A WOMAN WHO FEARS THE LORD WILL BE PRAISED

Nobleton Community Church
29084 Sentinel Street PO Box 224
Nobleton, Florida 34661

Rev. Paul V. Lehmann, Pastor
813-389-8683
Nobletoncommunitychurch.org
info@nobletoncommunitychurch.org

OUR VISION IS:
To experience SPIRIT-FILLED WORSHIP AND PRAYER
To be involved in EVANGELISM, DISCIPLINING AND TRAINING PEOPLE
To use our SPIRITUAL GIFTS
To SERVE AND REACH PEOPLE FOR CHRIST, BOTH
“ACROSS THE STREET AND ACROSS THE WORLD”

Nobleton Community Church
Mother’s Day May 12, 2024
Text: Proverbs 31: 10-31 (especially, 20, 25-29)
Pastor Paul V Lehmann

Listen to live audio here

Did you know that the idea for Mother’s Day was born in a small Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia? It was 1876 and the nation still mourned the Civil War dead. While teaching a Memorial Day lesson, Mrs. Anna Reeves Jarvis thought of mothers who had lost their sons. She prayed that one day there could be a “Memorial Day” for mothers. The prayer made a deep impression on one of Mrs. Jarvis’s eleven children. Young Anna had seen her mother’s efforts to hold the war-split community and church together. As she grew into adulthood, the younger woman kept Mrs. Jarvis’s dream in her heart. On the day of her mother’s death, Anna was determined to establish Mother’s Day in her honor.

On May 12, 1907, a local observance was held which later spread to Philadelphia. By 1910, Mother’s Day was celebrated in 45 states, plus Hawaii (not yet a state of course) Puerto Rico, Canada, and Mexico. Elated, Miss Jarvis told a friend, “Where it will end must be left for the future to tell. That it will circle the globe now seems certain.”

On May 8, 1914, President Wilson designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day “for displaying the American flag and for the public expression of love and reverence for the mothers of the country.”

This morning we want to look at what the Bible says about an ideal mother, in fact an ideal woman. It really applies to us all, both men and women (fathers and mothers). In Proverbs we really have God’s will and purpose for Mothers. This is the highest calling and purpose of women. This is basic for a full and happy life. To ignore it, means sorrow and disappointment, if God wants a woman to have children. You remember at the beginning of the feminist movement, it did seem like women in general began to ignore the God given blessing of having children. Careers took their place. Sometimes women didn’t get married because it would interfere with their careers. Then it seemed that some decided that they wanted both. A career and a family. Many were able years ago to do that. Some of you mothers were able to do that. The desire to have children is placed in a woman’s heart by God.

In our scripture lesson we see that the woman described gives us the picture of a woman of strong character, great wisdom, many skills, and great compassion. Some people may have the mistaken idea that the ideal woman in the Bible is retiring, servile, and entirely domestic. Not so! This woman is an excellent wife and mother. She is also a manufacturer, importer, manager, realtor, farmer, seamstress, upholsterer and merchant. Her strength and dignity do not come from her amazing achievements, however. They are a result of her reverence for God. In our society, where physical appearance counts for so much, it may surprise us to realize that her appearance is never mentioned. Her attractiveness comes entirely from her character.

On this day we honor this kind of woman. When we think of our mothers, maybe they had many faults. You may have had a mother, that you thought made a lot of mistakes in raising her children. Maybe she wasn’t all that you thought she should be; but you still love her. Not because of what she did or didn’t do, but just for who she was. Deep down inside, she probably had character. The woman mentioned in scripture is an example of one who gives of herself.
A mother must first give herself to the Lord, then to her family.

We read in Exodus 20: 12;” Honor your Father and Mother. “It doesn’t say to honor them only if they are good parents. We do it as unto the Lord, because of who they are. Granted some mothers are more easily honored than others. Maybe your children have felt the same way. It is interesting though how when kids get to be about age 25, they think their mothers learned a lot since their teenage years. This probably goes for how they feel about dads too.
I have heard that some mothers have prayed in front of their “hard to control” kids: that the Lord would give them children when they grow up, to be just like them. –Well, maybe sometimes that might work.

You know don’t you, that there is a kind of Murphy’s Law of Parenting. Can you identify with any of these?:

  1. The later you stay up, the earlier your child will wake up the next morning.
  2. The gooier the food, the more likely it is to end up on the carpet.
  3. The longer it takes you to make a meal, the less your child will like it.
  4. A sure way to get something done is to tell a child not to do it.
  5. For a child to become clean, something else must become dirty.
  6. Toys multiply to fill any space available.
  7. Yours is always the only child who doesn’t behave.
  8. If the shoe fits…it’s expensive.
  9. Backing the car out of the driveway causes your child to have to go to the bathroom.

Do any of these strike home? They would be good to share with your adult children, or grandchildren, who are mothers.

Some of you have shared with me your concern that your children aren’t attending church these days, and thus neither are your grand-children. I don’t want to make light of spiritual problems that could be the reason they don’t go, but probably it was hard to get the kids ready for church when they were younger, so the whole family got out of the habit.

You should share with them a little story I read, about a lady named Mary Jane Kurtz. She says that when she was a young, single mom with four children, it was difficult to get them all ready for church on Sunday. One particular Sunday morning as the children started to complain and squabble, Mary Jane stomped from one room to the other, saying out loud why it was important they go to church as a family and have a good attitude. Suddenly, she noticed all four children huddled together and laughing. “What’s so funny? Mary Jane asked. “Mom,” they said, “every time you slam down your foot, smoke comes out. It must be the wrath of God!” In reality, it was the powder Mary Jane had sprinkled in her shoes. But it worked. She says they made it to church on time that morning and practically every Sunday thereafter.

What we don’t want people to do on this Mother’s Day, is take Moms for granted. The best example of this is the Mother’s Day card that reads: “ Forget the housework, Mom. It’s your day. Besides, you can always do double duty and catch up on Monday!”

Now that’s a terrible card. I suspect that some of you can relate to that statement. Maybe no one ever bought you a card that said that, but the attitude was the same.

There have been some slight changes through the years, at least in some families, as to what is expected of mothers. There at least should be more of a shared responsibility of what is done around the house. But as I said no matter what your mother did or didn’t do, no matter what you did or didn’t do as a mother, as an exemplary woman, you are to be praised if you “feared the Lord” as our text says in verse 30. “…A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

The illustration that Solomon gives here shows:
The practical working of a Godly woman who feared God.

The Hebrew word is “vir’a” and means an “emotional reaction, terror, or to be afraid, and to have reverence for God, a deep respect.”

In many places in the Old Testament the use of the term to fear God and proper living are so closely related they are virtually synonymous ideas. If a person feared God, it resulted in living a godly life. The fear is seen as the motivation which produced righteous living. Godly fear is the result of believing in God! When one sees who God really is it will bring about a godly fear of God.

Most people have a very small view of God. J.B. Phillips even wrote a little book entitled: “Your God is Too Small.” The idea was, that

People tend to “put God in a box”—that is –whatever they were taught, or what they remembered, is all they knew about God. When we don’t experience His power in our lives, we don’t realize how great He is. He created all the Universe. The Bible says he spoke it into existence out of nothing. Compared to us He is so much more than we can even fathom.
True belief causes a deep reverence and respect of God.

It doesn’t mean that we should be “afraid” of what will happen to us, if we don’t fear Him. This was a certain theological position centuries ago, and unfortunately is still prevalent today in some circles. This is more than having respect. This is the FEAR that is sometimes portrayed in the Old Testament when God’s people disobeyed. We should however realize that when we continually disobey God and His Word, that someday there will be judgment against those who ignored God and didn’t respect or fear Him all of their life. For those who refuse to believe in His Son Jesus Christ.

The woman who loves God, and has respect for Him, will want to obey Him, and lead her family to love and respect Him; sometimes, even when her husband does not know the Lord, and doesn’t set a good example.

Jeannene and I have a good friend up in Marion, Indiana. Her name is Midge Diedrich. She had 9 children. We first met her in 1969, just before we went to the mission field. She had every one of those children in church every Sunday. She and her husband came from a Catholic background, but as the children came along they neglected to go to church. Then one day someone invited her to a Bible study and she gave her heart to the Lord. All of a sudden her life changed. Church was no longer just part of her “religion” but now she had a relationship with Jesus Christ. She shared this with her husband, but he wouldn’t hear of it. They were Catholic. Nevertheless, she began to attend the evangelical church where she had found the Lord. She continued to do that with her children, until one by one they were married. They each married spouses who knew the Lord in a personal way, and today they all attend church along with all of the grandchildren. Through the years, her husband hardened his heart against knowing the Lord, and would never go to church with her. He began to drink heavily every day after work at the GM plant where he was a successful engineer. He missed a lot of the school events that his children were involved with, but his wife never missed anything. She was a wife of noble character, and her children always “rose up and called her blessed” –like we read in verse 28—and so did her husband. I’m sure he appreciated how she raised the children. We prayed for Dennis for almost 40 years, that he would give his heart to the Lord. Then finally the husband of his oldest daughter, invited him one evening to a “Christian Business Men’s” meeting. Maybe some of you have heard of this organization, who holds dinners, and invites a guest speaker, usually a well-known Christian business man, or professional athlete to share their testimony. It was at one of these meetings where he finally gave his heart to the Lord. By now all of his children were out of the house and married. He began to read the Bible. He quit drinking and began to attend church with his wife, a woman of noble character who never quit praying for him and standing by him. Dennis eventually got Alzheimer’s, but had a few years to serve the Lord before he died in 2010.

The woman who fears God will be praised; both by God and among those who know her. We see that the virtuous woman was a hard worker. She was not lazy, she kept her family and home in order, and that was testimony of her love of her family and love of God

The virtuous woman is trusted by her husband. A godly woman will earn the trust and respect of her husband as she lives a consistent righteous life before him. She honors the Lord and that manifests itself outwardly to others so that they trust her. Her godly life will be a testimony and example to her children of God’s saving and life changing grace.

God’s influence in a woman’s life will show her family how good it is to live for the Lord. Don’t give up on your husband if he doesn’t know the Lord. Don’t give up on your adult children, if they seem to have turned their back on everything you taught them. Continue to live a testimony before them, and to pray for them. You can have a positive influence on them. The opposite is also true however. A nagging, never satisfied, always complaining and unstable wife will not gain her family’s confidence. Proverbs 19:13 says that a quarrelsome or nagging wife is like a constant dripping. (One paraphrase says; like a faucet that goes drip, drip, drip. Proverbs 21: 9 says; “Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

May every woman here this morning be a virtuous faithful woman of noble character who is wise and kind, and always shows Christian love. May you show this by giving respect to God. Proverbs 9:10 tells us that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. The actions produced come from a deep love of the Lord.

The woman whose life is truly meaningful, is a woman who loves and fears God. What a great influence she can have on her family and all those who know her. She is truly blessed!