Genesis: Your Role Or Your Identity (Mother's Day 2015)

Well, perhaps you hear that reading that story and you go, Mother's Day.

You know, like I'm not quite sure if just the next story in Genesis should have been what you stuck with.

And it is.

It is what I stuck with.

Perhaps a strange choice, um, maybe a horribly depressing story, really, but we're gonna go for it.

And the reason why I about, I don't know, Tuesday, I kind of became comfortable with this story is because the application of this story into our lives has to do with everybody.

And because it has to do with everybody, it has to do with mothers.

And so this morning we're gonna talk about this story, and then we're gonna maybe kind of like apply a little bit more towards mom since it's Mother's Day.

But if you're not a mom in here, uh you haven't become a mom yet, or you're not a mom, or um you're never going to be a mom, or you never could become a mom, uh, it's still for you.

Uh my hunch is if you are a mom, what you don't need this morning is five more things to do.

My hunch is that you probably already know the things you should be doing as a mom, even if you don't do them.

That's just my hunch.

I don't perhaps some perhaps some of you, that's not true.

And we'll maybe at some point we'll talk more about parenting, mothering.

Trust me, there's enough books on parenting at this point in history.

Fifty years ago, there's like none, by the way.

Um like literally no books.

It wasn't even a category.

And now there's more than enough for us to read forever and forever feel bad about our parenting while we read them.

I don't know much about being a mom.

Uh I don't know much about trying to juggle all of that and the pressures you feel as being a mom and the comparison and the judgment that comes into mom world in America in 2015 and our culture.

I grew up with a mom who's here who literally laid her life down for us.

I mean, I think back to when we were growing up, and my sister and I always had whatever we needed, and yet I never saw my mom buy herself anything.

Right?

I mean, that is mothering.

You lay your life down.

That is what, that's what parenting, that's what loving is, is laying your life down.

I'm now watching my wife do the same thing.

She's working part-time, she keeps our house running, she's mothering three little kids, she's supporting me and helping me out.

Um, and I can remember back seven years ago when our our first child, our little girl, was born, and I watched Christie go from being uh this praised, adored uh learning specialist at the Love It School down in Atlanta, to now having this blob of humanity that does not give you any praise.

It the only noises it makes, every once in a while it make a cute little noise, right?

You know, that little baby noise, and then as soon as you think it's cute, and then it's always, you know, then it's the baby's just crying.

You know, so the noises it's making is interrupting any selfishness that you might be trying to create for yourself, right?

We know this.

Like if you've had a baby, you've been around a baby, perhaps you don't like babies.

The reason you don't like them is because of this, because they interrupt your life, they interrupt your selfishness.

And having children, being a mom, it just requires laying your life down.

And uh I watched Christy have to adapt, that role adapt.

And then now watching as now our youngest of three is coming out of diapers.

Um now we're headed into a different phase, and I'm watching Christy's role as mom change.

Even now, watching that role adapt, like right.

I mean, that that's that's what parenting is.

Whether you saw your parents do it or you're doing it now, is like this role keeps adapting.

Like how the how the relationship's working, that the role adapts as you go, whether you're having a baby, or you have a toddler, you have a kid, or you have a teen, or you have an adult child, this role changes and it's and it's hard, and that's what I want to talk about.

I I want to talk about the role of mother and how if we don't understand the difference between identity and role, the role will crush you.

Because, and listen, whether you're mom or not, listen, because this is for you, because your heart needs an identity, it does not need a role.

So, what am I talking about?

Well, this is the story in Genesis 25 through 27.

And so in Genesis 25, we have Isaac, who was almost massacred last week by his father, right?

We could have saved that one for Father's Day.

That would have been a great sermon for Father's Day.

He marries Rebekah, and finally, after difficulty, they have two children, Esau and Jacob.

And even when they're in the womb, the boys are fighting.

They are at each other.

So she has the children, and Rebecca favors Jacob.

Jacob cooks, he lives inside most of the time.

Esau's kind of the wild man, he's out in the woods, I mean, he is outside.

And then Rebecca attaches herself to Jacob, who is by her side.

And Jacob, he's not in the back fixing the old Camaro, he's not watching swamp people, like he's watching, he's watching Barefoot Contessa.

He's, and hey, I watch, I I I know who Barefoot Contessa is.

I didn't even have to look that up.

Like I know who she is, right?

I mean, I had a hand in picking out the fabric in our house.

So I mean, I'm I can associate some with Jacob, but back then, different society, back then, this was complete sissy.

That's what this was.

Jacob was viewed by everybody as a sissy.

He was he was viewed as a coward, even worse.

And so while Esau is left outside of the home and outside of Rebecca's affection, Rebecca is just favoring Jacob.

So one day Jacob is in the house, he's maning the stove, Esau comes in from the fields, he's starving, I need food, I'm starving, and Jacob's been waiting for this moment.

And perhaps he's been pushed around by Esau.

We don't know all of that, and we don't know how to the degree of which he was hearing it from Esau, but perhaps there's some built-up resentment here because he kind of jumps at this pretty quickly.

So you got to some animosity here because he's so ready for this moment.

And so Esau is hurting and he tells him, I'll feed you, I'll feed you.

Like, I'll give you some of this soup.

You give me your birthright, I'll give you some soup.

And Esau, he's not thinking straight, he's caught up in the moment, it's a low point, he gets exploited, totally exploited.

And he hands over his birthright, he hands over inheritance for some soup.

And I've heard the story so many times told from the point of view of don't hand over your birthright for some soup, and we do, we do that, and that's a that's a that's a decent sermon.

That's a good sermon.

Like we do that all the time.

Like we hand over so much of integrity and who we are for just something so cheap.

But like to flip it around, and you look like Jacob, like, this is so dirty.

Like, I mean, you're exploiting your brother in this moment.

Now the story goes on in Genesis 27, and their dad, Isaac, he's aging, he's getting older, and it's time for him to pass on the name of the family, the leadership of the family.

So this would have been done in a ceremonial, almost like a religious ceremony, and once it's given, it doesn't come back.

Now the money is headed towards Jacob.

But Isaac decides, hey, the name and the leadership of the family will go to Esau, and guess who hears this decision?

Mama.

Mama hears the decision.

So mama, Rebecca, goes to Jacob and says, hey, this is happening.

And go and dress up like Esau, get some hairy arms, pretend like you're him, steal it.

Steal it.

I mean, what does this do for a son to have his mother rob him?

Like to have your brother favored over you.

Esau has nothing left.

His inheritance is gone, his legacy is gone, his father is dying, and his mother has robbed him.

He has nothing left but anger.

And who's to blame here?

Well, I'm sure maybe Esau had something to do with it.

Maybe he wasn't too nice to Jacob along the way.

But perhaps Isaac never intervened, perhaps.

Perhaps he saw some of this dysfunction, he never stepped into it, perhaps.

But in the text, what's really clear is Rebekah favored one son over the other and then stepped into all of that and created an absolute mess in her sinfulness and her selfishness.

Now, part of growing in the gospel, part of us growing in the gospel, is us becoming more honest about who we are on the inside before it creates a great mess on the outside.

That's maturity.

That's what maturity is becoming honest about what's going on inside of us so we don't just keep creating mess around us.

But clearly, Rebecca and her favoritism, she creates this mess.

That's in the text.

And then we have to remember, and this is the key to kind of applying it into today, we have to remember what we talked about a few weeks ago.

Human favoritism, which is what Rebecca's doing.

Human favoritism involves preferring that which gives our fragile egos assurance over that which leads to self-doubt.

Let me read that again.

Human favoritism involves preferring that which gives our fragile egos assurance over that which leads to self-doubt.

That's why you like that one person more than the other person.

That's why.

Because you prefer something that gives assurance to your fragile ego over the person that creates some measure of self-doubt.

So in our sin of doubt that God is enough for us, we doubt that, and because of that, we're needy and insecure, and we go towards someone and we favor them to deliver us.

And Rebecca goes toward Jacob because he brought her fragile, sinful heart assurance.

We simply favor because we're insecure.

We have lost our sense of identity.

So, what's my point in all of this for moms and for the rest of us?

Here's my point.

It's difficult, it's difficult, but somehow we must live our roles in life while having an identity much deeper than any role in our life.

And so I wanted a mom to speak this morning, and I knew that would ruin, that would just ruin a mom's Mother's Day, right?

To speak publicly.

Who speaks publicly?

People don't want to, that's like the worst nightmare.

And so the easiest mom for me to convince to speak publicly would be Christy.

And so I asked Christy to come and share for about five to ten minutes, I don't know, somewhere between there.

Um, and this was the question I asked her.

I said, Hey, can you just share this question?

How have the dynamics of role and identity, because this is kind of the under underneath Rebecca's actions or these issues of identity, how have the dynamics of role and identity been working in your life in the past seven years since you've been a mom?

So Christy's gonna come and talk just for a few minutes and then I'll come back and wrap this up.

Come back and clean it up after I messed it up.

Um so with this question, uh and Russ kind of talked a little bit about this before.

Um, I had a mighty shift.

I feel like as moms, we either get rocked like at your first kid, or you get rocked at your second kid.

Like kind of one of those is gonna rock you.

And I very much got rocked in my first kid, um, which is Josie.

And I had a mighty shift in my identity just because I think I started to realize that I had been get gaining so much of my identity from my work, from my job.

I was very much affirmed there.

I was told I was doing a good job there, and then all of a sudden now I'm at home, I'm isolated, I love to be around people, I'm not around people, and basically it just that mighty shift revealed that that was where I was going for my identity.

And so as I'm getting rocked, I distinctly remember we lived in Grant Park at the time, and I had a little Saturn SUV, and Josie was in the back, and it was the morning, it was after rush hour, but I was driving to Bible study, and Josie was little, and I distinctly remember riding in the car, almost kind of like, and I feel like moms all know this: like when you have an infant and you're in the car, there's a little bit of peace that washes over you because you can't do anything.

You can't reach back, you might be able to reach back and do the path, yeah.

We've all done that, but like there's a little bit of there's no work to be done, you know, like it just has to wait till we get there.

And so I was kind of in that sweet spot of I can take a breath, you know.

And some of us run to different places.

I think some of us moms at different stages in parenting run to the bathroom, you know, like you're going to the bathroom, but you're looking at your phone, you know, like we all have kind of have safe places.

We all know y'all are laughing because you do it too.

And we all kind of have our safe places.

Well, my car is even still now like kind of my safe place.

I have to drive an hour to work on Mondays, and it's just kind of my safe place where things are just quiet.

But I distinctly remember Josie was an infant riding in the car and just very much feeling at the end of myself of just what am I doing?

What is happening?

Like, I don't like this, you know, and I'm supposed to.

I'm supposed to enjoy this.

This is supposed to be the time of my life.

And um a song came on the radio by Brooke Fraser, which is called Shadow Feet, and in that song, um, it starts out, she says, walking, stumbling.

And um I was raised a sweet southern girl, you know, and I don't walk and stumble.

Like I hold things together, I look good, whatever.

But it was the first time I feel like the Lord allowed me to admit to myself that I was walking and that I was stumbling, and that I needed to admit that.

And um, and then it goes on to say that in the song, she says, When the world is falling out from underneath, I'm gonna cry because that's what women do when you get up here.

So um, it says, When the world is falling out from underneath, I'll be found in you still standing.

And I very distinctly remember, like, it was almost like a light bulb went off of like I really feel like everything is falling out from underneath me.

Um, because I have this baby that I'm supposed to know how to take care of, and I don't know how to take care of it, I don't know how to meet its needs, it's not telling me what to do.

And I distinctly remember it like, but if I was at work, I know what to do.

I know what to do at work, and I know I know how to do my job there really well.

And then here I'm this thing came out of me, and I don't even know how to take care of it.

And um so just to be able to say and be honest, like Russia was saying, like with myself, of that I really feel like the world is falling out from underneath me.

But um, but I don't need to rest there.

I need to rest in that I will be found in him, still standing.

Essentially, that is the only place that I can still stand, is if I'm found in him.

And so from that moment, um the demand of motherhood began to like be stripped a little bit of my old way of finding my identity.

So I had been finding my identity so much in um my job and even in how I was mothering, I just feel like the Lord began to just strip that away.

And um I feel like sometimes too I even find my refuge, and we kind of laugh about this at this point because I feel like dads do this too.

But sometimes my escape from motherhood is even chores because like when I'm washing the dishes, my hands are busy, you know, like I can't like deal with everybody else.

Like we kind of have an escape.

And we run to those chores sometimes, but only just really to realize that the role of motherhood is not a secure place to find my identity.

And um this will be it'll be this way for many more years.

And as I was talking, I was talking to my mom about some of these things and um just asking her like has she her struggle of the motherhood role versus her identity and how that got fleshed out.

And um, my mom kind of had a huge, I guess, realization in looking back at all of it, at the different stages of you know, when you have your kid in diapers, then you're like carpool queen, to then, you know, your kids are out of your house and in college, and um, and then even now with like adult children, and um and I really feel like my mom's more learned this as we've been adult children, but she constantly says she has to ask herself repeatedly she calls it LPJ, and so now I feel like it's like the constant lecture, you know, when you call your mom, she's just the same thing over and over.

She's like, Where are you finding your LPJ?

And what that means is your love, peace, and joy.

And she said, So often if I'm flustered or I'm running to those escapes, you know, of the bathroom or of shopping or whatever, she said, I have to stop and ask myself, like, where am I finding my love, peace, and joy?

Am I finding my love and that my kids are returning that love to me, or that my husband's being kind and thoughtful to me?

Am I finding my peace in that my house is clean?

You know, am I finding my joy in that everybody's doing what I want them to do?

You know, and and that the truth is, and I mean I'm learning this a lot from the Lord and from my mom, like the only place of satisfaction in finding your love, peace, and joy is Jesus.

And we get off kilter, I get off kilter as a mom when I'm running to find my love, peace, and joy from my role as a mother, from my children, from my husband, from my house being clean.

And um I think that might be it.

You don't have to listen to me anymore.

But I my last little thing is um I still fight this battle, and I really wish that there was a quick fix to just like make this beautiful in this motherhood role.

But I really feel like after talking to several older moms and just talking about what I was gonna say, I really feel like it's a constant thing, and I think we have to go back to like the struggle is part of the beauty of us finding our identity in Christ.

Okay, you can fix it, Russ.

Thank you.

That was great.

That was great.

So uh this week I was I was reading some about motherhood and some on some blogs and articles, and and this was an excerpt I read on one blog that I love.

And it's it's from this book called Christ in the Chaos, which is actually a book about motherhood, which is a great title for a book on motherhood.

Uh, and here's what this this lady, Kim Crandall, writes.

I manage the chaos and do the routine, sometimes sweetly and sometimes not.

I read to the kids, but often quickly and in monotone.

I sing Jesus loves me because it's what we've done since they were babies.

I do love them, but this seems like the best I can do with all of their needs and complaints when I've been up since 4 30 a.m.

It's not a perfect love, it's my love.

It's what my kids know of their weak and sinful mom.

Some evenings I put the kids to bed and am soon overcome by tears of guilt and shame.

I imagine that because of my sin, my children must feel so unloved, and that I must not be good enough because I love them so imperfectly.

Then other evenings I put them to bed and I pat myself on the back, thinking what a great mom I just was, and basking in the artificial glow of my self-righteousness.

What a great description of how fragile, how crazy we become when we root identity in something that was never meant to hold our identities.

Uh this week when I read that passage and thinking about Rebecca and the passage about her being a mom and how all that worked out with Jacob and Esau, started to ask myself some questions like do I favor people as to feel meaningful, right?

That's what Rebecca was doing.

Do I favor people as to feel meaningful?

Do I favor one of my children as to feel meaningful?

Do I favor a given role in my life as to feel meaningful?

Here's what all these questions are asking.

Who is my deliverer?

As a sinful fallen person who needs a deliverer outside of myself, who is it that will deliver me from my brokenness?

And the answer is only the perfect love of God, known in Jesus, who takes our sin upon himself and gives us his righteousness, and it is secure, and it is forever, and it is unquestioned.

And the great truth that just this week I was resting in is for me, you are not as meaningful as you are a productive pastor.

See, see, that's the same for you.

You are not as meaningful as you are a good mom.

You are not as meaningful as you are a good dad or a good worker or a good friend.

You're because you're not a series of actions.

You're not a series of behaviors, no matter how noble they are.

That's not who you are as the core of a human being.

Meaning is much deeper.

Meaning is received from God, is secured by God and the person and work of Jesus long before we have a response that creates roles and responsibility.

So, mom, motherhood, hear this.

Motherhood is vital, a vital role.

But it is not the core of your identity.

And this is actually what frees you to be a good mom.

This is the very thing that frees you.

Who told you that you're only the roles you fill?

Who told you that you're the shame of the failure to that role or the pride of the success of that role?

And we so easily replace who we are in Christ with what we do for Christ.

And I just want to remind you this morning, so what Christy wanted to remind you, is that your role is vital, but you are not your role.

You have an identity deeper than your role.

So, mom, you're a mom, but you're not just a mom.

Dad, you're a dad, you're not just a dad.

Worker, you're a worker, you're not just a worker, friend, you're a friend, but you're not just a friend.

You are the beloved child of a heavenly father who redeemed you fully and completely by his work for you.

See, the very thing you need to love your children, all of them, even the ones that are difficult, the very thing you need to love them is to be free from using your love for them as the thing you think should define you.

Here's what that means.

And hold on to this, this is a mouthful of a sentence, and it took me a while to work it out.

Being a godly mom only happens when being a good mom is no longer a self-deliverance project and simply becomes an overflow of a secured yet imperfect heart that rests in the gospel.

Being a godly mom only happens when being a good mom is no longer a self-deliverance project and simply becomes an overflow of a secured yet imperfect heart that is at rest in the gospel.

Roles will change.

Sometimes roles will be stripped away from us.

But your identity in Jesus and God's love for you, that is secure.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that we can be great friends and sisters and brothers and workers and dads and moms, and we can live out our roles to the fullest motivation.

We can live out our roles in a godly way as we become free from using them to define us.

As we rest in greater ways in your love for us as we as we as we learn more what it means to live, move, and have our being right, to lie in you and what you've done for us.

And that you are relaxed at all.

When you reveal our love and everything about the right way.