Little by little, a mother invests in her children. They grow and develop capacities for life. The Church is like this in what it does for us in spiritual things. We sow seeds that go deep and grow. Times of opportunity are used and there is long, patient care. (Galatians 4:25; Genesis 21:14-15)

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller
Sermon 11883
11:00 AM on 5/10/2020

P. Schaller –

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord God Almighty! Thank you, God. Praise you Lord! Praise you!
Praise you! Praise you, God. Praise God we have assembled today in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord
and Savior who rose from the dead to give us a whole new life. We are born again and have his
Spirit in us; therefore, we assemble like this and other ways because when two or three are
gathered in his name, he is in our midst. He is our teacher, our Savior, our counselor. Halleluiah!
We praise the Lord today. Today is Mother’s Day so I would like to honor the mothers in some
way. I thought that, and I don’t know if this works for you if you are a mom. I feel you can step
out of your car and do one victory lap around your car and wave to everyone so we can see you
and say God bless you and you’ve done a great job.

You’re a mother, a high calling. Just step out of your car and do a victory lap around. A grandmother maybe you didn’t do it but maybe you did. Give it another moment. Step out of your car if you can and give us a wave.
Congratulations! You did it! I know that many of us are getting a little bit tired of this
arrangement. I see an end in sight and we will have another Donut Sunday! We’ll see each
other and shake hands and hug and connect and listen and whatever, keep our distance or
whatever you individually decide to do but at the same time, some folks here have never seen
the inside of our chapel. We give you a whole-hearted welcome when this is over. Come on
inside!

Thank you for your giving online, your prayers, for our country, for our families, prayer
for revival. I feel that God has sent this to our country this time for a deeper purpose. He has no
delight in the death of the wicked, but we see his Son on the cross dying for all of us because he
cares much more than we can ever imagine. Christ came because God knows how wrong we
are, and we cannot correct ourselves. We need help. Today is Mother’s Day and we’ll turn to
Galatians 4 and Genesis 21. I heard an excellent Mother’s Day message at 9:00 from Pastor Scibelli. God
anointed that message and built up mothers. If you haven’t heard it, it’s so good. Gal. 4 the
apostle Paul likens the church to a mother.

We have our heavenly Father. We have Christ our Mediator and High Priest. Then we have each other. We are connected. Christ is the head and he teaches us. The church in a way becomes a mother. Galatians 4:25, in your King James it says “Agar”, but Hagar is the person who was Abraham’s concubine who had a child. She by way of
metaphor represents Mt. Sinai where the law was given. The law has children, but they are
children of bondage. Vs. 26. Jerusalem on the earth is over in Israel and then there is Jerusalem
above that we read about in Revelation 20-22, a city whose builder is God. Abraham looked for that
city. This city is the mother of all of us that are born again, born by promise, born by faith. I
have an illustration here of a mother and a child I want to show you. I think you can see it. This
bottle with the narrow neck is illustrating a child.

A child has a capacity to receive and a mother has a capacity to love and care about the child. She has this content. She is also in a way representative of the church because the church has been given content. We have been born of
the Spirit. We have a new heart. We have a new way of thinking. We have a new purpose. We
have spiritual life. When you put us together, two or three or more, and you put a child there,
then the mother has the ability to not pour everything all at once into the child. Children are
delicate. Children are sensitive. Children sometimes at the beginning you have to carry them
because they cannot walk. The mother says in her heart, I can carry you. When the child starts to walk, the mother says I can be there. If you fall, I will catch you. Then the child goes to school
and must learn mathematics.

The mother may struggle with that, but the mother has something in her heart and in her way of being and in her care and kindness. But the mathematics is not as important in life as other things. The mother must feel and sense what is important for my child. The mother of us all is the mother Jerusalem by way of being the city
where we one day go. We do not pray to her or relate to her that way. We have our heavenly
Father, but he has on the earth this Body of Christ, this ministry. Just like in a home, a mother
has the ability on a day to do this, very little but it’s done in love. A child is able to take it. We
read in Colossians 3 that the husband is to love the wife and the wife respects the husband. Then it
says husbands do not be bitter with your wife.

Then it says fathers do not provoke your children. Think of provoking being something like becoming angry that he doesn’t understand me, that he is not obeying me. That is important. Maybe obedience is coming. Maybe it takes
some time and patience. Maybe the obedience is through some hard lessons. There is
something about the mother of us all is never leaving us, never forsaking us to our own ways. I
want to illustrate that by turning to Genesis 21. Hagar has a child and they are thrown out of the
house. Sarah couldn’t take it anymore. Two women in the same house. Two sons in the same
place. So she left. Vs. 14-16. A bowshot is maybe the width of this parking lot. She didn’t want
to hear the baby cry. She didn’t want to see the baby die. Vs. 16-17. I had this thought today
that some people give up.

Some moms give up, like Hagar. I can’t do this. I can’t do it. She put
the child over in the bushes and went away. God heard the cry of the child. Isn’t that amazing.
God heard the cry of the orphan of the prodigal of the child who had no mom because the
mom gave up. I quit. I can’t do this. I don’t have the patience to get it in there. Just let it be. Let
him go. You know what happened in a garden when you let the garden go. Good stuff doesn’t
grow. Weeds grow. What happens when you leave a child to himself his own way, his own
heart, his own mind, his own friends, his own ideas? It’s not good. Moms are made so they
don’t give up. Can a woman forsake her sucking child? Maybe.

God say maybe but I will never forsake you. Wow! I give up because I lost the coin in the house. I give up because I lost the sheep. I give up because I lost the son. I give up because of the drugs, the disobedience, the
rebellion. I give up because of the weeds in the garden. I give up because I can’t do it. But the
mother of us all, Jerusalem, the Body of Christ, this Spirit of God. Don’t let your child make his
own decisions. I talked to a mother of an 8-year old and she said I’m going to let my child
decide what religious she will be part of. I’m not going to shove it down her throat and make
her believe this way or that way. I said how old is your child? She said 8 years old. I go well, do
you decide what she will eat for dinner?

Do you decide what things she drinks, what food she eats, how many hours she sleeps? Do you decide who she lives with when she’s 8 years old? Of course, you do. First of all, you must be born again, or we won’t understand what the child needs. A child needs in the book of Proverbs, instruction. Proverbs 22:15 train up a child in the way
he should go and when he is older, he will not depart from it. Mom, little by little does this at
one dinner time. And the dad if he is present. Or the youth leader or the Sunday school teacher.
There it is on another day. It’s narrow. This capacity is little. My grandfather took me fishing.
The capacity is little. Mom didn’t say a word, but she wasn’t emotionally upset. She was just patient with me. My mom made an impression with me we could say. How do we learn this? By
being together.

We observe it with each other how patient we can be, how caring we can be,
how we can forgive and not live like a person with his own mind and heart with no investment,
with no real impartation. This is spiritual impartation that happens. Hagar represents the law.
She said I cannot handle the child. I cannot see him die. I got to go away but I have nothing to
give to him. I cannot take him and save him. Yes, you can. Yes, we can. Because what God has
given to us as his Son and when he gave his Son we watched him. He took his twelve disciples
and he did this every day a little bit just by being with him. A drop and a drop. That’s how it got
in them They saw it. They heard it.

They were around him. It’s the same with us when we gather today. We are saying to God, we are making ourselves available to you as our Father. If you say do not forsake the assembly then we assemble, and we are online and so on. I need my focus and concentration on that which is really beyond me. I need the faith that is the Son of
God’s faith. I need a love that is a different kind of love, God’s love. I want an understanding of
this book that I become hungry for it. You never know when it happens to a child. Years pass
and there is something really in there. He really does love his mom. He loves his dad and his
grandpa, and he loves his church. That’s amazing . And his youth pastor. Time passes and
maybe he goes off on his own and he may learn a lesson and come back. Can you tell me
something?

I remember something you said. I was 15-years old and you said something to me,
and I carried it in my heart. How did that happen? God did not leave us alone. God is caring for
us in this troubled world. God has things for us every day of our lives. God heard the cry of the
baby. Then he said to Hagar, vs. 17. What ails you, Hagar? What’s made you sick? What’s taken
the heart out of you? Why did you lose heart? Why did you want to quit? Guilt, fear, anxiety,
personal trouble, distraction, broken heart, broken relationship, a troubled divorce once or
twice. What ails you Hagar? Why did you quit? I will make this child a great nations Vs. 17-18.
Get up and pick up the baby and hold him in your hand. This child I will make a great nation. Vs.
19. I was reading about D. L. Moody.

I believe there were 9 children. His dad died before the birth of the twins. D. L. Moody living on a farm in Massachusetts in 1840, born in 1837 in poverty. His mom trusting God and learning to trust God and the local pastor. The poverty was so great at times the boys had to live with another family. In the winter it was so cold, and they were so hungry. He grew up this way. What his mom did and imparted to him was precious to
him. Our kids may not need a lot of material things, but they need a lot of this. We might buy
them an iPhone but what they need is really something like obedience. You must learn
obedience, child. My son, my daughter, you must learn to obey and do it happily.

You must learn to work. Abraham Lincoln said, “My father taught me to work, but he didn’t teach me
how to enjoy work.” Yes, all of us parents we do the best we can. Some of us maybe have
broken hearts because of what has happened in our family. I want to say this by way of
encouragement. Don’t give up. What ails you Hagar? I heard the cry of the child’s voice and I’ll
show you the water and you will live and not die. I will open your eyes and you will see I am
with you. I am in your life. I am in your challenge and I’ll never leave you or forsake you. As a
church today, we are saying before God, help me sow those seeds, love my children as delicate
as they are when they are five and seven.

When they become 15 and when they are 22 that this would still be our lives. Maybe everything we have, not all at once but through our lifetime we have a ministry to our children and our families. Sometimes when we are saying I’m empty. I can’t do it. Then you know what to do in your brokenness and in your heart you say to God,
Lord help me. Teach me. Give it to me. You will uphold us. You will strengthen us. Teach me to
be very kind, very patient, like the Father that ran out to meet the prodigal son. Teach us as a
church to be very kind and very loving and investing in people. Our world is hurting. God has
called you and I to be alive now. These are great times. These are times of opportunity. These
are times when people need to hear the gospel.

People need to know their sins are forgiven and God is there heavenly Father. We have moved our Convention to August with hopes that we will be able to assemble and have a very good time together with people from different
parts of the world. These are times of missions and to read about it and think about it and care
about it. There are also times when young people who have no investment and they go away
and there is nothing there. Everything is in mom and dad and give up on them. They go off and
there’s so much trouble and hardship. They needed help. They needed a mom and dad and
church and pastor. The needed a Bible. They needed quietness. They needed prayer. They
needed obedience. They needed discipline. It’s not going to happen in a day. It will be one drop
and a word of love at the table and another little one. Two years pass and you’re investing and
there is fruit. God is working. Now they are 22 years old. It’s not stopping because the nature of
God is to love us and care for us and never forsake us.

Jesus name, Amen.

Please enjoy these sermon notes from the messages preached at Greater Grace Church in Baltimore. These notes are provided to aid in your study and understanding of the Word. Note that these notes do not represent complete, word-for-word transcriptions. Also, they may contain omissions as well as some errors in spelling and structure, etc., as we attempt to provide them as soon as possible. Our hope is that these notes serve as a way to help you search and connect with messages on related subjects and passages. Thank you for your interest in the ministry of Greater Grace.