5/12/13 DESIGN FOR LIFE
Mothers’ Day
Our Creator’s Unique Design
Pastor Reflects on His “Mama’s” Love and PrayersE. V. (Ed) Hill, who pastored Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, tells the story of how “Mama’s” love and prayers changed his life. During the height of the Depression, Hill’s mother, who had five children of her own, didn’t have enough food to go around, so she sent four-year-old Ed to live with a friend in a small country town called Sweet Home. Ed just called her Mama. As he was growing up in Sweet Home, Mama displayed remarkable faith which led her to have big plans for Ed. Against nearly insurmountable obstacles, Mama helped Ed graduate from high school (the only student to graduate that year from the country school) and even insisted that he go to college.
She took Ed to the bus station, handed him the ticket and five dollars and said, “Now, go off to Prairie View College, and Mama is going to be praying for you.” Hill claims that he didn’t know much about prayer, but he knew Mama did. When he arrived at the college with a dollar and ninety cents in his pocket, they told him he needed eighty dollars in cash in order to register. Here’s how Hill describes what happened next:
I got in line …, and the devil said to get out of line …, but I heard my Mama saying in my ear, “I’ll be praying for you.” I stood in line on Mama’s prayer. Soon there was [another new student ahead of me], and I began to get nervous, but I stayed in line …. Just about the time [the other student] got all of her stuff and turned away, Dr. Drew touched me on the shoulder, and he said, “Are you Ed Hill?” I said, “Yes.” “Are you Ed Hill from Sweet Home?” “Yes.” “Have you paid yet?” “Not quite.”
“We’ve been looking for you all this morning,” he said.
I said, “Well, what do you want with me?”
“We have a four-year scholarship that will pay your room and board, your tuition, and give you thirty dollars a month to spend.”
And I heard Mama say, “I will be praying for you!”
Martha Simmons & Frank A. Thomas, editors, Preaching with Sacred Fire (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), pp. 707-708
People are in the world because of the Creator. God made everything. He made us to communicate with Him. As the Creator, He made everything the way He wanted to make it. His creative ability is beyond our comprehension. He didn’t just make one kind of each thing and say “That’s good enough”. He didn’t just create one person and make everyone else like the first one. When He made trees and flowers and dogs and fish and all of creation, He was lavish in His creativity and variety. He did an amazing job of creation.
God not only created vegetation and animals, He created people. People are His highest creation. He made people with great variety. We have different colors of skin, different sizes, different skills, likes and desires. Variety is something that describes all of God’s creation. One universal aspect of His creation of people is that all are allowed to share in a special relationship with Him.
Genesis 1:26-27 NKJV
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Because we have been created in His image, God made people with the desire for relationship with Him. He also made us with a desire for relationships with other people. He gave us roles to play within the human race and these relationships. When God got to the end of creation He saw that it was all very good.
God created Adam and Eve in his own image so that He could have a loving and personal relationship with people. He gave us a free will so we can worship and serve Him. Sin broke the relationship with God. He promised to send a Savior to redeem the human race from sin’s consequences.
Men and women were both created in God’s image and likeness. We can respond to God and have a unique personal relationship with Him. People possess a moral likeness to God. This is why we intuitively know certain things are right or wrong. When Adam and Eve sinned, that moral likeness to God was corrupted. Salvation renews that moral likeness.
God created the family as the foundational social unit of society. God gave us marriage as the foundation for families. Marriage is an institution of God. All our thinking on the subject has its basis in the divine revelation, the Holy Scriptures. God Himself was the originator of it when He said, “For this cause a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife and they twain shall be one flesh.” It is apparent that our maker instituted this as an experience of love, to provide his own idea of a proper social order and to provide that through well-ordered families, truth and holiness might be transmitted from one age to another.
God made the woman to be the wife and the man to be the husband. Genesis 2:18, 24 NKJV
18 And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
As a result of their love and marital intimacy, God designed that children would be born. New life is created. God’s design included the plan that it really takes both the mom and dad to raise the children. We know it is possible for single parents to be effective in raising their children, but His plan from the beginning was for marriage to produce families.
The unequaled creative power of God didn’t just make men and women the same. He made them unique. In their uniqueness they add so much to the home and relationship. One of Satan’s lies is that these differences are bad. No, God never made anything bad.
This is mothers’ day. Let’s look at some of the uniqueness God created in mothers.
In 1963 there was a popular TV commercial for Bayer Children’s Aspirin. Little Mike rings the doorbell of a friend asking if she can come out and play. The mom says no, she is sick.
“Does she hurt and have a temperature?”
“No, I gave her Bayer Children’s Aspirin.”
“My mother gives that to me when I’m sick.”
“That’s cuz she loves you.”
“Mothers are like that, yeah they are.”
Questions for discussion:
What is the nature of a mother?
What are the attributes of mothers?
Is being a mother demeaning to a woman? (We know it is not. Then why do so many people in our modern world act like it is?)
What do mothers want most from their children as they are growing up?
Remember at the beginning, the story of E. V. Hill, And I heard Mama say, “I will be praying for you!” Many children have been encouraged during hard times by that thought.
Probably the most important attribute for a mother is godliness. All of the other beneficial and necessary attributes grow out of that one. Godliness is the foundation. As mom prays and lives a Christlike life, she is impacting the lives of her children in the most important way.
What is the greatest heritage to pass on to future generations? Genuine faith and fire.
II Timothy 1:5-6 NKJV
5 when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. 6 Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
Timothy was greatly used of God. He received teaching and applied it in his life. God’s anointing on his life made him a man of impact because of what he was taught and what he applied.
What should we do? Give honor to your mother. We all have a mother, honor her. You can honor her even is she is not still living. What’s one of the best ways to honor her? Live a godly life. Follow the commandment with promise.
Exodus 20:12 NKJV
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
God will bless you as you follow this commandment, for you will be following HIS plan.
Question: what can you do to honor your mother?
