Mother's Day Message, God Wants Mothers to Know

I want to thank Jan Cooper and her daughter, I think it's Jacqueline. Jan and Jacqueline did a beautiful job portraying what I know happens in many, many homes. Matthew chapter 7 is the text for today, and we do have an overhead with that that we're going to read. And so let's turn there together and read Matthew chapter 7. If you don't have a Bible, you can look up at the overhead. If you do, I'll be reading out of the New International Version. Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. Well, having spent the majority of the service this morning honoring appropriately our moms, I want to ask you to let me sort of broaden things out just a bit for the message today and take a look at the way Father God relates to us all. To moms, yes, but to us all. Now, I've learned over the years that some women are real sensitive about the language of Scripture. There are some real emotional landmines out there for whatever reasons, and some of these women will come up to me after every service and they'll point out the fact that God is neither male nor female, according to Galatians 3.26, and that is true. God transcends our understanding of gender, but likewise, all attempts to sort of expunge the gender-specific references of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit don't work, as many of our denominations have found out over the last decade or so. God has revealed Himself specifically as Father, Son, and Spirit, and yet He doesn't confine Himself to our human understandings of gender. He is above male and female. In fact, the Bible says male and female, He created them in His image, so His image transcends what we understand to be those genders. I could have entitled this message, The Mother Heart of Father God, but I would have had someone say, it should have been The Father Heart of Mother God, and I would have lost... But what God wants every mother to know, and every one of us as well, is just what His heart is about. And folks, I pray, because I know in this service, that some of us don't really know the heart of God. We don't really know Him. We've never really encountered Him as He's revealed in Scripture. And in this culture, increasingly, God is misunderstood. It may not affect you now, but it is moving rapidly to the place where we'll see all references to God basically eliminated from the public square. You read today's cover article, it's on the front page, I should say, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The EEOC is about, it's considering a law that will ban any reference to God whatsoever in your job place. And you won't be allowed to have any Bible or any cross around your neck or any religious symbol of any kind. It's coming. You watch, it's coming. Because it's infringing on someone else's right. That's an aside for today, but the point is, we need to see what the Bible says, while we can, about the heart of God. Jesus had a way of revealing the Father's heart when He told other stories. He was a master at addressing a subject, but at the same time, revealing what His Father was like. For example, the prodigal son. That's really a story about a man's life being sort of lost in a drift. But in the end, it's all about the Father heart of God, reaching to the Son. Here, as we read in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is teaching about prayer. I mean, this is a sermon about prayer, and yet in the middle of it, if we read carefully, we hear a message about what Father God is like. You see, all great messages are like that. There's an obvious meaning and a hidden meaning. All great songs are that way. All great poetry. All great books. Why? Because the communicator knows he's speaking to different levels of understanding. Jesus knew He was speaking to multiple levels of understanding. And that crowd 2,000 years ago, there was a group of people who were hungry seekers who really wanted to know God. Jesus had a message for them. There was also a group of disciples that were there. They were ready to apply whatever Jesus said. They were already committed and sold out. But there was a large group that we'll call today traditionalists, people who had grown up with an understanding of God that was rigidly emblazed upon their understanding. And Jesus was about the business of upsetting their apple cart. And that may happen here today as well. In this section, Jesus reveals three things about His Father, that He's always approachable, that He's affirming and kind, and that He's always involved. And we're going to look at each one of those. Let's look, first of all, and if you're taking notes, this is the first blank in your outline. Jesus wants you to know that the Father's heart is always approachable. By anybody, anytime, directly, person to person, God says, come to me, ask, seek, knock. Verse 7, ask and it'll be given, seek and you'll find, knock and the door will be opened. And like any great mom, God wants you to know He is approachable. Parents, have you ever noticed that when a child really wants something, I mean, when they really want something, who do they go to first? Hello? Yeah, they go to mom, don't they? Hey, dad. Yes? Where's mom? Well, I need to see her. Well, she's next door. Well, go get her. Can I help you? No, dad, I need to see mom. Well, listen, I'm here. Let me just help you. What is it? Well, I need to see mom. Come on, let me. Okay, dad. I just got sick and threw up in my bedroom. It's all over the bed. What? I'll go get your mom. Hold on a second. I've had that happen. And you know what I'm talking about. What if kids do that, don't they? They want to see mom because they know no matter what their condition, no matter what the situation, mom always is there. She's welcome. Welcome. The welcome mat is always out over mom's heart. And that, by the way, is not a doormat, all right? It's a welcome mat. And Jesus says, my father is like that. You come to him anytime, anywhere, whenever you need to come. You see, the disciples and the seekers, this was great news. You mean I can come to God on my own? I can find him for who he is and I can talk to him. I can bring my problems to him. Jesus was painting this picture that they'd never heard before. And it was exciting to them. But you know what? On that same day, there was a group of people there, the traditionalists, who thought this was unbelievably blasphemous. They pictured this as being a total distortion of what God was like. See, they'd been told all along, according to the Old Testament laws that they'd heard, that no average guy ever went to God on their own. I mean, no average guy in the street had any access to God. They were told to the contrary, that the only way they got to God was through someone else. They went to a priest, someone they could confess their sins to and sacrifices. No average guy had access. And in fact, no average priest had access either. I mean, an average priest went to his high priest. And only that high priest, once a year, according to the Old Testament, could go into the presence of God and stand before him. And that one time a year, he had all these rituals and all these cleansings and washings. And that one time a year, he went into what was called the Holy of Holies. And it was such an awesome moment that everyone waited outside the tabernacle with bated breath. And the high priest had a little rope tied around his ankle when he went in. In the event that he died in God's presence, the other priest would slip into the outer court and pull the rope so they could yank him out of God's presence and they wouldn't be killed going in themselves. You see, and these traditionalists had grown up thinking, that's the way God is. You don't go approaching God on your own. Jesus stood up and said, ask and seek and knock and my Father will answer. This absolutely went against hundreds of years of tradition. It painted a whole new picture of what Father God was like. No need to go through sacrifices and these washings and ceremonies. You can walk right in and tell God what's on your heart. You can be in the presence of the God of the universe through Christ the Son. Paul later on says in Hebrews 10.19, we've been given boldness to enter in to the inner place of God's dwelling. Hebrews 10.19, I referenced it in the outline. And all of this sounded so blasphemous. Let me say as an aside this morning, there are a fair number of us here in this service at North Way, I'm sure, who grew up in a church tradition where you were taught from early on as a little guy or little gal, that you had no access to God on your own. Am I right? You were taught early on that there were those who represented you to God and you went to them and they did business and they came back and told you what God had said. Do you understand then how radical a thought this is? Do you know that those Jews who heard this back then are just like some of you who've heard it today. You need to be open to a whole new way of understanding the approachability of Almighty God. You don't need an intermediary. You don't need a priest. You don't need an agent or a secretarial appointment maker. You just go to God and through his Son, you're received into his presence. Like a good mom, he'll listen, he'll understand, and he'll answer in his way and, as the song said this morning, in his time. He won't always give you what you want, but how many moms give their kids what they want every time? Not a good mom. So Jesus says, my Father is approachable all the time. You know, I was in my office about a year ago and a man made an appointment to come talk to me about selling us a piece of property for the church, not knowing we'd already bought one. And we sat and talked about that for a few minutes and the conversation quickly turned to spiritual matters. And he shared with me that his mother was ill in a hospital. He said, and these were his words, he said, would you shoot up a prayer for her? I said, well, I'd be happy to pray for her, but, you know, I believe God would like to hear a prayer from you. He said, what do you mean, from me? I said, yeah, it's your mom, isn't it? He said, yeah, but you're a minister, I mean, God hears you. I said, no, you go ahead, I think God wants to hear it from you. And he got a little uncomfortable, he said, aren't you going to light something or sprinkle something and kind of help me out a little bit here, make this work? I said, no, he just wants you to talk to him. And you know what he was saying, don't you? He was saying, well, who am I? Who am I to talk to God? I mean, knowing something of his past life and so on, he had a pretty colorful life. And he was thinking, God can't really be interested in what I have to say. I said, listen, I'm going to bow my head and you bow yours and we're just going to sit here until someone prays. And after a long silence, he finally started to speak just what was on his heart, God be with my mom and a couple of things. I don't remember exactly the words, but I can tell you this. When that prayer was over and I said, amen, and we both looked up and our eyes met for just a second. It was a moment of eternal consequence because I knew that that man would never be the same. For the first time in his cognizant life, he had communicated with God in a way that he knew God had heard him. Dear ones, I want to say today, some of us spend precious little time communicating with a God who says, I'm approachable. Come to me, ask, seek, knock. Two thousand years ago, Jesus made it very plain. That's how we're to come. The second thing I see here about God's heart is Jesus would say, my father is affirming and benevolent and kind to the core. He says, whoever asks, receives, whoever seeks, finds, and to him who knocks the door will be open. He wants to be there for you and provide and bless and demonstrate his love. And again, this brought different responses from different groups of people. I mean, the seekers and the disciples, they said, oh, man, what a God this is. This is the kind of God I want. This is the kind of God that I've been searching for, a God that responds in love and kindness. But for that group of traditionalists, this was more difficult news to swallow. You see, they had built a whole life around setting a standard of behavior, spiritual law keeping and ceremonial hoop jumping, trying to get up high enough to please God in some way. And as they added on and on and on to God's commands and created their own, God became more obscure and more difficult to reach and understand. And dear ones, when all you get from your leaders is a steady diet of do more and pray more and sacrifice more and study more and don't do this and do more of that, pretty soon you see God is an exactly demanding sort, someone who's pleased with you only when you fall into a heap of exhaustion, trying to be good, to put a smile on his face. You know, for people who are trying to please God by what they do, God becomes the biggest burden of their lives. And some of you know what I'm talking about. Some of you walked away from God because you determined early on that you could never live in a way that would please him enough. And he became a terrific burden. And you finally said, I don't want any of this. God became the biggest burden of your life. For hundreds of years, these traditional Jews had been carrying the weight of all these good deeds and rules and rituals, trying to keep God's anger at bay somehow in their mind. And they hear Jesus say, my father is affirming and accepting and kind to the core. He's just looking for an excuse to bless someone. These Jews couldn't handle it. They only knew God as a scorekeeper, not as a blessing giver, a supervisor, not a caregiver. The truth is that many of us struggle with this same perception of God. But all we really need to know, all we really need to do to see him as he really is, is look at a mom, look at a great mom. Moms don't send messages of acceptance based on performance, do they? I mean, I don't know a mom alive that sets some target up for their kids to hit or else. You know, I don't think there's many moms that stand at the door after school kind of like this, tapping their foot and saying, all right, how'd you do today? If you did okay, I'll give you dinner. I mean, moms by their nature are accepting and affirming and encouraging. They don't set a standard of performance that if you don't hit it, you don't make it. And Jesus says the father's heart is just like that. You know, I know this is easy for me to say and very difficult for some of us to overcome. And I'll tell you, this isn't something you deal with once in your life. This is something that comes up again and again and again. I'll tell you how I know. I know because I've struggled with this. One of the hardest things for me to accept has been the idea of grace and unconditional love. I don't know whether it's the way I'm wired up or, you know, my temperament or firstborn syndrome. I don't know, type A, whatever you want to call it. I think achievement. And somehow it's very difficult for me from time to time to separate how God sees me from what I'm doing. Am I the only one? Maybe you struggle with this too. And, you know, add to that, when I was first a Christian, the group of guys that discipled me, I mean, they were performance junkies to the core. I mean, you know, we get up at four o'clock and if that didn't get enough done, we get up at three. And then we pray for this and that. And, you know, it's like their favorite stories in the Bible were like the ten virgins. You know, the five that were ready and five that weren't. They said, we're not going to be asleep when Jesus comes. I said, you're right about that. We're going to be dead probably. The way we were going. And it's only been recently that I've begun to realize that God loves me, listen, just as much when I'm relaxing, taking a walk, working out, or riding in a convertible on a summer day, just enjoying the outdoors. He loves me just as much then as when I've got my appointment filled from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and then getting ready to go out again for an evening meeting. That's the way He is. It's not performance-based. It's based on His love for me unconditionally. You know, add to that the fact that ministry, as you know, is a never-gets-done kind of profession. I haven't had a day at North Way in 13 years that I closed my books, turned off my light, and went home and said, I'm done. There's always another call you can make, another person to see, another need to be addressed. And I find myself from time to time wondering, God, have I pleased you enough today? And I know some of you live the same way. Recently God's begun to change that. You know, just a couple years ago I did a foolish thing. For a guy with a bad back, I was worn against this. But I went skiing with my two sons. I wanted to take them in the worst way. I wanted to be the one that would teach them and show them. Being the great skier that I wished I were. I wrapped myself up in all these braces. You know, I mean, I was stiff as a board going down. And for a couple of hours we sort of learned things and we got it going and it was fun. And then after maybe three hours in the slopes or so, they were getting it down pretty well. And I went down, not the, you know, not the double black diamond or whatever. I mean, sort of the basic, but where I could see the guys coming down on their own. And I remember sitting down there just kind of watching these two guys. You know, they weren't doing the greatest, but they were making it. And they were so enjoying it. And they had big smiles on their faces. And they were really having a time. I remember feeling in my heart something that just said, this is so good. This is so fulfilling. Watching my boys have a good time. And you know, parents, the more I thought about that, isn't it true that we knock ourselves out so our kids will just have a good time? Parents, how many times have you knocked yourself out? You've gone to the mall and waited in this long line so little Johnny could get in that little train and just ride around and smile. And you just feel so good to see that smile or that dance recital that you just finally see and they smile. And I, whether it's softball or skateboarding or riding a bike or whatever it is, there's something in us, something in our hearts that says, oh, it's so good to see the one that I love enjoying life. And I want you to know it came to my mind. And I just want to submit it to you. Maybe God, the Father, has the same pleasure in us when he sees us smile and just enjoy life. You know, when we're not at the top of our spiritual game. And when we didn't get it done quite the way we wanted to, he just wants to see us enjoying the life he created us to have. Because it's not based on performance. It's based on his unconditional love. Could he be that affirming? Could he really be that way? Jesus said, if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give good gifts to those that love him? Jesus is saying far more than you enjoy. My father enjoys seeing you walking in the fullness of life. The third way, and there's a balance to this, by the way. I mean, it doesn't mean we all just put everything aside and don't ever labor again for God. I don't believe that. I believe that we're called to serve and called to sacrifice. But there's a balance. And how many of you know that balance just keeps, it keeps moving on us? You know, God keeps, well, now spend a little more time with me. Get along with me some more. It's a balance that we need to strike. Third, Jesus says in my heavenly father, his heart is a heart that wants to always be involved in your life. Just like a great mom, God never stops being interested in what's going on in your life. And he says, in fact, God wants to be so closely connected with you. He wants you to call him Abba. And that's the Hebrew term for daddy. You know, great moms are so good at being involved, aren't they? I mean, they're just willingly and happily interested in every dimension of their kids' lives. You know, show me your papers after school or tell me about your camp trip or let's go out and talk about what we're going to do out here. And let's do the homework together. And I've noticed this dad, you know, or you can laugh or you can point your finger at me, but moms seem to want to be involved because they want to be. And dads, I tend to think, get involved because they know they ought to be. And there's a little bit of a difference there. Jesus, when he referred to his heavenly father as Abba, you have to know, again, those traditionalists, I mean, this put them on ultimate tilt. They couldn't imagine this whole concept. They were so devoted to keeping God at a distance, his holiness and justice, that they wouldn't even mention his name in public. And beyond that, when it came to writing his name, they specifically wrote it in a certain way so that they wouldn't possibly profane it. In fact, we have a little overhead about this. You may have seen this. If you know anything about the Hebrew language, they wrote it Y-H-W-H and not Yahweh as it really is. They purposely left the vowels, if you know anything about the pointing and so on in Hebrew, they left the vowels out so they couldn't possibly profane the name. That's how obsessive they were about not being too familiar with God. Now, I fully recognize that in our culture, we tend to be real casual about God and that's wrong. But on the other hand, many of us only understand God as someone far off, someone way out there, someone distant and mysterious, you know, just full of awe, but not really knowing him as one who wants to be communicating with us. I have his number on here. God wants to be communicating with us all the time. These traditionalists, this so offended them, but I'm convinced at this point, when he said Abba, I believe they said, this man's got to die. There's no one that can call Father God Abba and get away with it. Nobody. But Jesus, he went on and on and on and called him Abba, Daddy God, my most intimate relationship. And dear ones, can I say that here at North Way, one concern that I have about many of us in this church is that I think we understand God and his greatness. And I think we worship him many times with a sense of awesomeness. Our God is an awesome God. He reigns in heaven above. And I think that many of us come from a background where we know that he's holy. But I really question from time to time, how many of us enjoy the intimate moments with God? How many of us are warmed inside, as D.L. Moody said, by God's presence? You know, North Way has a reputation, if you will, kind of on the streets as sort of being the radical church. I mean, people lift their hands and do those kinds of crazy things there. You know, but when it comes to, and that's what they call them. I believe it's a very biblical thing. But when it comes to knowing God, I don't think we're nearly radical enough. I don't think we're really intent on intimately connecting with him. As he wants to be known. And I get concerned for that. My heart is that every single person in this church come to a place of close, personal, passionate love for God in private, where you just draw near to him and call him dad. And if you never express it in the public gathering, you don't have to be publicly expressing to be personally devoted and passionate. And dear ones, if you don't know him that way, can I tell you? If you don't know him that way, you don't really know him. You just have a set of beliefs. You just have Christianity. And Christianity is not what Jesus came to bring. He came to bring us relationship with father God. God wants us to know his love. Approachable, not based on performance and always involved. And I wonder how many of us really know him that way. And I wonder how many of us have known him for a long time and we've kind of drifted just a bit. You know, I was preparing this message this week and started to come under a lot of conviction about this. I was writing on a tablet to the Lord on Wednesday in my journal saying, you know, God, my life is, I'm always right near the red line. My RPMs are always, and I don't seem to have much time to approach you. I don't spend a lot of time just being with you. I don't know you the way I want to know you. And I was just kind of writing this to the Lord, you know, in an unhurried hour that I'd given him. And you know what happened? At the end of that hour, I felt God's presence. I felt him come and just sort of surround me with his arms. And it was so wonderful. And I remember thinking, Lord, I don't want this to end. Can we just continue this outside of my office? Can we just keep on going through the day-to-day? Could you just show me some way that you're involved and that I know that what I'm doing is not just spinning my wheels and being busy for its own sake? Because folks, I don't want to be someone that falls into a religious trap. Well, that day, it was Wednesday this week. I came to the Wednesday night service with a number of you. We had a great all-community night. And it was like God had painted this bullseye on my life. After the service, I was right over here. And I don't know why, but no, I hadn't shared any of this with anybody during the service. But about seven or eight or nine people came down from where they were, got in front of me. A couple of them even lined up just to tell me things like, I'm so glad to be part of North Way. Or I'm so grateful for what you're teaching in James right now. And it just went on and on. Finally, someone flicked the lights. You know, I got time to go. I said, God, this is, I get it. You do want to communicate with me. And it was so affirming. And that's not always the norm. Well, we were getting ready to leave. And I said, Lord, that was wonderful. I'm getting in the car. And Jonathan says, let's go get some ice cream. And I'm in a Wednesday night ice cream school right now. I get in the car. I said, well, why not? So I go north, which is away from where I live. I live southeast. And I go north up to Perkins, which makes no sense at all. And I go that way, pull in there. And the hostess comes and takes us. And Carol and Jonathan and I sit down in the booth. And four feet away from me, right across the aisle, is a brother that his name, many of you would know, who heads probably the largest parachurch ministry in all of Pittsburgh. He was sitting there by himself eating dinner on the way down, returning from a speaking engagement up in Warren, PA. There he was by himself. And it would take you two or three weeks to get an appointment with this guy. And here I walked in. He said, this is good. I just wanted to tell you everything that you and your church have meant to me in this ministry. Now, you could say, oh, that was just a coincidence. He just happened to be there. I just want to submit to you, God was communicating. It just so touched me. See, God, how many of you believe God can tell someone to tell you exactly what you need to hear? That's the way he works. He's always involved. I was flying home on an airplane just about a month ago or so from a trip out west. And I didn't want anyone around me to kind of invade my space. I just wanted to read and be quiet. And an older gentleman, I mean, quite elderly, was seated two seats over from me against the window when I was in the aisle. And the whole flight, he was just kind of keeping to himself. And I was reading my books and listening to tapes and having fun. And then the food came out, I don't know, about two hours into the flight or so. And you know when the food comes out, you kind of got to look at each other and decide. Are you just going to sit there and be kind of cold? Are you going to share? Well, we started to talk right away. And it turns out, I'll make a long story short. It turns out this elderly gentleman was flying home. He was 82 years old, flying home to see his sister who was dying from cancer. And he just lost his wife to cancer six months before that. And as we talked, it turns out he and I went to the same church when I was a seminary student in Southern California 20 years ago. And he knew the pastor that kind of had introduced me to some of the things that we're sharing here at North Way. And I thought, oh God, you love that older gentleman enough to put me down right there beside him, you know, kind of selfish old me who had my own little space, just to encourage him as he went through this real dark time in his life, just to let him know that you love him and that you're there with him. Folks, that's the kind of God that we love. He wants to be intimately involved in communicating. He doesn't want you to set some performance standard. If you meet it, well, you're okay. But if you don't, forget it. He's always approaching you. Jesus says, that's the heart of Father God. That's the heart of every great mother. And today, as we end this message, how many of you know him that way? Think about it. Do you really know him that way? Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the spirit of God, which is in this place. And I thank you for those that you've drawn here today. Some are hungry, Lord, wanting to know more seekers. Some, Lord, are very devoted disciples that walked with you for years, but maybe have drifted away.