Psalm 113:9
The Greatest Influencer - Mother’s Day
Social media has caused us to add new words to our lexicon. One of
them is "influencer." I read an article about a young man who decided
in his middle and high school years that he wanted to be an
influencer. He created a website with no problem but the question was
how to get traffic to it. He spend years studying that, even majoring
in fields he thought would help in college. In his mid-twenties, he
found "it," whatever algorithm or secret "it" was. Now weekly, he
gets millions of hits on his website and so is a millionaire. However,
there is an influencer much greater than him.
Psalm 113:9 He maketh the barren woman to keep
house, and to be a joyful mother of children.
Praise ye the LORD.
Without doubt, being a parent is both a joy and responsibility.
Sadly, for many in our day, parenting has become less of a joy and
much more of a responsibility. So many evils are pulling at our
children in so many different ways, that joy has been replaced by
fret, fear, and frustration.
The Lord has given us several tools to help keep our children on the
straight and narrow. Love, reason, and spanking: just to name a few.
All of these are powerful tools in rearing a child, and they all need
to be applied in their time, but there is one that I think is often
overlooked. It is simply called influence.
Believe it or not, God Himself puts more stock into the power of
influence than He does in the power of force. Although God is all
powerful, He does not force us to do things. He encourages or
influences us to do them.
1. God has never forced anyone to be saved.
a. Indeed, God commands Christians to witness and calls
preachers to preach to influence people to salvation.
b. God never has and never will force a person to be saved.
2. God has never forced anyone to serve Him.
What are some of the things we can do to influence a person? Let’s
notice what some godly mothers did to influence their children.
I. Sarah influenced her family with her godly life.
1Peter 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection
to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the
word, they also may without the word be won by
the conversation of the wives;
2 While they behold your chaste conversation
coupled with fear.
A. The "conversation" refers to lifestyle.
1. God described the influence that a wife has over her
family and then gave Sarah as the example of one who used
that influence skillfully.
2. Sarah’s chaste (that is pure) lifestyle, coupled with her
respect for God and her husband, influenced her family to
do right.
B. Mothers, one of the most powerful influences you have is the
way you carry yourself every day of your life.
1. Granted, it takes a whole life to have a whole life’s
worth of influence and having the patience to wait
for that to kick in is sometimes difficult.
2. However, your whole life is going to register on your
children in one way or another.
3. What will they remember about you?
a. Mother lived her life holy and pure?
b. Mother was a party girl?
c. Mother was up and down?
C. I find it interesting that many people today have patterned
their lifestyle on the slogan, "LIVE OUT LOUD!"
1. The slogan means live to be noticed, and women do.
a. They wear the clothing that will get them noticed.
b. They mark their bodies with tattoos, strange hair
colorings, cuttings, and piercings to get noticed.
(Some people look like a walking bait-and-tackle
shop!)
c. Others deliberately talk and laugh loudly so people
will notice them.
s. I suspect one of the reasons people are so vulgar
today is to get attention.
2. Yet, the Bible says the greatest influence you can exert
is to have a meek, quiet, and godly spirit.
1Peter 3:3 Whose adorning let it not be that
outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of
wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart,
in that which is not corruptible, even the
ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is
in the sight of God of great price.
5 For after this manner in the old time the
holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned
themselves….
a. A godly spirit is a god-like spirit. It speaks of a
pure, holy, righteous lifestyle.
b. A meek spirit means "not domineering."
(1) A meek person is a person who has power but does
not use it.
(2) Any woman can be bossy, domineering, and loud.
It takes a godly woman to be a lady.
c. A quiet spirit means she is quiet.
(1) A quiet spirit is not a silent spirit, but a
soft-spoken spirit.
(2) While some women want to thunder before the
world, it’s those who are soft-spoken before the
world who thunder before God.
II. Hannah influenced her family with her prayers.
1Samuel 1:9 So Hannah rose up after they had
eaten in Shiloh, and after they
had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by
a post of the temple of the LORD.
10 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed
unto the LORD, and wept sore.
A. Hannah and her husband, Elkanah, could not have children.
1. Many couples today know the pain of infertility.
2. The despair and heart break of a condition like that can
easily drive a person to depression.
3. Hannah let it drive her to her knees.
a. Now understand. Hannah did not just pray a prayer.
b. Her broken heart made her a woman of great prayer.
c. God is not recording her only prayer, just her last
prayer on the subject.
4. As a result of praying, Hannah gained to herself six
children \\#1Sam 2:21\\ and one of them was the godly
prophet, Samuel.
B. It is sad today but one of the most powerful tools God has
given to parents has become one of the least valued - prayer.
1. To most Christians, prayer is what you as a last option.
2. What we fail to understand that prayer is what energies
every option.
3. If we would bath our options in prayer, we would never get
to our last option.
4. Prayer not only gave Hannah a son, prayer gave her other
children and kept them all living like God would have
them live even in wicked times!
C. The world has been attempting to use science as a means to
prove that God does not exists.
1. Science can’t prove that God doesn’t exist.
a. First, because He does.
b. Second, because all science can study is how things
work now. You can study mechanics until you know
every aspect of how a car operates, but that won’t
tell you how the car got here.
2. But there is a much simpler way to prove that there is no
God.: prayer.
a. If prayer doesn’t work, there is no God.
b. God has hung His reputation on answered prayer.
(1) In the Old Testament…
Jeremiah 33:3 Call unto me, and I will answer
thee, and shew thee great and mighty things,
which thou knowest not.
(2) In the gospels…
Luke 11:9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall
be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock,
and it shall be opened unto you.
(3) …to the last books of the Bible…
1John 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of
him, because we keep his commandments, and do
those things that are pleasing in his sight.
c. If prayer doesn’t work, the Bible doesn’t work, and
there is no heaven or hell.
(1) There is no sin for which to be judged or right
for which to be rewarded.
(2) There is no Satan who tempts us, and there is no
God who loves us, listens to us, and redeems us.
3. You don’t need scientists, humanists, and evolutionists to
prove there is no God.
a. All you need is prayer.
b. The unanswered prayer of godly believers will settle
it once and for all.
D. Yet, prayer does work.
1. I have seen it work.
2. It gives good health, protection, wisdom, encouragement,
resources, money, strength, deliverance, and power.
3. Some years ago while driving in town, I turned the radio
on. I did not get to hear the beginning or end of the
man’s testimony so I cannot tell you who he was, but he
was describing his life as that of a wayward prodigal. I
heard him make this statement:
"My mother’s voice was in God’s hear every day!"
And then he lowered his voice and spoke the words that he
had heard the meek, quiet voice of his mother pray so many
times.
"Dear God, remember my son!"
He said, day after day that voice beckoned in the ears
of God Almighty until one day, God reached down from
heaven and rescued him from the muck of sin he had so
willingly walked into!
4. Is not this the point that Jesus was making when He closed
the parable of the man who came needed bread at midnight?
Luke 11:8 I say unto you, Though he will not
rise and give him, because he is his friend,
yet because of his importunity he will rise and
give him as many as he needeth.
III. Ruth influenced her family by her devotion.
A. Ruth was a Moabite, belonging to a nation that God had cursed
\\#Deut 23:3\\.
1. Yet, during some very difficult days, Elimelech, Naomi,
and their two sons journeyed into the land of Moab.
2. While there, the two sons married Moabite women, but soon
all the men had died.
3. Naomi decided to return to Israel, but before she did, she
told her two Moabite daughters-in-law to stay in Moab.
4. One daughter-in-law did stay in Moab, but Ruth insisted on
returning to Israel with Naomi.
Ruth 1:16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave
thee, or to return from following after thee: for
whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou
lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my
people, and thy God my God:
17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I
be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also,
if ought but death part thee and me.
a. She must have really loved her husband because her
love for him gave her a love for her mother-in-law
and their God.
b. She was devoted to both.
B. What is devotion?
1. Devotion is defined as "commitment to a purpose, ardent
love, zeal."
2. My definition is," Devotion is the distance between your
first and second."
3. Ruth loved her mother-in-law so much that she left her
family, her false gods, her land, and everything else to
go with Naomi.
4. That kind of devotion makes for a selfless person.
C. To what should we be devoted?
1. Mothers, you should be devoted to Jesus first.
Matthew 10:37 He that loveth father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me: and he that
loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy
of me.
2. You should be devoted to your husband second.
3. You should be devoted to your children.
a. I have often preached on the selfishness of children.
b. However, the sin of selfish parents is even more
revolting.
(1) Parents who will not give up their careers,
their comforts, freedoms, their time, and their
sin for their children are indeed selfish.
(2) What an awful generation our country has
produced!
IV. Abigail influenced her family by her wisdom. \\#1Sam 25:14-39\\
A. Abagail was one of the wisest women to ever live.
B. She found an angry man who had been wronged too many times,
pushed too far, and has blood in his eyes, and she stopped
stopped him with gentle words and few loaves of bread.
C. David was the man, and he was so taken with Abigail that he
later married.
V. Esther influenced her family and her nation by her sacrificial
spirit.
A. \\#Esterh 4:16\\ Fast for me and I will go see the king,
and if I perish, I perish.
B. Who could not be moved by such a spirit?
VI. Rebekah influenced her family by making good choices.
A. Rebekah was Isaac’s wife. Of the patriarch, less is written
about Isaac than any other and even less is written about
their wives.
B. But two of Rebecca’s decisions are recorded.
1. \\#Ge 24:58\\ Rebekah was given the choice of whether to
go with Abraham’s servant and marry Isaac or not. She
choose to go.
2. \\#Ge 25:22\\ When she was having a problem with her
pregnancy, she choose to go to God to find out what was
wrong.
3. Rebekah was a woman who had wisdom to make the right
decisions.
C. Some people spend their whole life making the wrong decisions.
1. They choose not to study at school.
2. They choose the wrong friends.
3. They choose to engage in the wrong behaviors.
4. They choose the wrong mate.
5. And when it comes to living for Jesus or living selfishly,
they choose themselves.
Today, God offering help to you through His Son, Jesus Christ. It
does not matter whether you are rich or poor, happy or sad, in
trouble or on cloud nine; you need Jesus and you can have Jesus—If
you will make the right choice.
<OutlineIndex>
<Close Window>
