Mother's Day 2024 (Message Only) | Jeff Vines | Mother's Day 2024

hey welcome to one and all we have a special Mother's Day service to share with you guys today we are excited to get into the word with Pastor Jeff so make sure you have your Bible grab the one and all app so you can follow along with sermon notes and let's get [Music] started come on breakfast is ready [Music] keep [Music] [Music] the okay you go get ready for school [Music] [Music] oh [Music] you're going to be [Music] great thanks Mom I love you I love you too hey this is a special weekend and uh it's it's actually Mother's Day so I I don't really have one scripture uh that we're going to go through but we're going to involve many of the themes of the New Testament and Old Testament in the message but I don't know if you know this and I I don't think most people do but uh Mother's Day actually started in the Medieval World in Britain and much of Europe it was known originally as mothering Sunday and the idea was to give Christ followers an opportunity to return to what was called the mother Church to go to the church where you first heard the gospel where you were first baptized where you were raised where you educated in the in the scriptures and the ways of the Lord so the idea would be that you would return to your mother's church that's where you would see your mother because they it was taken for granted she was still there and you would give thanks to all that you had received from your mother church and naturally You' also celebrate your own mother and you would shower her with gifts of appreciation and affection and the whole idea was that you would show gratitude to your mother and to your mother Church uh for the reality or the fact that they pointed you toward True North that they they helped explain to you this this passion or Pursuit that you had and understanding even from a very young age of God and how God had revealed himself to the person of Jesus Christ and how it was possible to have a personal relationship with him so so that being the most important decision that you'll ever make in your life and how basically what you believe about God determines the rest of your life then you would return on mothering Sunday to the mother Church to express appreciation and gratitude now the modern version of Mother's Day was founded by a lady by the name of Anna Jarvis uh in the aftermath of the Civil War so Anna was profoundly impacted by all the work that her mother did to help the soldiers during the war how she would bind their wounds and cook their meals and pray for them and comfort them especially those in pain Anna remembered hearing her Mother Pray a prayer one time where that someday there would be a way to honor all mothers for their thankless work so when her mother passed away in 1905 Anam began constructing the idea of a public holiday honoring all mothers so in cooperation with the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church uh which is in a place called Grafton West Virginia that is known today as the Mother's Day Shrine Anna decided that she would declare a specific Day to Remember mothers and she handed out white carnations because that was her mother's favorite this Grassroots movement began to pick up steam rather quickly and by 1910 West Virginia became the first state to celebrate Mother's Day and then in 1914 a joint resolution from Congress was supported by woodro Wilson president of the United States to make the Second Sunday in May officially Mother's Day now the question is why do we celebrate a secular holiday somebody might ask in church the answer is because honoring mothers is something that we as Christ followers are actually commanded and instructed to do it's even one of the Ten Commandments right honor your father and your mother and it's one of the Commandments that is connected with a promise in fact let me read it to you Exodus 20:2 honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land of the Lord your God and the land he's giving you I've always wondered if this verse is somehow related to my mother's warning Jeffrey Allen Vines get over here right now I brought you into this world I can take you out mother seriously mothers are a gift from God that's the way the Bible sees it Abraham Lincoln said everything I am I owed to my mother there're also great teachers I can remember numerous times my mother saying come over here Jeffrey I want to teach you a lesson uh I also remember hearing someone say that if at first you don't succeed tried doing it the way your mother told you to do it in the first place mothers are also Great Cooks my mother's menu says buddy hack it consisted of two choices take it or leave it mothers are also sacrificial a mother is a person who and I quote seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people promptly announces she never really cared for pie in the first place somebody else said the quickest way for a parent to get a child's attention is to sit down and look comfortable mothers are always busy they're always sacrificial they motherhood is Relentless uh mothers are influencers uh I heard one woman say sometimes I open my mouth and my mother comes out and of course mothers are again Relentless Reese Witherspoon says if you're not yelling at your kids you're not spending enough time with them motherhood is exhausting it's Relentless it requires generosity it requires sacrifice and amazingly enough God uses the metaphor of motherhood to describe the measure of care that he has for his people I think about that I mean wow God chose the metaphor of motherhood in Isaiah 49:15 can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born now this is rhetorical God says typically usually the mother will never forget but he he understands sometimes there will be moms who forget so he says though she may which is doubtful though she might forget I will never forget you now what I want to do in this message I want to be very honest for a moment or I guess a better word would be I want to be trans transparent mothers are a gift from God they are to be celebrated they are sacrificial generous compassionate they gave you probably more than you can ever recognize or realize they still probably worry about you even today and yes mothers like you are flawed they can be overbearing opinionated harsh and a royal pain in the backside but they are often the glue that holds the family together there's a Jewish proverb that says God not be everywhere so he made mothers there are three groups of people in the room right now and listening to my voice group one you had a great mother flawed but great they introduced you to Jesus she tried her best to provide for you nurture you love you she was a good wife to your father she tried her very best to give you what you wanted and what you needed at the same time and if that's you my goodness praise God call your mother this weekend and tell her that you love her my mother was definitely in this category and my mother still though was flawed she was a crazy lady I remember a couple occasions on one occasion my younger brother jod had disobeyed my mom and had agreed to ride the motorbike of a neighborhood bully by the name of Butch it was a hot summer in July he rides the B uh the the motorcycle he didn't know how to ride it disobeyed my mom ends up uh getting in an accident he walks into the building where we were all located and I'm telling you it was terrible he had been thrown off the motorbike he had no skin on from his neck to his navl it all been rubbed off by the hot ashphalt you could actually see his chin bone sticking out where the where he had landed on his chin and his and the front of his body and all that skin was gone and my mother saw him we had told my mom to be very calm and she promised that she would but as soon as she saw him she said oh my God he's going to die and we get in a car and she's going to the hospital she's driving on the medium in the highway she's do she the best ambulance driver ever I mean we all thought we were going to die on the way but she was determined to get him to the hospital that's my mom on another occasion we were uh playing a little league baseball championship and it came down to the last inning and I was pitching my brother Tony was catching and all we had to do is get one more out and we were the city Champions and their best hitter came to bat and struck the ball went all the way out into right field the right fielder picked it up he's not used to seeing baseball so he just throws it into the end F finally the Runner comes around Third Base he's so happy that he's about to score the winning run this is peeee baseball rather than Little League probably 6 seven years old that he runs straight into the Dugout without touching home plate my mother in the stands notices this she comes onto the field she grabs the baseball from the first baseman puts it in my glove the pitcher and tells me to go and tag him out I went over to the Dugout tagged out the batter the Umpire to this day I don't know why he said this but he called him out and then there was pandemonium my mother was right in the middle of everything that's moms man their ambulance drivers their doctors their lawyers their sports fans their coaches they're everything some of you in the room had the second type of mother she was not a great mother but she was a good mother flawed but still good she did introduce you to Jesus she provided for your needs but she did have significant issues she probably yelled far too much she was probably not a great wife to your father her husband uh anger bitter yelling belittling there was great tension in the home that you grew up in now if that's you I've got a question for you what was your mother's home life like now I'm not making excuses for your mother I'm simply asking you to stop and think for a moment what examples of motherhood did your mother have from her mother and her father then there's a third group this is a group with with a mother with few redeeming qualities she was religious but not Christian which is the worst kind she held you to a legalistic standard but have no relationship with God or in Christ or no religion for that matter she was totally flawed when you present your difficulties with her she is unrepentant and defensive she will tell you things like this is just the way that I am this is the way God made me and you have to accept me she was probably a burden to your father she was probably verbally abusive to everyone in in the home there's little to no humility or admission of guilt everything is always somebody else's fault there's still today no talking to her now if that's you believe it or not I have the same question for group two what was her home life like again I am not making excuses we'll talk about this momentarily but what examples did she have in her life that taught her how to be a good Godly mother and usually the answer is not very many now listen to me please my my mother is no longer here she passed away at the age of 61 many years ago and I still think about her every day especially on Mother's day which is usually why I don't bring the message on Mother's day I try to get a guest speaker but from time to time I decide for those of you who don't know this story it's time for you to know it my mother was definitely flawed and yet I understood her my mother had an alcoholic gambling father every time she or her sister would need something for school just basic things food clothing pencils paper and ask her father he would scream and yell and the reason he would scream and yell was because of the guilt because he drank so much and he gambled so much that all the money went out the door to his coping mechanisms and he knew it so when his children ask him for something the guilt just intensified and he responded in Anger my own grandfather's life was was incredibly tragic the older I got the more questions I asked and I discovered that as far as I can tell my grandfather my mother's father had no sense of Love anywhere in his family his birth was accidental he was unwanted his father actually spent time in prison for killing another man uh his his marriage to my grandmother was an attempt to rescue himself out of this horrific situation all of his issues came into the marriage crashing into this new relationship that was doomed from the beginning I never ever not even one time remember my grandparents showing any expression of Love whatsoever toward one another and definitely never toward my mother okay now let me pause for a second here be careful of thinking you know where I'm going because everybody has a choice in life there are others who've experienced this type of life and have indeed found their way out of it it my experience you can respond one of two ways to the type of family in which you reared one you can take the victim mentality and that never does anyone any good or you can take the Victor mentality you can decide you know what I lived in unfortunate circumstances but I'm going to rise above these circumstances and with Will and determination I'm going to overcome because you realize that everybody in life has some kind of burden to bear you're not alone in that I have a very good friend that had everything against him growing up horrible father average mother at best alcoholic father abusive father same thing could be said about his mother she would actually just leave him at the age of 10 11 12 years old and say I'll be back in a couple of weeks this is the kind of family he grew up in wrong side of the tracks but today he's extremely successful he has an Incredible family he's a great father and great-grandfather why because he refused to play the role of victim and instead decided to be a Victor if you're not careful you can actually become addicted to victimhood and that's why we see people spending most of their lives in counseling now don't go away and say Pastor Jeff said counseling is not good counseling is great when it comes from a Christian worldview but if you spend 10 15 20 years dealing with the same issues chances are you've moved from one addiction to another sooner or later there's got to be some healing and you've got to go over to the Victor mentality that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you even my grandfather my grandfather even though growing up in a home like that knew very well what he was doing he understood later in his life that his gambling and alcoholism became coping mechanism I was in church numerous times with my grandfather I saw him have an experience with Jesus but it never lasted very long sooner sooner or later he would Harden his heart he felt more comfortable living in the victim mentality than the Victor mentality and it impact everyone in his household however you and I are called to realize that for some people and sometimes even a mother or father their lives can be extremely difficult and trying because of the baggage they brought into motherhood and fatherhood one of my favorite examples that I've you used numerous times one of the great Broadway plays called raising in the Sun by Lorraine hansbury it's about an African-American family in Harlem the father dies and leaves the family $10,000 not a lot today but a lot back then and the mother says this is great not that the husband died but that now we'll be able to fulfill our dream and we can purchase a little house in North Jersey but the son comes to the mother and begs for the money the young man Growing Up In Harlem has never had a chance never had a break never had a job and he has this friend by by the way because of the color of his skin and he has this friend and his friend convinces him to go into to business together as partners but he needs the $10,000 that his father left him to start this new business and then in his argument in his mind it would create more wealth for his family but the mother doesn't want to do it it's too risky doesn't want to give up the money doesn't want to give up her dream but her son comes and begs and pleads and says mother this is my chance I've never been given a chance please don't deny me this and the mother decides how can I deny my son and if you know the play it's tragic because she gives him the money in turn he gives it to the friend and the friend leaves town takes the money with him never to be seen again and the Sun is battered beaten and destroyed when he comes home after having experience this his sister Berea tears into him rips him apart in great dis Dain and contempt and she says to her brother how can you be so stupid and that's when the mother gets involved in speaking to the daughter and this is what she says Berea I thought I told you to love him love him there's nothing left to love there's always something to love and if you haven't learned that then you ain't learned nothing have you cried for that boy today I don't mean for yourself and for your family because we lost the money I mean for him and what he's been through what it's done to him child when do you think it's time to love somebody the most when they've done good and made things easy for everybody then you ain't learned nothing then you ain't you ain't through learning because that ain't the time at all it's when he's at his lowest and he can't believe in himself she says cuz the world unwhipped him so when you start measuring somebody child measure him right be sure you know what heels and valleys he's been through to get wherever he is now here's the question have you ever considered the valleys and the hills your mother had to climb in order to arrive where she is again I'm not making excuses I'm simply saying that we all have baggage that we bring into every relationship and the Christ following way seems to be that we extend mercy and Grace to those who offend us even mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters maybe especially this is called Agape it's called unconditional love it doesn't mean that there is Love Without boundaries we'll get to that but it does mean that we we honestly willingly wish them well now here is here is the miracle in my own family my mother forgave her father and it was astounding even though she never received any kind of love and verbal and even physical abuse from her father throughout her entire childhood when my mother was older and had children of her own I saw her not only forgive her father she delivered medicine to him she would take him and sit with him at the doctor's office she sat beside his hospital bed when he died when he passed away when he passed away she wept she served him all of her life with nothing in return now how was she able to do that I asked my my mother that later in life I said Mom how could you do that cuz I I became angry with my grandfather the older I got because I realized the abuse that my mother had suffered under his hand and I asked her how could you do that and she said because my father never knew what love was he never learned how to love how could he express it to me when it had never been expressed to him so I gave him Grace and she also said I learned later that God's love for me is unconditional can it not be unconditional for my father now for me in my mind I wanted to say no I mean yeah God gives unconditional love but that's God we're just mere human but if you remember in the marriage series we said that there will be Seasons even in your marriage where you feel like that you're loving without getting little love little to no love in return and we said the only way we said first of all how you respond in that moment is what marriage is and the only way you can respond with love when you're getting little to no love is if you have a reservoir of Love somewhere else and the only other reservoir of love that will sustain you is not with without offending or without betraying the marriage is if you get that love that you're looking for from somewhere else and that is God found in a personal relationship with Jesus remember we agreed on that my mother said the absence of her father's love caused her to search for that love somewhere else at first with my father when they were married but then she realized that would never meet ultimately her need and she ends up finding it in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ I remember going to church with my mother and she would just start crying in the service and I was a little boy and I'd look up think what's wrong with Mom I don't want to go to church every time I go to church she cries and I would say why are you crying she goes because I'm happy which made no sense to me well if you're happy why are you crying later on I began to understand the love and relationship she had developed with Jesus overwhelmed her and when she would sing worship songs in church she would feel that love and realize she had Always Been Loved always always even in those moments she didn't feel loved by her father or by her husband now here's my action point to you you may never able you may never be able to completely restore your relationship with your mom but I'm asking you to consider a few things what kind of example did your mother have to be the mother to you and what baggage does she carry that made it extremely difficult for her to relate to others in a healthy way and as a Christ follower can I ask you can you forgive your mother because of the way Jesus forgives you so can you give her grace and mercy now I'm not saying you're still probably going to have to draw some boundaries depending on how harmful your relationship or your mother can be to your new family I got that but can you at least forgive her in the way the Bible says to forgive her and that means you no longer hold her sins against her and you legitimately authentically genuinely wish her well because one day you're going to get the call that I got on January 2002 while I was vacationing in New Zealand I got a cell phone call I knew immediately by the code that it was from the US and I knew it was from one of my brothers because of the area code my brother told me that my mother had suffered a cardiac myopathy and that I'd better come home as fast as I could that plane ride was the worst plane ride of my life everybody around me was going on with their life and I was hurting and I was worried that I would not make it in time to speak to my mother by the time I did arrive first sight of my mom I knew it it was over she was nonresponsive she was breathing with the help of a machine but suddenly hours and hours just seated next to her and as I've said before I did not know it was possible to hurt that much and still be alive and I remember going back home that night waiting for what was going to happen what the doctor were going to tell us wrestling with God and I remember honestly saying to God God I don't get it there's plenty of bad people that you could remove from this planet look at my nextdoor neighbor I mean we had an next-door neighbor called Mrs Stover and we're convinced she killed all of our animals she poison them she was just a mean old lady mean bitter old lady we're all terrified of her God take Mrs Stover out the guy across the street was a drug addict an alcoholic that my dad was so frustrated with because we'd hear the cries and the screams of his little toddlers as they were screaming when he was slapping them around take that guy out and then I remember going to the gravide of my mother and God revealing to me the message that Jeff you got it all wrong don't you think people who have lived the good life that you say Your mother has lived don't you think they deserve to be with me first and that just changed my whole attitude in my mind about how things were going but I was still hurting because of the loss of my mother and for one specific reason that we'll get to but it was only after the death of my mom and I hope this helps you it was only after the death of my mom that I began to truly understand who my mom was and I've shared this before because a couple of weeks later my father found her prayer journal in a Charles Stanley devotional and in that prayer Journal she had listed four things that she had been praying for that were most important to her now I've shared the one I'm not going to share that again it had to do with me that's an old story but there were three others that were listed and the first prayer that my mom had been praying that was at the top of her list is that dad's death would not proed her own my mother loved my father by the way can I just tell you PDA public display of affection is the key to love and security with the children in the family your children need to know and they need to see you demonstrate love and emotion for one another that creates a sense of security and stability in the family so so if you think you can be a good mother and a good father without showing any kind of public display of affection toward the husband or the wife you're mistaken that that goes a long way to give hope and security and stability to the family but in the early days of my mom's marriage to my father because my mother saw my father as Savior and rescuer she fa to realize that my father was also bringing in significant issues into the marriage my dad's when I think think about this again every Mother's Day when I start going through this in my head I am amazed at the miracle of my parents because my mother is abused by an alcoholic gambling father my dad was abused by a horrible father who actually beat him with a shovel who would take him and beat my father my father never beat us now he did take us behind the Woodshed and give us a verbal lashing sometimes I'd rather had a shovel I think but my dad was beaten by his father so much so that for most of the my Dad's life he walked with a bent back because of the damage it had done to his fine so Dad brings those those issues into his marriage with my mother my mother needs love more than anything else because she didn't get it from her father my dad has no idea how to communicate that love because it's never been communicated to him let me tell you something that's when my dad became my hero because my dad did something that dads did not do in those days he decided that he would needed to go to counseling and learn how to love my mother and that's where he learned about the love languages that's where it's passed down to generation after generation he broke the cycle folks because of his relationship with Jesus and because of his love for my mother my mom and my dad were great parents where they flawed absolutely but because my dad was willing to go to counseling and learn the love language of my mother my mother fell in love with my father all over again her prayer in her journal was that she would go to be with Jesus before my father because she believed that Dad would do better without her than her without him now she was wrong but I can tell you this because God answered that prayer in a roundabout way my father after the death of my mother became Pastor extraordinaire he missed my mother so much but my father decided that all that he had learned in his marriage he should now put into practice so for the last 10 12 years of my father's life he constantly visited the widows he went around our small town our pastor at our church at first Christian Elizabeth and loved my father because my father did all the hard work he would go and sit with people who had nobody to sit and talk with the sick and the shut in they called him he would take communion every Sunday afternoon to all those who were not able to be at church and the city that little town fell in love with my father because my mother had taught him the love and because Christ had taught my mother the deepest Love of All the second prayer request my mother had this is where where we get to the nitty-gritty is that my brother Tony would forgive her now any tendency to think that my mother was super mom will be scratched right here we're all going to come back down to earth I brag about my mother and I had definitely had a good relationship but she was flawed of course she's flawed all mothers are my mother when she was growing up what made it even worse that she did not have the love and acceptance of her father was the reality that she was very very thin she was constantly call names now in today's culture she would be a supermodel back then it wasn't the thing so they called her names like string bean and bean pole and skeleton girl and Gumby those were horrible names it's kind of funny now but back then those were horrible horrible names the problem is when my brother Tony came along my mother saw herself in him and it was a reminder that she did not want it was very clear that she struggled with my younger brother because he wouldn't eat healthy he he wasn't like the rest of us he he was in her mind lazy in school he got poor grades he he he didn't have a great well he he never combed his hair he didn't like taking showers or baths she when she looked at him she saw something that gave her disdain because it reminded her of the ridicule that she had suffered but let me tell you that did great great damage to my younger brother flawed or not it did great damage because my younger brother now is growing up feeling unloved by his own mother and that became a lifelong struggle for him in fact my brother and I are very close we're the closest of all our brothers and if you were to talked to him today he would tell you it caused him to struggle all of his life because lack of Love breeds insecurity and insecurity breeds this type of anger and then anger breeds this kind of self hate and self-hate breeds this kind of porcupine Spirit you ever tried to hug a porcupine so when somebody feels unloved they almost become unlovable so he had trouble in his first marriage in his second marriage and every relationship that he's ever had because you can't love someone that doesn't love themselves and it's hard to love yourself if you did not receive that love from your mother what's ironic is my brother Tony was the most talented brother in The Vines family but my brother will also tell you for the first 20 years of life after the death of my mom or sorry the first 20 years of his life after he left home he will tell you that he chose clearly the road of victim over Victor there have been other young men not loved by their mothers in the way that they needed Who Rose above I'm not saying that it's easy I'm just saying that it's doable because then he changed later on in life and it's unfortunate what caused or catalyzed that change it devastated the early part of his life his coping mechanisms were drinking eating and self-loathing sometimes drug addiction by the time my mother realized what she had done to my brother Tony she was devastated she couldn't see it and then through the help of Christian Counseling she saw what she had done and while my brother was still in his late 20s early 30s she went to him and begged desperately for his forgiveness I mean she begged for it my brother enjoyed being in that position and refused to give it to her in his way this is his chance to hurt her the way that she had hurt him my mother prayed for it every day his brothers encouraged him look she's recognized she's asking you for forgiveness can you find it in your heart to forgive and there's no way he was going to do it he loved playing the role of victim and he loved having that kind of power forgiveness never came and then mom died when mom died I did show up to the emergency room or the IC unit and I noticed all the brothers were there but I could not find Tony but I had heard that he was there but he was nowhere to be seen so I I kept asking everyone where's Tony we don't know so I started it was it was very early in the morning because this has been all night now we're like 1: or 2 a.m. so I'm walking through the halls of the Hospital Eerie feeling because nobody's there really and I find him he's rolled up in a ball as if he was in his mother's womb and he's crying I say Tony what's wrong here here's his words my mommy is dead here's a 30-some year old man saying my mommy is dead in one Fell Swoop the cost of refusing to forgive his mother became a price too high to pay and he had to live the rest of his life knowing that he had something to give my mother that would have eased her pain but now it's a gift he can no longer give however ironically what was not accomplished in life was accomplished in death when my mom died something happened to my brother Tony there's no doubt about it almost overnight it's like the Click occurred and he realized what he had done now some of you going to say well it's too late now well not for him it's not because something happened in that moment that even though my mom was no longer around he forgave her he created I mean he's artistic like I said he's the most talented of all the vines boys he actually makes homemade guitars and when he was in his early 20s he said I think I'm going to start making guitars he got a video learned how to make them and now he's one of the top five luers in the country amazing website called Vine's guitars amazing craftsmanship he writes music that you can find on Spotify he's just extremely talented Tony Vines however something happened to him when my mother passed away he creates this art this incredible Montage of her life he starts writing music dedicated to her we all saw this incredible drastic change in him to this day he remembers with great joy and acceptance anything he held against mom is gone yes it is sad that her death catalyzed the Forgiveness but some people never forgive even after the death of their mother and not a day goes by that my brother Tony will not tell you that he thinks about that that he thinks about his unwillingness and the bitterness that aided him and destroyed his life that's the problem when you don't forgive your mom and doesn't hurt her it destroys you but if you were to speak to him today I think he would say to you man if your mother ask you for forgiveness in Heaven's name Grant it your unforgiveness will only destroy you and all your relationships not her recognize the baggage of her past and give her grace and while you may have drawn some boundaries make every attempt to restore and reconcile while your mother is still alive mothers if your sons or daughters come to you and they have to get off their chest and their heart their feelings in Heaven's name listen to them don't get defensive just listen to them don't bring up the past ask just for forgiveness if they bring it up ask for forgiveness and just just start new just start all over my mom had a third prayer that her sons would be reconciled to one another this is kind of a sad part of the story because this is typical in families I had three brothers so we got four boys in this household my mom's doing the best she can my dad's trying to forge out a living to supply and take care of our needs and they both did a great job at that they were flawed absolutely they brought their own baggage absolutely but I saw two parents overwhelmed with the love of Jesus that changed the family Dynamic growing up in this house we were very close to each other but as we got older what happens typically in families as we got older we started to separate a little because suddenly we started to have massive disagreements about child rearing ideas does that sound familiar we're not so pleased with the way you're raising your children and our ideas are the right ideas and then the political views started to fluctuate and change and then even religious views and of course there's always one brother in the family that's to know it all and so all this together just started creating tension I remember coming home one day to visit my mom uh after having furl from Africa from Zimbabwe and my mom was crying one evening I said Mom what what's wrong and here's what she said she said I just want my kids to love each other now I think about the sacrifices my mom made because she saw this happening and she was working a full-time job you know my parents were not wealthy both worked and my mother would continue to make these huge Thanksgiving dinners these huge Christmas Eve meals these huge Sunday lunches even while she was so tired and weary from all from an entire week of work but she did it because she knew if she did all the boys would continue to come together and perhaps one day one day all these disagreements and heated arguments and discussions would dissipate and we would be that family again well her plan worked because when my mom died we all looked around at each other and the first thing we remembered is all those times we had together Sunday lunch Christmas dinner Thanksgiving and all of the sudden let me tell you what happened our issues seemed pretty Petty and pathetic and from that day forward after the death of my mom we boys came back together actually I just went back to Tennessee last year and had lunch at Smoky bonges Barbecue my favorite barbecue restaurant in the South we had lunch together and talked about life what Mom did not accomplish in life she accomplished in death now why would I mention that well I mentioned that because I was trying to make my own peace with God at the death of my mom I just couldn't fathom how this woman who had tried so hard and loved her family and her husband and her children and overcome so much and was a great little evangelist I just couldn't get my head around it and God continued to show me how God often uses the tragedies of Our Lives to shake apape us including your challenging relationship with your mother it's amazing you somehow in God's scheme of things your relationship with your mom and dad although you may not see it now is all part of the shaping and molding you into the person that God needs you to become and maybe the thing that you need to learn is forgiveness and mercy I'm not saying that God gave you bad parents to shape and mold you well the Bible tells us is God is not the first cause of every event but God is able to take everything and work it together for good you know I asked my brother once that was the know- it all and he would laugh about this now he was complaining about things of my mother and my father and I looked at him and I said can I ask you a question he said sure I said you you you think Mom and Dad were flawed absolutely and I said so that means you were the perfect son right you had no flaws boy that stopped him in his tracks and I often say maybe your mom would have been the perfect mom had you been the perfect daughter everybody's flawed it's what we do with how we understand people are flawed and how much grace we give them now I'm not saying we're going to get into this later in the year when I do an entire series on forgiveness and what that means but for now I just want to leave you with three challenges quickly number one your mom has been involved in the ministry of reconciliation most of her life she has trying to keep peace with everybody even if she didn't know how to do it because it was important to her trying to encourage her children to forgive each other trying to forgive her own parents for their failures while at the same time not repeating all those failures she wasn't perfect at it she was flawed but I can tell you way down deep in the heart of your mother she wishes for relationship with her kids can I give you challenge one forgive her forgive her just forgive her wish her her well and put the past behind number two your mom is going to die someday if you don't forgive her you listen you yourself will become unlovable this is what people don't get if you listen now if you find it difficult to love your mother your children are going to find it difficult to love you that's right it's amazing thing about life it has a way of coming around and they will hear how you talk and how you relate to your parents and that pattern will start to develop in their lives it is essential that you learn to forgive your mom so that one day your children will learn to forgive you don't wait until your mother dies to shower her with love and appreciation and forgiveness start now and remember it's not easy being a mother it's not easy one of my greatest regrets is that when my mother died I was was there by her bedside I had come all the way from New Zealand back to Elizabeth in Tennessee I never got to speak to my mother again where she was cognizant and I held her hand as she breathed her last breath and died and the first thing that hit me is I never got the chance to just grab my mother's arm or hand and say Mom you did great man you overcame so much thank you for what you did provide I love you you didn't have a lot to work with but you made so many good things happen tell your mother now before she passes away that you're thankful for the good that you love her and where there is a need for forgiveness you extend it to her in statement three when your mom dies and some of you know this already you're going to feel that you've lost your home and your sense of belonging can I just tell you if you're in the audience and you lost your mom this year last year 10 years 20 years ago you know what that sense is like and I'm going to warn those of you who will lose your mother in the future you're not going to believe how you feel it's going to be like it's going to be unlike any other feeling you've experienced and it's going to it's going to give you this incredible sense of lostness can I tell you the third challenge when that happens run to God and if you run to God you will find your home in him you will find your home in him cherish your mother run to God you know I I want to close with this uh there's a song written by Michel mechanics years ago and maybe someday I'll talk to you about my father um close to my father my father lived another 10 12 years after the death of my mom and amazing man every time I used to hear the song after the death of my my father it would crush me me but I want to read the lyrics to you it's by Mike and the mechanics but I'm going to change the word I'm going to change one word from father to mother I want you to listen to this because I don't think anything says it better outside of scripture than this song Here's here's what he writes he says every generation blames the one before and all of their frustrations come beating on your door I know that I'm a prisoner to all my mother hell so dear I know that I'm a hostage to all her hopes and fears I just wish I could have soldier in The Living Years all crumbled Bits of Paper filled with imperfect thought stilted conversations I'm afraid that's all we've got you say you just don't see it she says it's perfect sense you just can't get agreement in the present tense we all talk a different language talking in defense and then he says say it loud say it clear you can listen as well as you hear it's too late when we die to admit we don't see eye to eye we open up a quarrel between the present and the past we only sacrifice the future it's the bitterness that lasts so don't yield to the fortunes you sometimes see as fate it may have a new perspective on a different day and if you don't give up and don't give in you may just be okay so say it loud say it clear you can listen as well as you hear because it's too late it's too late when we die to admit we don't see ey and then here's the last part and this really brings brings it home I wasn't there that morning when my mother passed away I didn't get to tell her all the things I had to say I think I caught her spirit later that same year I'm sure I heard her echo in my baby's newborn tears I just wish I could have told her in The Living Years say it loud say it clear it's too late when we die to admit we don't see eye to eye I just hope somehow in the midst of all this the bitterness can dissipate you can wish your mother well and for those of you who had great moms my goodness I hope and pray that you praise the Living God for all that he has supplied and for those of you who did not have great moms that you would praise the Living God for all the things he's teaching teaching you as he shapes and molds you to become the mom that he wants you to be father thank you for your goodness for Mother's Day I pray this would be a day a week of Celebration a week of restoration a week of reconciliation a a week of forgiveness a week of repentance and ultimately a week where families are restored in Christ's name amen thanks for joining us to watch Pastor Jeff's special message on Mothers and Mother's Day there is a lot more content if you want to go more in depth and hear even more that Pastor Jeff has to say please check out our conversations episode on YouTube you can find out even more of what Pastor Jeff couldn't get into the message this weekend so make sure to check that out if you don't have the one and all app please download it there's lots to find out there and if you're new go to one andall churchnew so myself or one of our other pastoral team can reach out and get you connected have a great week

Channel: ONE&ALL

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Id: cftJNcONAqQ

Length: 49min 7sec (2947 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2024