Inspiring Mother's Day Sermon on Spiritual Growth

As Mother’s Day was approaching, I have been doing some reminiscing about growing up and I have been truly blessed throughout my life with the mom God blessed me with and because there were many ladies that were like a mom to me. My Aunt Leta was definitely like a mom to me, Granny, Anita, Joann, Norma, Sister Mary Lou Hendrix, Dixie Haase, Linda, my Aunt Marilyn, if I ever needed anything, I always felt like these ladies had my best interest at heart. Whether I was playing with their children or at church, I could always count on one of them being there if I got hurt or needed a drink or food or advice or whatever, I always felt like I had a lot of people that loved me and looked out for me. I mean wow! I was truly blessed with all the attention that I got. Wait a minute! Whoa! Hold the phone! I think I just figured something out. I think you guys were like guards watching the prisoners having recreation. And if I got out of line you would report back to the warden. Now it is coming clear to me.

Here are a few funny things that moms have said.

If you fall out of that tree and break your leg, don’t run to me crying.

Eat your vegetables, there is millions of Chinese children starving to death.

Here’s your choices for supper. Take it or leave it.

You better put on clean underwear in case you’re in an accident.

Do you want a piece of advice? Oh yeah like it matters if we want it or not.

“Don’t sit too close to the TV it is bad for your eyes.” And today mothers are buying virtual reality headsets where the screen is literally 2 inches from your eyes.

I asked my mom if I was adopted. She said, “Not yet, but we placed an ad.”

Growing up, how many of you would stand with your back against the door or wall and your mom/dad would put marks on the wall to see how much you have grown? How many of you have done this with your children? We look forward to this as a child, how tall we are getting. I remember when Granny was my goal, and then mom and then dad and I guess I ran out of goals, because I never got tall.

We kind of do that in life too, don’t we? We measure how well we are doing in life. From our phones to cars to homes and like the guy in our scripture in our walk with the Lord. Let’s read our scripture from Luke 18.

Sometimes we set the bar pretty low and think that we have nothing to worry about. If our goal is self-righteousness, some of us exceed that by leaps and bounds. Which brings us to point number one.

1. Don’t measure yourself to your standards.

Luke 18:9, Romans 10:3

I find it interesting the way the Message translation puts it.

"They don’t seem to realize that this comprehensive setting-things-right that is salvation is God’s business, and a most flourishing business it is. Right across the street they set up their own salvation shops and noisily peddle their knockoffs. After all these years of refusing to really deal with God on his terms, insisting instead on making their own deals, they have nothing to show for it." Romans 10:3 MSG

After I became the pastor, I felt like God wanted me to go back to school and work toward a degree. Things are different for me now than when I was in High School. High school work to me was pretty easy. I took a lot of harder classes like physics, advance chemistry, advanced trig and math analysis, English composition and my mindset was I was taking hard classes but I wasn’t going to work hard. I mean a C in math analysis is better than an A in Algebra and a C in Advanced chemistry was way better than an A in physical science. So, even though my class rank was like around 46 out of 87, I was smarter than those that took easy classes and got great grades. My measuring bar was set low. I was not a good student. I was not smarter than those that took easy classes, but I fooled myself into thinking it was doing well. Now college is frustrating. I am doing a lot better than I did in High school and even though my expectations of my abilities were not very high, so far, I am doing a lot better than I thought I could. I have taken several classes in the Psychology field, so that I would be better equipped to do counseling, because some of us are really messssssed up! I mean several of you are Chief fans. And that is what happens when you don’t set your bar very high.

Some of the people that Jesus was talking to needed a kick in the pants. Something to show them just what they were lacking. Some people get so caught up in justifying the things they do against what God wants us to do that we need a kick in the pants sometimes.

This is parable that Jesus told is such a good story. If we were honest with ourselves, most of us would probably fit in the shoes of this Pharisee very well. But we can’t measure ourselves to our standards and we need to make sure that we… point 2

2. Don’t measure yourself to others.

Luke 18:11, Galatians 6:4 Amplified Bible

This one can be difficult. Almost our whole lives we are conditioned to compare ourselves to someone else. Everything is ranked. High school sports teams, runners, jumpers, even band has 1st chair, second chair,… class rank, top ten, valedictorian, and the list goes on and on. It is drilled into who we are almost all our lives. No wonder we do it in our walk with the Lord. It is time to break that cycle.

When it comes to your faith in God, you can’t measure yourself to the average person, nor can you measure yourself to those that are leaders in the church or in the Christian faith. People will fail you! People will eventually almost always let you down. Their walk with the Lord is not and can not be your walk with the Lord. And if there were ever the perfect person, besides Jesus, then we will disappoint ourselves and get discouraged when we fail.

The story about James and John asking Jesus to let one of them sit at His left hand and one at His right when He is in His kingdom. They wanted to be considered better than all of those other disciples, all the saints that lived before them. God doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want us to think that we deserve better than anyone. He doesn’t want us to think that we are not as good as anyone. We can not compare ourselves to anyone else.

Think about this… How many people were told to build an ark? How many people spend 3 days in the belly of a great fish? How many people killed a giant with a sling and a stone? How many people talked to a burning bush? How many people got out of the boat and walked on water? How many Mother Theresa’s were there? How many Bill Grahams were there?

God doesn’t call you to be someone else in the world he calls you to be someone else in Him. He doesn’t call you to be a better follower than a pastor or someone in the bible. He calls you to be a better follower than you were yesterday.

3. Measure yourself to God’s standards.

Luke 18:13, I John 1:5-7

Several years ago, I was talking to a guy (we will call him Jack) that I work with about God and church. Jack said that he had a problem with church because his aunt had an affair with the pastor of the church. And one of the guys that we worked with was a “Christian” and he was hateful and bitter and there wasn’t really any difference between Jack and this Christian and he just had a bad opinion of church and Christians and God. I told him that I understood.

Knowing he was a football fan, I asked him, “If a couple of fans of your team were to kill someone after a game, would you stop being a fan of that team? Or if a fan of your team had an affair with your spouse, would you stop being a fan?” The evil actions of the people that call themselves Christians do not diminish who God is. Those actions do not measure up to who God is.

Romans 12:2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

We need to be biblically correct. We need to follow the teachings that are set out for us throughout the bible. Jesus said, “Why do you call me Lord and not do what I say.” He also said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

We have the promise of heaven, which Jesus said is for those who endure until the end. There are so many distractions, so many lies of the devil, that we need to make sure that we are following the truth. And the truth is that the only set of standards that I can use to see how I am doing is the standard of God, Himself. We are called to be holy.

Our goal of heaven may be the same but our lives are different, our personalities are different. I have heard it said that we are all on the same boat, but the one I like better is, “We are all in the same storm in our own boat.” What matters is who is in control of your boat. So as the praise team comes back up, let me ask you, “Who is in control of your boat?” What standards are you using to measure to?

Measuring Up