I'm going to go to the book of Ruth in chapter 2. So a popular modern trend among evangelical Christians is built on the idea that Christians should be always healthy, happy, and wealthy. Maybe that would have been a little better if they would have added wise, but they don't. So many modern church services are just built on these values. And so everything that's done is grounded in them. Everything is bright and cheerful. The songs are sweet, almost sugary, and upbeat. And the preaching is light and positive. all designed to make everyone feel good by the time that they leave. Of course, though, those good feelings that are experienced, they don't last, and you sort of keep coming back week after week for another fix. Well, behind this charade, though, is the nagging reality Not everyone is happy. Not everyone is healthy. Not everyone is wealthy. So poor, sick, and sad Christians in that environment are pressured to perform, to fake it till you make it sort of thing. To put up a front, put on a fake smile, and just act like everything's great when it isn't. And then on the other hand, poor and unhappy and unhealthy and lost people wander into churches looking for something. And I think they often go away thinking, well, I'm not like them. I'll never be like them. They all have it all so together. They look so good. They're so bright and cheerful. And they leave concluding that there's just really no place here for somebody like me. There's really nothing here for me. Well, I suppose the best thing that we can say about this sort of modern manufactured merriment is that maybe there's a motivation there to help people because we know everyone isn't happy, healthy, and wealthy. I'm just saying there's probably some good intentions that, you know, let's, the world is hard, life is hard, things are difficult, let's just try to cheer people up. So we know the diagnosis, we know the problems that exist, but we're treating it like a doctor giving a diseased patient some ice cream so that they feel better right now, but doesn't give them the medicine that's needed to actually overcome the disease that's killing them. I would say in my experience, this sort of pressure to perform and to appear happy and with everything together maybe falls most on mothers. And I suppose by extension we could say grandmothers as well. I mean I've seen how that mothers are so externally pressured To have the perfect home. To have the perfect family. Never anything out of place. All of the children looking and acting just so. Always being bright and cheerful. It's like the greatest calamity that can be allowed for mothers is maybe to occasionally lose a sock. Maybe every now and then the chicken's a little overcooked. Mothers are greatly pressured to act this way and to never show anything otherwise. But really, though they are strong, they're just external pressures. Because also know that Mothers feel and care very deeply for their children. There's a bond there that I don't think I can completely comprehend. It is very strong. They pour themselves, and I mean literally, body and heart and life into their children. And they feel every bump and every scrape along the way and every pain and every tear of every child very, very deeply. When their children are not well, mothers are torn in two inside. But when their children hurt them, they're heartbroken. seemingly without repair. Well, this Sunday, it's Mother's Day, and this particular sermon is a message for hurting mothers. Now, I don't mean by that that there's not a message for everyone that may be hurting, because I know that it's not only mothers who experience hurt. But if there's no word of God for hurting and grieving and heartbroken mothers, then we are all miserable with no remedy and really no hope. And if all that we have to give to those in pain are platitudes, bumper sticker slogans, fake-it-till-you-make-it kind of advice, then we're all just wasting our time here. So I want us to look in the Word of God. We're going to begin in Ruth 2, verses 11 and 12. And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been showed me all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the death of thine husband, and how thou hast left thy father, and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel under whose wings thou art come to trust. Well, the book of Ruth is actually mainly about Naomi, Ruth's mother-in-law. Naomi was a woman, she was a wife, and she was a mother. And really, in a lot of ways, she was a mother who had it all. But then she lost it all. She's sort of like a reverse Job in that kind of respect. Her family had the means to be able to leave from Bethlehem and to go to Moab, go to another country, and to live comfortably while back home Judea was experiencing a famine. They had the means to do that. But then her husband died. And she had two sons, and those two sons married, but they had not had any children of their own, and her sons died. So she had no family, she had no money, she had no land in Israel as their inheritance had been forfeit, and she could not afford to redeem it. Naomi was grieved, impoverished, and embittered by her own profession. miserable widow and bereaved mother. And she went back to Bethlehem knowing that at least there was a law in Israel that provided for widows of Israel and gave them some protection. Well Naomi's daughter-in-law Ruth didn't forsake her. and she went with her to Bethlehem even though there she would be a foreigner from a despised rival country with no promise of anything good for her in Israel." In other words, she went with her without any expectation of anything good for her. Now, she had not embraced some sort of promise of happiness and health and wealth. Let's go to the land of plenty. I think she understood something of what this life would be like, but yet she still willingly went. She was a widow herself. She didn't have any children. But we find that she went to Israel because on the one hand she loved her mother-in-law Naomi. She loved her and so she didn't want to forsake her and she went with her. But she also went to Israel because she had come to trust in Naomi's God, in the God of Israel, Yahweh Almighty. She had come to trust in Him. And so she went to Israel again without the promise of anything. In fact, Naomi was very clear that she couldn't do anything for her. I've got nothing. I cannot do anything for you. Stay with your own family. You'll be better off. But she still insisted. Well, here in chapter two is when she had went for the first time to glean in the fields, which is something that was allowed under the old covenant law for the poor and the widows and even the strangers and such among Israel. And God's providence had guided her to the fields of Boaz, who was a kinsman and would later, of course, become a kinsman redeemer, very important to this book and to the story of the Bible as a whole. And here we're reading where Boaz blessed Ruth here in chapter 2 verses 11 and 12. And he did so recognizing her faith, recognizing that she had truly come to trust in God. He used a metaphor for God as a mother bird sheltering her young ones beneath her wings. Now this turns out to be very rich imagery that ends up being repeated throughout the Old Testament and even into the New. That covenant protection of Yahweh that is imaged in this particular metaphor is climactically paid off in the book when Boaz marries Ruth and she becomes a mother of Obed and a great-grandmother of King David and ultimately of Jesus down the line. So thinking of that metaphor, that he uses, this metaphor again of a mother bird sheltering her young ones under her wings. It leads us to ask this question, how is God like a mother? And further from that, what is the good news for herding mothers? So let's start with this question. How is it that God is like a mother? Well, first of all, we need to understand that the Bible never calls God a mother like the Bible calls God a father. He is a father. It never calls him a mother, but it does use maternal metaphors to reveal knowledge about God through the biblical writers. And actually, the most common maternal metaphor that's used is the imagery of a mother bird gathering and sheltering her young ones close to her body beneath her wings. Now this is the metaphor that Boaz used to describe Ruth's trust in God and covenant relationship with Him. And it's a very rich metaphor that's repeated several times in the Psalms. And usually it's repeated in the context of a writer experiencing distress and seeking comfort. Just a quick review of those in Psalm 17 in verse number 8. Well, Psalm 17 is a lament of David. David as a righteous sufferer in that lament, being afflicted by enemies seeking his destruction. And it's, in essence, a confession of God as His only refuge. Hide me under your wings like a mother bird does gather and hide and cover her young ones. Psalm 36 and verse number 7, how excellent is thy loving kindness, thy chesed, O God. Therefore, The children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. Psalm 36 is a prayer of David who doesn't seem to have a particular crisis in this psalm, but he does seem to be very weary. with the cursed world in which he lives. And he praises God who, like a mother bird, shelters those who trust in him under his wings, protects them from the fate of the wicked. In other words, when the storm of his wrath comes, there will be no covering for those not in covenant relationship with him. Psalm 57 and verse number one, be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me. For my soul trusteth in thee, yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge until these calamities be overpassed. Psalm 57 is another lament of David. This one is when he was hiding from Saul in the cave, when Saul was seeking to kill him and was in fact hunting him down. And David in that psalm describes being hunted, being entrapped, having snares laid for him at every hand. He describes essentially feeling like a piece of meat in the midst of a bunch of hungry lions every single day that are threatening to tear him and devour him. And he prayed for shelter. And he prayed for shelter underneath the wings of God, like a mother bird, so that he would be hidden and covered until the crisis passed over. Psalm 61 and verse number four, I will abide in thy tabernacle forever. I will trust in the covert of thy wings. Selah. Psalm 61 is a lament of David when again he was afraid for his life. Possibly when he was fleeing from his son Absalom, though that's not entirely certain. But he prayed for shelter. and protection beneath God's wings like that of a mother bird. Psalm 63 and verse number 7, because thou has been my help Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice." Psalm 63 is a praise psalm from David when he was a refugee in the wilderness. And that was the case both when he fled from Saul and when he fled from Absalom. And so it could be either of those as the occasion. In the wilderness, He was exposed to the elements. He suffered hunger. He suffered thirst. He was hunted like an animal to be killed and surrounded by wild animals. But here he rejoiced in God who, like a mother bird, hid him under his wings. Psalm 91 and verse number 4. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wing shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler." Now the writer of this psalm is uncertain, but it again uses this wilderness exile theme, and that's the occasion where there are many dangers described, like the wild animals, like the harsh terrain, like hunger and thirst and looming death. And this psalm actually shares quite a few connections with Deuteronomy chapter 32, which is significant, with one of those being this imagery of God like a mother bird. And we'll get to Deuteronomy 32 in a moment. But it praises God's wings, his feathers, that cover those who trust in him, even in a desolate and a lonely and a dark and a dangerous place, like a mother bird. Well, these are not the only maternal metaphors that are used of God, but they are the most common ones that are used. But even if you look at some of the other instances, you'll find that they're entirely consistent with this use of God being compared to a mother bird. So like in Isaiah chapter 49 and verse 15, can a woman forget her sucking child? That she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. In other words, God here compares himself and says there are mothers who abandon and forsake their own children. That does happen. But God is like a mother who never forsakes His children, even when they are wayward, even when they go astray, and even when they forget Him. That's in the context there in Isaiah 49. Isaiah 66, verses 12 to 13, For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. Then shall you suck, ye shall be born upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem." And in the context, he speaks of the restoration of Israel when God will comfort Israel like a good mother comforts her children. So all of these maternal metaphors that are used of God in the Old Testament, they all emphasize caring. There's caring, there's comforting, and there is covering, just like a mother does for her own children. Of course, it's not only in the animal world that a mother bird that acts that way, but even human mothers are much the same, caring and comforting and covering their children. And this is how God is like. a mother in the Bible. And this metaphor consistently displays that all the way from its origin. Its origin is not here in Ruth 2, though this is an early usage of it. Its origin actually comes in Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 32 verses 9 to 18 for the context. For the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land and in the waste, howling wilderness. He led him about. He instructed him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. And here's the metaphor, "...as an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone did lead them. And there was no strange God with him." He made him ride on the high places of the earth that he might eat the increase of the fields. He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock, butter of kine, and milk of sheep with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats with the fat of kidneys of wheat, and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. But Yeshurun waxed fat and kicked." And thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness. Then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God, to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. Of the rock that begat thee thou art unmindful and has forgotten God that formed thee. Well, once again, there in verse 11, we see this imagery, this metaphor, we see the caring, we see the comforting, we see the covering of Israel by God like a mother bird, and it supplies imagery for these later biblical writers to describe God's care and his comfort and his covering of those who trust in him. But if we read this closely, we can actually see there's another way here, that God is like a mother. Contextually in Deuteronomy 32, this imagery is used in relation to Israel's rejecting and forsaking him. And in this way, he is like a mother bird who would gather, who would cover her young, but they have refused and would not. And in fact, this metaphor comes to a climactic point in God's suffering rejection by his own in Jesus Christ. As Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, just days before his crucifixion, we read of his suffering this way, Luke chapter 19, verse 41 to 44. And when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it. City full of Jews from all over the world that were gathered there for the feast. A city full of a few of those that believed in him, but mainly full of those who rejected him. Oh, they would cry Hosanna to the son of David in a short amount of time and then quickly turn and cry away with him, crucify him. Jesus went on saying, if thou hadst known, as he's weeping over the city of Jerusalem, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes, for the day shall come upon thee, that thine enemy shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. And just a little while later, and a day before he was arrested to be tried, condemned, and crucified, when he was rebuking the Pharisees, the leaders of Israel, because they had led Israel in this grievous sin of rejecting their Messiah and forsaking the God He rebuked them, and he said in Matthew 23, 37, "'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings, and ye would not.'" So God is like a loving mother, caring and comforting and covering. And God is also like a loving mother, grieved by her own children. Well then, what's the message? What's the good news for hurting mothers? Well, mothers often endure a particular grief and pain. And again, I don't claim to be able to fully comprehend those bonds. And mothers can truly look at me and tell me that I don't understand how they feel. I don't understand what they've been through. Maybe I don't understand what you're feeling even right now or what you've gone through. And you would probably be right that I don't. And I don't know. I haven't experienced those things in that way. So I don't know what it feels like to be a grieved mother. But what I can tell you is that there's no one who understands a broken heart better than Jesus Christ. No one. He came to this earth like a mother bird. who would gather and shelter and comfort his own, but they rejected and killed him. In Jesus, there is one who knows and understands your sorrows and your griefs, and he bids you come to him. Hebrews chapter 4 verses 14 to 16, seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. If we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the filling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin, in all points, even that of a grieving mother, Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." You will never find anyone more sympathetic or more understanding than Jesus Christ. And He bids you come to Him boldly, pour it all out upon Him. But more than just understanding and sympathy, Jesus also came to heal broken hearts. Luke 4, verses 17-19. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And I can tell you, that the psalmists found great comfort in this. Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Psalm 51, 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. Oh God, that will not despise. Psalm 147, three, he healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds. There is only one who can bear our sorrows, who can bear our griefs, and it's also the same one and only one who bore our sins. and the same one who heals the broken hearted." So this is good news for hurting mothers. As mothers it's part of the reason that the metaphor even works in the Bible. It's because you're used to being the wings. You're used to being the wings of trying to gather and to shelter and to cover and to protect. You're used to being that. You're used to trying to cover and protect. But you also know and have experienced that even if you do cover and protect, you yourself are exposed to the danger. But the good news is you don't have to be the wings. Jesus is the wings. It's His wings. It's His feathers that you can shelter under. He unfailingly covers everyone who comes to Him. Don't try to carry a burden that's not yours to carry. Give your pain, give your sorrow, give your grief to Him. and hide beneath His wings, and you can pour over His Word. Just as we've done, just going through the Psalms in these few instances, you can pour over His Word, and you can find the language of grief and sorrow to pray. How do I unburden myself? Well, we can find that language right here in God's Word. And we can pray and we can be just as they were, having hope beyond the grave and beyond the pain of this present moment.