. They consistently show their kids that they love them, from the notes they put in their lunches to the hugs at the end of the day. In fact, I’ve even known moms who will tell their kids they love them more than once a day! As a dad I’m thinking, “I remember telling my daughter I loved her a few months ago; she should know I love her without me having to tell her all over again.” Thank goodness my kids have their mom. Like all great moms, she consistently expresses her affection to our kids every day, with no exceptions.

Now if you’re a person who has a hard time with this at all, I’ve got an idea for you. A few years ago my wife had some major surgery, and was on some strong pain medication as she first came off of the anesthesia. I was there in her hospital room with her, as were our three kids. We were doing our best to be supportive and to get her what she needed, and she was so appreciative of everything we were doing. For a couple of minutes she went on and on about how great we are and how much she loves us; it made us feel pretty good. Then the pain medication wore off a bit, and while she didn’t come out and say it, it was clear that she didn’t think we were quite as wonderful. A short time later the nurse gave her more pain medication, and within minutes we were once again the best husband and the best children a woman had ever had. So if you’re struggling to express affection to your family, if you’re just not feeling it … moms, might I suggest some strong pain medication. It might be just what your kids need.

Here’s a second way moms who give their best model grace – they are generous with affirmation. Let me give you an example. When our kids were growing up, our refrigerator door was constantly covered with scads of paper. It really bothered me; it felt so messy to me. But even without me telling you, you know what we had on our refrigerator door. When one of our kids did especially well on a paper or a test, it went on the refrigerator door. When they were very young it was all the stuff they drew or painted that covered our door. Why did my wife put that stuff up there, besides to tweak my obsession with neatness? She did it to affirm our kids, to let them know how proud we were of their hard work.

My Mom is 94. A few years ago we had to move her from a larger apartment condo to a smaller one in a retirement home. To accomplish that we had to throw out boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff she had accumulated over the years. Mom was able

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to keep only the most essential and most prized of her possessions. In junior high art class, I made for one Mother’s Day what might generously be called a clay pot. I thought it would look cool if I drew designs on it and stuck clay lumps on it. I did not get a good grade on that pot. My family will tell you it is the ugliest clay pot ever made. But my Mom kept that clay pot; she kept it for over 50 years. My kids thought she must have kept it to make her laugh, but I know that Mom kept it because she wanted me to know that she will always treasure the things I made for her and gave her. Moms who give their best are generous with affirmation. They don’t wait until we do things perfectly to praise us. They aren’t stingy when it comes to telling us that they are proud of our efforts. And when they do that, they model grace for us.

Here’s a third way moms who give their best model grace – they consistently express affection, they are generous with affirmation, and they are eager to offer acceptance. In other words, they are quick to forgive us. Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” In his grace, our God is eager to forgive us and to welcome us home. And so are our moms. Moms who give their best don’t hold grudges against their kids. Do you remember what Paul said about love in 1 Corinthians 13? Here’s just one snippet of his legendary description of love: “Love is patient, love is kind … It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5) Some of us are “record-keepers.” Oh, we don’t write them down and file them away in a drawer, but the file exists somewhere in our memories and we are quite capable of retrieving the information at any given moment. But that’s not grace. That’s not how God deals with us. Our God is eager to forgive us, quick to accept us. And moms model grace by doing the same thing. They don’t remind us year after year about the time we broke their favorite lamp, or about the speeding ticket we got, or the F we got on the math test because we didn’t study when she told us to. Moms who give their best don’t keep a record of wrongs. They are quick to forgive us and eager to accept us.

Moms Who Give Their Best Motivate Growth

Here’s a second way moms give us their best – they motivate our growth. You’ve heard me say this before: “God loves you just the way you are, but too much to leave you that way.” That applies to moms as well. A mom loves her children just the way they are, but too much to leave them that way. Moms give their best by motivating their kids to keep growing.

Years ago I read a book by Dr. Henry Cloud called “Raising Great Kids.” He opens that book by challenging parents to always keep in mind the ultimate goal of parenting. How would you answer that; what would you say is the ultimate goal of parenting? Survival perhaps? Getting your kids through college? Insuring that when you’re old there will be someone healthy enough to take care of you? Here’s Dr. Cloud’s answer: “Character growth is the main goal of child rearing.” And I think that’s right.

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Another book that’s been helpful to me is Dr. Phil’s book called “Family First: Your Step-by-Step Plan for Creating a Phenomenal Family.” The first step, says Dr. Phil is to parent with a purpose. Quoting from Steven Covey, Dr. Phil challenges us as parents to “begin with the end in mind,” to parent intentionally. And then he makes what I think is a terrific point and a biblical point. He says that it drives him nuts when parents say that their goal for their kids is that their kids be happy. That’s not a goal, says Dr. Phil, because happiness is an emotional state that changes with the weather, with what you had for dinner, and with how the stock market did that day. Instead, he says, parents need to help their kids set meaningful character goals for themselves, and then encourage and motivate their kids to reach those goals.

The Psalmist wrote this: “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” (Psalm 127:4-5) Have you ever done any archery? I tried it in PE class way back when. Here’s what our teacher didn’t say; he didn’t say, “OK, just point it any way you want and let it fly!” No, he gave us a target and said, “Aim the arrows for that.” As parents it is our job to help our kids aim at an appropriate target. And moms give us their best by doing just that.

Let me offer a couple of observations on how moms can motivate their kids to grow. One way is by example. Moms who give their best give their kids something to aim for by showing them the kind of person they want to become. They don’t just lecture their kids on the value of discipline, for example; they model discipline. To quote Dr. Phil yet again, “You can’t be one kind of person and another kind of parent.” As parents we need to be the kind of people we want our kids to become, and that’s exactly what moms who give their best do so well.

What’s one of the virtues all parents try so hard to teach their kids? It’s to share, right? My two year old granddaughter is still figuring out what how sharing works. Not long ago she started to eat something from my plate, so I asked what she was doing. “I’m sharing,” she said. “I don’t think that word means what you think it means,” I told her. And what’s the normal way parents use to motivate their kids to share? With our words. We lecture them. We tell them why they should share.

Kevin Miller grew up in Wheaton, Illinois. An elderly man named Beard and his wife lived two doors down from the Millers. Then Beard’s wife passed away, and Beard developed a painful case of shingles that along with his old age made it very hard for him to get around. One night Kevin noticed that his mom made quite a bit more for dinner than usual. And before they sat down to eat she said to Kevin, “Honey, would you take this plate of food down to Beard?” Kevin did just that, and came back to report that Beard was very grateful for the meal.

The next night Kevin’s mom did the same thing. And the next night and the next night and the next night. For over three years, Kevin’s mom made enough food every night to share with their elderly neighbor, until Beard finally moved into a nursing home. And I suspect that Kevin didn’t need to hear a lecture on sharing from his mom to learn

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what it means to share. Kevin’s mom motivated him to grow by modeling for him the kind of person she wanted him to be.

Of course, not every example a mom sets is a good one. Randy was behind a woman in line at the grocery store when he noticed she seemed to be tearing up. He asked what was wrong. “You look just like my son. He passed away a few years ago, and I didn’t get to give him a proper goodbye.” Randy said, “I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?” “When I leave, could you just say, ‘Goodbye Mom’? That would mean so much to me.” “Of course.” So as the women left the store Randy called out to her, “Goodbye Mom,” and she turned and waved back to him. The store clerk then told Randy how much he owed for the food he was buying – it was over $200. “How could that be? All I had was a couple of small things!” The clerk explained, “Oh, your mother said you’d pay for her groceries.”

So that might not be the kind of example you want to follow. But back to the point – moms who give their best motivate us to grow, and one way they do that is by being a positive example. But often they do it with their words. Sometimes it’s words of encouragement, and sometimes it’s a word of perspective. The actor Denzel Washington tells about the time he came back home to visit his mother after one of his movies had just come out to rave reviews. After greeting his mom he said, “Can you believe how successful your son has gotten!” To which she replied, “Please! First of all, go wash the windows for me. And second, you have no idea how many people were praying for you when you were nothing but a knucklehead!”

Moms Who Give Their Best Magnify God

Which leads to one last way moms give their best: Moms who give their best model grace, they motivate growth and they magnify God. The Bible is replete with examples of this quality. In his letter to his young protégé Timothy Paul writes, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.” (2 Timothy 1:5) Timothy learned from his grandmother and his mother to put God first. And I go to that verse reflexively because it’s the same lesson I learned from my grandmother and my mother – they showed me by how they spent their time and how they managed their money, by what they read and what they listened to, that if you put God first in life, everything else will fall into place.

One of earliest Bible stories I learned as a child was about a woman named Hannah; you can read her story in 1 Samuel. Hannah for some reason was childless, even after years of trying to have a child and many tears. Finally, after a season of fervent prayer, Hannah is assured by the priest Eli that God has heard her prayers and she will have a son. She names her son Samuel, which means “Heard of God.” And then she does something truly amazing. While Samuel is still very young, she brings Samuel to the temple and gives him to God – not figuratively, but literally. She says, “This child belongs to the Lord,” and she gives him to Eli for Eli to raise as a servant of God.

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Now surely Hannah continued to be very involved in Samuel’s life as he grew up, but as Samuel matured and came to understand what his mother had done, he could not help but get the point – God comes first. His mom, who had prayed for him to be born for years and years and who treasured him above all else, gave him over to the service of God because she loved God and trusted God with all her heart. And from that beginning Samuel grew to become a truly mighty man of God.

Many of us here have moms who have helped us to appreciate that if you put God first, everything else will fall into place. A number of our moms aren’t in our service this morning because they are in Kingdom Kids, teaching our children that if you put God first, everything else will fall into place. That’s how moms give us their best. They talk to us about God, they teach us about God and they show us what it looks like to put God first.

One last thought – no matter how great a mom you are, and no matter how great an example you are, you can’t make your child love God or believe in God. Just like you, your children have free will. They can choose to follow Jesus, or they can choose a life and a faith wholly different from yours. So what can you do? You can pray.

You probably know the name James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family. When Dobson’s children were young he got a letter from his own dad that ended with these words: “I have observed that the greatest delusion is to suppose that our children will be devout Christians simply because their parents have been, or that any of them will enter into the Christian faith in any other way than through their parents’ deep travail of prayer and faith.” After reading those words James Dobson started a new habit. Every Tuesday he fasted and prayed for the salvation of his children. And when his children had their own kids, each Tuesday he fasted and prayed for the salvation of his grandchildren. Yes, I know James Dobson isn’t a mother, and I know fasting for a day a week might not be practical for you, but the point is well taken – perhaps the most important thing a parent can do for his/her children is to pray for them.

Moms, not all of us are yet the great kids you have prayed we would become. But we are what we are in large part because day after day after day you have given us your very best. Thank you for modeling grace, thank you for motivating us to grow, thank you for magnifying God … and thank you as much as anything for the hours you have spent praying for us. We are more grateful than you will ever know.

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