Happy Mother's Day
When You Thought I Wasn't Looking
When you thought I wasn't looking you hung my first painting on the refrigerator, and I wanted to paint another. When you thought I wasn't looking you fed a stray cat, and I thought it was good to be kind to animals. When you thought I wasn't looking you baked a birthday cake just for me, and I knew that some things were special. When you thought I wasn't looking you prayed, and I believed there was a God that I could talk to. When you thought I wasn't looking you kissed me good-night, and I felt loved When you thought I wasn't looking I saw tears come from your eyes, and I learned that sometimes things hurt--but that it's all right to cry. When you thought I wasn't looking you smiled, and I wanted to be everything I could be. When you thought I wasn't looking--I looked . . . and wanted to say thanks for all those things you did when you thought I wasn't looking.
In the Communist Manifesto of 1848, Karl Marx, called for the abolition of the family. The making of the “New Man” was the priority, and to Marx, the family and the churches views on the family were the greatest obstacles. “Communists”, he wrote in the Manifesto, would “rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.” Marx said that communism would ensure that children would be educated by the state and not by their parents.
While Karl Marx was spewing his venom… in the same period there was a missionary to china named Hudson Taylor who pointed to a more timeless way:
“There are three great truths, 1st, That there is a God; 2nd, That He has spoken to us in the Bible; 3rd, That He means what He says.” — Hudson Taylor
“God means just what he says, and God will do all the he has promised.” Hudson Taylor
We need to reinforce these truths...
Orientation:
In 1 Cor 11, we are reminded the family structure was not modeled in the Greek or Roman culture in which the church found itself. The Corinthian church was in a very Hellenized city, and so many of the Jews in that city had adopted the greek and roman cultural ways.
Paul is throwing them the rope of divine design, helping them understand how men and women can function together, and strengthen their families and their church, and in turn have a great influence on the civilization around them. The issue of God’s divine design for men and women is the topic here… male headship in the family and in the church… head coverings…women praying and prophesying in the church...
How you respond to these truths is going to reveal something about your heart...
There are three great foundational truths as we look into this...
1. God has given us Patterns to Follow. Will you Follow it?
1 Cor 4:16 “I urge you, then, be imitators of me.”
1 Th 1:6 “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,”
Eph 5:1 “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.”
1 Th 2:14 “For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea.”
Heb 6:12 “so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
To imitate here is a command to imitate in behavior. He has taught, and we act it out...
Application:
If you dont live these things out... you will have is an imitation christianity, instead of christianity that imitates Christ!!!!!
How you respond to this is going to reveal whether or not you intend to follow Christ. Will you submit to Christ?
2. God has given us teachings to practice. Will you live it?
1 Cor 11:2 “Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.”
In other words, they had not been practicing these things until he taught them… Now, currently they are learning to practice these things.
Maintained the biblical pattern is “commendable” when ..
You honor it as important - “you remember” it. It’s worth remembering.
You recieved it as revelation. - “as i delivered it to you” Paul spent 18 Months. In other words this is established teachings that expound on the words of Christ when he said… “In the beginning God created them Male and Female.” The reality of Pauls words at times acknowledge that Christ did not at the time address this specifically, but now does through the Apostle.
1 Thes 2:13-14 “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea.”
2 Thess. 2:15 “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” .
You keep it as valuable. - “maintained” it. (to hold something back from slipping away. )
Titus 2:3-5 “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” (Keep in mind that women were not allowed to drink wine in roman culture…)
1 Tim 2:12-15 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
He was writing to set things in order in the house of God. 1 Tim 1:3-5 “As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine… 1 Tim 3:14-15 “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.”
They are being commended for obedience to the teaching. Commended in the same wording used to describe what is going to happen at the judgment seat of Christ.... where each one will be commended for his/her work.
“Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.”
There are times when he commends, and there are times when he refuses to commend.
1 Cor 4:5 “Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.”
1 Cor 11:17 “But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.”
1 Cor 11:22 “What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.”
2 Cor 10:18 “For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.”
Frederick the Great, once said: “He who would defend all, defends nothing, because defense lines cover more ground than available troops can defend. Little minds want to defend everything; sensible men concentrate on the essentials.”
3. God has given us Principles to Grasp. Will You study it until you get a hold of it?
1 Cor 11:3 “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”
Understand: To understand here means to be presented with the factual information. It is the presentation of the face value information. It is the presentation of a principle to be grasped.
2 Tim 3:16-17 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
2 Tim 2:15 “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”
James 2:14-18 “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
Conclusion:
Jesus Said...
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6)
Without the way, there is no going; without the truth, there is no knowing; without the life, there is no living.
You want to be saved...save your family, your church, your nation… surrender your life and your ways to Christ....