Not to be confused with Wonder Woman™
- Motherhood (Titus 2:3-5)
- The Gospel (Romans 1:1-7, 16)
- Gospel + Motherhood = Courageous Motherhood
- Mothers have a new Power
Motherhood is primarily about Chaos and Order (Genesis 2-3).
Steven Canfield - Harvest Bible Chapel Pittsburgh East (Associate Pastor)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:43-00:45
What is a great privilege to be with you.
00:47-00:54
My brother Jeremiah and the staff at Harvest Pittsburgh East have told me a lot about your pastor and speak very highly of him.
00:55-00:58
And since Jeremiah is my boss, I have to just believe what he says.
00:58-01:03
So I don't know Jeffrey well yet, but Jeremiah says he's good, then I'm all good with that.
01:03-01:05
So yes, sir, Jeremiah.
01:07-01:11
Before I tell you briefly a bit about, well actually I'm gonna start with just telling you a little bit about myself.
01:11-01:15
Jeff kind of already filled in some of the important details my love for coffee and Andy Griffith Show and things.
01:15-01:20
But I did want to mention again, my wife Christy, we've been married for almost 20 years now.
01:21-01:26
I know I look really young and I don't know how to help that it is a problem.
01:26-01:27
You may think it's kind of cool, but it's not.
01:27-01:29
It's a problem because I have an 18 year old daughter.
01:30-01:36
And so occasionally I'll take her on a date or something and people think that I'm actually dating her and it makes me very angry.
01:38-01:40
So it's a privilege to have five children.
01:41-01:56
I have a 18 year old daughter, a 17 year old daughter, a 15 year old son, a 12 year old son, and we had another one a little bit later who is now six, and will put us in our grave before too long.
01:57-02:01
Yeah, so I love a lot of things.
02:01-02:03
I love my family, I love the church.
02:03-02:07
I love just being able to encourage a body like you all.
02:07-02:13
And I'm excited to be a part of this kind of family of Harvest kind of network churches.
02:13-02:22
We're actually planting out of Harvest Bible Chapel, Pittsburgh East, about 45 minutes from that main campus there in a town called Greensburg.
02:22-02:28
I don't know, I'm still figuring out Pittsburgh with what they call a town, city, whatever, borough, I don't know.
02:29-02:30
But that's where we are.
02:30-03:01
We're living there now, so we can kind of get to know the community and just kind of sense what God wants to do there. So we're very excited about that. We have like a small group meeting in our home and that'll kind of be the beginning of the core group and looking to launch in about a year. So just taking our time, getting to know the church harvest and getting to know our community and just beginning to pray that God will do what he wants to do in that area. So we're excited about that and it's a privilege to be a part of this kind of family, this network of churches.
03:02-03:03
And so we're glad to be here with you all.
03:04-03:06
I wanna tell you a little bit about where we're headed this morning.
03:07-03:10
It's gonna have to do with mothers, since it's Mother's Day.
03:10-03:11
Thought that we thought that would be appropriate.
03:12-03:17
And I'm gonna talk about motherhood, but I'm not gonna talk at moms only, okay?
03:18-03:22
I realize that on Mother's Day, there's two categories of people.
03:23-03:25
There are moms and non-moms.
03:25-03:27
And if you're a man, you fit into the latter category.
03:28-03:33
And so I don't want you just to check out and say, well, this is to mother, so this has nothing to do with me.
03:33-03:35
This has everything to do with you, actually.
03:36-03:45
There's also those of you-- I understand that motherhood is different depending on which phase of motherhood you're in.
03:45-03:48
And so we've walked through a lot of those phases.
03:48-03:50
And my wife, as a mother, has walked through many of these.
03:50-03:52
I've got to watch her walk through those phases.
03:53-04:00
And I have the privilege of having had a great mom in my life. I know many of you may not have had that experience.
04:00-04:27
I had a mom who loved Jesus and loved us and I'm very grateful for that and I'm growing to appreciate what she did more every day. When I was 15 I didn't think she was very cool and she rained on my parade an awful lot and I was actually oftentimes very bitter at her but as I've grown older and examined and seen my wife, mother, our children, I've realized what a great gift I had in a mom.
04:27-04:34
And so now on Mother's Day I celebrate her and I'm so grateful for the godly mother that I had.
04:35-04:39
I'm also very grateful for the godly mother that I get to watch every day with our children.
04:39-04:41
We have some chronically ill children.
04:41-04:46
Two of our children have kind of a chronic Lyme disease and that's actually why we had to move up here.
04:46-05:24
They couldn't live anymore in the south and so they're pretty bad and so we've had to wrestle through that and just watching my wife mother them and be their primary caregiver and there were some periods of time where we were kind of at the end of our rope and just been a great great privilege to watch her mother well. And so I I have the blessing of like watching motherhood like in 3D like really good healthy motherhood but I know not all of us have experienced that And I know that there's different as a mother, there's different stages that you go through.
05:25-05:32
If you have children in the range of one to five, it's a very different mothering experience than if you have children in the range of 11 to 18.
05:32-05:34
A whole different ball game there.
05:34-05:37
And we learned that very quickly when our children started to become teenagers.
05:39-05:43
There's a difference between having three five and under than having just one.
05:43-05:56
So all the different phases and the challenges of motherhood are compounded depending on the needs of your children, the different time frame of your children, how involved your husband is in the process.
05:56-06:02
I mean, you put all these things in and you just, motherhood can be a mess and be very challenging and overwhelming.
06:05-06:14
My point here this morning is that motherhood is a very big category and there's a lot of variety in the joys and pain that a mom experiences.
06:15-06:23
And so my message today is about all of you but it's not just to the mothers, it's for all of us.
06:24-06:26
And there's a reason, it's a very simple outline.
06:26-06:30
I don't even need slides this morning because it's gonna be, the outline's gonna be so simple.
06:30-06:34
You don't even have to write it down, you can, but hopefully you're gonna remember it, okay?
06:34-06:37
Because point one is gonna be about motherhood.
06:37-06:40
I think we can stick, we can remember that, right?
06:40-06:43
Okay, point two is gonna be about the gospel.
06:44-06:47
And this is why, when we get to point two, you'll realize why this is for everybody.
06:48-06:50
And point three is gonna be how the gospel changes motherhood.
06:52-06:56
So gospel plus motherhood equals what kind of a mom?
06:56-07:07
And so that's what we're gonna look at this morning, and I hope that's simple enough that you can kind of get your head around motherhood, gospel, gospel plus motherhood equals courageous motherhood.
07:08-07:17
So we're gonna jump right in, but before we do, before we kind of look at some scripture and just consider mothers, let's just pray.
07:17-07:20
Let me just pray and ask God to just give us clarity here this morning.
07:21-07:27
Lord, I just thank you for the great privilege of being able to speak encouragement to the moms here.
07:27-07:41
God, we pray that it wouldn't just be one day a year that we celebrate them and encourage them, but it would be just a habit and pattern of our life that we'd be speaking into the lives of moms and encouraging them and celebrating them.
07:41-07:50
And I thank you for their dedication, their hard work, their desire to even learn from your word how they can be better moms.
07:50-07:52
And so we want to encourage them in that way this morning.
07:53-08:01
For the rest of us, Lord, as we are just coming this morning to the text, I pray that you would open our hearts to hear the power of the gospel.
08:02-08:03
God, we want to be changed.
08:05-08:06
We want to be transformed.
08:06-08:10
We don't want to just come in here and sing and hear something interesting and then head off without being changed.
08:10-08:13
God, we want to be transformed by the power of the gospel.
08:13-08:16
So please do that in us this morning.
08:16-08:18
It's in the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.
08:20-08:28
So motherhood, I would say biblically, and we're not gonna wrestle through all the text to keep it kind of brief, and I have two Bibles, by the way, I have my sword and my dagger.
08:29-08:35
If you feel like I'm getting too long, just kind of flip the dagger, you know, and I'll be shorter if I preach with my dagger.
08:35-08:43
But anyway, so I'm gonna start with my sword, and what we're gonna do, though, is we're not gonna examine all the texts that I wanna just kind of think about this morning.
08:43-08:55
we're gonna go to like two specific texts, and we'll get there in a second, but motherhood is primarily, if you go back to the book of Genesis, you'll see the motherhood is primarily about chaos and order.
08:56-09:08
So God gives this gift of woman within the created order to be a helpmate to man, to help be a priest in this garden temple called Eden.
09:08-09:19
It's this beautiful picture, and they're supposed to, as husband and wife, man and woman be the kind of vice regents of the world and display the glory of God to the whole creation.
09:20-09:32
So God took them out of the chaos, the unbridled kind of universe, and stuck man in a garden, a beautifully cultivated space, and he said to Adam and Eve, okay, here's what I want you to do.
09:32-09:39
I want you to cultivate my glory to the whole world so that the Garden of Eden would have spread throughout the whole world.
09:39-09:41
It wasn't just supposed to stay right there.
09:41-10:01
God's presence, His glorious, beautiful, delightful presence was through man and woman and their children supposed to spread across the whole world so that the whole world would have been a garden temple to God and all the earth would have sung His praises as the waters covered the sea, His glory would have covered the entire universe.
10:01-10:02
Great vision, isn't it?
10:03-10:03
It would have been awesome.
10:04-10:13
Except that the primary representatives of this priestly work, turned their back on God and said, "No, thank you.
10:13-10:21
We'll do things our own way." And with that, they plunged the whole earth into chaos and disorder.
10:21-10:29
And you see that happen in chapter 3 all the way to chapter 11 as chaos is brought into the world and everything unravels.
10:29-10:48
It's like this downward spiral of humanity all the way to chapter 11 where they're building this tower and saying, you know, it's like this priest, they were looking at themselves like, we're gonna build this tower and we're going to, God's gonna love it so much, he's gonna come bless us, and our name is gonna spread and we're gonna be great.
10:50-10:56
The very opposite of what God told man and woman to do in the garden, to spread a passion for his glory across the world.
10:56-11:06
And now mankind, at the lowest point, even as they're ascending high, the lowest point of civilization and human life are saying, "It's all about us and our glory.
11:06-11:33
"God bless this, it's all about us." And so we just say, "Oh man, this is a mess." Well, in the midst of that, you have this little thing called motherhood that God had originally intended to be this piece of the puzzle of spreading his glory where a mother would, in a special way, would be empowered to bring order out of the chaos, to sink roots into the home life.
11:35-11:46
And it was a powerful, beautiful calling to bring order out of the chaos of infancy and childhood and to establish maturity and fruitfulness and flourishing.
11:47-11:57
She was called to do this in a space or a home, the space where protection and love and provision and growth could happen so there's this flourishing environment.
11:59-12:13
But just like the rest of creation, home life was crushed by chaos and sin as well. And now mothering is even more difficult. I don't know if you're a mom, you know that mothering is challenging.
12:13-12:36
I don't have to tell you that. Mothering is disturbing because to be a mother means you probably have children, which means you're just disturbed a lot. This came to us very quickly when we had our first daughter. I actually was preaching at a church in Georgia, and my oldest daughter, she was screaming so loud in the middle of the service.
12:36-12:38
My wife was pregnant with our second.
12:38-12:52
She was screaming so loud that my wife had to pick her up out of the service and carry, I'm preaching, you know, I'm preaching away, you know, and she's carrying our daughter out screaming, and my daughter's biting her stomach, which is, you know, a little bit larger at that point, and so she's biting her stomach.
12:53-13:00
People are like helping, you know, I was like an associate pastor at that time, you know, one of the pastors, you know, the wives like pull the child off her.
13:01-13:04
And we're just like, oh my goodness, what have we done?
13:04-13:05
We broke her.
13:06-13:09
What have we, this is terrible.
13:09-13:19
Parenting is not, I mean I had this like, you know, kind of fantasy kind of view of parenting where we'd have these little kids falling in line with us, you know, and all in matching outfits going, hey, we love Jesus, you know, with their Bibles, you know.
13:20-13:22
And it was nothing like that.
13:22-13:25
It was like she's carrying her out, she's screaming, biting her stomach, and like, there's my daughter, you know.
13:26-13:26
Happy Mother's Day.
13:29-13:38
I remember one time we overheard my son Hudson, he's 12 now, he was about 3 or 4, he was sitting on a step in our house and he was talking to himself.
13:40-13:46
You know how you try to like listen in to your child's conversation, try to get a little insight into their psyche, you know, by listening to them when they don't know you're listening?
13:48-13:51
So I was listening to him and he was talking about his mother.
13:52-13:54
He was preparing for her.
13:55-14:05
else around, he's sitting there, he's saying this to himself, "No, mommy, I don't want to. No, mommy, I don't want to. No, mommy, I don't want to." He was practicing his rebellion.
14:08-14:23
So that when his mother said to do something, he was ready, "No, mommy, I don't want to." This is the disturbing reality of being a mother. This is what you have to deal with.
14:23-14:29
And so I'm not just gonna preach you a nice little happy sermon about how to be a great mom because we know that's a joke.
14:31-14:33
Motherhood is hard.
14:34-14:47
It is difficult because we have been plunged into a world of chaos and just like creation groans for its redemption in Romans chapter eight, mothers groan for their redemption.
14:49-15:04
As they watch their children turn away from God, as they watch their children's hearts be hardened by deceitfulness and worldliness around them, and they groan and they ache as they watch their bodies breaking or their minds not in the right place and making bad decisions.
15:04-15:07
They groan for their children, and it's not a joke.
15:07-15:08
It's the reality we live in.
15:10-15:12
And so on behalf of moms, I groan with you.
15:15-15:23
I feel the pain because I read the Bible, and I know that the pain is real and deep, And you can't escape it.
15:24-15:34
The very essence of motherhood is self-giving sacrifice, embracing the chaos, embracing the sin of our children.
15:36-15:38
And it's difficult, and it's hard work.
15:40-15:42
Now, moms have a problem.
15:43-15:44
Sorry, moms, you're not going to get out on this one.
15:45-15:50
Because you also have been plunged into a world of chaos, and you also are part of the problem, aren't you?
15:51-15:53
If you know yourself, you know.
15:54-15:58
I mean, despite all what the Hallmark cards have told you today, you have a problem.
15:59-16:01
They just don't make for good Hallmark cards.
16:03-16:06
Your problem, well, I see three.
16:06-16:10
I see three different kinds of moms who kind of work in three different kinds of ways.
16:10-16:14
You have the moms who are trying to be the cool mom, you know, because their mom wasn't.
16:15-16:21
Their mom was the hard nose, you know, And so there's just like, I just got, my children just need to love me.
16:21-16:27
So they do whatever it takes for their child just to love them because they're so afraid of their children not loving them.
16:27-16:30
And so that actually perpetuates the chaos.
16:31-16:38
Instead of taming the children in orderliness that glorifies God, it perpetuates that chaos.
16:38-16:46
And they tend to make bad decisions on behalf of their kids and be very naive toward the heart issues of their children.
16:47-16:51
This is played out very dramatically in a series called The Gilmore Girls.
16:52-16:53
These aren't the kind of shows I watch, just so you know.
16:55-17:00
But my wife enjoys it sometimes, and so I've actually sat and watched it, and it's basically, this is the premise.
17:00-17:02
It's a cool mom, she's cool.
17:03-17:09
Her mom wasn't, and she's cool, and so her and her daughter, I mean, she's the party one, she's the crazy lady.
17:09-17:11
Her daughter sometimes is trying to tame her.
17:13-17:17
And so as funny as it is, it's a disturbing way of thinking of motherhood.
17:18-17:19
It's a terrible idea.
17:20-17:26
It's the opposite of Genesis 1, 2, and 3, and what we're called to in just a second in Titus chapter 2.
17:27-17:30
The other opposite problem is the controlling mom.
17:32-17:34
They're afraid of messing their kids up.
17:35-17:47
They're afraid that this chaos all around them is going to be their undoing, and their children are going to turn from God, or their children are gonna be in jail someday, or they're gonna be just messed up, and it's all gonna be their fault.
17:48-17:49
I was a terrible mother.
17:49-17:52
There's just this constant voice in their head that says, you were a terrible mother.
17:52-17:57
All your children's problems are your fault, your fault, your fault, and they live in that fear.
17:57-18:00
And so the only way they can get around it is just by controlling it.
18:00-18:02
And these kind of moms tend to get angry very easily.
18:04-18:10
So from the cool mom to the controlling mom, to the carefree mom, Some moms have just kind of given up altogether.
18:11-18:14
It's like, this isn't gonna work, so I don't care.
18:14-18:16
And I meet a lot of ladies like this.
18:17-18:32
They're afraid of losing their own freedom because their kids, in the chaos of their home life, it's just too much for them, and they see it as too much sacrifice, too much hard work, and so they just kind of give up and say, I'm just gonna live my life.
18:33-18:36
And the culture's very happy to encourage us in this.
18:36-18:37
You know, right?
18:37-18:38
Just watch some show.
18:38-18:44
I mean, I don't even, I don't know what they are, the view or whatever, you know, and they're gonna tell, they're gonna like pound the freedom of the mother.
18:45-18:46
It's all about your freedom.
18:46-18:47
You need to know who you are.
18:47-18:48
You need to have time for yourself.
18:48-18:50
It's all about you, you, you, you, you.
18:51-18:54
And that's the very opposite language of motherhood, isn't it?
18:54-18:55
Motherhood is sacrifice.
18:56-18:59
It's laying your life down on behalf of your children.
19:02-19:05
So the movies come out that are, you know, I've never seen these obviously either.
19:05-19:07
Bad Moms, I don't know, one and two.
19:07-19:08
They keep coming out.
19:08-19:10
I guess people liked them so much, you know.
19:10-19:12
I just remember seeing the preview for it back in 2016.
19:13-19:17
I saw this preview and it was called "Bad Moms." I'm like, that looks edifying, you know.
19:17-19:19
Let's get our tickets now.
19:21-19:22
It was such a hit, I guess.
19:22-19:25
They made a second one, you know, "Bad Moms at Christmas Time" or whatever.
19:25-19:27
It's just like, what in the world?
19:27-19:28
So I mean, I'm sure it's funny.
19:28-19:29
I actually looked it up.
19:29-19:33
Since I hadn't watched it and I really don't care to, I looked up what is this about, you know.
19:34-19:35
Is it really just about moms being bad?
19:36-19:37
Like, you know, this is great.
19:38-19:44
This is what it says, "When three overworked and underappreciated moms" - overworked and underappreciated moms, isn't that every mom?
19:46-19:47
That's what I thought too, but okay.
19:47-19:52
When three overworked and underappreciated moms, and I think you're supposed to be like, "Oh, I can't believe that.
19:52-19:57
How could that be?" "Are pushed beyond their limits," which I think for my wife feels like every day.
19:58-20:01
If you're a mom, you feel like you're pushed beyond your limits every single day.
20:03-20:09
They ditch their conventional responsibilities for a jolt of long overdue freedom fun and comedic self-indulgence.
20:11-20:14
So obviously, that's a problem biblically.
20:16-20:17
So this is where we come to the text.
20:17-20:18
So let's just look at Titus.
20:18-20:20
We're just gonna get a couple little texts this morning.
20:20-20:21
Look at Titus chapter two.
20:22-20:29
And I think it's just interesting how Paul deals with this a little bit in Titus chapter two, verse five.
20:30-20:36
He's talking specifically to Titus, telling him how to be a good elder in this church setting.
20:37-20:42
And he's telling him how to approach different people in his congregation, in the body here.
20:43-20:50
And so he speaks specifically to Titus about how to encourage the older women to encourage the younger women.
20:52-20:59
This is what he says, Titus 2, 3, "Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slave to much wine.
21:00-21:21
They are to teach what is good." what's the good thing these older ladies are teaching, verse four, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands that the word of God may not be reviled.
21:22-21:26
Now there's a lot here and I'm not gonna break all this down because of time.
21:26-21:28
I just want you to see something here.
21:29-21:33
Paul is not relegating women to home confinement here.
21:33-21:34
That's not the point of this text.
21:36-21:41
He's encouraging them toward an anti-chaos mentality and work ethic within their home.
21:42-21:44
This is what he wants.
21:44-21:52
He wants them to understand their gifting as the order bringers of their homes, the root sinkers in the context of their home.
21:53-21:59
Because women by nature, and when I say nature, that's like code language for the creational intention of God.
21:59-22:00
This was God's idea.
22:00-22:15
So women by nature, in their physical, mental, relational, emotional makeup, are especially gifted by God to bring order in a powerful and fruitful way in the home life for the good of all.
22:15-22:17
This is a beautiful vision, by the way.
22:18-22:22
And so Paul is pointing Titus to talk to the older ladies.
22:23-22:24
They've been there, done that.
22:24-22:25
They know what this is about.
22:26-22:34
They're supposed to tell the younger ladies and train them and teach them how to bring order and beauty in their own home context.
22:35-22:39
It's a beautiful vision that God is giving to Titus here.
22:41-22:49
Now, this doesn't mean from a biblical perspective that women have nothing to do or to offer in the church or the community at large.
22:49-22:50
Quite the opposite, actually.
22:50-23:07
If you know the Bible, you know the Bible gives many examples of strong, gifted women who helped their family, their community, their nation in heroism, leadership, unction, wisdom, courage, teaching, discipleship, testimony, financial backing, and more.
23:08-23:15
I mean, the Bible is full of strong, godly women who spread a passion for God's glory, okay?
23:16-23:22
But what this doesn't mean is that a woman's special gifting to bring order to the home should be overlooked.
23:23-23:25
It should be celebrated.
23:25-23:29
And it shouldn't just be abandoned because the culture says home isn't as important.
23:31-23:34
It's not as meaningful as the community, or the marketplace, or government.
23:34-23:35
That's just absolutely not true.
23:37-23:47
Our culture will admit-- I think you'll agree with this-- that women are better equipped and more intuitive at home life cultivation than men are.
23:48-23:49
Our culture will tell you that.
23:49-23:50
You can watch interviews.
23:50-23:50
You can watch movies.
23:51-23:56
and read the books, they will say that women are more intuitive and better at this.
23:58-24:10
But the problem is, this is where the culture feels the rub, motherhood by its very nature is a demanding and sacrificial endeavor, so no matter how you slice it, to be a good mom is hard work.
24:11-24:13
And our culture pushes back on that for some reason.
24:13-24:25
And so in the soon to be released movie I am excited about, Incredibles 2, I just saw in theaters, this preview, and it was like, oh, this is about motherhood, so this is gonna be interesting.
24:25-24:35
So the preview basically was showing the incompetence of the man, the husband, to run the home when mom is called on to save the world.
24:36-24:37
There's been lots of movies made like that.
24:37-24:50
But the point is that yes, the culture is saying yes, moms are better bringing order and a life giving to the home, but we're not supposed to think that they're not better at everything else too.
24:50-24:52
That's the message, right?
24:53-24:56
I'm a better mom and I can save the world just as good as you can.
24:56-25:01
That's kind of the message of this and it's intended to lift high women.
25:01-25:03
And I totally agree with lifting high women.
25:03-25:05
I just think we should do it in a better way.
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Biblically, Incredibles 2 misses the point.
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The question isn't are moms better at other things than men but how valuable is the work that mothers do primarily behind the doors of their home?
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How valuable is this work called motherhood?
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The answer of course is it's really, really, really valuable and important.
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To lose good mothering is to lose order and love in the home, and to lose order and love in the home is devastating to the next generation as well as to the communities and the nations with which they are a part of.
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To lose a passion and perseverance in the difficult work of being a mom is to lose too much.
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And so biblically, like Paul, we celebrate what mothers are doing behind the doors of their home, even if our culture and our community doesn't see the great glory and value of it.
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So this is why older women need to encourage the younger women to love their husbands and their children and to be good workers at home, because the biblical task of motherhood is massive.
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It's so big it can scare some moms, either because they fear failure in the future or they fear they're to blame when their lives of their children take a chaotic turn.
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And this brings us to the second part of our sermon and the good part of our sermon.
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Because I told you this is about motherhood and it's about the gospel.
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This is good news for moms.
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Good news for moms and the rest of us.
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Because the good news of the gospel is that Jesus, His rescue and reign has already begun, has broken into life through his death and resurrection.
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Okay, so this is, we're doing a little biblical theology here with these rackets, okay?
26:58-27:00
These are, I don't know, what are these things?
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Badminton, yes, thank you.
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It's not really my sport.
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Basketball's more my thing, you know, or anything physical, punching people.
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No, I'm joking.
27:08-27:12
So badminton, I don't really use it much for badminton, but we do have carpenter bee problems here.
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I don't know if that's a normal thing around here, so I use them to kill, I've killed about 50 so far, but this is my weapons and my kids use them for badminton.
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But they're gonna serve to help us see something about the gospel, this is awesome.
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So a lot of us just think the gospel is how we get saved, but that's not how Paul talked about the gospel.
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The gospel isn't how to get saved, that's part of it.
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The gospel is about what God is doing as he breaks in onto this world and fixes the chaos and mess.
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It's an announcement.
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It's not even a theology, it's an announcement.
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Jesus is Lord.
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That's the essence of the gospel.
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That Jesus, Jewish man Jesus, in answer to all the promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and on and on it goes, Jesus is the one who steps into time and space and brings in a rescue operation.
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He's rescuing the world, he's rescuing Israel on behalf of Israel, the whole world.
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So here's what happens.
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We are living, I want you to let this little circle represent the present age.
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How many of you live in the present age?
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Do you guys live in, okay, if you don't raise your hand, we got a problem, okay?
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'Cause I don't know where you live, but you live in the present age, so this circle represents the present age.
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Now this circle right here represents the age to come.
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Right?
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So you're the present age, and you have the age to come.
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Now here's the, this is the good news.
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When Jesus died on the cross and defeated death, something happened.
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He actually won a victory, all right?
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This is world shattering.
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When he rose from the grave, he defeats death, forgiving sins, bringing Israel out of their exile, and now we are able to be a part of this, and so we're living in this present age that's chaotic and full of sin, and so we're like, Lord, help us, And so he sends Jesus to defeat the powers that be, the chaos that's going crazy in this sphere.
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And when Jesus rises from the grave, he does something unbelievable.
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He brings in the coming age into the present age.
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And you know, if you are in Christ, if you trust in Jesus, do you know where you live now?
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You live in this little section of this present age and the age to come.
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In other words, new creation, the coming age, new creation has broken into the old.
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And we now, if you're a follower of Christ, you live in this part, this little sphere.
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That's why Paul can talk about you like seated with Christ in the heavenlies, and he can talk about you being perfect and all these crazy things.
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You're like, I don't know what world he lives in.
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I don't know what he's smoking, you know?
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You know why?
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Do you know what he's saying?
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He's saying that this heaven, the age to come, has broken in, and now we live.
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Jesus was the first fruits of the new creation, and we live in this little sphere that Jesus resurrected and is rectorated.
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New creation body lives in.
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We live with him in that new creation realm.
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Oh my goodness, this changes everything.
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This changes everything for motherhood.
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This is the good news for mothers God said in Revelation 21, I am making all things new.
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And sometimes we think, oh yeah, that's at the end of Revelation, Revelation chapter 21.
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No, he's saying that on behalf of everything that has happened since the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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When Jesus raised from the grave, God says, I am making all things new.
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Which means that we're a part of that project.
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We're a part of the making all things new people.
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That makes every mother in here a different mother than any other mother in this culture.
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Because you're a part of God's project of making all things new.
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That's who you are.
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You're new creation.
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This is massive and significant because it means there is a new reality that we live in.
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This new reality is this new creation, that new age breaking into the old present age.
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This also means that we have a new identity.
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You can see this in the book of Romans.
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Turn to the book of Romans, this is the last text we'll turn to, Romans chapter 1.
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We have a new identity now.
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We are the ones in Romans 1-7 who are called to be saints.
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We are the ones who belong to Jesus.
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Let me just read this awesome text, Romans 1, 1-7, and then we'll skip to page 16.
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Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the glory of God.
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Now he's getting ready to tell a little synopsis of the gospel story.
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Which he promised, the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord." All that is loaded.
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We don't have time to unpack it, but if you have time to wrestle with that text, I would highly encourage it.
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"Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the nations," which was the promise he gave to Abraham thousands of years prior, that they would be a light to the nations, that this Israel, this people of God would be a light to the nations.
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Now Paul is saying that is happening, including you, so the people at Rome, the church at Rome and us, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
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Here's the good news.
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If you are in Christ, if you have trusted in what Jesus Christ did in the cross and the resurrection, then you have a new identity.
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You are those who belong to Jesus.
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I wish I could explain to you how big this is.
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You are those who are loved by God, who are called to be saints.
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This is who you are.
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This gives you a whole new vision for life.
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You belong to Jesus Christ.
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You have a new identity.
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There's a new reality that is broken in.
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Not only that, but you have a new power.
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Look at Romans 1, 16.
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For I am not ashamed of the gospel.
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You say, Paul's talking about the gospel a lot.
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I know, it's great, isn't it?
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The whole book of Romans, by the way, is about the gospel.
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It's the whole gospel unpacked.
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And it reaches its climax at chapter 11, which is really weird if all you know is the Romans road, because the gospel goes way farther than the Romans road.
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It goes to Romans chapter eight, where God's gonna restore all of creation, and it goes to chapter 11, where God's gonna be faithful to the promises to his people, and all his people and all creation are gonna experience a great renovation and renewal.
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It's unbelievable.
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The vision will just blow your mind, which is why Paul, at the end of chapter 11, just breaks out in praise.
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He can't even know what to say.
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He just kinda like, "Hallelujah," you know?
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And that's what happens.
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It's because if you track with him from Romans chapter one to 11, you're left just like, I don't know what to say.
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The vision's so beautiful, it's so big.
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It's the gospel.
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It's the announcement that Jesus is Lord.
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He says, "I'm not ashamed of the gospel, "for it is the power of God for salvation "to everyone who believes." Now don't miss this.
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I don't normally talk a lot about the Greek and all that kind of stuff, you know, but just indulge me for a second.
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So this is a misunderstood passage.
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The gospel isn't just for unbelievers to get saved.
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That's so not how Paul talks about the gospel.
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The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
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In the Greek, that's in the present tense, okay?
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Which is really important, especially here.
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Because what that means is it's saying that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who goes on believing.
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It's not just a one-time thing.
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The gospel is supposed to be with you every day.
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Like if you're saying, how do I navigate as a Christian?
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How do I be, you know, what am I supposed to do in my work?
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And all the questions that you have about Christianity are answered in the gospel.
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The gospel is the power of God for salvation.
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And when Paul's talking about salvation, he's not just talking about getting saved.
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He's talking about the work of salvation that God is doing, which he's gonna unpack in the rest of the book of Romans.
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So here's the point, God gives us this power called the gospel that's like a grenade in our life that constantly goes off and rearranges us and changes us.
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The more we understand the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ and his great reign over all things and the renewal that is brought into this world, the more we change and are transformed and become like Jesus.
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You can't just become like Jesus by going, "I wonder what Jesus would do." It's nice, but it won't work.
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You can say, "What would Jesus do all day?" But what you actually need is you need to look at the gospel.
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The gospel, Paul says, is the power of God for salvation to those who go on believing.
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The more you understand the gospel, the more you embrace the gospel, the more like Jesus you will become.
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It's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
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You have a new power.
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It transforms your trust, it transforms your existence, it transforms your thinking, it transforms what you treasure, which is why Paul said he's not ashamed of it, he doesn't fear.
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And you have a new vocation now.
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You're called to be saints.
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You're ushered back into this priestly role that Adam and Eve lost in the garden.
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You get to be priests to God now.
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You get to like mediate between the world and God God is like. This is who He is. He loves truth and beauty and goodness and order.
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And this is how He's remaking us. He's making all things new and I'm part of this project. I'm being transformed every day by the power of this good news, this announcement that Jesus is King of the world, that He is Lord. Now, the last thing I want to say is simply this. How does this change motherhood? I mean, I could spend all day in the gospel and we can do that.
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We can go through the book of Romans and we can just like celebrate the gospel, but we gotta close out here.
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The way we close out is just by applying this to, how does the gospel impact mothers?
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Because I just said it's changing everything.
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If that's true, then it's changing motherhood.
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So how does the gospel make mothers courageous?
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In other words, how does the gospel help mothers to live without fear, because what I've seen, I'm not a mother, but what I've seen, is that one of the greatest challenges with motherhood is fear.
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Fear that you will fail, or fear that you have failed.
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So how does the gospel change the sense of guilt and fear of failure that mothers have, the fear of losing control, the fear of losing your children, their life or their love or their respect, the feel of losing your own self and your own freedom.
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How does the gospel flip that all upside down?
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So the good news of Jesus's great renewal project, the gospel gives mother's permission to parent without fear.
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And I'll just say as simply as I can in this way, the gospel centers moms on their new identity, okay?
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So if you're a mom out there today, I celebrate you, as you know I do.
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But being a mom is not primarily who you are.
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I know, ladies, that their motherhood is-- it defines them in every way.
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It is who they are.
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Their children are everything.
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And I would say, as a Christian mom, that can't be.
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Your identity is no longer mother.
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That is part of it.
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but first and foremost, your identity is follower of King Jesus.
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And it's not if you just like, that's what I want it to be.
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No, this is the reality, this is a fact.
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If you are in Christ, if you trust in Jesus, then as a mother, your chief identity is Jesus follower.
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And oh my goodness, what a beautiful thing if your children can see this.
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You're not a cool mom, that's okay.
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You don't have to be a cool mom.
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You're a Jesus follower, Mom.
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That's who you are.
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That's your primary identity.
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A gospel-centered mom, though, also has a new power.
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This is good news.
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You have a power that other mothers don't have access to.
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What is it?
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It's gospel power.
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You know that grenade of the gospel that changes our life?
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Here's the good news.
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You're only gonna become a better and better and better mom because the gospel will do its work in your life.
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It's a promise.
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Jesus said that he's gonna be faithful to us to the end.
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The promise is that if you rest in the gospel, if you find your strength in the gospel, that it will make you the best human possible, the best mother possible, you'll become more like Jesus.
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So we have this new power.
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So when you fail as a mom, when you lose your temper as a mom, when you make stupid decisions as a mother that negatively affects your child.
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How many of you mothers have ever made a bad decision that's negatively affect your child, right?
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Honestly, we do it every day.
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I mean, I'm gonna speak as a father now.
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I do it all the time.
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And I can either live and beat myself up, or I can say, no, I have a new power.
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The gospel is changing this messed up dad.
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Just like I can look at my wife and I can say to my kids, your mother has issues, I know, she knows it too.
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But here's the good news, Jesus is changing her.
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The gospel is doing its work.
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She's only gonna get better from here on out.
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That's good news for children.
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I've seen this in my mom.
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I've seen her mature as a mother, the older she gets.
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And that's the work of the gospel.
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It's the work of Jesus in her.
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And that's the good news.
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Here's more good news for your mom.
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This might be even more enjoyable for you.
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This power also works towards your children.
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The most potent thing you have in your back pocket is not threats or strategy or the newest book.
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The most potent thing you have is the story of God's grace breaking into a world of chaos and sin, rescuing humanity by the power of Jesus Christ and his powerful redemption, his powerful resurrection.
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That story, the gospel, is the most powerful thing you have in parenting.
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It's funny, we never even access it.
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It's the most powerful thing you have to change the hearts of your children.
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So you don't have to be a controlling mom anymore because grace will always override your control anyway.
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And so we're freed to not fear, to trust, and to keep bringing Jesus before our children.
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Jesus, he is the rescuer.
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He's the one who fixes everything.
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I am broken, you are broken, but Jesus rescues and fixes the mess that we are.
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Gospel-centered mom has a new vocation.
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Her primary vocation is not her job or even her motherhood, as important as all that is.
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A mother's primary vocation is one of sainthood and priesthood before God.
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If you don't understand that, you're gonna have to wrestle with that in scripture a little bit, but here's the deal.
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Your primary vocation is to demonstrate and display the glory of God to people around them, whether it be your children, your husband, your neighbors, those who work with you.
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This is your primary vocation as the people of God.
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So here's the deal.
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The reason this is to everybody is because the gospel doesn't just change moms, it changes dads, it changes kids, it changes all of us.
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I mean, the gospel, the powerful story Jesus did, the announcement that He is here and He is Lord and He's bringing in new creation, that changes everything. And so I want to encourage you as mothers to embrace that in your motherhood, to embrace the gospel in your motherhood.
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And what you will find is that you will have a new power in motherhood that you didn't know you had. The powerful resurrection of Jesus, you get to participate in that in the gospel. That's why Paul says it is the power of God.
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It's not just talking about the power of God, it is the power of God. Unto salvation for all those who go on believing. And so I want to encourage you as moms and as dads and as young people and as those who are in college and those who are just working the job and those who are retired and those who children have left, every phase and group of people in here, we will be transformed by the powerful gospel. And when that happens, you'll look around and you'll see courageous moms, fearless moms. How do they get like that? How are they, how do they don't live in guilt and fear? And it's because the gospel, new creation is here, and we're a part of it. So we can rest in what Jesus has done and nod in our ability to fix our kids and to make it all work in our home.
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Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?
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Would you as a mom just rejoice in the beautiful news of the gospel and how it changes everything about motherhood?
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And would you just say, Lord, I wanna be a courageous mom.
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So I'm gonna start looking at the gospel.
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I'm gonna start accessing the power of the gospel that you've given.
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Truth, the reality, the announcement that Jesus is king of the world, that changes everything.
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And then for the rest of us, I mean some of you may be sitting here and you don't even understand what I'm talking about.
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You don't understand the gospel, you don't understand what's the big deal about Jesus being Lord, you don't understand how that changes literally everything.
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I would encourage you to seek one of the elders out or somebody in this, Pastor Jeff or whoever and just ask them to wrestle with you.
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about the significance of what Jesus Christ did in his death and resurrection.
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And for those of us who do know Jesus, but we have not accessed the power of the gospel in our everyday life, man, we need to repent.
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We need to turn and we need to look at the cross and the resurrection.
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That needs to be the very paradigm we live our whole life by.
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The new power we live in.
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Lord, I just pray that you would help us to see the beauty, the power, the glory of the gospel, so that we would exalt Jesus Christ, and so that we would be part of this new creation project.
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We thank you for this beautiful vision, and we thank you for moms, and how they keep working and pressing, and God, I just pray that this would be an encouragement to them, and it would free them to not live in fear, but they would live by the power of the gospel.
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It's in your name we pray, amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Titus 2:3-5
What ways do God's grace allow you to be a better mother?
How did you see God's grace presented in your mother's care for you growing up?
How can you give grace back to your mother this week?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for your mother and specifically the mother's in your group.