John 3:16 Mother’s DayElderly Care Ministry
Since it’s Mother’s Day, I want to start by talking a little about moms because they are truly people to be honored … Dads are important, too, but MOMS … they’re the ones who really keep the family together. They can read your face and sense immediately when something’s wrong; they’re the ones who’ll stay up with you to finish your school project; they’re the ones who make sure you’ve eaten enough, and that you take the leftovers to pack for lunch. Very practical.
Some words we might use to describe moms are – “giving, caring, sacrificial, protective, serving, tireless.
In short, moms are pretty amazing people… they really embody love.
The truest, most perfect love is found in God himself. Here’s a famous verse that describes God’s love.
John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Giving, caring, sacrificial, protective … all those words describe God’s love – he GAVE his one and only son, he sacrificed, he wants us to have eternal life and not perish.
Take a second to think about someone you love. For many of you, that someone you’re thinking of is your kids. And how do you love them? You give freely without expecting or wanting payback. You want the very best for them, you want to protect them from harm and destruction. The only thing you want in return is a relationship with your child, to know that your child loves you back. You just want to hear those words, “I love you” or “thank you,” to know that your child acknowledges you as mom and loves you.
Let’s pretend we’re 7 years old again. AsMom is tucking us into bed and kissing us goodnight, wesay, “Wait. Here mom.” And we pull out $5. “This is for taking care of me.”
Can you imagine how Mom would feel? Horrified, offended, like, “I didn’t do all this so that I could get $5 bucks from you!” I think Mom might feel really hurt and grieved, like “My child totally misunderstands my love for him. I’m not loving him in order to get something back from him.”
This example I’m using – of a kid paying his mom $5 bucks – that’s pretty ridiculous, right? I mean, we know that doesn’t happen, and if it did, we’d think that kid is crazy. So as ridiculous and ugly as this sounds, unfortunately this is exactly what we do to God who loves us even more than our mothers.
Why do we do this? We do this because we can’t believe it. We can’t believe that God would love us this much. We fear that God doesn’t want to give us good things. He is either uninterested in us or mad at us. If he is uninterested in us, then we need to force him to give us blessings. And we do this by doing something that he likes. “God I will do this thing that you like in exchange for your healing, for example. He is like an employer who gives us a salary of blessings based on our performance.
Or we think he is mad at us. Inside, we know we are not worthy of his love and attention. We know something’s wrong with us, we know that before a God who sees all and knows all, he should rather condemn us than give us more blessings, than give us life. So because we don’t trust, we think we have to earn his favor or pay him somehow.
What are some of the ways we do this? We think God will only accept us if we fix ourselves up, clean up our act, try to be holier, or maybe do a lot of nice things for others, hoping that will compensate for our bad character, those times when we lost our temper, when we turned a blind eye to someone’s need, whatever bad things we’ve done.
Why don’t we trust God’s love? Well, we are not used to this kind of love. Perhaps it is because we think of God as less than us. We didn’t have to earn our mother’s love, did we? If our mothers’ loved us in this way, how much more God, the author of love! The Bible is full of descriptions of God’s love as a parent for a child. Of course, it is true, God has every reason to reject us because of our sin. But he showed us on the cross of Christ that he doesn’t want to reject us. Romans 8:32 - 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Basically if God was willing to send his son to die for us, then of course he is for us and his love can be trusted and counted on. This should destroy our view that God is uninteresting or mad.
But, to enter into this love relationship with God there is something we need to do. We need to admit the big truth about ourselves. Say Adam’s mom bakes a whole bunch of cookies in the afternoon and tells Adam, “You can’t eat these until after dinner.” But say Adam sneaks and eat a whole bunch of them while mom is not looking. And Mom discovers this. Does Adam’s mom still love Adam? Yes of course. But what needs to happen? If we ate the cookies our mother told us not to eat, the relationship can’t continue until we confess. Likewise, the big truth about ourself is that we are sinnerswho have rejected God’s rules and authority in our lives and our relationship with God can’t continue until we confess this. God is not out to see us grovel, he just wants to mend the relationship. And once we do confess, God enthusiastically accepts us. He loved us through it all. We don’t need to earn his love. Indeed, we cannot. No amount of good deeds can cover our sin, only the blood of Jesus.
So here is the opportunity for us to respond. You can distrust God’s love, refuse to believe and continue to try to earn his favor (in other words, give your $5 bill to God), or you can admit your sin and accept the forgiveness that he offers us through the death of his son Jesus. You can just say “thank you” and tell God: “God, you’re right. I have disobeyed you and ignored you. I am sorry. I believe you when you say that you forgive me. I believe in your love. I make you Lord of my life. Let me no longer disobey you, but even if I do, I know that you still love me and forgive me when I confess.”
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