Executive Summary
Gospel of Jesus and Mothers
Mother’s Day Message
May 12, 2024
By Pastor Barnabas K. Kim
2 Timothy 1:1-5
On this Mother’s Day, Pastor Barnabas K. Kim shares a heartfelt message about the profound impact of mothers and grandmothers in the faith, drawing from 2 Timothy 1:1-5. He emphasizes the importance of giving thanks to all mothers, both biological and spiritual, who have nurtured us with love, faith, and prayer. Pastor Kim shares personal stories of his mother and grandmother, illustrating the lasting legacy of their faith. He also highlights the example of Timothy, whose faith was shaped by his mother Eunice and grandmother Lois. The sermon concludes with a call to treat every believer as family, just as Jesus and Paul did, and to spread the gospel with the same devotion and love shown by our mothers.
요약
예수의 복음과 어머니들
어머니의 날 메시지
2024년 5월 12일
김 바나바 목사
디모데후서 1:1-5
이번 어머니의 날, 김 바나바 목사님은 디모데후서 1:1-5에서 어머니와 할머니가 믿음에 미친 깊은 영향을 전하는 감동적인 메시지를 나눕니다. 목사님은 우리를 사랑과 믿음, 기도로 양육해 주신 모든 어머니, 생물학적 어머니와 영적 어머니에게 감사할 중요성을 강조합니다. 그는 자신의 어머니와 할머니의 개인적인 이야기를 나누며 그들의 믿음의 유산이 얼마나 오래 지속되는지 보여줍니다. 또한, 믿음이 어머니 유니게와 할머니 로이스에 의해 형성된 디모데의 본보기를 강조합니다. 설교는 예수님과 바울처럼 모든 신자를 가족으로 대하고, 어머니들이 보여준 헌신과 사랑으로 복음을 전파하라는 요청으로 마무리됩니다.
전체설교문
Gospel of Jesus and Mothers
May 12, 2024
Mother’s Day Message
By Pastor Barnabas K. Kim
2 Timothy 1:1-5
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in keeping with the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.
4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy.
5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.
1. Let us give thanks to all mothers!
Today is Mother’s Day.
As we celebrate Mother’s Day today, let us remember and give thanks to not just our own mothers but to all mothers of faith who have loved us throughout our lives; let us emulate the Gospel they kept and believed in, their gracious serving and sacrifice in our own lives.
I was fortunate to have a mother who spent her life in faith, love, and hope for heaven; who had already embarked on her journey to heaven. To this day, whenever I think of her, I get choked up, feeling nostalgic and thankful. From a young age, she read me Bible verses, taught me hymns, and prayed for me throughout my life.
Sadly, she passed away rather abruptly in her mid-70s.
When she was suddenly admitted to a hospital in Daegu, Korea, I was leading a mission seminar at a Korean church in College Station, Texas, where Texas A&M is located. It was Wednesday evening, the first day of the seminar, attended by 120 Korean master’s and doctoral students at Texas A&M. That evening, I called my mother in Korea. She said, “I wish you could be here, but you’re in the middle of your mission, so don’t come here until you finish your seminar.” For her, God’s work always came first. So until Sunday afternoon, I stayed at the church, finishing the seminar—The Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. As soon as I landed at Incheon Airport, I called the hospital in Daegu, and my brother said, “Mother has just been summoned by God.” Even though I wasn’t there, my best friend, who was serving as a pastor at a big church in Daegu, visited my mother in the intensive care unit every day and prayed for her. During the three-day funeral, over 300 pastors, elders, and church members came to grieve with us, commemorating her life and celebrating her departure into heaven.
I also had a grandmother who would seat me on her lap, teaching Bible stories and hymns. She was the one who taught me the hymn “Jesus Loves Me This I Know,” which our family sings at home all the time. To this day, I sing this praise in English whenever I meet faithful seniors in hospitals. Whenever I approach an elderly person, I think of my own grandmother. “Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong, they are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so!”
When I first started my hospital chaplain ministry in Phoenix, Arizona, a lone elderly woman called the hospital out of the blue, asking to speak to a pastor, and the operator transferred the call to me. She couldn’t see very well, she said, and she was always alone at home. And on that day, she had a feelingthat someone would be there to listen to her story if she called the hospital. For about the next 30 to 40 minutes, I listened to her fascinating life story. And then I sang this hymn that my grandmother loved so much. I only sang the first verse in English, and she loved it so much that she finished the song to the last verse, welling up. She couldn’t see, but she knew all the words by heart. On that day, she encouraged and challenged me more than I comforted her.
2. Today, we witness a beautiful family in our passage, 2 Timothy 1.
It’s the story of Timothy—a young pastor who was Paul’s spiritual disciple—his maternal grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice. Let’s read the passage again.
“1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in keeping with the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus; 2 To Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.; 3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.; 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy.; 5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.” Amen!
Timothy, the great missionary of the early church, the young whom Paul—the apostle sent directly from Jesus—lovingly called, “my dear son,” was a man of “clear conscience” and “sincere faith,” who was moved to tears toward God’s love. Paul tells us that Timothy’s beautiful faith came from his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice. Paul knew Lois very well, and he also met his mother, so he praises the young pastor for taking after their faith and character. This is such a beautiful legacy of faith!
As we celebrate Mother’s Day today, I want us all to dream of a faithful home like Timothy’s. As parents, I want each and every one of us to raise our children by the example of Jesus’ gospel, love, prayer, and faith, just as Timothy’s grandmother and mother did.
Biblical scholars say Timothy was born to a Greek father and a diaspora Jewish mother in a multicultural and cross-cultural marriage. His father doesn’t appear in the Bible, but given how Timothy’s name means “the one who honors God,” we might speculate that his Greek father was also a man of faith after witnessing the faith of his mother-in-law and wife. But if Timothy’s father died young, Timothy probably grew up poor. Even so, his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice did a wonderful job of raising him through the gospel of Jesus and setting an example of prayer, love, and faith. As a result, Timothy first met Paul on his first missionary journey (Acts 16:1); and when Paul’s missionary band stopped in Lystra again on his second missionary journey, Timothy accompanied him as a traveling companion, spreading the gospel alongside Paul, Silas, and Luke the physician; he received on-the-job discipleship training as a future church leader. In his later years when Paul became imprisoned in Philippi and Rome, Timothy served as Paul and the other apostles’ caretaker, even going to prison himself later.
As a young man, it couldn’t have been easy to suffer alongside the apostles, following the gospel. But Timothy always remembered the prayers and commitment of his mother and grandmother. And following their teaching, he joined Paul’s missionary band.
As they received Paul, Timothy’s grandmother and mother set an example for Timothy in their commitment to love the Gospel, spread the Gospel, and serve the apostles who preached the Gospel. They welcomed and served Paul with love; they encouraged Timothy to meet, follow, and pray with Paul and the rest of the missionary band. That’s how Timothy soon became a member of Paul’s missionary team and a future leader of the early church. Most importantly, we must always remember: that our children are always watching our every word, our every deed.
About two weeks ago, on Monday afternoon, we had a pastor from San Diego come to our church for a half-day outreach training. After attending the training, my wife was touched by the Holy Spirit–every day, she prays with the evangelism tracts she received that day. She would distribute the leaflet on car door handles at mall parking lots or around our communities. Rather than conducting face-to-face ministry, she prepares a set number of tracts each day and prays passionately for each and every one of the prospective recipients of those tracts. Only then does she leave each message on their car doors. The message on the tract the church prepared has the same content as Evangelism Explosion Training, which I have been using for the past 30 years. In firm belief that the Holy Spirit will come and bring true salvation for anyone reading this message, I, too, have been praying with my wife, helping her in her mission, and I am also using it for my outreach efforts. But amazingly, as she prayerfully prepares for the ministry and distributes each message, my wife says, her heart fills up with intense joy; she wells up in tears; she finds herself with a renewed conviction and excitement for the gospel. Not only that, first and foremost, she sent those tracts to our children, who are far away, and shared her testimony with them. Yes! We should spread the Gospel and its testimony to our children before anyone else.
3. The last message I would like to share is: “All My Mothers – His Mother, who has been a mother to me, too!”
Romans 16:13 says, “Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too.” In his letters to the churches, Paul mentions several names of faithful women. We see how Paul treats them and honors them as he would his own mother. Paul’s parents might have been still alive in Tarsus, Cilicia—his hometown. But since he was devoted to spreading the gospel, he couldn’t take care of his parents. So instead, he loved and served many Christians and fellow believers he met through Jesus as if they were his own parents and siblings.
1 Timothy 5:1-2 says: “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” Through this, we can learn about Paul’s idea of a spiritual family and how he treats fellow Christians.
John 19:25-27 shows Jesus in the midst of his suffering on the cross as he entrusts his mother Mary to his beloved disciple John. He says to Mary, “Woman, here is your son” as he introduces his disciple, the apostle John, to Mary. He then says, “Here is your mother,” as he asks John to take care of her after his departure.
Through Jesus and Paul, we learn that our family relationships should differ from those of the world. If we are mature Christians, everyone Christian we meet in Jesus should be our family. The most profound lesson God is giving us on this Mother’s Sunday is: Everyone is my family; everyone is my mother; everyone is my father; everyone is my brother; everyone is my sister, and everyone is my children!
My father was summoned by God five months ago, just before Christmas. He was 93. Thankfully, he was a healthy man of faith, who had never been hospitalized in his whole life. Only three days before his passing, he was taken to a hospital before being called home to heaven. As his oldest son, I couldn’t be there with him. Two days before he was hospitalized, I called him home. My father always had this booming voice, and that day too, he told me loud and clear. “Don’t come. You don’t have to. Keep doing God’s work there and now. Those patients are your parents and your brothers.” That’s what my parents always told me. “We’re fine. There is nothing more rewarding and joyful than for my son as a pastor to treat everyone he meets as his parents while sharing the Gospel.”
This was my father’s lifelong teaching. In my 35 years of work as a pastor, a missionary, a military Chaplain, and a hospital Chaplain, I served every senior I met as my father and mother. Specifically, 10 years ago, when I worked at San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC) in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, I met many Korean War veterans. To this day, I still vividly remember—how much I learned from them; and how I could share love, the gospel, and my gratitude as a Korean with them. The work continues, of course, as my Chaplain ministry at the US VA Medical Center, where I share the Gospel and love of Jesus with mostly Vietnam War veterans and veteran patients on the psychiatric wards in these days.
I would like to conclude today’s message by reading Jesus’ word recorded in Matthew 12:48-50: 48 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Dear Bansuk congregation who are here today, and all those are watching the video on the youtube.com, you are my family, my parents, my brothers and sisters. Your children are my children. I would like to offer my blessings to all our mothers this Mother’s Day. Let us thanks praise God who sent us our mothers.
Let us pray:
“Our loving Father God, we thank you for blessing us with salvation; for making us children of God through the Lord Jesus. Thank you for giving us parents and siblings during our time on earth. And thank you for giving us a spiritual family, our brothers and sisters in the gospel, through the Church, the body of Jesus. As we celebrate this Mother’s Day, bless all our mothers and bless all parents so that they will be praised and rejoiced through Jesus’ Gospel and love! Bless the children with faith that emulates the love and serving of the parents, so that they may continue the faith in the generations to come. We pray all this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!”
(*Barnabas K. Kim, Korean International Ministries, http://www.KIMMission.org)