WEBVTT 00:00:00.719 --> 00:00:07.120 The sermon text reading for today is Exodus chapter 2, verses 1 through 10. 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:11.039 And you can find this passage in the Sanctuary Bible on page 82. 00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:12.640 Right by the beginning. 00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:15.919 But please listen as I read God's word. 00:00:15.919 --> 00:00:24.399 Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. 00:00:24.399 --> 00:00:29.199 When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 00:00:29.199 --> 00:00:36.960 But when she couldn't hide him any longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:42.320 Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:46.320 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:54.079 Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. 00:00:54.079 --> 00:00:58.719 She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 00:00:58.719 --> 00:01:01.600 She opened it and saw the baby. 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:05.280 He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:08.079 This is one of the Hebrew babies, she said. 00:01:08.079 --> 00:01:15.760 Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you? 00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:18.480 Yes, go, she answered. 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:21.920 So the girl went and got the baby's mother. 00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:28.560 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you. 00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:31.680 So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:37.840 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:42.719 She named him Moses, saying, I drew him out of the water. 00:01:42.719 --> 00:01:44.879 Here ends the reading. 00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:58.560 My name is John, and I get to serve as the lead pastor here at Elmwood. 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:02.480 If I have not yet had the chance to meet you, I would love to do so this morning. 00:02:02.480 --> 00:02:03.599 I'd love to connect with you. 00:02:03.599 --> 00:02:09.520 I'll be out in the main foyer after the service, and I would love to just get to know you and meet you. 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:15.360 As we come to these verses this morning, let me invite you to join me in a word of prayer. 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:31.840 For different women, it means different things. 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:41.520 And Lord, we ask that as we think about that this morning, as we think about mothers and the women in our lives, we ask God that you would give us your grace. 00:02:41.520 --> 00:03:01.599 Lord, we ask that you would uh help us to see a picture of Jesus in the women of our lives, and that you would help us to leave here today with a greater sense of love and appreciation, both for the women and the mothers, as well as for your son Jesus. 00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:05.199 So we look to you for all this, and we ask it in Jesus' name. 00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:06.159 Amen. 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:19.439 Well, as Dave mentioned earlier, today is Mother's Day, and in all 13 years of my pastoral experience, I have never done a dedicated Mother's Day message. 00:03:19.439 --> 00:03:36.960 And that is in part because I haven't been preaching on all of those Sundays, and in part because if you know me, you know that I'm a like a slight bit of a contrarian, and so I resist the urge to let Hallmark holidays determine what we do on Sunday morning. 00:03:36.960 --> 00:03:48.159 Uh but with that being said, today we are taking a break from the series that we have been in in the book of 1 Corinthians, and I'm doing my first ever Mother's Day message. 00:03:48.159 --> 00:04:00.879 And I'm doing this not because I feel compelled to recognize the modern holiday as it is, but because the Bible talks about the fact that women are amazing. 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:08.000 So I'm just using Mother's Day as an excuse to talk about what the Bible has been talking about for thousands of years. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:26.480 Long before Mother's Day ever existed in our culture as it is today, the Bible has been talking about and has been promoting the dignity and the value and the worth and the essential role that women play, and particularly that mothers play in our world. 00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:28.480 So that's what we're gonna be thinking about today. 00:04:28.480 --> 00:04:30.240 Here's what I hope to accomplish. 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:43.439 For the women who are here, my hope is that you leave here today feeling wildly encouraged by the unique and beautiful and really essential role that you play in our world. 00:04:43.439 --> 00:05:00.160 God has called some of you, women, to be biological mothers, and for even those who have not been called or have not yet been called to be biological mothers, each one of you are called to something we could call spiritual mothering. 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:13.519 This is, I think, what uh Paul gets at in the letter that he wrote to Titus, where he says, Teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 00:05:13.519 --> 00:05:21.439 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, and he goes on and says more things after this. 00:05:21.439 --> 00:05:31.439 But I think that Paul's vision here is that mothers and that women in general would be investing in the next generation of Jesus followers. 00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:40.240 And so whether you're a biological mother or you play some other mother type role, there is an application for you in all this. 00:05:40.240 --> 00:05:47.279 And my hope is that you leave here today encouraged and uh thankful for that unique role that God has called you to play. 00:05:47.279 --> 00:05:57.040 And for the men who might be thinking to themselves, okay, this is a good time for me to like tune out, because this is gonna be, you know, about mothers and not about me, uh, please don't tune out. 00:05:57.040 --> 00:06:07.360 And the reason is because uh what I hope for you is that you would leave here today filled with gratitude for the women that God has placed into your life. 00:06:07.360 --> 00:06:17.279 I hope that you leave with a renewed sense of thankfulness for the amazing women who are a part of this local church community. 00:06:17.279 --> 00:06:30.879 So let's uh turn to these verses in the book of Exodus, chapter two, and as we turn here, the first thing that we see that we can observe in this passage is we can see this. 00:06:30.879 --> 00:06:35.040 Uh, can you go back to the beginning of the sermon slides, please? 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:48.480 As he gets there, the first thing that we see is Jacobed's example of faithful mothering. 00:06:48.480 --> 00:06:58.480 So first thing we see in these verses here today is Jacobed's Moses' mother, her example of faithful mothering. 00:06:58.480 --> 00:07:02.240 Now, there's a lot that we could say about her example from these verses. 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:10.720 There's lots of different things we could draw out and pick out from this, but I want to spend just a few minutes exploring two of these character traits that we see in her. 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:16.079 So the first is this that Jacobed is an example to us of courage. 00:07:16.079 --> 00:07:24.000 Jacobed is an example of courage, and we see this in that she defied the genocidal edict of Pharaoh. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:33.600 So let's just pull back for a moment and remember where this story that you just heard read fits into the larger story of the Bible. 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:45.439 So if we read the end of the book of Genesis into the beginning of Exodus, what we see is that Abraham's descendants, who are the Hebrew people, they uh have moved from the land of Canaan and they're now living in Egypt. 00:07:45.439 --> 00:08:03.360 And it says that they were uh fruitful and they were multiplying and they were increasing in number, and God was causing them to be fruitful in so much of a degree that Pharaoh was afraid of them, that Pharaoh was paranoid about this quickly growing immigrant population. 00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:18.079 And so what he does is he commanded the Hebrew midwives who were in charge of delivering all these Hebrew baby boys that were being born into the world, he commands that these Hebrew midwives kill these baby boys as soon as they're born. 00:08:18.079 --> 00:08:24.639 And of course, these midwives say no, and they defied Pharaoh as they ought to have. 00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:30.879 And they come to him with all these excuses as to, well, why they can't kill these baby boys who are born. 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:40.399 And so the next step that Pharaoh takes is he says, okay, we're just gonna take all the Hebrew baby boys and we're gonna throw them into the Nile River and drown them to death. 00:08:40.399 --> 00:08:44.159 So he sends out an edict that this was to be done. 00:08:44.159 --> 00:08:50.000 And this is this is the larger story in which this little story you heard read this morning fits. 00:08:50.000 --> 00:09:06.399 And I think it's it's so hard for us to really grasp, to truly understand the horror and the grief and the pain and the loss that the Hebrew people, especially these Hebrew women, are experiencing at this moment in their history. 00:09:06.399 --> 00:09:19.279 Like the Hebrew midwives that we read about in Exodus chapter 1, Jacobed, Moses' mother had the courage to say no to Pharaoh. 00:09:19.279 --> 00:09:25.200 Dina and I have been through the newborn phase twice. 00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:35.759 And one of the things that I find so amazing about this account of what uh Jacobed did here is that she kept a child hidden for three months. 00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:40.399 I don't know if you know this, but babies cry and they cry a lot. 00:09:40.399 --> 00:09:44.320 And they cry when they want, not when you want them to cry. 00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:55.039 Okay, so some of you know exactly what it's like to be in a public space, maybe like this, and you're holding a baby, and you can't just say to them, uh, please stop like we're in church now, can you please cry later? 00:09:55.039 --> 00:09:56.559 That's not how it works. 00:09:56.559 --> 00:10:00.480 They cry when they want, for as long as they want, as loud as they want. 00:10:00.480 --> 00:10:08.639 And Jacob had kept a child alive and hidden for a full three months of his life. 00:10:08.639 --> 00:10:12.639 And this was done at huge risk to herself. 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:13.840 Think about this. 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:25.919 If if Pharaoh was so paranoid that he was going to have all these baby boys killed, what do you think he would do to one of these Hebrew mothers who defied him? 00:10:25.919 --> 00:10:35.840 So what she did in preserving and keeping Moses alive for those three months was a remarkable act of courage. 00:10:35.840 --> 00:10:41.679 And that's the first thing that we can see, uh, that we can see modeled in her is that she's an example of courage. 00:10:41.679 --> 00:10:48.080 But the second thing we can see modeled here in her life is that she is an example of trust. 00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:50.879 She's an example of trust. 00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:56.320 We see that in that she entrusted her child's life to the providential hand of God. 00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:24.960 So she defied Pharaoh, kept this baby boy alive for three months, and it says that when she couldn't keep it hidden any longer, she got a basket, and she took that basket and covered it in tar and pitch and these things to make it watertight, and then she put her son in this basket, and she put him in the reeds along the edge of the Nile River, and she left him there. 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:31.120 Now, ironically, she put her baby boy exactly where Pharaoh wanted her to. 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:34.799 She just didn't do it the way that he wanted her to do it. 00:11:34.799 --> 00:11:49.200 So she puts her son in the river, and one of the things that I think is easy for us to lose sight of is the fact that this is a picture of Jacobed acting out of complete and utter desperation. 00:11:49.200 --> 00:11:56.480 She's kept this child alive for as long as she can and kept him hidden for as long as she can. 00:11:56.480 --> 00:12:01.360 And now she puts him in a basket and puts him in the weeds. 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:03.919 And now what? 00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:08.639 You know, the the question is, what's the next play? 00:12:08.639 --> 00:12:10.720 What's your next move, Jacobed? 00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:12.320 What's your end goal with this? 00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:13.679 What are you gonna do? 00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:19.360 If you think about this logically, this doesn't make any sense what she's doing. 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:22.960 But that's kind of the point, is that she's not acting logically. 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:28.960 She's acting on instinct, and she's acting out of love for her child like any good mother would. 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:37.519 And so she does the only thing she can think of at the time is I'm gonna put him in this basket and find a way to hide him in the Nile. 00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:42.240 Simply, she just said, No, I will not hand my son over to be killed. 00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:45.200 I will not hand my son over to die. 00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:53.919 Her only option was to put him in this little makeshift boat and entrust him to the providential hand of God. 00:12:53.919 --> 00:12:56.480 It's the only thing she can do. 00:12:56.480 --> 00:13:00.720 All she can do is let go of the life of her son and entrust him to God. 00:13:00.720 --> 00:13:02.639 And that's what she does. 00:13:02.639 --> 00:13:09.279 So she's this amazing example of both courage and trust. 00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:18.720 And these these character traits that we see modeled in Jacobet here are required for all kinds of mothering. 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:23.759 Every kind of mothering requires this sort of courage and trust. 00:13:23.759 --> 00:13:28.320 Both biological and spiritual mothering. 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:34.080 It takes courage to bring a child into this world in the first place. 00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:37.279 In part because this world is a messed up place. 00:13:37.279 --> 00:13:48.799 And you can be certain of this that you are introducing your child into a world where they will experience pain and difficulty and hardship, and you have no idea what awaits them in the future. 00:13:48.799 --> 00:13:58.879 It takes courage to bring a child into this world because you have no idea what future you are opting them into even long after you're gone. 00:13:58.879 --> 00:14:03.919 It takes courage to do the right thing as a mother, right? 00:14:03.919 --> 00:14:16.879 To mother and to parent in a way that maybe is uh goes against the grain of the culture around us and the beliefs and the values that are uh that we're told or expected that we would put into the lives of our children. 00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:27.039 It takes courage to raise your child in a way that they don't understand or appreciate right now in this moment. 00:14:27.039 --> 00:14:34.240 It takes courage to parent for their good, not just for their in-the-moment happiness. 00:14:34.240 --> 00:14:40.879 It takes trust because of how little you can control your child's life. 00:14:40.879 --> 00:14:45.039 And the older your child gets, the less control you have over them. 00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:54.399 The older they get, you cannot control where they go, you cannot control what friends they choose, what choices they make, you can control none of it. 00:14:54.399 --> 00:15:04.000 And so biological mothering requires both courage, it requires trust, but so does spiritual mothering. 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:10.399 It takes courage to engage in transparent and self-giving relationships with others. 00:15:10.399 --> 00:15:20.480 It takes courage to be honest and to sometimes say hard things to people that you love because there's a risk of the relationship being damaged. 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:24.320 It requires trust. 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:39.840 You can, like your own child, you can pour yourself into someone and you can give them all the grace and all the encouragement and all the coaching and all the wise counsel you have, and you can control none of what they do with those things. 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:46.720 You can give them the best coaching and wisdom, and they say, no thanks, I'll do it my own way. 00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:54.879 And all you can do in that spiritual mothering role is entrust that person to the providential hand of God. 00:15:54.879 --> 00:16:06.080 In these verses, Jacobed provides us with this example of faithful mothering, is what she shows us. 00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:20.879 And we should, as we have been already this morning, we should look to her example and we should look to her life, and we should do everything we can to emulate her courage and to emulate her trust in God. 00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:30.720 But we can't become so narrowly focused on trying to be like Jacobed that we miss the one to whom her life points. 00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:34.159 Because this story ultimately is not about Jacobed. 00:16:34.159 --> 00:16:40.639 This story ultimately is not about Moses, it's not about Miriam, his sister. 00:16:40.639 --> 00:16:51.440 So, yes, we have to see Jacobed's example of faithful mothering, but we also have to see the one to whom Jacobed's life points. 00:16:51.440 --> 00:16:56.879 Her life points ultimately past herself to someone else. 00:16:56.879 --> 00:17:20.640 What we come to find out as we read the rest of this story and the rest of the book of Exodus, and then the rest of the book of the rest of the Bible, is that Jacobed's boy, this son that was born to her in this moment, and that she hid for those three months and then handed over to Pharaoh's daughter to raise, Jacobed's boy was the one who would deliver God's people out of Egypt. 00:17:20.640 --> 00:17:23.599 That's who that little boy was. 00:17:23.599 --> 00:17:29.440 And thousands of years later, an even greater deliverer would come. 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:39.920 Jesus, his life and ministry was characterized by the same kind of courage and the same kind of trust we see in Jacobed. 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:45.839 Except Jesus embodied those things perfectly in a way that Jacobed never could. 00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:52.160 So you look at the ministry of Jesus and you see that he had the courage to stand up to the religious leaders. 00:17:52.160 --> 00:18:13.359 These were the most wealthy, the most powerful, the most elite group of religious leaders in the first century world, and Jesus had no problem going toe-to-toe with them, saying things he knew would make them upset, and he did so, knowing that standing up against those religious leaders would lead to his death. 00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:16.880 He knew that it would get him killed to do it, and he did it anyways. 00:18:16.880 --> 00:18:27.039 He had the courage to, during his trial, before his execution, stand before Pilate and say, You have no authority over me except that which has been given to you from God. 00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:30.480 Stop thinking that you're as important as you think you are. 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:32.400 You don't actually have the control you have. 00:18:32.400 --> 00:18:34.400 That takes courage to do that. 00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:39.119 He had the courage to stand before his accusers and to remain silent. 00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:46.559 He had the courage to face death and to face hell and to face the justice and the judgment of God, and he did so without flinching. 00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:52.880 He embodied the courage that we see in Jacobed, but in a way that Jacobed never could. 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:58.559 We also see that he was a person of great trust. 00:18:58.559 --> 00:19:19.359 On the night before he was executed, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he's laboring and agonizing in prayer, and he's asking, he's pleading with the Father that if there's any way for the cup of judgment that is going to come upon him at the cross, he's pleading that if there's any way for that to be taken away, please do it. 00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:26.079 And his prayer in the end is not what I want, not what I will, but what you will. 00:19:26.079 --> 00:19:35.920 And in the Garden of Gethsemane, as well as in every moment of his life leading up to that point, he entrusted himself to the providential hand of his father. 00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:42.240 And unlike Jacobed, he knew exactly what it meant for him to do that. 00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:45.759 He knew exactly what it would cost him to do that. 00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:54.240 And so as we look at the life of Jesus, we see that he is the one to whom Jacobed's life points. 00:19:54.240 --> 00:20:00.559 His courage and his trust resulted in our salvation. 00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:17.519 Or to put it a different way, without his courage in the face of danger and death, and without his trust in the Father and His willing submission to the plan of the Father, we would still be lost and dead in our sin. 00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:28.880 Jacobed was an incredible woman who demonstrated incredible faith, and she's still a marvelous example for us. 00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:39.279 But remember where her life points her life points past herself to someone who embodied those things in an even greater way. 00:20:39.279 --> 00:20:52.720 In the rest of our time together, let me offer two words of encouragement for the women and for the mothers who are here today. 00:20:52.720 --> 00:21:03.119 First encouragement is this: never forget that faithful women always have and always will play an essential role in God's saving work. 00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:14.960 Faithful women always have, since the very beginning, and always will, to the very end, will play an essential role in God's saving work. 00:21:14.960 --> 00:21:16.799 And we see this all throughout the Bible. 00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:18.079 It's cover to cover. 00:21:18.079 --> 00:21:28.799 So we see it in the Hebrew midwives in Exodus chapter 1 who refuse to bow to the desires of Pharaoh to kill all these Hebrew baby boys. 00:21:28.799 --> 00:21:45.119 We see it in Jacobed, Moses' mother and his sister, who come up with this plan to ask to ask for Jacobed to be the one who nurses Moses until he's taken away by Pharaoh's daughter. 00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:55.839 And ironically, Pharaoh's daughter in this passage is also an example of a faithful woman who played a role in God's saving work. 00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:57.599 Think about this. 00:21:57.599 --> 00:21:59.599 She didn't know the Lord. 00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:00.799 At that time. 00:22:00.799 --> 00:22:09.279 We don't know if she ever did, but what we know is that she opened up this basket and saw a Hebrew baby boy, and she felt compassion. 00:22:09.279 --> 00:22:14.079 She felt sorry for him, which is the exact opposite of her father. 00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:24.480 And the other times that we read in the book of Exodus about someone hearing someone cry and feeling compassion is we see that in the Lord. 00:22:24.480 --> 00:22:30.480 Where when the people, it says that he heard their groaning, he heard their cries and he had compassion on them. 00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:42.799 And so in that way, even Pharaoh's daughter modeled and reflected something of the nature and the character of God as someone who hears the cries of his people and has compassion on them and rescues them. 00:22:42.799 --> 00:22:46.720 So we see it in the midwives and Jacobed and Miriam and Pharaoh's daughter. 00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:52.960 We see it as the story of the Bible unfolds to the judges and other leaders in the nation of Israel, like Deborah. 00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:56.480 We see it in the women who in Jesus' own ministry. 00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:08.000 Especially in the book of Luke, Luke draws a special attention to the women who supported Jesus from their own finances, who cared for Jesus. 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:10.319 They took care of his needs. 00:23:10.319 --> 00:23:14.799 And in a way, all those women in Jesus' life, they all mothered him. 00:23:14.799 --> 00:23:25.519 We see it in the many women that Paul names as he writes his letters and as he gives greetings and he says, Hey, say hello to Priscilla. 00:23:25.519 --> 00:23:36.480 And say hello to Junior, and say hello to all these women, some of whom have churches that meet in their homes, and they're hosting and helping to lead these churches that meet in their homes. 00:23:36.480 --> 00:23:44.319 And Paul names all these women as faithful ministry partners, the ones through whom God's work is going forward in the world. 00:23:44.319 --> 00:23:56.400 And that's the point, that the whole Bible from start to finish is full of examples of women and faithful mothers, and their ordinary obedience is the way that God's plans are moving forward in the world. 00:23:56.400 --> 00:24:04.559 Not the only way, but one of the main ways that God works in our world is through faithful women and faithful mothers. 00:24:04.559 --> 00:24:10.799 Faithful women always have and always will play an essential role in God's saving work. 00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:14.000 Don't forget that. 00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:31.920 As a woman, as a mother, never underestimate the importance and the impact of your ordinary obedience. 00:24:31.920 --> 00:24:44.319 Unless you're reading this story for the first time in Exodus 2, you probably likely know the end, how the story ends, don't you? 00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:49.039 We know who Moses was. 00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:51.599 We know who Moses would become. 00:24:51.599 --> 00:24:54.400 We know what Moses would accomplish. 00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:57.759 But do you know who had no idea about any of that? 00:24:57.759 --> 00:25:00.559 Jacobed. 00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:06.559 She had no clue what would become of her son. 00:25:06.559 --> 00:25:12.880 All she knows is that she will not hand her son over to death. 00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:14.640 That's all she knows. 00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:16.799 And she puts him in the basket. 00:25:16.799 --> 00:25:24.160 She didn't put him in that basket because she had some vision of the future and knew that somehow God was going to make the sun turn out to deliver his people. 00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:25.599 She had no idea. 00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:30.160 She just did the next right thing, the only thing she knew how to do. 00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:37.759 We are sitting here today because of Jacobed's one act of obedience. 00:25:37.759 --> 00:25:42.000 She put her son in a boat and stuck him in the river. 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:43.759 And that's why we're sitting here today. 00:25:43.759 --> 00:25:45.839 Because God used that. 00:25:45.839 --> 00:25:51.200 We are here today because she entrusted her son to the providential hand of God. 00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:58.000 She had no idea how God would use that act of obedience. 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:02.640 And the same exact thing is true of your mothering as well. 00:26:02.640 --> 00:26:08.799 One day someone will look back on a conversation that you had. 00:26:08.799 --> 00:26:12.720 And you won't even remember this conversation. 00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:15.039 Because that's how this works, isn't it? 00:26:15.039 --> 00:26:23.279 One day someone will look back and will remember a conversation that you had, and they will say, that's the moment when it all changed for me. 00:26:23.279 --> 00:26:27.839 They will say, that's the moment where this really clicked. 00:26:27.839 --> 00:26:33.680 They will say, That was the word of encouragement that I needed. 00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:38.799 That was the word of challenge that I needed at that moment in my life. 00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:45.680 That was the word of counsel or wisdom that I needed, and God used that to change my life. 00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:58.079 There will be other people in your life for whom that is true, and it's all because of one small act of obedience that in the moment might feel like it's too small to be important at all. 00:26:58.079 --> 00:27:03.039 And yet God will use that to change someone's life forever. 00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:09.839 Never underestimate what you can accomplish, what God can do through you in those small acts of obedience. 00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:15.279 Now, sometimes the impact is through that one small thing, right? 00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:19.440 The one conversation, the one act of kindness, the one act of love, the one thing. 00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:22.319 And God used that to have a huge impact. 00:27:22.319 --> 00:27:37.920 Sometimes how it works is that the impact is through not one small act, but is through many small acts that are combined together into a lifetime of faithful obedience. 00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:43.279 Sometimes the impact is the accumulation of all those small little things over time. 00:27:43.279 --> 00:27:47.440 This is at the heart of what parenting is. 00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:53.519 Parenting is a whole bunch of stuff that feels too small to really be important. 00:27:53.519 --> 00:28:03.359 It's a whole bunch of stuff that all these little things here and there that by themselves don't seem like they're going to move the needle at all in your child's life. 00:28:03.359 --> 00:28:10.720 But we all know that the accumulation of those things can have a profound effect for positive or for negative in your child's life. 00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:14.160 It's the accumulation of all those things together. 00:28:14.160 --> 00:28:20.240 They become something together that they can't be individually. 00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:35.119 Taken as a whole, these small acts of obedience, whether it's providing or nurturing or loving or forgiving or the patience or the grace or the prayer, the conversations, the availability that you have to your children, it's all of those things. 00:28:35.119 --> 00:28:41.839 Together, those small acts of obedience become something that they cannot be singularly on their own. 00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:48.240 God will take all of your faithful mothering. 00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:54.640 Whether it is biological mothering, whether it is spiritual mothering in some way. 00:28:54.640 --> 00:29:04.240 God can and does take those acts of faithful mothering and he uses them to advance his plans and his purposes in the world. 00:29:04.240 --> 00:29:15.279 So never forget that faithful women always have and always will play an essential role in God's saving work. 00:29:15.279 --> 00:29:22.960 Never underestimate the impact of your ordinary obedience. 00:29:22.960 --> 00:29:36.240 As we seek to follow Jacobed's example and ultimately the example of Jesus, we will fail. 00:29:36.240 --> 00:29:40.000 We will fail. 00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:53.599 And the good news that is available not just for those who are women, not just for those who are mothers, is that we are not judged on our ability to be really courageous all the time. 00:29:53.599 --> 00:30:04.880 We are not judged by God based on our own ability to muster up more trust and more faith than we have right now. 00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:19.039 What we celebrate at the communion table is that what Jesus accomplished through his perfect courage and his perfect trust is given to us by faith. 00:30:19.039 --> 00:30:30.079 So the invitation for all of us here today is to come and receive from Christ what you could never earn on your own. 00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:43.440 And if you're here today and you have not yet made a decision to follow Jesus, uh why not make today the day that you come to know who he is and what he's done for you in a way that you never have before? 00:30:43.440 --> 00:30:54.720 As we come to the comedian table, let me invite you to take a few moments for silence and confession, and then we will come and receive Christ together.