Happy Mothers Day! This is a special day. This is also a unique experience for me and maybe for you. I don't expect to be 37 weeks pregnant again bringing the Sunday morning message. You likely haven't had a very pregnant mother sharing in the worship experience in this way, but I thank you for being here.

It was mother's day. A four-year-old and a six-year-old presented their Mom with a houseplant. They had used their own money and she was thrilled. The older of them said with a sad face," There was a bouquet that we wanted to give you at the flower shop. It was real pretty, but it was too expensive. It had a ribbon
on it that said, 'Rest in Peace,' and we thought it would be just perfect since you are always asking for a little peace so that you can rest."

You may have seen the MSNBC.COM article yesterday by journalist and mother Kari Huus. She admitted that all the suggested Mother's Day Gifts today are nice and she would accept them. But, if you ask her what she really ants, it is SLEEP. And to make that gift even more special, have a few loads of laundry done when she wakes up.

A lot of Moms may feel that way today…just need some peace so they can rest. I know that is a common feeling among parents of young children, but there are certainly all different stages of parenthood.

We are blessed to have Gracie, our four year old, and anticipate the arrival of her sister very soon. I am living in the world of preschool and babies. Many of you as mothers or parents live in other stages.

I read about a man who was asked to speak on the topic "How to Raise Your Children" He was a minister and was supposed to know all about that. Then he had a child and decided he should change that speech title to "Some Suggestions to Parents." Then he had two more children...which led him to change the title to "Feeble Hints to Fellow Strugglers." After his children became teenagers, he finally changed his approach to "Anyone here got a few words of wisdom."

Some of you are in the stage during this month of seeing your children graduate from high school or college and new chapters begin in your life and relationships. No matter if your children are very small or grown adults and everywhere in between, all need spiritual and emotional support from their parents and church family.

In honor of this special day, we are going to look in scripture at mother and grandmother named Eunice and Lois. While they can teach us some significant things about living out our faith as mothers, grandmothers, women…I believe they have things to teach all of us, whether we are parents or not, whether we are single or married, whether we are a teenager or senior adult.

No matter what place we may find ourselves in life, God wants to help us to be the people He created us to be and He wants to use you to make a positive difference in the lives of those around you.

We will also learn today from the relationship of Paul and Timothy. Paul, who did not have children as far as we know, claimed Timothy as his son in the faith. Perhaps there are those you honor today who have influenced you spiritually who you would call "spiritual parents" or you have others in your life who you love and provide spiritual nurture as your "daughters and sons in the faith."

My favorite scripture is Psalm 139, because it always reminds me God knows me, understands me, loves me, values me. He formed me in my mother's womb. Depending on our experiences in life, Mother's Day can bring a variety of emotions. God knows what you are experiencing and what you have experienced this year, both your losses and your joys. He sees right where we are and reaches out in love to each of us.

One thing we all have in common this morning is that we all have a mother and God used them as a beginning point for your life on earth. They helped bring you into this world. You may be very close to your mother. Others of you may not have the best relationship with your Mom. For others, your mother may have already passed through this life and today you honor her memory. Some of you are blessed or were blessed to have or have had a Christian mother who guided you in the Christian life. For others that may not be the case. Whatever your experience with your mother, I pray that we all can find some reason to honor her today on Mother's day.

I’ve entitled this message, "Passing on the Passion" because this mother and grandmother that we find in the book of 2 Timothy did just that. They had a contagious and intentional passion for Christ that they felt was so important for their son and grandson to understand. They invested time, influence, diligent nurturing in the scriptures and in the faith because they had discovered the importance of a relationship with Christ.

In fact their belief in the importance of relationship with Christ, I would suppose, went beyond church attendance, going through any motions of what appeared to be Christian, to a place in their heart and life where they exhibited a "sincere faith" that Paul describes in 2 Timothy 1:5. It was sincere, they were passionate about their faith in Christ. It was real.

The word passion has been overused in recent days…but passion is synonomous with words like fervor, fire, and zeal. These words denote powerful, intense emotion. Passion is a deep, overwhelming emotion:

Whatever we are most passionate about is what drives our life. Even so, whatever is most important to us is what or who we worship. We worship whatever or whomever is most important to us. If making money is most important to us, we worship that pursuit. That drives our life and decisions. If golf is most important to us, then it is the motivator behind all we do and we are constantly adjusting our life to give it first place. If job success is most important to us, than we worship that pursuit of success…we may not hold worship services in their honor, but whatever or whomever is most important, we give honor, attention, worship to that or them and we live for that.

When we become a Christian and ask Jesus to be the Lord and Savior of our life, when that is sincere, He becomes the most important one in our life. Our Lord is whatever or whomever we live for.

Our families and children are very important to us, but even still Christ is to be Lord of our lives and then can be Lord of our homes. Jesus values families and marriages and He wants to help and support us in the challenging journey of motherhood, parenthood and life. When we are most passionate about knowing Jesus, we fulfill our purpose in life.

Those closest to you, probably know who or what is your Lord. They see what you are most passionate about and who or what drives your decisions.

What Passion are you passing on to your children and those around you?

There was a young woman who was passionate about her faith, but also passionate about making a change in her life. This woman and her two children had experienced the pain of an alcoholic husband and father. Unfortunately, when the husband and father drank, he became an angry and jealous man. Small in stature, the drinking made him feel big and the young mother had suffered physical abuse because of the damage that this addiction caused. Forced into a corner of decision, this young woman reached the climactic point of their relationships. Like many other times, the husband and father had spent part of his paycheck at the local bar before arriving home in a fit of rage; the mother took the hand of the 10-year-old daughter and vowed she was leaving him for good. The intoxicated man took a gun and held it on them as they proceeded out the door. He pointed the gun towards them out the window and the mother said, "I don’t care if I live or die, this is it." So the mother and daughter walked down the country driveway and road, making it to safety at a neighbor's house and began making a better life for themselves. It wasn’t easy. The mother had an 8^th grade education and had no money. She pridefully refused to accept any money from the abusive husband. They made a new life for themselves. The daughter wondered if her mother would return to the unhappy home for survival, but she didn’t. They became involved in church and grew in their faith. The daughter vowed to marry someone totally opposite from her father….and years later she did. She married a t-totaling Baptist preacher, had two children and raised them in a loving Christian home. And I am so glad my Gram and my Mom made the choices they did. I honor them. Their courage gives me courage to stand here today.

To me, as I grew up, they exhibited passion for Christ and a trust in God that they taught and I caught.

My childhood experience was dramatically different from my mother's. She and my father reared my brother and I in a loving Christian home and made it easy to know and love Christ. Even with this background that I am so grateful for, growing up in a Christian home and in the church, did not make me a Christian. I, as all of us must, had to deal with my own personal relationship with God and make the personal choice to accept Him as Lord and Savior of my life. That is something that no one else can do for us. We are responsible for our choices and particularly our choice as to whether or not we will live in a love relationship with Christ as Lord, regardless of what our parents do or don't do.

In our scripture today we find a young man named Timothy who was influenced by two women's passion for Christ. His mother, Eunice, and grandmother Lois were passionate about their faith in Christ and were deeply committed to sharing that with their beloved son and grandson.

We first discover Timothy in Acts 16 and learn that Paul met this young man and that he was well-spoken of. Timothy’s mother was a Jewish believer while his father was a Greek Gentile. Paul, and others, saw in Timothy great potential for leadership and making an impact for Christ.

In 2 Timothy, Paul wrote a letter to Timothy who he would likely call his son in the faith. Paul wrote this book of the Bible, while he was imprisoned and believed not to be far from death. Paul was a close mentor to Timothy. The scriptures say in 2 Timothy 1:3 how Paul would constantly remember Timothy in prayers night and day.

In this letter, Paul was encouraging Timothy to be unafraid to be the leader God desired Him to be, to fulfill God’s calling and gifting in His life. Paul reaffirms that fact that He had been given a great training in the Christian faith through His mother and grandmother.

Paul was sure of his mother and grandmother's "sincere faith" and was confident Timothy also shared that same genuine faith.

Our scriptures today reveal that clearly, Eunice and Lois were intentional about passing on their passion for Christ. I want us to examine four things we can learn from them that I believe we can apply as mothers, parents and as Christ-followers as we live out our faith in the workplace, in our home, in our schools.

1. An authentic, sincere faith in Christ is contagious. Their faith was vibrant. Lois and Eunice were passionate about their faith in Christ and were deeply convinced that their son/grandson needed to know Christ and everything about Him. They found the key to living and wanted to pass it on to their child.

Certainly, it is important to teach our children about Christ in our home and in all we do as a church.

But so much of what we learn about the Christian faith from those who are our parents or ministers comes not just through our words, but is communicated in the way we live. It is caught, rather than just taught with words. Especially in the parent/child relationship, we verbalize and teach our children things, but they watch to see if that is true in our life. Our words mean little, if our actions and life does not reveal what we teach. When our words DO match our actions…when we live out the Christian principles, standards, and even scriptures that we speak of, our lives become powerful examples of what it means to follow Christ.

Our children will often let us know when we are being inconsistent with our words and actions. It may come out in behavior or they may simply tell us.

One day Gracie and I were driving down the road and passed a wreck. The ambulance was there and another one passed by us, we assumed going to the same wreck. I casually mentioned to her that I sometimes say a prayer for people in the wreck, the paramedics and families involved. We went on down the road a few seconds and she said, "Well, are you going to pray?"

Now when we pass an ambulance or wreck, I usually here "we better pray" from the backseat and so we usually do.

In big ways and small ways, we can pass on our Christian faith, and we can also learn from our children, both young and old, when we listen to them.

We don't get to read about the daily life of Eunice, Lois, and Timothy, but since they were human as we are, I am sure they had times where they failed. We will fail too. Our families will see us fail. But if we have a deep commitment to Christ, He will be faithful to help us. Just because we make mistakes or mess up, doesn't mean that we still can't have a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. At the central part of trusting Christ is the gift of God called grace. Grace is that undeserved favor that He offers to us day to day. Grace is that forgiveness and mercy that He provides for us to live fully and joy-fully in this life. Grace is what we need because we are human and we cannot live purposefully on our own.

A sincere faith is contagious and God meets us where we are to help us grow in our relationship with Him. Even in our mistakes, a person with a sincere faith can still be contagious because they know Who to go to and Who they put their trust in during times of challenge. And others will take notice.

Developing an authentic, contagious faith involves us making a priority to nurture our relationship with God. To choose to make time to pray, to read and study the Bible and discover more about Him, to worship Him and give Him our attention beyond church attendance. We will want to make knowing Him and living for Him our first priority.

2. We can more effective as mothers, parents and Christian people when we have the help of other Christians. Literally, in this case, Eunice had the help of her mother Lois, Timothy's grandmother. She was fortunate to have Lois help.

Grandparents…. you can be a blessing and help to your children and grandchildren as you support and contribute to their spiritual growth. I have wonderful memories of hearing my paternal grandfather pray for my family and me. I recall many, many times when my grandmothers told me they prayed for me every day. (When my paternal grandmother went to be with the Lord two years ago, one of the early thoughts I had is that I had lost one of my pray-ers.)Eunice had Lois' spiritual support as they sought to help Timothy know Christ and His Ways.

You don’t have to be a parent or grandparent to share your faith with those who come behind you or with those who surround you. There is someone who needs your help and prayers today. What is often NOT needed is unsolicited advice. Sometimes all that is needed is just the awareness that you support them through prayer and are willing to help in any way. We can't ever underestimate the power of prayer. Spiritual and emotional support goes a long way. At other times, it may be very practical ways that you can help and support.

What a blessing it is in our church to have all the Sunday School and other ministry volunteers in the preschool, children, and youth area. Some are parents, some not, some single, some married. All different ages.

As a first time Mom, when we first brought Gracie to church, I hadn’t handed her over to anyone but her grandparents and as I left the SS room, my emotions got me. But I can’t tell you what a blessing and what great assurance over the next few weeks it was for me and for other parents of young children to have people who serve in that bed baby room. And each year the different SS teachers and helpers mean so much. It gives new parents assurance and confidence in their church and its care for their children.

Every teacher and worker contributes to a child and youth's view of faith and God and God’s love for them. Many of you may have parents and grandparents that live here. Many of you, like me, do not. The church family plays an integral role in the rearing of children and youth that come to this church. Every person who claims this church family as their own has a significant role in shaping their faith. You are needed.

3. Children (young and old) can build on the legacy or foundation of a Christian faith that is passed on to them. I believe there is no limit to what God can do as generation after generation continues to build upon the wisdom of living as Christ followers.

Paul encouraged Timothy to build on the Christian legacy He had been given. To take advantage, rather than neglect, the gift God had given Him, reminding Him that God gives the boldness we need to live out our faith.

I have the privilege of building on a legacy of pray-ers and Christians who helped pass

on their faith to me. Now, as a mother, I do feel the responsibility to help pass on that legacy of Christian faith. There is no question in my mind that the most important thing for our children is that we do everything we can to help them know Jesus as their Savior and Lord. (There are a lot of other things that press on us or that would seem so important for our children and their development. But, the most important thing we can do is to pray for them and help them know Jesus as Lord and Savior.)

I realize that not everyone has the privilege of growing up in a Christ-centered home. Perhaps your childhood experience was not happy and/or not Christ-centered. Perhaps your home now is not centered on Christ. I do know that it can be, as you make the intentional choice to begin to move your family toward a Christ-centered way of life. God will help you as you depend on Him through prayer and as you make steps toward having a Christ-centered home. Your church family can help you do this, too. We are not left alone, but God helps us with each step. It is never too late to center your life on Christ.

Like Paul, we can encourage those around us to grow in our relationship to Christ and we can hold up the standard of what it means to follow Christ in our daily life. We must nurture our relationship with Christ and not lower the standard because we are just too busy or because the world would seduce us to a different way. We are to be different. Paul encouraged Timothy to build on His faith, to not neglect it, but to rely on God who gives us the boldness, the passion, the desire, to live out our faith. In Romans 12:1-2, Paul challenges us to be transformed by our relationship with God, rather than conformed to our culture. As long as we are living as committed Christ followers in this world, we will always live with this tension. We are to be different than one who does not know Christ. If we are truly embracing Christ's way of living, then our life will reflect that. Others will take notice. We are always being watched, but we don't ultimately live for others….we are living for Jesus and we are to serve Him alone. Maybe you need to help break the cycle of generation after generation that hasn't embraced the Christian life and establish that standard in your home. Perhaps you are or were blessed to have a Christian background, but have let things slip and haven't taken advantage of that gift. Today, you can renew your commitment and your church and Christian friends can help support you.

4. We must be intentional, deliberate about passing on our passion for Christ.

My mother hung two different scripture passages on the refrigerator and I saw them there for many years. I remember as an older child and a teenager seeing these verses on the refrigerator every time I opened it or passed it. I especially noticed them when I would stand to wash dishes. I suppose my Mother looked at them regularly while she worked in the kitchen.

Matthew 6:33-34- But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Romans 12:9-21- ⁹Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹²Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.