Pastor Paul Chappell: 8 Characteristics of a Godly Mom

take your bibles and turn to proverbs 31 tonight on this mother's day evening next sunday night in our visit with the pastor i'll share with you our covet protocols for the summer and we'll give you some updates along those lines but tonight we're going to stay with our mother's day theme and we're going to read proverbs 31 you can remain seated proverbs 31 and we're going to begin in verse 10 and will remain seated in honor of the mothers who have worked no doubt so very hard today who can find a virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoil she will do him good and not evil all the days of her life she seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands she is like the merchant ships she bringeth forth her food from afar she riseth also while it is at night and giveth meat to her household and a portion to her maidens she considereth a field and buyeth it with the fruit of her hands she planted the vineyard she girdeth her loins with strength and strengtheneth her arms she perceiveth that her merchandise is good her candle goeth not out by night she layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff she stretcheth out her hand to the poor yea she reacheth forth her hands to the needy she is not afraid of the snow for her household for her household are clothed with scarlet she maketh herself coverings of tapestry her clothing as silk and purple her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of the land she maketh find linen and sell with it and deliver with girdles unto the merchant strength and honor are her clothing and she shall rejoice in time to come she openeth her mouth with wisdom and then her tongue is the law of kindness she looketh well to the ways of her household and edith not the bread of idleness her children arise up and call her blessed her husband also and he praiseth her many daughters have done virtuously but thou excellence them all favor is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman that feareth the lord she shall be praised give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gates the proverbs 31 woman is listed in scripture as a woman to be followed and modeled and respected by all christian women now there is no doubt in our minds that the secular world makes fun of this woman the secular world lifts up a woman that is known and her husband unknown a woman that is not given to her family a woman that is given only to the advancement of herself and her career in fact motherhood is so disdained that more money is spent on abortion than the promotion of motherhood more money is spent on the promotion of transgenderism and other such sinful deeds than is spent really on exemplifying and promoting the role of a mother and when we look into god's word we find that it's just exactly the opposite the emphasis is not on lifting up oneself but on serving others and that's what we respect most about the proverbs 31 woman in this day in which we live i believe that a woman like this is to be highly highly respected and we are to be grateful that there are so many in our church even tonight godly proverbs 31 women i've actually heard at times christian women belittle the proverbs 31 woman and sometimes act as though it's an unattainable life this life of service and nobility under the lord and caring for one's family and rising up early to meet needs that's just how maybe people used to be but i'm thankful that in my life god has allowed me to know such women and to be influenced by them to be taught by them to be helped by them to be nurtured by them in my life i'm thankful for my wife terry on this mother's day and for her great influence on our family i'm thankful for our two daughters and daughters-in-laws but i'm thankful for a mother tonight who made her family the first ministry of her life and i want to spend a few moments with you and some of you have received an outline and i suppose that this could be much longer in the length of the things that i would like to speak about this is my first mother's day with my mom now in heaven and i'd like to just share with you a few of the principles that i saw in her life not to say that well these are unattainable for certainly they are attainable in the power of the holy spirit of god just like the proverbs 31 woman is given to us as a model that can be followed and attained by the work of the spirit in our lives i thank the lord for my mother i think we have some pictures of her i wanted to share with you and some of these i shared before but as we look into this passage and as we look at a few principles tonight this is my parents on the left side when my dad was pastoring in northern california that's me and the plaid shirt looking good with that hair on the front of my head and then on the right side is my mother in korea and where they served as missionaries and in the middle also at the 38th parallel looking over into north korea i thank god for her influence in my life this is my mother down in mexico on the left side here in our home in the middle there her last home in phoenix arizona with terry and our girls and the last time she was at our house when camden was just a little guy i thank the lord for her testimony and i i will tell you this i i had a third grade teacher mrs cyresic was her name and it seemed like 10 to 12 times a year she would show us during that year her holy land slides over and over and over again and i want you to know i'm not going to speak about my mother every single mother's day to this extent i'll probably always mention her on mother's day but i'd like to share eight principles that i remember and maybe these would be something that even an unmarried young lady would begin to pray about and maybe all of you that are moms would be challenged or encouraged by one of the other eight characteristics of a godly mom i remember my mother first of all as being a compassionate woman the bible says in first peter chapter 3 and verse 8 that we are to be of one mind having compassion one for another compassion is your hurt in my heart and i learned as a very small child that if i had a hurt i didn't run to dad how many of you understand what i'm talking about dads were not compassion givers i remember one time i was writing my newspaper out i think i was 11 years old i had a newspaper out for the san jose mercury news i had papers on both sides of the bicycle i was coming down a mountain those bags began to sway back and forth and i kind of kind of started getting out of balance and before i knew it i was flying over the handlebars i still have scars on both wrists if anybody wants to see them after church oh i'm telling you the skin came off and the blood came out and and i'll never forget going to my dad and i said dad look what happened i fell on my on my paper route and my dad looked at him and he said something like this ah brush it off boy and get your bike i remember going to my mom and i remember the hugs and the tears and uh and the makira chrome that was not compassionate but i do remember that how many of you are thankful for the compassion of a mother and whether it was her best children whether it was a lady in the church whose husband had left her whether it was someone in korea or thailand or wherever she was ministering i thank the lord for her testimony as someone with compassion and we live in a world where even in the church we can walk right by people with great hurt and not even stop and and my mom was a holy mother she had the standards she had all of those things but she wasn't so image conscious that she didn't take time to really help others that had needs in their life and i thanked the lord that she was a compassionate woman and i think secondly she was a creative woman i can think of so many aspects of this we read about this a moment ago she maketh wool and flax she she is like the merchant ship she bringeth forth her food from afar um so many things come to my mind about my my mom in the way of being creative for whatever reason my parents moved a lot i think in my uh 17 years at home i may have lived in 12 different houses maybe 13 or 14 and between ministries where they moved or my dad was always you know trying to you know do a little bit in real estate or something and so he'd buy some dump of a house and then he'd go back to pastoring and it was my mom's job to make that house a home so that he could sell it six months later and how many of you understand the mentality that i'm talking about who's always always on the move and i could i could tell you about so many different houses that we moved into and how many of you ladies know whenever you move you lose and you break lots of stuff and we would move into a new place and she couldn't find something or something would be broken but before you knew it she would have some little handmade drapery and a little table in the corner with a candle and maybe some flowers on the other side and before you knew it she took something in that was not much to look at and made something of it and i think this is a great characteristic of a godly woman that they can make a house a home i remember years ago there was a pastor who was well known at that time his name was jack hiles and he came to preach at our church and after the services my dad said to my mom brother hiles is going to come to our house tonight for a bite to eat afterwards and i remember riding in my mom's ford fairlane 500 all the way home we lived up on a hill in san jose california and she was she was fretting just a bit and i said what's wrong mom she said i don't know what to feed anybody tonight there was no advance warning given now you know where i got that dumbness right from my dad and somehow she figured out how to warm up some pinot beans from the fridge how to get some mayonnaise and relish and mix it all up and toast the bread and we had pinto bean sandwiches on wheat bread i'll never forget that i love peanut bean sandwiches to this day i had two of them yesterday and i remember the preachers that were there bragging on the fact that they enjoyed that meal and i think they really did and just somehow the ability to make something out of nothing creative in a godly proverbs 31 woman compassion is so needed today creativity is needed whether it's a sunday school teacher who's working at how to bring a lesson to the class or a bus worker who's endeavoring to be creative with the children or a mother who's teaching a bible principle in the house and making some kind of a visual aid or some kind of a lesson from nature godly mothers are creative mothers the third principle is flexibility flexibility the bible says in romans chapter 12 that we're to be patient in tribulation and one of the things i so admire about my mother was whether or not it was moving from place to place or unannounced company or uh whether there was something else that was going on in the ministry and my dad would be counseling and she would be waiting all of the different throws of change that would come she did it with such grace it's an amazing statement to say that you never heard your mother complain one time and she just had this flexibility in this grace how many of you know we live in an age of complaining and people complain about almost everything it's too hot it's too cold it's too long uh why this service you know why are we having a revival can we cut the missions conference a little less can we can we do this coming to that everybody wants church light everybody wants christianity sort of like burger king their way and uh and i just i thank the lord for a mother that just had this grace this spiritual agility to move along through life with joy and flexibility and it's something that i i so admire in her and every time i'm tempted to complain the holy spirit convicts me and if there's anything ever gracious about my life it's the result of the holy spirit or my mother or both and i thank god for her flexible testimony and that leads me to this fourth point she was a joyful woman now joy is the fruit of the spirit galatians five the fruit of the spirit is love and joy and longsuffering and so forth and i thank the lord of i can i can hear her laughing till this very moment there was a joy in her when we were with her a few months ago and we were singing to her during the last few days of her life and reading the scripture she couldn't say anything but i remember two or three times and i i had the camera and i snapped the picture of her just looking at us four children and just smiling from ear to ear in a moment when she barely had a pulse in a moment when the doctors were amazed she was still alive there was something left in her and it wasn't a wretched scream or a terrible sense of of something it was joy and it would sneak out every so often even in those final moments i remember my dad buying my mom a brand new uh uh cutlass supreme i think it was an oldsmobile car kind of a nice new car and he was he was happy to give it to her and they were there at the first baptist church of long beach at that time some of you've been there they have that gymnasium it's up on stilts and my mom pulled into that parking under that gymnasium on the way out of church she looked and she wanted to make sure that she did the right job of driving that car and she looked to her right forgot to look to her left and scrape the entire left side of the car with one of the beams that held up the gymnasium my dad was not joyful and frankly he expressed his lack of joy to my mother who laughed and smiled and said she was sorry but honestly she understood that joy doesn't come from material things the next sunday night she was really really careful this time to look this way and not hit that pole but she forgot to look the other way and she creased the entire right hand side of the car and again we had a family a little family gathering that night my dad was extremely unjoyful and my mother somehow found a way to see that there's things more important in life than the side of a car including the fact that all of her children were there and she wanted to spend time with them what does it take to rob your joy i really believe that this is something that i'm so blessed with in the memory of my mother fifthly as i thought about my mom these past few weeks i thought about the fact that she was always so teachable the bible teaches us in second timothy 2 15 study to show thyself approved unto god a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth i happen to believe that we need women in the church who are theologians who study the scriptures who can explain doctrine who can lead others to christ who can teach bible studies i'm not just talking about women who know what they think other women should do or look like i'm talking about giving the biblical reasons why and my mom was one of those women who rightly divided the word she always studied her bible she had numerous bibles completely marked up yes she graduated from bible college but she learned way more about the lord and his word through the trials of life and she had many and she just spent time in the word and often would ask me even after i had been pastoring for two decades or more what i was getting from the lord out of his word other than from my sermon preparation and often was sharing with me what she was learning from the word of god and it was an amazing thing to see her constantly learning now she was a teacher she was an english major she proofread every one of my books while she was living and she found lots of mistakes and she often corrected me as i was a younger man speaking in speech class in high school and so forth she wanted my diction to be right my grammar to be correct she was constantly working with me on those things but she herself was constantly learning and constantly growing she went to korea she enrolled in the iwa women's university which is probably the most renowned university there and mastered the korean language and she was able to teach bible studies in korean she was amazing in always learning always asking people about where they were from or what they had learned or how something was done i think it's wonderful to have a teachable spirit and never to get to that place where you feel that you've got it all paul the apostle said i have not yet apprehended and i think that's the sign of a spiritual person that they're continuing to grow my mother was very compassionate that made a great impact on my life i've told you before about going out on the bus routes with her she would fill two buses up for years and years two buses full of children bringing them to christ and of every ethnic background and of every need and of every kind of a stripe and she just loved people she was creative flexible joyful teachable i love the fact that my mother was forgiving ephesians 4 32 forgiving one another even as god for christ's sake hath forgiven you you can't live on this planet without having people treat you wrongly and my mother had many instances of that and deep hurt and there were times when even i would hold on to something maybe i wouldn't say things or do things to act out on hurt or anger but there were things that that i wasn't wanting to forget and we're all like that you ever had that attitude you've ever had that time when you'll say you can burn me once but not twice if you ever thought about that sometimes we have that attitude my mom had this amazing christ-centered ability to forgive someone that had hurt her and to try again with them to let the slate truly be cleared so that she could try again for the cause of christ you know i've been saved since i was 10 and 49 years of salvation and i've just seen so many people get bent out of shape many that aren't in church tonight because they chose to be offended when the bible tells us how to forgive and it's and my mom did not forgive because someone deserved it she gave because she knew that god forgave her when she didn't deserve it and so she then gave forgave based upon what christ has done and so many people hold on to hurts and they become bitter i'm thankful that i had a forgiving mom what a great potting soil to raise a life in the potting soil of forgiveness it's just a great way to live a reconciled life my mom has helped me with that so many times and over the years even as a pastor i would tell her mom you can't believe what someone said what someone wrote what some other preacher did and and she would often say son just give it to the lord and she would say that to me by the way not when i was 18 but when i was 28 38 and 48 just give it to the lord i'm so glad i had a mother that didn't try to teach me how to get even so many times we see that moms that'll take up the cause of their little precious daughter i'm gonna tell that teacher my mother never berated a teacher on my behalf never went to a coach and yelled and screamed never once she never took the side of her child over authority she at times would just ask for clarity i'm sure she didn't always agree with the teacher in many cases she was much much smarter than the teacher but she always taught me to support authority and she always taught me to forgive rather than to be bitter how many of you believe this would be a better world if every mother taught that to their children forgiveness you've heard me say this before number seven my mom was such a great witness for christ first peter 3 15 says we're to be ready always to give an answer to any man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is within us with meekness and fear and my mom was always ready and that meant she never went out of the house without gospel tracts you know you say you're just extolling her like she's you know some some great woman i am because i want you to think about this unless she was very ill or hospitalized which she was a few times she went to the holy land once and contracted a disease and she was blind for some weeks but unless she had a time like that or childbirth or something for my entire lifetime when she was physically able which would have been maybe 54 55 years of my life my mother every saturday morning of her life went out soul winning it just was her habit it was her calling and it was all it is all of our calling and uh that was how in fact i i actually think that while my dad did the preaching it was my mom that really kind of was the cohesiveness in his ministry so much but she was always witnessing always telling others i'm telling you i know so many college professors and pastors wives and people that are full-time in ministry they get bitter they get tired they get complaining very inconsistent in their witness and i'm just telling you that she was a special woman she just kept on going telling others about jesus christ and that's not the norm because sometimes we can get to a place where we get tired or we get excuses and i'm so thankful for that example that she would go she was always ready and i've told you before about how she witnessed in the in and out burger when uh when i was supposed to be watching her and she got loose there when she had her alzheimer's and going from table to table telling people about jesus christ even in the hospital the doctors would tell us in her memory care hospital that she would sometimes get up put her dress on put her purse just like this around her arm and she would go from room to room not really even knowing what she was passing out but just knowing there was in her purse those tracks were important and she would go from room to room telling people trying to tell people about jesus christ by the way when you're in an altered state mentally like that sometimes the subconscious thoughts of your life really come out the anger sometimes or the cursing sometimes that comes out of some of these patients her thing was but she did two things in the in the hospital there one she went to everybody's room and took all their clothes out of their dresser and folded them and i think that was the mother in her and two she would dress up and put a little makeup on and go from room to room with tracks and i just say that some of us have been in this church a long time let's not be that church that used to be soul winning let's let's finish with a godly legacy just telling people about christ and i'm thankful for a mother that did that this last word is kind of a hated word it's a ridiculed word unfortunately for those who hate it it's a bible word the bible says in ephesians 5 22 that a wife is to submit herself unto her husband it means to lay down your arms and quit fighting i know you're going to think this is nutty but it is true i never saw my mother argue with my dad now they may have argued but i can tell you they must have had a rule not to do it in front of their children because i never saw it and i saw it on the one way i saw my dad at times saying things that may have been unkind or harsh but i never saw her speak back that way and i i so appreciate my mom had a lot to say when my dad was when my dad was probably thinking about it properly he listened but i'm going to tell you something that while my dad may have been undeserving of that level of loyalty my mom understood that submission is not to the person it's to the savior and the bible says that a wife is to submit to her husband as unto the lord and we live in a day of pushback pushback is almost applauded today you know and there's books written on it you know how to push and get your way and how to change the culture where you work and uh i'm certainly at a new heightened thing uh in in in the sense of the pushback mentality in the united states of america um people are always pushing in any organization it's just constant and people push pastors for their agenda left or right it's every week of my life uh wives push husbands teenagers push parents millennials changing entire corporations people are just pushing today whether they're pushing their critical race theory or their wokeness or push push push everybody's pushing and very few people are looking for spiritual leadership to support and and my mom did she was a submissive woman and she wasn't that didn't mean she didn't have a brain she was very intelligent and it didn't mean she wasn't godly and by the way being a submissive wife does not mean that you're inferior spiritually or academically there are many many days in in our marriage where terry is spiritually or on some subject academically far more advanced than i yet as unto the lord she supports me as her husband and that's god's design and so for church members who support their husband their who who are wives who support their husband or church member who supports their pastor it creates and it brings a beautiful spirit and certainly there's no mandate to submit to someone who is calling you to a sinful life or something that is unsafe we're not speaking about ridiculous things like that but i'm just thankful today for women who support and submit to their husband i'm thankful that i had a mother that did that and she did that as unto christ and ladies i know and by the way you you may not even realize how the world presses you to be a pushback woman instead of a supportive woman but the world does press for that and and how so many times unintentionally or just just kind of naturally there's just this push back or this argument or oh yeah kind of a spirit we see that all the time today i mean good night we see it in many many churches and christian organizations where that's just the spirit of it and sometimes it affects uh godly women who don't intend to be that way and they push and i just want to say tonight that i'm thankful for a mother that really just tried to follow the leadership of the lord in her life and i am so indebted to her understanding of grace and the way that she was so gracious i've met so many christians who talk about grace and all it means is an excuse to live life their way the kind of grace my mom had was the kind of grace that caused her to serve and love and give and submit more and that is the holy spirit that's not the flesh and that's what she had and i just wanted to share that tonight and i'll just repeat these and we'll be done she was compassionate she was creative she was flexible when schedules changed and things went long and another house to decorate she was joyful even when she was messing up a brand new car or when things weren't going well she was teachable always wanting to learn so that she could be a better servant she was forgiving even when she wasn't treated right she was witnessing even when it wasn't convenient and she was submissive even when my dad didn't deserve it because she was submissive unto the lord and i say to you men be the kind of man for whom it is easy for your wife to support and to the ladies when we're not worthy look to the lord and keep on encouraging and build that legacy that i know every woman here wants to have don't don't be little or make fun of the proverbs 31 woman god put her in the bible for some reason and i believe we have a church full of them but i want to encourage us on this mother's day night to keep going in the same direction

Channel: Lancaster Baptist Church

Views: 872

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Keywords: lancaster baptist church, lancaster baptist, baptist church, paul, chappell, paul chappell, pastor paul chappell, mom, mother, mother's day, Proverbs 31

Id: ghs3oUhT8dI

Length: 31min 41sec (1901 seconds)

Published: Mon May 10 2021