Mothers, Passing On Faith

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Laying on of my hands.
The Spirit of God gave us forthe Spirit of God gave us does
not make us temp tenant, butgives us power, love, and
self-discipline.
Do not be ashamed of thetestimony about our Lord or of
me, his prisoner.
Rather, join with me insuffering for the gospel by the

(00:23):
power of God.
I want to focus in here onTimothy's mom and grandmother,
grandmother Lois, and MotherEunice.
I want to talk about motherspassing on the faith.
Mothers passing on the faith.
In all my years pastoring, evenas a Christian, I have read and

(00:43):
heard many statements fromcancer culture against the
Christian faith.
People have canceledChristianity, they have canceled
Jesus, they have canceled theword.
And how many of y'all knowthey've canceled preachers in
churches?
But in all my years as aChristian, as a pastor, I have

(01:05):
yet to hear of anyone cancelingor really greatly disrespecting
the faith of a mother.
Something causes all of us topause when it comes to a
mother's faith.
Somebody said it so well, thequiet prayers of a mother often
becomes the loudest victory in achild's life.

(01:30):
I think a lot of us can testifyhere today.
The only reason why we're herebecause we had a praying mama.
Am I the only witness here?
And yet, I would still arguethat we live in a society that
continues to increase difficultyon our mothers.
We tend to give pause when itcomes to the moms and their

(01:51):
faith, but we don't try tolighten that burden.
83 million moms in America, andyet a recent Surgeon General
report indicated that theaverage mother's mental health
is not good.
41% of mothers say that mostdays are so stressful they
cannot even function.

(02:14):
48% say that most days they feelcompletely overwhelmed with
life.
New York Times released a videothat interviewed a broad
spectrum of mothers.
And the video was entitled, GetThis Moms, Motherhood Should
Come with a Warning Label.
Any witnesses in the householdnow.

(02:36):
And even in that video, themothers were not really
complaining about the task ofraising children, but more about
the unfair wages mothers receivein their employment employment
spaces and the high costs ofchildcare.
Research indicated that 15 yearsafter college graduation,

(02:57):
mothers still make less 42% lessthan fathers.
Some have dubbed this themotherhood penalty.
Fathers, when their wives getpregnant, they get a bonus.
But when mothers on the same jobget pregnant, they get reduced
hours and sometimes reducedwages.

(03:19):
Same degree, same experience,same qualification, but
different pay scale.
Childcare alone will make anyoneshrivel up into a fetal
position.
$2,000 a month per child is whatI hear is average, but I'm
hearing that's on the cheap.
Amen.
54% of mothers stated thatchildcare was either barely or

(03:44):
not at all affordable.
And 39% say it is the number onefinancial burden.
Raising children is a sacredresponsibility.
Many times it's not easy on ourmothers.
And yet, in the midst of this,moms have the unique opportunity
to pass on the faith.

(04:06):
I plan to preach and teach andminister for as long as the Lord
will let me.
Make no mistake, no one can havea greater influence on someone's
life than the mother or thefather.
More on that on Father's Day.
Amen.
But we need mothers that knowhow to pass on the faith.
And that's what Paul iscommunicating here in our text

(04:28):
this morning when he writes thisletter to Timothy.
Timothy is pastor of the churchat Ephesus, and that church is
kind of giving him the blues.
And Paul here wants to encouragehim to continue in the ministry.
And he starts with reminding himon how he came to faith.
He said, Your faith first livedin your grandmother Lois.

(04:49):
And then your mother caught it,and now it's been passed on to
you.
Your mother, your grandmotherhad it.
And then she passed it on to themother, and now it's passed on
to you.
This is a generational faiththat has taken place.
And that leads to my thesisstatement this morning.
Make sure, moms, you pass on theright things, especially your

(05:14):
faith.
We need moms to pass on theright things, especially when it
comes to our faith.
I recently read a story of ayoung lady that was trying to
warn children that when you havea chance and you know you need
to forgive your mother, you needto do it while you can.

(05:34):
And she talked about her mom.
Her mom was this very famouswriter, just extraordinary
writer.
But she wasn't the best mom.
She was more into her writingand her career and jet setting
rather than raising a child.
And the truth is, this daughter,she she tried to emulate her in

(05:55):
every possible way.
She herself wrote a few books,but not at the scale and the
popularity of her mother.
And so over time, as she triedto be like her mother, she began
to have her own personalstruggles, struggles with
addiction and bad relationshipchoices, to the point it caused
a division between her and hermother.

(06:17):
And years later they would tryto wrap things up, but for the
most part, it was in a strangerelationship.
And she said from time to timeher mother would be with her
while she was raising her kids,and just out the blue, she would
say, I'm sorry.
But she never would acknowledgeher.
Now she has dementia.

(06:38):
And though she wants to forgiveher and let her know she's
forgiven her, her mother doesn'teven know.
And here, I think it's thestruggle that every parent
should have, not just mothers,but but every parent should
have.
I mean, how do you know what topass on?
And how do you keep from passingon what you don't want to pass

(06:59):
on?
On the one hand, I'm sure thismother would admit that she was
probably not the type to be thekind of mother the child needed.
But at the same time, I don'tthink she was trying to pass on
some of the bad habits that shepassed on.
I'll be the first one to say Ilike my coffee now, but I didn't

(07:20):
always drink coffee.
That's an altary tradition.
My grandfather Rufus, he used togrind his own coffee.
And every morning he had one ofthose hand crank grinders.
Y'all don't know anything aboutthat.
And early in the morning, he'dget up and grind that coffee,
and he'd go out under the treeand sit and drink his coffee.
Drake straight blank, no sugar,no cream, nothing.

(07:42):
A man's way of drinking coffee.
Amen, brothers.
And then I discovered my dadwould pick up the habit, and
every morning he did the samething.
He didn't have a hand crank, buthe was gonna have his coffee.
And as I began to have breakfastwith him from time to time, I
picked up the habit.
And as I thought about that, Isay, you know, that's a good

(08:04):
thing that was passed down tome.
Nothing wrong with drinkingcoffee.
My son drinks coffee.
But but but let's be honest thismorning.
Sometimes we don't always passon the right thing.
Many times we're better atpassing on bad attitudes rather
than a positive disposition.
We're better at passing on ourpast traumas rather than the

(08:25):
hope for the future.
And I just believe if I can passon diabetes and high blood press
high blood pressure, we ought topass on a little Jesus with that
every now and then.
I'm not trying to say, Mom, youought to be perfect and always
pass on just the right thing.
But whatever you pass on, passon a little compassion, pass on

(08:45):
a little grace, pass on God'sfaithfulness, what we just
talked about.
Pass on some of the good things.
Pass on your faith and what youknow God has done in your life.
Faith, we need mothers who passon the faith.
So how do we do that?
A couple things, and I'll be outof your way.
Number one, here it is mothersmust pass on the people values.

(09:09):
People values.
In other words, we got to passon those values that help our
children and future generationson how to relate with people.
And I find this in Acts chapter16, which is the first time
Timothy shows up.
And when he shows up in thebiblical record, the text says
that when Paul met him, thepeople in that church community

(09:30):
spoke well of him.
Acts 16, 1 and 2, Paul came toDerby and then to Lystra, where
a disciple named Timothy lived,whose mother was Jewish and a
believer, but whose father was aGreek.
And the believers at Lystra andIconium spoke well of him.
Timothy was raised with goodpeople values.

(09:51):
He had parents who loved him,but that don't mean they were
always on the same road, on thesame page.
Some say his father may not havebeen a Christian.
So here we see a spiritualdifference in this house.
We also see that he was Greekand she was Jewish.
So there were some culturaldifferences.

(10:12):
And yet, in spite of theirdifferences, somehow somebody
was big enough to say, it's notabout what I want, it's about
what's best for young Timothy.
And they raised him as aresponsible young man.
And a couple things I can sayout of that, some of us we've
been thrust into what I wouldcall some creative parenting

(10:35):
arrangements.
In other words, it was not ourchoice to raise them the way we
have to raise them.
And to you, I say this morning,I know it's hard sometimes.
And it's been very hard.
And what I say to you is staywith it and continue to do the
right thing.
I applaud you for staying in avery difficult parenting

(10:57):
arrangement.
And sometimes when you stay init, it even gets harder.
But I applaud you for fightingthe temptation to use unfair
under-the-table tactics when theother person of the other party
crosses the line.
I applaud you when you declarethe truth in the face of
sometimes folks that are flatout lying.

(11:18):
I applaud you for standing inthe gap for your child when you
have nothing left to stand with.
Because I know a lot of uscannot wait until they're grown,
so you don't have to ever dealwith that crazy of a parent
again.
But in the meantime, my word toyou, moms, is always stand on
the right thing and trust God tostep in for what you cannot do.

(11:43):
Don't allow what happenedbetween the two of you to poison
your child's future.
Don't let that crazy become yourcrazy.
Don't lose your mind becausethey lost their mind.
And I don't care what the courtsallow for you.
Make sure you're fair for thatchild and what's best for your

(12:03):
family.
Preach our I am.
God knows how to stand with youin difficulty.
But then also, too, we gottateach our kids to let it go and
let it go.
And that starts with us.
We gotta let it go.
We gotta be the first ones tolet it go.
Make sure you let go of the pastto ensure a better future for

(12:24):
your children.
The best thing we can do for ourchildren, whether young or old,
is to let it go.
And when we let it go, we teachfuture generations how to let it
go.
That no matter what happened inyour past, if God is on your
side, your future is greater.
Somebody said it so well.

(12:45):
The past is the place ofreference and not the place of
residence.
And too many parents live in thepast, too many moms want to stay
and camp out in the past.
No, it's a place of reference,it's a place of lesson, it's a
place of learning from the pastso I can build a better future
that's ahead of me.

(13:05):
You can't start a new chapter inyour life if you keep rereading
the last chapter of your life.
We have to make sure that weunderstand that though our past
is a part of our history, itdoesn't have to be a part of our
destiny.
Remember the words of Isaiah 43.
Forget the former things, don'tdwell on the past.

(13:27):
I am doing a new thing in yourlife, and God can't do a new
thing if I'm holding on to theold thing.
Preach our chair, I am teach ourchildren to let go of the past.
And moms, the best thing you cando for your child is to let it
go.
Tell your neighbor, let it go,let it go.

(13:50):
But then, number two, she passedon some life values.
We seen here as we said earlierthat Timothy was having a hard
time with church folk.
Preach altruy.
Yeah.
Church folk, he was pastoringthe church at Ephesus, and he
was having a little trouble inthat pastorate.
And Paul here reminds him hey,you got to stir up that gift

(14:13):
that came by you on the land ofthe hands.
Spirit of God didn't give you aspirit of fear, but a power,
love, and sound mind.
Don't be ashamed of thetestimony about the Lord or me
as a prisoner.
Join with me in difficulty.
In other words, we got to teachour kids some life values.
And here was a grandmother and agrandfather, uh, a grandmother

(14:35):
and a mother that not onlyinstilled faith in his life, but
began to see the path that hewould take in life.
And they wanted what God wantedfor his life.
And my word to every mother isit's okay to want dreams for
your child, but make surethey're the Lord's dreams and

(14:56):
not your dreams.
The danger is many times we tryto live out our dreams in our
children's lives.
And we had our chance when wewere grown.
Now we gotta let them have theirchance.
Preach.
Make sure we let them live outwhat the Lord is doing in their
lives.
Let's not try to usurp what Godis doing in their life.

(15:17):
Paul said, I saw what God did inyour life.
I'm simply trying to urge youand encourage you to continue
where God is taking you.
But then also, too, don'tforget, we got to remind folk,
and this is what I love aboutEunice, is that Timothy had to
understand that dreams requireeffort.
It's one thing to have a dream,but how many of y'all know you

(15:41):
got to put some work if you wantthat dream to become a reality?
And so she uh Paul here isletting them know that, yeah,
you got this calling on yourlife, but if you're gonna
fulfill the calling, you'regonna have to do the work that
comes with the calling.
It's not something that comesfor free.
And a lot of times we do well toencourage our children, baby.

(16:02):
You can accomplish anything youput your mind to.
Baby, you can do it if you wantit, but we forget to tell them
now.
But there's a whole lot ofeffort that goes with that.
You're gonna have to burn somemidnight oil, you're gonna have
to roll up your sleeves andwork.
It is not given to the weary.
You're gonna have to work forit.
And that's what Paul here istrying to tell young Timothy.

(16:24):
Look, you're gonna have to putsome sweat at sweat equity in
that thing.
I was reading a story about ayoung lady by the name of Rachel
Etricen, and she won what iscalled the ultra marathon.
I ain't never even heard of whatan ultra marathon was.
A marathon is 26 miles.
Do you know what anultra-marathon is?

(16:47):
It's 253 miles over terrain,over mountains, uh, 10 to 30,000
feet inclines over dirt, desertroad.
They do it in Arizona everyyear.
And this woman has won it forthe last three years in a row.
But this year, this year, notonly did she win as the best

(17:11):
woman in her class, she won outof the entire field of men and
women.
First time in the history of theultra marathon that the winner
was not a man, it was a woman.
And so they asked her thequestion, well, what was your
secret?
How did you do that?
Matter of fact, she shaved offabout seven hours of her best

(17:33):
time.
And she recognized, she said,Well, the only way I was gonna
do this thing is I had to learnto sleep in five and
seven-minute intervals.
That most folk, when they wouldrun this marathon, because it
takes about two days, they'dsleep for an hour, two, and
three hours.
She said, I didn't have thatluxury.
I learned that if I reallywanted to finish this thing, I

(17:56):
had to do this thing in five,seven-minute intervals, and that
was the only way I was gonnawin.
In other words, while folk weresleeping, she was running.
That's what we gotta teach ourkids, y'all.
While other folk are trippingand relaxing, that's when you
gotta be doing your best work.
Don't lay down, put some effortin that thing.

(18:18):
Baby, you can do anything, butguess what?
It's gonna require some work.
It's gonna require some energyout of you.
Make sure we teach our kids thatlife comes with challenges.
Jesus said, In this world youshall have tribulation, but be
of good cheer.
I have overcome the world.

(18:39):
You're gonna go throughsomething.
But if you know the Lord is onyour side, anybody know He'll
bring you through?
Let me give you my last one.
I'm out of here.
The last thing and the mostimportant thing, she passed on
biblical values, and that's in 2Timothy chapter 3, verses 14
through 17, where Paul says,You, however, continue in the
things you have learned andbecome convinced of, knowing

(19:02):
from whom you have learned them,and that from childhood you have
known the sacred writings, thatis the scriptures, which are
able to give you the wisdom thatleads to salvation through
faith, which is in Christ'swhich is in uh Christ Jesus.
All scriptures inspired by Godand profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, fortraining and righteousness, so

(19:24):
that the man of God and thewoman of God may be adequate
equipped for every single goodwork.
In other words, Mama, Mama Loisand Grandmama Eunice, I'm sorry,
Grandmama Lois and Mama Eunicepassed on the word.
This is not deep, y'all.
We just gotta teach our kids theword while you can.

(19:48):
Whether they're young or old, weneed to pass on the word.
And I know some of y'all look atme and say, Well, Pastor, you
just a Bible nerd, and that'sjust how you are.
Amen.
I am.
And I do love the word, I dolove the word, but I ain't
talking about anything deep.
We can teach them some verysimple things.
We can teach them the Lord'sPrayer, our Father, which art in

(20:10):
heaven.
Surely we can teach them theLord's Prayer.
We can teach them the 23rdPsalm.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shallnot want.
So when difficulty comes intheir life, they'll know to call
on the Lord and know He canguide them.
We can surely teach them Psalm27.
The Lord is my light and mysalvation, whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of mylife, whom shall I be afraid of?

(20:32):
We can surely teach them Psalm37 and 25.
I am young and now I'm old, butI've never seen the righteous
forsaken, nor their seed beggingbread.
We can surely teach them Isaiah40 and 31.
Youths may get weary and youngmen may utterly fall.
But they that wait upon the Lordshall renew their strength.

(20:53):
They shall mount up with wingslike eagles, they shall run and
not get weary, they shall walkand not faint.
Surely we can teach them aboutsalvation with John 3:16.
For God so loved the world thathe gave his only begotten son,
that whosoever believes in himshould not perish but have an
everlasting life.

(21:14):
Surely we can teach them Romans10 and 9 and 10.
If you confess with your mouththe Lord Jesus and believe in
your heart that God has raisedhim from the dead, you shall be
saved.
And surely when they get lonelyand they think their life has
come to an end, we can remindthem of the words of Jesus in

(21:36):
Matthew 28.

SPEAKER_00 (21:38):
Loha! Loha! I am with you always, even to the end
of the age.

SPEAKER_01 (21:45):
We can always teach them the word.
Teach them the word.
Teach them the word.
Tell them how the Lord broughtyou through.
And let that be your testimony.
Oh, the Lord brought an imageback to me on this one.

(22:05):
And I've been living on this forthe last two days.
Y'all know my Lakers are reallyin trouble.
Capital T, I've been sitting onit.
They about to get swept in avery dirty way.
They about to get wiped out.
Can't even get close, y'all, toa win.
But when they played Houston,that's the only thing I can

(22:26):
rejoice in.
They did beat Houston.
There was a player on Houston'steam by the name of Jeff Green.
Jeff Green is an 18-year veteranof the NBA.
He was the number fifth, he wasthe fifth pick in the 2007
draft.
He's had a prolific career.

(22:47):
He's been a wonderful NBAjourneyman.
He has really contributedeverywhere he's played.
They say he's a gentleman withgreat respect.
But I never shall forget on theday he was drafted.
When he was drafted with thenumber fifth pick, he went to
the stage.
His friends were there.
His little girlfriend was there.

(23:08):
They were shouting and jumping,and everybody was happy.
He walked on the stage in hisbrand new suit.
Commissioner shook his hand,hugged him.
He was happy, put on his new hatfor the team that drafted him,
and you could see his life wasabout to take over, about to
take off.
And then they panned the cameraon his mother.

(23:30):
His mother wasn't shouting.
She wasn't screaming.
She had her hands over her face.
And if you look closely, you cansee the tears that were
streaming down her eyes.
Like you don't know what I hadto go through to get him to this
place.
And for some reason, thecameraman kept the camera on her

(23:50):
on her.

SPEAKER_00 (23:51):
And as she sat there, she started to lift her
hand as if she was in church.
I said, you better go home andgive him the praise.
Next thing you know, the handstarted going right to left.
She's in the draft class.
She's not in church, but she'sgiving thanks for what God had

(24:13):
done to her child.
God was on her side.
That's my word to every mother.
God knows what you go through,but I dare you to trust him.
I dare you to give thanks.
He'll watch over your life.
He'll keep your family.
He'll bring you through.

(24:33):
Is that anybody in here knowsthat God will be faithful?
Give thanks.

SPEAKER_01 (24:44):
And he'll keep your family in a way that'll bless
your life.
Anybody know what I'm talkingabout?

SPEAKER_00 (24:52):
Won't he do it?
Won't he do it?
Hey, I'm a living witness.
I got a mother who was watchingover me.
He'll do the same for you two.
Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_01 (25:11):
We need mothers.