The Lifelong Impact of a Godly Mother | 2 Timothy 1

The Bible frequently speaks about home and family.

And moms in particular oftentimes are a subject of that discussion.

Today, moms get the privilege of being able to share in share their day with the Lord's Day.

And that's a special privilege to get to be part of because there is no greater day than the Lord's Day.

And so to be able to share that with the Lord is kind of a high point among some of the traditions that we have, some of the uh holidays that we have in our country.

It's impossible to overestimate the imprint that mother makes on so many people around her during her lifetime.

Not all of us have our mothers uh with us anymore.

Some of us have are very young and are just beginning in that trek of motherhood.

Either way, these things never go away as long as we live.

The voice of mother is often heard in our mind and in our actions, in our thoughts.

God has something to say concerning the woman who makes life possible in his book, and we'll look at some of that this morning.

We should be people who don't hold back in praise to God and to her for the positive impression that she has made in our life, having taught faithfully and loved us even at the worst condition or the worst times in our life.

This is what mothers do, who are godly mothers, as we have reference to in Scripture.

And it may be this morning that you are saying, uh, I wish that it didn't have to listen to a Mother's Day sermon, I'm not a mom.

And I know that you're not a mom.

Obviously, I am not a mom either.

But I'll tell you this, as has already been mentioned this morning, we've all had moms.

And you know others who are moms, and you and and you know that they need encouragement from you, because that is one of the most important roles that God has given to human beings.

I understand it doesn't take away from fatherhood, but unfortunately, this isn't Father's Day.

This is Mother's Day.

So we speak for a little bit about that that great purpose that God has given to half of our humanity, and to the purpose that he has for those who are uh ladies, women in God's family who are uh who are in that role and performing the duties that go along with it.

I was thinking uh the other day that roles in God's family differ in a lot of ways.

I mean, there are a lot of different roles in God's family.

But I will say to you that greatness in any role that we have been given by God in life is not attained by title, it is not attained by appointment, but by service.

What makes moms, dads, brothers, and sisters great is not the titles that they have, it is the service that they provide.

So just as men are instructed to be brothers and fathers and grandfathers in God's family, so women are instructed to be sisters and mothers and grandmothers.

And maybe you don't have siblings in your physical family, maybe you had a terrible parent, maybe you didn't have any parents at all, and you were a product of our society, you know, being raised in homes and whatnot.

In God's family, all that gets to change.

Greatest of blessings are given to us by our God.

And even when humanity doesn't treat one another the way that they should, or maybe some other mishap in life, so that we didn't have it the way that some others might have had it growing up.

The fact of the matter is, in God's family, we are all greatly blessed in so many ways.

And we have many mothers and many fathers and many siblings.

Glad that you're here this morning.

I was thinking about what type of lesson to preach on Mother's Day, and a thought came to my mind from 2 Timothy chapter 1, 2 Timothy chapter 1.

2 Timothy 1 · chapter mention 2 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

I thought we'd go over there this morning and just use this for our context of motherhood this morning and the great things that mothers teach, but also how it is that as a young person, as the proverbs said, live a life that makes your parent proud, that makes you be able to, after you get older, call her blessed.

Speak of her in highly high ways, in high regard.

So, 2 Timothy chapter 1, welcome you this morning if you're here as a guest.

2 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

We appreciate you being here.

We always want you here.

If you're from out of town, hope that you have safe travels.

And if you are from here in town, I hope to see you again.

I hope that you'll make it a habit to come be with God's family here at Milwaukee Avenue.

We love your presence, and we want you to always know that you're welcome here anytime that you can be with us.

Hope that you can be back with us again this evening at five o'clock.

That's gonna be five o'clock, and you know what we'll do then?

We're gonna continue our worship day the way that we started it this morning.

So that you'll be able to say if you attend that, I have worshiped God all day today.

And that's a great thing to do on the Lord's Day, to be able to worship God all day.

Hope that you come back for that.

It won't be the same lesson.

Don't just repeat the same thing we had this morning.

It'll be another lesson this evening.

It'll be out of Romans chapter six.

Hope you can be here for that as Brother Parker will deliver that to us.

So, 2 Timothy chapter 1.

2 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

Regardless of what your mom was or is like, she made considerable impact on you.

Paul makes mention of this here in this text of 2 Timothy chapter 1.

2 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

He provides some points that direct our thoughts to our subject matter this morning.

So look with me there, and let's read, beginning in verse 2, verse 2 of this text, and notice some principles between verses 2 and 7.

So to Timothy, a beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing.

I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice.

And I am persuaded is in you also.

Therefore I remind you, stir up the gift of God which is in you, through the laying on of my hands, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of sound mind.

Several things contribute to our and our children's genuine faith, as we're reading of here in this text.

Maybe we can notice some of those things together this morning.

For example, in verse 4, notice how Paul says there, When I remember you, Timothy, I remember the tears that you had.

He's not just speaking in sense of sorrow or sadness, but rather tears about something.

And it's what what it is about is his love for probably Paul, maybe for the brethren.

Likely this would have been written sometime after the point that they had left one another's uh partnership for a period of time.

Either way, it seems Paul was as Timothy's father in a lot of ways.

In fact, it's in his first letter that Paul addresses Timothy.

He says, to a true son in the faith.

Here again, we're reading in chapter 1, verse 1 of 2 Timothy to a beloved son.

He speaks of him this way.

In 1 Timothy 5, verses 1 through 3, we see a longer context there in which he looked at Timothy as a product of his teaching, like a father toward a son.

1 Timothy 5:1–3

Our religion, ladies and gentlemen, is about our allegiance to our God.

But God, in all of his goodness and in with regard to the allegiance that we have with him, has caused a love, not just for him, but for those who are his to overflow.

In other words, it is our God who, like a great father or a great parent, would bring love into a family that would overflow even among the siblings of that family.

That's the kind of impact great parents have.

Paul was reinforcing this idea to Timothy.

Love the people of God.

And when I think of you, I still remember the tears that went along with the work and the people that we were with.

Over in Mark chapter 10, verse 29, Jesus declares there that in faith we gain hundred times over, a hundredfold, the family members that we once had in our physical family.

Mark 10:29

That is just a great repercussion of being among God's family.

We thought we might have had a lot of siblings.

Some of us here have had as many of ten siblings, maybe more, in their family.

That's nothing compared to the family of Christ.

Some may not have had any at all.

Now you get to have an overflowing amount of siblings in the family of God.

Look around you.

I mean, as we as we observe one another, it should ring a bell.

It should cause us to stop and consider the fact that it is really true.

In this family, we're never alone.

In this family, we're never without loving relationships.

God's house is a house unlike any other.

God's family is a family unlike any other.

And that is a comfort.

It is a blessing to those who missed out on having Christian parents.

It's a blessing to those who missed out on having a number of siblings.

It's a blessing to those parents or families who've had family members pass on.

To this day, I still have, though my physical mother and father are no longer in this world, I still have many parents.

Just as you do if you're close to God's family.

There's no place like God's family.

There's something to be said for teaching our children to love people.

And that's what Paul has reference to here when he speaks of the tears of Timothy.

Timothy loved Paul.

Timothy loved Paul like a father, as Paul loved Timothy like a son.

But they also love the brethren.

They love the family of God.

In fact, the Bible has quite a bit to say about our love and our affection among one another, of all things that should stand out when we think of the family of God.

It should be this: I love my family.

And my family loves me.

What does God say through John in 1 John chapter 3 and in verse 10?

1 John 3 · chapter mention

In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest.

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother.

For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

Verse 14.

He who does not love his brother abides in death.

So four times in that short reading, four times John references family relationships and he says it's all tied together with love.

And the lack of it means that you really, though you may want to be and though you may think you are, you are not part of that great family.

It is contingent upon love.

Without it, there is no family.

Again in chapter 4, verse 20, if someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar.

For he who does not love God, uh does not love his brother, whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

And this commandment we have from him that he who loves God, who is God?

He's our father, must love his brother, brethren, brothers and sisters in God's family.

Who is it that impresses on the minds of our youth in the family of God about things like this at a very, very early age?

I say to you, unlike anybody else, mom.

I mean, sure, people will hear it as they grow up among God's family from the pulpit in classrooms, but I'm telling you, what I'm saying is that those little children first hear this information from mom.

And I suppose we would say, well, what about dad?

Yeah, okay, dad too.

It's Mother's Day.

It's not Dad's Day.

Yeah, we hear it from our moms, don't we?

It's mom who sings about God in the rocking chair as she's nursing the child.

It's mom who reads a Bible story when dad's at work and gone.

It's mom.

Mom makes the first and greatest impression on youth, on the child that's come into the family.

Whether spiritual or physical family, we're teaching our younger people that there is a tender side in your life for God and for God's family.

Your siblings in the faith.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, Paul talks on this a little bit more.

1 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

Timothy and Silas and Paul were in Thessalonica together.

Not forever, but for a time.

In 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 7, we read about that time period of those three men together doing the work of God among God's church, his family there in Thessalonica.

1 Thessalonians 2:7

And Paul reminds the brethren, looking back on that time, we were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cherishes her own child.

You see the relationship that's being pictured, spoken of in God's family.

So affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel, that's a pretty great thing, but he goes on to say, secondary to that, our own lives, because you had become dear to us.

Paul describes this special relationship as nourishing.

He's using these words, cherishing, teaching, giving.

We gave you ourselves, our our our very lives.

How far might a person go to display their love in ways like this, with these kinds of words as descriptors?

How far would they go?

The answer can vary depending upon the role God has given you within his family.

I understand that.

My thinking when it comes to motherhood translates into the kind of mom who washes and hangs and folds the clothes.

Even still to this day, my mother's gone.

But there's this other woman in my life who every time I open up my drawer, there's stuff in there that's clean and folded and nice.

That great.

Helping them to understand how to listen, how to participate, how to pray, how to sing, how to look to the scriptures in reverence, in honor as they worship their God.

I was hearing some of the little ones just before we got up, and Angie leaned over to me and she said, you know, in some churches there are there are no sounds like that.

And then what a blessing that is.

It's family.

It's family of God.

And it's moms and it's dads who are teaching their children from even young ages, not that they have a separate place to go where they can't be with us older adults because we want to have it just a certain way when we come together.

No.

Family comes together.

Family worships with family.

And family teaches family as they grow older how to do that so that they can teach their children.

Without getting dogmatic about something, I'll just say to you: we have a whole generation of young people who don't know how to worship God because they've always been separated from worship to God with those who are older than them.

That's a wrong thing to do, I'll just say it.

The right thing to do is for us to teach our children how to be in an auditorium with God's people, doing what God's people do together as family.

This is the kind of love that will cook and that will clean.

This is the kind of love that thinks of others almost all the time, putting herself last in the family.

This is the kind of love that mothers were made for and are great at when they listen to the instruction of God.

Unequaled commitment to God, unequaled commitment to those given to her care.

I want you to notice verse 5.

We see there a genuine love that's being spoken of.

What kind of genuine love?

Godly mothers instill in your children.

How to love God with a pure heart, not filled with hypocrisy, untruth, masks that really are not what God's people should look like.

Genuine love.

That's what Godly mothers instill.

But they also instill this genuine knowledge of what God says and how to live what God says in a person's life.

Paul reminds Timothy not to forget about his faith, which is taught to him by his mother and his grandmother.

Isn't that great how he specifically mentions these great attributes to Timothy's life?

I want you to notice in your text there, verse 5.

I call to remembrance, he says, the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.

That word genuine in that text means unhypocritical, free of pretent, false pretense.

Timothy, you've been taught to be honest in your faith.

A person without hypocrisy, living as God designed you to live.

In chapter 3, verse 14 of the same the same book, we read there, you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from, notice that word.

You moms ought to circle that word in your text.

From childhood you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

It's Timothy's mother and grandmother in his very earliest of years, Paul is talking about.

There were teachers of God's word in the home, especially in the seeming absence of a father.

I don't know if he didn't have his father with him, or that because his father was a Greek, he never converted to Christianity.

I don't know the story there, as none of us do, but it is clear that his father was not the source of this, but his mother and his grandmother were.

It tells us the greatest thing that mothers and grandmothers can.

Do is to show their children and their grandchildren the practical effects of having a genuine faith.

Our faith is a product, brothers and sisters, of our knowledge.

Without knowledge, we have no faith.

It's a product of knowledge.

Can you just see then Timothy's mother or his grandmother talking to him at various times?

Casual times, important times, even unimportant times.

Talking to him from the scriptures and what the scriptures teach, stories, principles to assist in his faith that would be built in the future, decision-making skills in his life.

Paul says it was what he had been learning from childhood, and it caused his faith to be a genuine and a lukewarm, rather than a lukewarm faith filled with hypocrisy.

It was very genuine.

Ladies and gentlemen, one of the best things that we can do for our children is to teach them that their religion is about God first and his people second.

And the way that you find that out is by constantly looking at his word and what he says.

They must not hear what we say alone.

But they must see what we live that he says should be in our life.

Void of hypocrisy.

Many things can be overcome with our children.

Some of the worst and most terrible mistakes, but I would say to you that the hardest is hypocrisy.

Those are difficult things to get over, so just don't live that way.

Live in honesty with Christ.

And live in honesty with his people.

Let them see what he has said in your life.

And so first consider our genuine faith to whom we are most dedicated.

What do we emphasize in our faith?

And how does that show as a parent to a child or a grandparent to a child?

What Paul compliments Timothy's mother and grandmother about is the importation, first of all, of knowledge that led to great faith.

Think of the scriptures and apply those scriptures daily in every circumstance you can think of, and you will do well in doing what Paul credits Timothy's mother and grandmother for doing.

When moms and dads impress that on the minds of their children, and they emphasize spiritual things and a knowledge of the Bible, they're giving them the blessings of a spiritual advantage that can be found nowhere else during that period of their life.

Paul says Timothy's mother and grandmother had done it, and it mattered.

It mattered to Timothy.

It mattered to the kind of man Timothy became as he was older.

Then, as we start to close up this morning, I want you to notice verse 6 of your text as well.

Timothy was also commended for his having learned how to be a servant.

Servanthood is not something we do because we happen to have a good heart.

That may be true, but servanthood is actually something that is more often taught than not.

I don't know about you, but I remember being taught certain things by my mother.

My father as well, but but mom taught me some of the things that my father didn't.

Paul says, I'm reminded, or I remind you, to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

The term stir up means to inflame it, it means to bring it to zeal, to strengthen it, fortify it in your life.

Practice it.

Use what you've been given, Paul says, by God for others.

You know, our children obviously mean so much to us in the home.

And as we've been talking about as well in the church, the family of God.

I've heard a lot of people make comments over the years about some of the young people in this church.

Some of those people are growing up and they now have their children sitting here with them in the seat next to them.

Comments that are favorable comments, polite, friendly, considerate.

Appreciate how much the young people here do for someone like me.

Kindness that they show.

And the list can go on and on, but I'm just saying to you, that takes effort and teaching, doesn't it?

For young people to turn out to be the people who are complimented by others and held in high regard and are not looked down on in their youth.

That takes a lot of teaching, consideration for the elderly.

It takes training to teach, responding respectfully when you're spoken to, to open doors for others, to use their Bibles during the week, to pray from the heart, not just something rehearsed, which is fine at first, but learning how to come to pray from the heart takes teaching, taking notes that are religious notes during services, showing love and kindness.

And again, the list could just go on and on.

It takes talking about their relationship with God with them, and it takes talking about their relationship to God's people with them.

You know where that kind of genuine usefulness as a servant starts?

It starts right there at your front door as you enter your house.

That's where it starts.

In your daily teaching, that is where it starts.

When you have time, you ought to read the last section of Deuteronomy chapter 6, middle to last.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

It's a wonderful text that has to do with how parents are to teach their children this way, to give them the kind of knowledge that will impart them to be a wholesome kind of Christian.

Well, a Christian in our day, an Old Testament Israelite in that day.

Every day that text talks about having common togetherness.

When you go out of the gate, at your house, when you walk down the way, when you sit down, when you rise up, common togetherness with family.

Parents teaching children and moms are a big, big part of that.

Finally, Paul says in this text that he had also learned genuine self-awareness Timothy had.

And he's a he is observing this in Timothy's life.

There's something to be said for teaching our children a proper sense of self.

A proper sense of self.

One that is first and foremost wrapped around Christ and Christ around you.

That gives us a proper sense of awareness of ourself.

For God, verse seven, has not given us a spirit of fear, some versions say timidity, but of power and of love and of sound mind.

And again, some versions use the word self-control.

Literally, that Greek word has to do with control of how one thinks.

In other words, what you put in and what comes out.

An awareness of that is important.

Godly moms help teach their children how to stand strong like that in the power of God, in love and in self-control, Paul says.

All of these speak to God's involvement in one's life and in one's choices that they're going to make.

It may be that you are the greatest mom ever.

And I know that in your card it's going to say that today.

I always said that to my mom.

Even when we weren't happy with one another.

Moms deserve respect.

It is true that every child's mom is the greatest mom ever.

But I will say to you that great moms teach reliance on someone even greater.

That's true, isn't it?

Real power to stand comes from God.

It comes from his strength.

And it's good, even at a young age, when younger children, especially the male part of our species, understands my power does not come because I'm good at sports.

My power does not come because I have a high IQ.

My power does not come because I'm good looking, if you're a male or female.

My power doesn't come through these worldly means that the world says, wow, you're pretty great.

My power comes through Christ.

It comes from God, and He is ever present in one's life.

And that person, that person has a healthy perspective on self.

When they look to God first as their source for anything, any power, any greatness.

Those are lofty things to teach our children.

And they help our children become truly what God has designed them to be and wants them to be as they grow older.

These things Paul teaches can extend from one generation to another, from grandparents to parents, to those who are in the church, those who are adopted children, adopted parents, adopted grandparents, and we can teach the kind of things that Paul says Timothy had learned from his mother and grandmother, and even from Paul himself, who considered himself an adopted parent to Timothy.

Made a lifelong impression on Timothy.

And though you may be taken for granted, if you're a mom, in your often thankless job, you are making the greatest lifelong impression on your children that can be made, and likely that will ever be made by another human.

As Proverbs 31 teaches, when they are older, they will be the ones who praise you the very most and call you blessed because you have taught and you have sacrificed, just like our Lord, to prove what you want to see in their life as they grow up.

When you spend your life looking to God first, it should prove to be the best thing that you have ever done for your children and for their spiritual destination, who you will again see even once you are separated through death.

I know that you're working and that you're praying and that you're tending to these things nonstop, without end.

And so I want to say to you that those who are of the other part of God's family, we want you to know that we are supporters of you, that we're cheerleaders of you.

Because I'll tell you, anybody who cares as much as you do for that little one, anybody who gives up as much as you have to, for that little one, deserves to be cheered on and supported, deserves a pat on the back and a kiss on the cheek today, but really every day.

And as husbands, I would admonish you, I would help you to remember that should be something that is done daily by you.

Thank God for godly mothers.

Many women have done excellently, but you excel them all.

Promises of family, they don't just apply to moms, do they?

They apply to all of us.

Let's think about some of this stuff that we've looked at this morning.

There's more in there.

You can mine it and dig it.

That's all we have time for today.

Let's bow in a word of prayer together.

Our Father, our God in heaven, we pray your special blessing on moms today.

The special role that they provide and is truly priceless.

And the lessons that they teach speak to us even in old age.

We thank you for them, and we thank you for all of the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, children that we are blessed to have in you.

And may we all fulfill our part to the highest degree, giving you all the glory, all the honor, all the praise that is due you for creating such a great and special place for each and every one of us who are your children.

We pray these things in the name of Jesus, and we say together, Amen.

If you've been separated from your heavenly Father, any amount of time at all, it's been too long.

And there's no reason for you to keep going like that.

Not when you have a God that contains all of the things we've looked at and so much more, who loves you and cares for you as we've seen it today, as we've looked at mothers, so he contains all of that as well.

And a lot more.

This morning, maybe you're ready to correct that alone state that you've been trying to make work in your life.

Can I tell you something?

I know it's going to sound depressing.

That won't end well.

It just won't end well.

You weren't created to be alone.

You were created to have a great Father in heaven and a great family of his on earth.

If you're not part of that this morning, you should be.

If you'd like to talk to us more about that and how to become that, that'd be great.

If it is that you need to become a Christian to be added to that family of God today through repentance and baptism, we stand ready to help you in that.

More importantly, God stands with open arms to accept you when you're willing.

If you're subject to that call this morning, hope you'll come forward now while together we stand and as we sing.