Leftovers - ERC Mother's Day 2026

Happy Monday, we're back in with the ERC Leftovers podcast.

I'm Pastor Matt. Pastor Chris.

He's here, ready. Total live, totally ready.

Although I thought it might actually be fun as we were, as

you were messing with equipment prior to this, I thought, you

know for a second, maybe we both have to talk into the same

microphone and then what happens is we do recorded like like a

video and we look like cool 80s guys singing into the same

microphone. It is both like a weirdly like

fun but like intense moment for us.

Just both face to face talking in the same microphone.

I I wouldn't enjoy that at all. OK, OK, well, that's that's

fine, fine. See that one?

That's a dream of yours though, to happen sometime.

I mean, it's not a nightmare. It's not the worst thing that

could ever happen, right? Great.

So there we are. We can try that sometime.

Huh. Yeah, once we get the video

rolling, we could we could do that.

Just just us for like 45 minutes.

Staring at a microphone. Like 3 inches away.

To me that I feel like that is a nightmare.

You, you say it couldn't be worth.

I don't think that would be good.

Matt, we've been working together for almost 4 years now.

And at no point have we been 3 inches apart from each other's

face for 45 minutes. I feel like.

I feel like that's a key aspect of why why we was still worked

with each other for so long. Are you saying that would break

the? Relationship.

I would worry. Oh my gosh.

OK. Well, I know where the line is

now. I think you're overlooking.

Oh, OK. I just thought like I thought it

could take our our awesome work relationship to a new level.

Now that is one of the things I value about you, that we have

not spent 45 minutes 3 inches apart from each other.

That is one of the favorite things about our relationship to

me. OK, OK, fine, be that way.

Happy Mother's Day to y'all. We had a good gathering I think

at church yesterday. Lots of there's, there's cold

brew coffee leftover. So that was that was good.

That was a happy Monday for for me and you and Kristen, but

hopefully moms, we felt helped you make wow helped make you

feel loved and cared for on Mother's Day yesterday.

I don't think I have preached on Mother's Day before, before

yesterday. I think that was the first

Mother's Day message I ever gave.

Just it didn't come around when Brandon was here and I think

somehow you took you had the 1st 2 Mother's Days of that's just

how the splits broke down. This is the third year that

we've been splitting preaching together and first time I've

gotten to do Mother's Day. So yeah, saw a lot of you

posting takeaways and pictures and reflections on social media.

So I know I hit home for some of you Glad the the word was living

inactive yesterday and hope that was a word of encouragement and

peace and freedom for your moms out there too.

I made my wife cry. I know that.

So I I, yeah, not that that's the goal every week, but that

was but. You checked.

You checked an important box. Yeah, it was a good.

Yeah. So anyway, yeah.

So coming up on, if you missed the announcement yesterday too,

I, I have 20 days left on the clock here till sabbatical.

And you just kind of explained how that works yesterday before

the, the sermon. It's actually designed, it is a

design that we have every seven years to follow, to follow the

biblical 7th year of, of rest in the 7th year usually of a

pastoral call, there is, there is a gifted time of rest.

So that's coming up for me and Schweitzer family this summer,

June 1st to August 16th. One of the things that I didn't

see, I didn't want to take a ton of time, but one of the things

that I didn't take the time to get into yesterday because I

didn't want to stomp all over your preaching time.

That would have been bad. But one of the things that we

talked about is like this is this is a real gift to our

church in a way too, because what happens is when a key

leader steps away for a season, it allows other people to step

into roles and, and opportunities that maybe they

haven't had a chance to yet. And it allows people to, yeah,

just find some, some talents or some or some ways that they have

not maybe been able to serve because that person always fills

that gap. And I think it can be incredibly

beneficial to a church. Yeah.

So we've been making plans and considerations.

This wasn't a snap decision. This was actually, we decided

this last fall about about six months ago that this was going

to happen. So yeah, we have been making

plans and have people in places, especially in worship ministry

to, to cover Sunday mornings and we yeah, preaching schedule all

worked out and, and things like that.

So, yeah, just wanted to make you aware there's some some

people are asking like they had only ever heard sabbatical in

like a disciplinary way, like, like forced, forced to time off

for a suspension. So there were some not like

accusatory conversation, but some people.

Is there something going on that we don't that we don't know

about? No, it's scheduled, scheduled

Sabbath rest for for this summer.

And yeah, for those of you who don't know Emily, my wife works

as a speech therapist. So she actually has she's off

during the summer. Like she follows a teacher

schedule. So she has to work that first

week of June. But after that, we have 10 weeks

of we're just going to get to dwell together with our kids for

70 days. And yeah, we have, we have

travel plans to see family and spend lots of time on water and

it's going to be great. So, yeah, looking forward to

that. Grateful for that gift.

But wanted to those of you that weren't here yesterday, I wanted

to catch you up on that too. Well, and apparently I I

thought, I thought you made that fairly clear, but I, I did, I

did have at least one person is like is is not like forever

leaving and I went no. No, it comes with the coming

back date. Yes, yeah.

So just let's let's make that as out there and obvious as

possible that Matt is not forever leaving.

No, yeah, just till August 16th is when it officially ends.

So actually the week before school starts back up is Yep,

when I'll be back in the fold in the swing of things, so.

See, The thing is like even that even that kind of like soft

question, I was like, did you see a look of horror on my face

on that stage? Because I wouldn't have been

able to hide it. I'm not that good at that.

And you didn't see a look of horror and deep, deep, deep

sadness and concern. So yeah, we're we're good.

So that's, I mean, I think that kind of speaks to though, and

this isn't, this isn't Tooting my own horn, but most, most

churches don't or most people's experience at churches, they

don't, they don't experience a pastor taking sabbatical.

Pastors aren't in one spot long enough to get to his.

I think the yearly like evangelical tenure of pastors in

the country is still less than four years that that a pastor is

at a church before he goes to the next church.

So that's bad news. I think there's a bit of that to

any There's even some fear wrapped up in that of like

pastors leave. So so like time off is like not

a guarantee that he's coming back.

But that's, that's not what's happening here.

That's not how this works. I have to come back.

I want to come back. I am coming back.

My eyes are still firmly fixed here.

I again don't know, don't know what calls or how, how the Lord

is going to lead or work in the next 7 years.

But right right now on May 11th, 2026, like my heart is fully

intent on having another sabbatical here in seven more

years after this. So like, that's, that's where my

head's at. So, yeah, yeah.

There we are. All right, we are going to jump

into some reflections on the Mother's Day message from

yesterday. I kept it.

I think it was maybe the shortest sermon I've ever given,

actually, even. It was brief, but it was well

done. Thank you.

But so we'll get into some thoughts that you have on that

or just some extra, extra things.

I didn't spend a whole ton of time on the on the narrative or

the illustrative passage for this week, the the story from

Solomon and and 1st Kings, but we'll, we'll get into that a

little bit more. But before that you have you

have some more Mother's Day goodness.

Mother's Day continues today. It does.

The Leftovers Podcast. Moms are worth more than one

day. Yeah, absolutely.

And so I am bringing today. Today I am going to bring top

five fun facts about Mother's Day.

All right, here we go. I'm excited for this.

So fun fact number one about Mother's Day.

It is one of the busiest phone call days of the year.

In fact, phone use phone traffic, it spikes by nearly 40%

on that one day every year. Wow.

All right, good on y'all calling your mom's.

But call her on a random Tuesday too.

Come on. Right, you can do that too.

You can do that too. Fun fact #2 it was founded by a

daughter who later tried to stop it.

Why would you try to stop it? Anna Jarvis created Mother's Day

in 19 O 8, but then she spent the rest of her life fighting

its commercialization. Wait, wait, wait.

OK, how? OK, hang on.

Created Mother's Day. Like, I don't know, I've never

heard that story because. Because now it's like, I mean,

it's a national holiday, kind of like, I mean, it's an

acknowledged holiday. How does, how does just like a

girl just be like, hey, everybody, America, today's

Mother's Day. How does it in 19 O 6?

That would take ads out in papers.

That would take like a month for everyone to even hear.

That's true. Hey, a month ago it was Mother's

Day. Yeah, I actually don't know how

holiday. Creation works.

Yeah, I guess I don't understand that.

Like I'm saying, like not from a governmental Yeah.

OK. OK, So it's following.

Oh, she's OK. She started this campaign.

Wow. Oh, her mother actually died in

19 O 5. And then, OK, she honored, she

started the campaign in 19 O eight.

The first Mother's Day service was held in Grafton, WV.

And then in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill

recognizing the second Sunday in May as a national holiday.

So, OK, so she started like she literally started, she started

the movement. And that's how that makes more

sense, OK. The result?

Resulted in presidential declaration of the holiday.

Yeah, now there's kind of a day for everything there is.

You get online and every day has like 50 things.

So it's national this day, national that day.

Kristen posted National Lost Sock Day.

On this. Past Saturday, 2 days ago For

all of you people who don't pair up your socks.

You got your own. Yeah, looking at you.

Pastor Chris feel painfully judged right now and I don't

like it, Sir. I don't like it one bit, not

even a little. It's it's the silliest thing to

bring out that that so many people felt so seen about

pairing or not pairing your socks.

You have friends, you have lots of friends who who came to your

defense of, hey, no, we don't pair our socks either.

We are very normal people. Thank you.

Thank you to all my friends out there and my supporters who

understand the real the real problem with socks.

OK, so but the second part of this Anna Jarvis, she created it

and then what did you say she spent the rest of her life?

Fighting because it became very commercialized right away.

So, you know, all the card companies, even way back then,

they picked up on this pretty quick and they're like, we can

make a buck. And she fought its

commercialization the rest of her life.

But OK. What did?

What did she think it was going to because?

It's going to happen. Yeah, OK.

OK, well fun fact #3 Speaking of cards and all that kind of

stuff, Mother's Day is the third largest.

I actually thought it would hire third largest card giving day of

the year. Over 113,000,000 cards are

exchanged, second only to Christmas and Valentine's.

OK, So that sorry, as I'm thinking real life processing

this, this that you're talking about the cards thing.

I mean, OK, lends credence then to Anna Jarvis's vitriol against

against Mother's Day. Because I kind of I do kind of

get it because it's the point that you already said of hey,

call your mom on a random Tuesday.

Not just but there's there's an immense amount of pressure,

commercialized pressure for Mother's Day.

I think probably both on moms to have the whatever picturesque

Hallmark family experience or whatever, but then also on the

dads and the kids to give that be that do that for the mom.

So I I kind of get it because again, like shouldn't that just

be hopefully, I mean, in biblical design, it was it would

be that should be every day. Every day should be Hey,

thinking, thoughtful, loving towards your mom.

So then I'll get the package under that under that one day

and there's just immense amount of.

I know from Zero to hero in a day apparently.

I kind of get it. I kind of get it.

Listen, I have done the same thing fighting against the

commercialization of Valentine's Day.

Therefore, we don't even really celebrate it.

I mean, we don't like, we don't exchange cards and I don't buy

flowers that are 10 times their normal cost and all that kind of

stuff. We just don't do it because we

we have taken the position of we ought to be like loving each

other at that level of intensity every day.

Sure. Yeah, that makes sense.

So I don't know if you throw the baby out with the bathwater, but

interesting that kind of goes that way.

OK, so cards Mother's Day though, is only behind you said

Christmas and Valentine's Day, correct?

That makes sense. Yeah, that's fair.

All right, fun fact #4 it's also one of the biggest restaurant

days of the year. More people eat out on Mother's

Day than any other day, once again besides Valentine's Day.

Wow, wow. Yeah, I guess 'cause that also

makes it 'cause you don't like, maybe some people do.

You don't go out for Christmas. Everything's closed on

Christmas. Right.

Yeah, pretty much. Like that's not, I've heard of

people, people like go out to the movies or bowling.

Apparently, bowling alleys in movie theaters are not.

Very popular. In Christmas, closing on

Christmas. But I just feel bad going those

places. I feel bad going to those places

on those days, even with the immense amount of free time you

might have on Christmas, because then I'm actually like helping

people work on that day and I don't actually want that for

them. So therefore I don't go.

You want to like, boycott it so that maybe next year they'll be

like, Nah, it's dead anyway. You don't have to work exactly.

Yeah. And I think I just, I think it's

set. And again, I'm not trying to get

on a soapbox here. There are plenty of other things

I would get on said soapbox for, but you know, I just I don't

want for their for their own individual sake.

I don't want them working on Christmas like.

See, I feel different about that.

I think the movies thing is, is bigger than your little

grassroots movie. Like I mean, Hollywood, there's

some big releases that have come out on Christmas and things.

So like I almost would rather go to the movies to give those

people to make them feel if they're working, feel like they

have a purpose. Like, because if I, if I was, if

I was there and nobody came in, that would be really drag of a

day, honestly at the movie theater.

But if there were actually people, if I was actually doing

work, actually, I don't know, maybe I'm thinking about that.

Weird. But I just think about the

number of like part time employees at a place like a

movie theater, for example, and they're just dreading like, oh,

I have to. Work on Christmas.

I have to miss my family thing. I have to do this and if I don't

come in, they're definitely going to fire me and like I

would. That's not fun, no.

No, I don't like any of that. So anyway #5 carnations became

the official flower because they were Anna Jarvis's mother's

favorite flower. White carnations originally

symbolized mothers who had passed away.

Red or pink honored the mothers who are still living.

OK, that is good. I did not know that when

official flower bought the bunches of carnations for I have

the choice between carnations and roses went with carnations

didn't know that that was the official thing.

So actually I'm curious, Mom's out there which which carnations

or roses? Which what's the do you have a

preference between between carnations or roses?

We did carnations this year, but I'm curious.

Yeah. Yeah, that is interesting.

Yeah, and I do just want to give a shout out again, I'm sorry.

I feel like I'm like self promoting and humble bragging a

lot. Welcome.

Welcome to Monday. Very self congratulate to you

today. Happy Mother's Day to Matt.

Can we can we just isolate? Nobody wished me Happy Mother's

Day yesterday. Nobody did.

How? Dare they so insensitive?

Just shout out to men's ministry leadership yesterday that we

were tasked with loving on the moms yesterday.

I'm doing the and we were given no parameters that that was

largely Kristen sent me a TikTok about Macron towers and that was

I thought that was going to be fun to do.

So other than that, yeah, those guys busted and set up and and

did all the the coupons and the flowers and and the coffee bar

and the photo backdrop and everything.

So shout out, shout out to them. That was just tasked earlier in

the year of hey, you know what on Mother's Day, guys are going

to serve. So shout out to men's ministry

and yeah, grateful for those guys putting in some extra time

yesterday. I.

Wonder what the ladies will do on Father's Day?

Oh, is that happening? I assume OK I mean all all all

things being equal. As it were.

Then I mean. Fair's Fair.

Our ladies, then our, you know, our women's ministry people.

Are they putting on Father's Day, I wonder?

I think I that makes sense. That could be happening.

Yeah. Oh, sweet.

Cool. Am I going to be here?

I don't think I'm going to be here for Father's Day.

We will be in intermittently throughout the summer.

I'm not really going to tell people when we're going to be

here, but. We'll be just random mat

sightings. Random mat sightings?

When is When is Father's Day? Is it the third Sunday of June?

The 2nd Sunday of June? I don't know my I don't know my

holidays do you don't either? I know.

Not off the top of my head. It is the 21st, the 3rd Sunday

in June. So no, we won't be here.

We'll have to see how that that turns out.

It'll be fun. Will be OK we're going to jump

into we're in a couple different passages from Sunday second

2 Timothy 1:3–7

Timothy chapter 1 verses 3 through 7 and then we're in

first Kings chapter 3 as well. Solomon's gifted wisdom from

1 Kings 3 · chapter mention

God. But we'll start with Paul's

second letter to Timothy again just a word of encouragement to

a young pastor a young leader in the early church and Paul I just

the more I read and re read this passage this week that this the

first part of this letter is a keep your eye on the ball

Timothy sort of sort of thing. I keep the keep the main thing,

the main thing. You got a lot of lot of

squirrels happening. You got a lot of persecution and

and extra stuff. I need you to need you to focus

on the main thing, so. Second Timothy chapter 1,

2 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

starting at verse three. 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.

I am persuaded it is in you also.

Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in

you through the laying out of my hands for God has not given us a

spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind.

The first part of this verse 3. There's immense so much freedom

in this passage and I I hope that was felt and heard

yesterday, especially for the moms, but Paul is speaking it

for you. I thank God whom I serve with a

pure conscience. And if you think about his

history, his background, he's not dwelling on any of that.

He is not burdened by his life that came before at all.

I am serving God with a pure conscience, with no, with no

guilt, with no regret, with no shame for the former life that I

had. That's exactly the all things

made new in Christ. If you are in Christ, you're a

new creation like that. That is that attitude.

Yeah, I think it's, it's well worth any number of Christians

dwelling just even on this. And it's nothing in the Bible,

of course, is throwaway. And this is certainly not one of

those kind of throwaway introductory moments because,

yeah, as you examine this for what it is based on his history,

that should give Christians a terrible amount of freedom.

You know, because The thing is like, the closer you draw to

Christ in your faith, the more aware you become probably of the

sins, even the small ones. Yeah, even though, even though

the quote UN quote little ones that you never really thought

about before, you become more aware of those.

But at the same time, there also has to be a heightened awareness

of freedom and of joy and a totally clear conscience before

God because of what Jesus Christ has done.

I just, I think that is an amazing little verse that, yeah,

Christians who especially are struggling with like guilt, you

know, like I promised God I wasn't going to do this.

Like just stay on this verse for a while and remember, and it's

not a comparison game, but remember that if Jesus Christ

can forgive Paul and use him in really amazing ways for the

gospel man, what can he do with us too?

And, and it's not like God is fallen out of the business of

using sinners to do amazing things.

He still does that literally every single day.

So I I think this is a good place to dwell for Christians

who are still suffering from the sense of guilt or shame.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting too that Paul, I

wonder what the dynamic, what did he meet Lois and Eunice 1st

and then and then they were like, oh, and our son Timothy is

called to called to ministry in this.

And I don't, I don't know, because Timothy was about, I

mean, Paul would have been roughly his mother's age.

Paul was about 30 years older than Timothy.

So I guess maybe they had kids earlier, but they also had kids

for longer. I don't know.

We don't know for sure. But because his, I mean

grandmother, Timothy's grandmother would have been like

Paul's mother's age. So she did she come to faith

earlier in like I I just wonder how that dynamic was, was did

did Eunice always have faith and she raised Lois in it from day

one? Did did Eunice and Lois come to

faith together? Was it was an adult daughter and

adult mother coming to faith at the same time and then raising

adult and then raising son grandson in the faith?

I'm not really sure. What does stand out is he was

obviously familiar with the depth of Eunice and Lois like he

he had you see this tender relationship.

I'm greatly desiring to see you mindful of your tears that I may

be filled with joy. So he's close to this family and

not just Timothy. He knows the sincerity, the

depth, the genuineness of the faith of these of these ladies.

There's some, there's some maybe scholarship that would indicate

on these two ladies that would indicate that both Jewish

believers. But because of the Jewish kind

of dispersion, you know, during certain parts of history,

especially early Christianity, that some people believe that

they came to faith in Christ even before they met Paul.

But and they have this Jewish background, right?

So like they're seeing the fulfillment of the Old Testament

in Jesus Christ, even not having met Paul yet probably, and then

they're passing this on to their son.

Now, what's also really interesting about this dynamic,

and you brought it up a little bit yesterday, which is so

Timothy's mother, Jewish, was married to a Greek.

So like they had kind of a mixed faith household.

And you also brought up the fact that he did later come to faith

in Christ, which is amazing. But they did have a mixed faith

household and even inside of a mixed faith household of sorts,

grandmother to mother to Timothy, they like, they just

pass this down. So again, going back to our

women's talk multiple weeks ago, what does that tell us about the

influence of women on their kids and all this kind of stuff?

Like it's, it's substantial, it's huge.

It doesn't. Yeah, men are called to be

leaders of faith in their household.

However, it doesn't have to be just.

That the women don't have an invalid space in the course.

So I just, I, I love that little kind of detail.

And again, maybe you don't get that all that information

directly from this text, but it's all in the subtext of

what's happening here. Yeah, no, absolutely.

And so hopefully, hopefully that came out.

Yeah, because I I definitely Paul is highlighting the

influence that these ladies had on Timothy.

And then the call to accountability of the I'm

reminding you to stir up or to fan into flame the ESP would say

this gift of God, for God has not given us a spirit of fear,

but of power and of love and of sound mind.

So like in their example, I think he's talking to Timothy,

saying in their example, whatever is fearful before you

meet it, the same way your mother and your grandmother did,

whatever whatever was facing them, they kept the faith.

They, they, they stirred up this genuine faith that they have now

passed on to you. And it's, it's resulted in where

we all are right now. So you should also hold to that.

Well, and you mentioned also something yesterday, I'm just

picking up on a lot of the things that you said, this word

dwelt, you said lives in and it can also mean taking up

residency inside. And so isn't that amazing like

the Holy Spirit through these women having taken up residency

in them and giving them this incredible faith that they've

now passed down. But that's, that's what we get

to be as Christians. We get to have God take up

residency inside of us, to dwell inside of us.

And that should give us an off the charts level of confidence

that God is for us. Because in within all the world

religions, there's only one that even makes the attempt to say,

not only is God real, not only is he for you, he lives inside

of you. And I've read books about

Muslims who this is. This is one of the things that

they really struggle with when they think about Christianity.

Wait, you're saying God, a perfect being of perfect

intentions and perfect everything, dwells inside sinful

humans? How is that possible?

And so that's one of the stumbling blocks for people of

other kind of big world religions.

They see that Christianity proclaims that God through his

Spirit lives in all believers, and they really struggle with

that. No, I and that makes sense that

that would be like a, a strange sort of addendum to to the

faith. And not not only that, but I, I

thought you were going to, I thought you were going to say

another, but the, the sort of motherly attributes of God, I

would think that has to be a stumbling point at some point

too. I suspect that.

No, we can't give these attributes to this masculine

God. We we can't speak of it that way

too, but that's man and woman. He created them in in his image.

They get like there has to be God.

God has to be both of those things, has to be the masculine

and feminine traits and defaults and characteristics and and has

to discipline like a father does and love like a mother does and

and vice versa. Yeah.

Well, and that's the cool thing, I think, and that's why a lot of

people I know even who are savvy about a lot of different

religions, there's a great struggle with Christianity in

general, simply because nobody could imagine this God, like you

couldn't have made him up there's.

No way. Because because he is, he is

always, he's always cross pollinating, I would say the law

and the gospel, balancing them both both perfectly, having high

expectations of both. He's always cross pollinating

the best attributes of men and the best attributes of women all

within himself. And it's like, gosh, this is not

going to do it justice, but I'm going to try anyway.

It's it's annoying for like comic book fans, for example,

when you have Superman who can literally do everything

perfectly. Now, where this illustration

falls short is the comic creators eventually had to come

up with something because his comics were so terribly boring

that eventually they had to come up with, oh, well, there's this

thing called Kryptonite that's found on this other planet and

we brought it to Earth and that's how we weaken him.

But it's, it's so weird for I think other people of other

faith backgrounds to look at the God of the Bible and say he is

everything. There are no weaknesses in him

anywhere. And that actually in some ways

it I can understand how they feel like this is unbelievable

because you take that unbelievable perfect God and

then you say that unbelievable perfect God dwells in his

believers through his spirit. Wow, that is a big pill to

swallow, but it's exactly what the Bible says.

Yeah, Yep. So that, yeah, man, it is, it is

wild to think about Christianity in that way, that it just, it's,

it doesn't make sense to like logically contrive all of those

things to, to create it in that way.

You'd you'd be off your rocker. Yeah, a human person couldn't

create that because they in themselves wouldn't buy what

they've already created, right? They it's not possible.

So anyway, that was a fun kind of off the course thing.

So that passage in second Timothy was the the sincere

faith calling of, of biblical motherhood and and a mother's

legacy that that sincere faith. We turned back to first Kings

1 Kings 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 and I'm not going to read this whole passage.

It's a little longer, but the gist of the story is to to

mothers to prostitutes sharing the same sort of household and

living space. One of one of their newborns

died and that mother swapped babies in their beds in the

night while the other was sleeping.

They bring their complaint to the king for him to sort out and

and determine which one, the child, the living child belongs

to. And when he yeah, when he

appeals to their absurd. I, I've wondered, I wondered how

like, I wonder how he's sitting. Like really, this is man, this

is what I'm here to sort out today.

Is is who's why why is yeah, why am I dealing with this?

But so he kind of it winds up being a wise thing.

But it's a very absurd thing in the moment too, to bring out a

sword, say, hey, we're just going to divide the kid and give

each half that'll that's how I'm going to solve this.

Can you? Imagine.

OK, so I I am playing this scene in my head, especially as you

were preaching yesterday. I'm playing this scene in my

head like a movie and Can you imagine how the the the true

mother of the living child felt when she stood silent, no doubt

before the king and this guy, this sword bearer comes out and

hands the king of sword. She is got to be scared out of

her mind, not only not for herself but for her child.

Yeah, absolutely powerless to do anything.

Yeah, because, you know, these women, they don't have husbands.

They're not in in that society. They are not even allowed to be

witnesses of any sorts of anything important.

And they're already at a very, very low level societally

because of what they do for their job.

So I mean, these neither of these women have any case to

make. And I just think like they're so

marginalized in that point. And how could you go about even

solving this problem? It's it's the whole thing is

kind of madness. But the way Solomon does this in

his God-given wisdom is fairly remarkable.

Yeah, so at that, at that point of when she sees what's about to

unfold, she pleads no, she can. The true mother says no, she can

have them. Don't, don't split them.

Don't, don't do that. Even if I'm giving up my

motherhood of this child for the rest of my life, let let them

live and Solomon and the God-given wisdom says only I

mean only the true mother would react in that way.

Give the child to her. And, and I, I highlighted it a

little bit in the services yesterday to it again as you

read different passages at different points in your life,

the, the morality that is indwelt in the sanctity of life,

how you value human life and, and what that then dictates

about your truthfulness, your, your, your, yes, your human

morality in that. I think Solomon extrapolates

that here, too, because because of how she values life, I I can

take her at her word more than this, more than this other woman

who is flippantly careless about about this life that doesn't

belong to her. Yeah.

You know, and, and OK, and you and you did it yesterday and I

thought you did it well, but let's go a little bit further on

then applying this to God's character for the people he's

going to save. I mean, the, the what God the

Father had to go through in order to save us.

I mean, that is that is a death that we cannot of his own son,

that we cannot fathom. I mean, we, we talk about it and

it it, but how can we even begin to fathom what God the Father

went through or this mother in this example was going to go

through to say, OK, I'm going to reject my own motherhood so that

they can live. God as a great mother, if I can

say that, rejects his own fatherhood of his son so that we

can live. Yeah.

Isn't that remarkable? It is.

I just so I think, I think there's a depth to this passage

that again, it shows that God is both a perfect father and has

all those perfect motherly traits too.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And hopefully that was that was

shouted and seen yesterday. So from from the second Timothy

passage, we, we get the sincere faith as a mark of motherhood.

And and from this passage in first Kings three, we get, we

get this sacrificial love that is so paramount to motherhood.

And many of you, I was surprised at how word for I don't know if

you scrolled it down in the moment or if you, or if you went

back and listened to the stream of the message with so many of

you quoted the this exact moment that I was talking about

sacrifice in the, in the unseen moments, in the moments that you

don't want to be seen, when you, when you feel like you've poured

it all out and have nothing left to give.

That's exactly where where God wants you.

And I didn't say that in a way that like that's how it's

supposed to feel 100% of the time.

But God was there. God has experienced that exact

moment of frustration, of burnt outedness of, of hopelessness

in, in, in that too. So, and again, not that he

designed you to always feel that or or be that way, but he did

design you when you're brought to that point to be ready to run

back to him, to lean on him, to understand that that he has been

there and it's in his strength that he brings you through.

And he did he did design you to pour out in that way as a mother

and as and as father's too parent parenthood in that way.

Those feelings are not indictments of failure of of

shortcoming. I talked about the couple of

moments and I I think there's several other moments of God's

frustration throughout the Bible to like that those that fed

upness with just sometimes the insanity of our offspring like

that's that also is not a feeling that is foreign to God.

We, we see that throughout the the the frustration.

Gosh, even when Moses coming down the mountain from the 10

commandments and they're worshipping out like dude, guys,

this is the first thing I had Moses write down and you're

already. Doing one job.

Like so of course, of course God was there too.

And I and I talked about God is holy, righteous, he, he can act

in judgment and injustice above reproof.

Not, not in a way that we should, we should not lash out

in, in anger or judgment. Just I think there's a line

between that and there's a place for discipline.

Surely they, they need to be anger really needs to be muted

in discipline, I think to be to be godly and to be biblical.

But God, of course, can act justly and rightly in that.

But I did just want to point out that that actual feeling that

that feeling of what have I done?

Why, how did, how did I get here?

How, how did I get to this point of frustration?

And then I feel guilty that I feel frustrated at my offspring

at at my creation. And should I have even been like

God went through those motions that that's the flood right

there of him parsing out how, how do how do I work through

this? So that feeling in itself is not

crazy train. But for then we do have a choice

of how to respond when when we're when we're in that end and

biblically, submissively, dependently on God, That's when

we got to run back to him as as both moms and dads.

Well, and you'll, maybe you'll know off the top of your head,

but Hebrews, of course, it talks about the fact that we don't

have a, we don't have a God who doesn't understand.

Right. Right.

And so actually, and you're, you're absolutely correct.

What an amazing thing to be able to say.

All right, Lord, I know you know.

I know you know, because you've been through all these emotions,

maybe even with me as your son or daughter, you know?

So I'm going to need your help right now not to just absolutely

lose it all because. He knows, Yeah.

And I think that's, that's the prayer right there.

When you are when you are at your wit's end as as a parent,

as a mom or a dad, I don't got, I don't know how to talk to my

child, but you do. So help, help me, help me with

the words, open their ears and their mind to to understand and

listen. Like are, are those are those

the prayers that we're asking for?

And it's kind of the song we sing at the end.

I've we've we've sung abide a lot.

I know. And and that's I've probably

dosed it out more doled it out more than we usually would with

a new song. But I think, man, I've just

been, I feel like I've been LED in this season that we got to

let go of self people. So much of our life accounts for

being dependent on God. It we just, we just have to so

even even some of those opening verses in abide for the sun to

rise. We have nothing to do with that.

We fully depend on God for that. There is nothing in any of our

even Elon Musk with all of his satellites and all his rockets

that we cannot do anything to make or prevent the sun from

rising. For my sleep at night, I depend

on you like man you're feeling. Do you pray for sleep ever?

If you're lacking in it, you should.

You should. You should ask.

I'm not kidding. Like wait wait.

Add that to my. List there's there's those

things that I guess we feel are maybe too small to to bother God

with. But if it's what you want and

what you need, put it up there. Yeah, it's interesting, you

know, I'm, I, I'm, I can't help but being drawn back.

God begged his people not to ask for an earthly king over, over

them. And the people just would not

have it. He, he, he wanted to be their

king. He wanted to be their father.

He wanted to be the one who leads them continuously through

that wilderness of life. And when he finally gave in,

because God is, he allows us to make our own decisions like a

good father does. But when you finally gave in and

said, fine, OK, I'm going to, I'm going to put in earthly king

over you, you're not going to like it.

And it's, it's not, it's simply because he always wanted to be

the one who we depended on, not a governmental system, not, not

an individual person who we look to, to to all these things.

But because of our request, because of our inability to just

fully depend on him. What did he do?

He gave us then a king who came in the form of a human who was

able to be eaten with and and touched and talked to, and he

gave us that in his Son Jesus Christ.

And he said, OK, this is the Last King you shall ever have,

and he was the perfect one for you, and he will be perfect for

you in the spirit that I'm going to let dwell in you for the rest

of human history. Yeah, perfectly fulfilled.

Even our sinful outside of his plan wants He perfectly

fulfilled it. He worked all of that for good.

As he always does. Yeah, I think that's where we're

going to leave it for Mother's Day recap.

I'll. I'll leave you with my summation

in our Mere mortal Monday, how we would sum up the message.

Hopefully you took away the godly Mother's legacy combined

sincere faith with sacrificial love empowered by the Holy

Spirit. I hope that's what you heard

yesterday. Moms, we love you.

We care for you. We want to be a community that

supports you here at ERC. So yeah, thanks for hanging with

us on the Leftovers podcast today.

Lots of stuff coming up if you didn't get your summer bucket

lists card and a lot of the events coming up.

We've got a movie in the park. We're playing music at the the

Bix races down in Davenport. Again.

We've got a day at the ballpark, the River Bandits baseball game,

lots of other stuff, pool party, lots of other stuff on there

too. Be sure to grab one of those

cards off of Facebook or the physical one at the Connection

Center here. We'd love to do keep doing

community with you over the summer, so thanks for hanging

with us here. Have a blessed week.