Children, since it’s Mother’s Day, I’m going to tell your mothers that you are gifts from God. But I believe I should also remind you that your mother –and your father too –are gifts from God to you.

Now let’s think about gifts for a moment. Do you remember what you got for Christmas - EVERYTHING you got for Christmas? Probably not. Some of the gifts were shoved in drawers or put away on shelves and you haven’t paid much attention to them since. Others you have used every day –but you don’t necessarily appreciate them. Well, that’s the way it is with God’s gift of parents, isn’t it? No, we don’t put them away on a shelf! That would be strange, wouldn’t it? But often we do take them for granted, don’t we?

Well, thank God that he doesn’t take us for granted! The Bible tells us we love because he first loved us. But when did he first love us? We might say he first loved us by sending Jesus to live and die to pay for our sins. That would be true. But he also first loved us by giving us parents who take care of us. He first loved us by forgiving all the sins we did yesterday so we woke up this morning to a new day; God loves us for Jesus’ sake; we’re still his children and some day he’ll take us to heaven. He first loved us –and does so every single day!

So what are we going to do for God for first loving us? We’ll love him. And we’ll love our parents. And we’ll love our sisters and brothers and neighbors and friends –yes, we’ll even love our enemies because God wants us to! And we’ll show that love in how we’ll treat others. And on this Mother’s Day, we’ll especially thank God by being good to Mom!

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Message

Do those verses sound strange to use for Mother’s Day? I suppose they would if I were only going to speak to the mothers here. But my plan is to speak to all of us. That’s a bit more difficult since not all of us are married, so as soon as I pick a Bible verse that speaks about a wife, it leaves out most of the congregation. But whether or not we’re married, we all have a mother –whether still on earth or not! And whether she was or is the greatest mother that ever lived or not, we still have reason to thank God for her. Today, to thank the Lord we’re going to use passages from Proverbs. If you begin reading the Book of Proverbs, it doesn’t take long to realize there’s no continuity from verse to verse or chapter to chapter. Instead here is a collection of short sayings by wise Solomon and others. Today as we meditate on this Word of God, let’s

THANK THE LORD FOR A GOOD WIFE AND/OR MOTHER!

The Bible doesn’t say much about what we earn. We know that we earn wages in life from the job we have –but even then we realize that God is the one who arranges for us to have a job. There have been times when that wasn’t the case –most notably the Great Depression when more Americans were out of work than those who had jobs. But even those hard years in our nation’s history were gifts that God gave so all Americans should remember he is the giver of all good gifts.

What does the Bible tell us we do earn? The wages of sin is death. What we earn because we are sinful is death -separation from God. And since the Bible tells us ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, we know that every single one of us earns eternal condemnation in hell.

But God remains the giver of all perfect gifts. He knew we earned separation from him now on earth and forever in hell due to our sins, so he sent Jesus to live perfectly for us –so that he could earn God’s favor for us and earn eternal life for us by also dying on the cross. Yes, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Ro 6:23)

Along with the gift of eternal life, our gracious God also gives us many other gifts. He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. Did you notice that in my theme I suggest we thank God for a GOOD wife or mother, but that’s not what Proverbs tells us. We are to thank God for ANY wife or mother –whether good or not. He who finds a wife finds what is good.

Oh, by the way, right now we had better address a related issue. Solomon wrote to his SON, so all of these proverbs are written from a man’s point of view. That’s not to mean that they are intended only for men, however. So you women are to listen to these words too –and hear: SHE who finds a husband finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. And again, we remind you all, that it doesn’t say if you find a GOOD husband you’ve found what is good, but rather consider your husband a gift from God whether or not you think he’s good!

CHILDREN

The Bible also tells us that Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. (Ps 127) Even though there may be many days when we wonder why on earth we had children, we know they are gifts from God. And as we know of people who have tried to have children and are not able to, we can see how children truly are gifts from God. Thankfully throughout history people have often been able to adopt children and so in that way, those children become gifts from God too.

And as with all God’s gifts, we are to not only appreciate those gifts and thank God for them, but we are also to be wise managers of God’s gifts to us. So the Bible (Eph 6) tells us: Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. The word training would indicate even spanking or disciplining your children when necessary. Proverbs (13:24) says: He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him. Again: Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him. (22:15) In fact, the Proverbs go farther than that –suggesting that if we do not discipline our children we participate in their early deaths or hell! (23:13-14): Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.  (19:18): Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death. And to us children the Proverbs speak (23:22, 24-25): Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old… The father of a righteous man has great joy; he who has a wise son delights in him. May your father and mother be glad; may she who gave you birth rejoice! Again, what pertains here to sons also speaks to daughters.

A foolish son is his father’s ruin. Children can bring ruin in two ways: 1)They can bring a bad name on their parents. They can also (2) reflect the type of upbringing they were given. In some cases, despite the best upbringing children still show their own foolishness. We all probably have to admit that we’ve done that from time to time even though we knew better. But other times it’s pretty obvious that parents didn’t bring up their children in the training and instruction of the Lord. Another proverb says (22:6): Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. One of my former professors called attention to something important to note, however. It doesn’t say that the child who has been raised right won’t ever go astray; it rather says that, given a long enough life from God, he will stand in the right ways in which he was originally brought up.

WIFE/HUSBAND

In the same passage that mentions a foolish son a quarrelsome wife/husband is also mentioned. A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping. This COULD be speaking of how aggravating she can be –like a leaky roof or a dripping faucet. The Chinese recognized how aggravating a constant dripping can be and came up with a drip on the forehead as torture that eventually drive a person insane!

But while this COULD be speaking of how aggravating a quarrelsome spouse can be, it’s probably saying something else. Just as the Bible gives us ways to do everything we can to keep a son/daughter from being foolish by not following the Lord, so also here –a quarrelsome wife or husband is a constant reminder to us that we need to fix the “faucet” or “roof”! We’re familiar with Paul’s words: A man reaps what he sows; well, a proverb says: If a man digs a pit, he will fall into it. So if you are single, be careful who you marry. But if you are married, realize that you can change with the Lord’s help. By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures. Just as our homes may be filled with valuable trinkets, so as we daily turn to the LORD and his Word, our lives will be filled with real treasures –treasured moments together with the LORD, our spouse and/or family.

It’s true that a quarrelsome wife or husband could be one in and of themselves. That’s why one proverb (17:19) says: He who loves to quarrel, loves sin. That should be a warning for all of you who are not married. That’s one of the reasons why Solomon and others spoke to their sons about this –they wanted them to be careful who they dated and who they chose as a wife! “Till death do us part” takes on a whole new meaning when the “for better” turns out to be “for worse”!

Yet this is cautioning each of us to be careful what we EARN in our marriage! If you pay little or no attention to the roof or to the faucet, you’ll wind up with constant dripping. If you pay little or no attention to your wife, you will earn constant dripping in the form of a quarrelsome wife. Solomon says something similar in 21:9 & 25:24: Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. Again 21:19: Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife. Roofs in Palestine are flat –but they get hot, as does the desert! So even though someone might be tempted to live on the roof or in the desert instead of in the house with a quarrelsome spouse, that’s not really the answer for life, is it? If you have a happy home, thank the Lord for it! If you are in an unhappy home, realize YOU made it that way –as much or more than your spouse did! And then fix the drip! No, I’m not speaking about your spouse! I’m saying you need to do everything you can to fix the problem. Realize with Solomon: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. With the LORD’S help become wise and pay attention to your wife or husband! Look to the LORD and see the gifts that he has given you in your wife or husband –and then thank the LORD for her or him.

A GIFT FROM GOD

Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the LORD. If the Lord has blessed you with a wise and prudent spouse, give thanks to the Lord all the more. It always amazes me how much insight my wife has in aspects of life that I do not. If you are married, I believe that if you look closely at your spouse you too will see it in her or him. It seems to me that in creating a helper suitable for him, God created women so that we men would be able to somewhat understand the deep things of life.

Let me explain. It seems to me that often we men are satisfied with life if things look good and our stomachs are filled. Last Sunday we spoke about counselors. If there’s one thing I have learned about counseling, if you want to find out if people have a good marriage or not, usually you need to ask the wife rather than the husband. The husband may come up with “the house isn’t clean”, or “the dinner wasn’t done, but in general things aren’t too bad.”  Then you ask the wife! While men are more “surfacy” in general, women have been created to internalize more. If men are brooks or streams, women are deep lakes. He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. Notice that your wife is a GIFT from God –he favored you with her. You didn’t deserve her; you didn’t earn her any more than you earned your mother! No, rather treasure her as a gift from God. And wives, treasure your husbands as gifts from God too. Not everything in life has to be deep!

But on this Mother’s Day, especially remember your mother. When you fell down and got hurt, and your Dad said, “Oh, brush it off! You’ll be fine!” It was your Mom who hugged you and kissed the scrape and “made it all better.” It was your mother who disciplined you more often, simply because your father wasn’t around as much. And often it was your mother who probably showed you God’s love, God’s discipline, God’s wisdom, and God’s forgiveness in Christ.

If you’re a wife or mother, pray for God’s continued guidance and thank the Lord for your spouse and/or children. If you’re a husband or father –and certainly all of us are children of someone as well as of God –then thank the Lord by showing your wife and/or mother how much she means as God’s gift to you. But do so not only today on Mother’s Day, but throughout the year! Amen.

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