Isaiah chapter 49, and if you're able, when you're ready, would you please stand for the reading of God's holy and inspired word, Isaiah chapter 49, verse 15. Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. And then would you turn over to John chapter 19. John chapter 19 verse 23. When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also his tunic. The tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the scripture which says, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. So the soldiers did these things. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home. Amen to the reading of God's word, let's pray. Father, we cry out to you now in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you would help us. We need you to help us. We can do nothing without you. Please help us. Help us to concentrate. Help us to hear. Help us to lay this word up in our hearts. And most of all, help us to savour your Son. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. I know what a father's love is. I love my son. I love my daughter. I hope it's a godly love, and by that I mean I hope I haven't made idols out of my children. The Scottish Puritan Samuel Rutherford said, take no heavier lift of your bearings, your children, than your Lord allows. Give them room beside your heart, but not in the yoke of your heart where Christ is, because then they become your idols and not your barons. I know what a father's love is, but I have to say to you, I don't know what a mother's love is. I haven't experienced what it is as a mother to love my children. I've seen it. I've seen it. I remember about four years ago, I went on a pastoral visitation. I visited this lady and there weren't many pictures there. But there was this one fairly good-sized picture above her piano of a young man. And I said to her, Diane, I didn't know you had any grandsons. And she says, that's my son. He committed suicide when he was about 20. And just at that moment, just as I saw her looking at the picture of her son above the piano, I could look at her face and say, yes, that's a mother's love. And that's a mother's love mingled with grief. I think it was that very same month I went to visit a lady in the hospital. It was her due date. And the day before, her baby had died in the womb. And I cried, and her husband cried, and she was there crying, and I can remember her face. And that's a mother's love. And that's a mother's grief. I know a father's love, but I don't know a mother's love. And I don't know a mother's grief. But I've seen it. And I can see that it's oh so strong. And here in chapter 19 we come to Mary with her mother's love and she is grieving over her son. The Jews are malicious, the Romans are merciless, but it doesn't matter. because they're not gonna tear her away from her dying son. And so here she is, there's other ladies there, like commentators dispute whether there's two other ladies or three other ladies, but there's at least two other ladies there, and John himself, and she would not, she could not, be torn away from her dying son. And so there she is looking up at her son with her mother's love. And just as an aside, by the way, there's no indication in any of the gospels that Peter was there or that Thomas was there. was there, or that Andrew was there, or that James were there. It was simply these women and John. And you don't need me to say this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Don't think for a second that there are second-class, that women are second-class citizens in the kingdom of God. J.C. Ryle says, women were last at the cross and first at the tomb. And so here's this lady, Mary, and she's probably approaching 50 years old, and she is there looking at her dying son, grieving over him. And what a son it is that she grieved. Jesus had always honored her. You remember the word when we looked at the fifth commandment, cabades? He'd always given her honor. He'd always given her literally weightiness. You see, we're not always, we don't always have to obey our parents. There's only certain circumstances we shouldn't, but we're always to give them honor. We're always to give them weightiness. And here's Jesus, and he always honored his mother. And no doubt there was times when Mary was irrational, when she was overbearing, when she was unwise, when she was foolish, when she was sinful, and yet Jesus always honored his mother perfectly. I know that my mother grieves at my absence. And the truth is, and I know you won't believe this, I'm not the perfect son. I'm inattentive towards her. I don't tell her anywhere near enough how lovely she is to me. I don't honor my mother as I should. But Jesus always honored His mother. He had that perfect balance of compassion and firmness. He wasn't too righteous to be around her. Now, He was perfectly righteous. But you know what I mean? He wasn't too righteous for her to be around Him. He wasn't too wise. Too important, too self-interested to ignore her. He wasn't too hard-hearted to be insensitive. He wasn't too soppy to over coddle her. He was never selfish, never resentful, never ungrateful, never disrespectful, never manipulative, never callous towards his mother. He was a perfect son. He was her perfect son, and here she is with her mother's love, looking up at her perfect, dying son. No wonder we're told in Luke 2, verse 35, that it was prophesied over her, a sword will pierce through her soul. And so here she is. And yet, verses 25 through 27 aren't about her. They're about Jesus. They're about Jesus' love for her. Now, as we've been looking at the last few weeks, Jesus had been decayed. He had been crushed. He had been pounded. He had been beaten into pieces. His torso had been shredded apart. He had been struck again and again and again. He was suffocating. That's why later the centurion would come and break the legs of the other criminals because they were suffocating and they had to push themselves up just to breathe. And worse than that, if anything could be worse than that, Jesus was dirty. Now, you understand when I say that, he was perfectly righteous. But he who knew no sin was made sin, and he was laying there, carrying upon his shoulders my sin and my perversity. And on top of all of that, in his humanity, he had been Azab, forsaken. He had been destituted and here he is experiencing God's pointed undiluted wrath and curse upon him. And what's he doing? Is he thinking about himself? No, he's caring for his mother. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning candle he will not quench. What a Savior! In his dying embers he's giving weightiness to his grieving mother. And I want to say to you this morning that John didn't include this Because he wants to give us an object lesson on how sons treat their mothers. That's not why this is here. But I want to say to you, particularly the young men here this morning, if you're not respecting your mother, if you're not treating her with weightiness, with honor, then you need to sort it out. You need to thank God for her. You need to be a man. Jesus is a man, the perfect man, and he gave waiterness to his mother, even on the cross. Treat your mother properly, young men. If you're sitting here this morning and you're older, Even if you're an older man, Jesus wasn't too wise, wasn't too godly, wasn't too mature, wasn't too busy to prize his mother, and you're not either. In fact, it's because he was wise and because he was godly and because he was mature that he gave weightiness to his mother. You're not too old and you're not too wise and you're not too godly to treat your mother with weightiness. Now, as I said, that's not why I think This passage is here. That's not why Jesus records this, to give us an example of what it is to be a faithful son. And so we have to ask the question, well, why then? Why? All four gospels include it, but why did John include this episode? And why did he include it here? Have you thought about that? Oh, don't forget, The last few weeks we've seen over and over and over that Jesus is a King. He's the King. And we've seen last week and we'll see again next week that Jesus is the Messiah. That's what verses 23 and 24 are about. They are affirming Jesus' identity as the Messiah. A thousand years ago, it was prophesied in Psalm 22 that they would gamble for his clothing, and here they are, and they're doing it, and John is saying that he is the king, he is the Messiah. And just as an aside, When Adam sinned, he said, I was afraid and hid myself because I was naked. And God covered Adam to conceal his nakedness, to conceal his shame. But here is Jesus, the second Adam, who was sinless, but he was stripped of his clothing in order to reverse the curse, and reverse the shame for our sin, and to clothe us with himself, and to clothe us with his own righteousness. And so yes, John has been saying, and will, and he will again next week, remind us again and again, he's the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. He is the King. He is the Messiah. But here's the thing. We might be tempted to think, well, Oh, He's this great Messiah, He is this great King, and so maybe He is aloof. Maybe He is insensitive. And I think John is reminding us here this morning, yes, He is the Messiah, yes, He is the King, but He is the one when He was battered to death, barely able to breathe, who still cared for his mother, who was still tender, who still had a you before me love to his mother. I don't know the name of Haley Scruggs' mother. Haley was one of the nine-year-olds who was martyred Monday. I don't know her mother's name. I don't know the names of the other mothers who lost their children as well. I don't know their names. I don't know what it is to experience something like that and no doubt feel like life is too much to go on. But she needs to know. And we need to know that Jesus isn't just some aloof, impervious king. That Jesus isn't just some remote, contract-keeping messiah. That he's the one who stores their tears in his bottle. That he is compassionate. That he is caring. and tender towards his people even beyond measure. I think that's why that's here. And here's Mary and she loved her son. She cared for her son. But the reality is he loved her more than she could ever love him. It might be read, Isaiah chapter 49, can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you. on the palms of my hands. And it's as if Jesus was there with the nails through his hands, that he was engraving her on the palms of his hands. And Christian, I need to say to you this morning that he cares for you. That he's not impervious. That he's not too busy. That he's not too important for you. That it's good reason that the Apostle Peter says to us, cast all your anxieties upon Him. Why? Because He cares for you. We ask the question, well how much does He care? How much does He care for us? How much does He care for Haley Scruggs' mother? How much does he care for Mary? How much does he love his mother Mary? Enough to, even in his dying moments, tenderly commit her to the Apostle John? Yeah, he cares for her that much. But he also cares enough for her to lay it on the cross for her. He was there for her. He was there for me. He was there for you Christian. He loves us that much. Enough to be stripped naked that we would be clothed in his righteousness. Enough to bleed so as to wash away our sin. Enough to stop breathing that we could have life. Enough to cry out on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And by the way, he knew the answer. He knew the answer. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He knew the answer because the answer was standing right there in front of him. She was the answer. She was part of the answer. And I'm part of the answer. And you, Christine, are part of the answer. And so a Messiah. Yes, He is a Messiah. A King. Yes, He is a King. He is the King. but compassionate, tender, caring, loving. Yes, He is those things too. He is our loving Savior. Cast all your cares upon Him. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus Christ, we marvel that even in all the agonies of God-forsakenness, even there as you were drinking the cup of God's wrath, drowning its dregs, even there as you lay condemned in my place, that you lovingly tenderly, caringly, affectionately cared for your earthly mother. We thank you that you're such a saviour. That you're loving towards us, tender. That you care for us. And you care for those people in Nashville this morning. You care for us. You are our king. You are our messiah. And you are our loving savior. And this morning, not only do we cast all our cares upon you, but we tell you this morning that we love you. We love you and we are thankful to belong to you, our savior. Amen.