Love of Mother
Notes
Transcript
Pray for singles, women without children, and mothers.
Mother’s day is the day when the least amount crime is committed in teh US. I think it says a lot about how many moms are out committing crimes but cant becayse they are at brunch with their kids. Y’know? Thanks for doing your part on keeping our moms crime free today.
In the theme of mother’s day I thought it would be good dive in on the theme of love. it was this passage that set me on this path.
Love’s as hard as nails,
Love’s as hard as nails,
Love’s as hard as nails,
Love is nails;
Blunt, thick, hammered through
The medial nerves of One
Who, having made us, knew
The thing he had done,
Seeing (with all that is)
Our cross, and His.
R. Kent Hughes, John: That You May Believe, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 443.R. Kent Hughes, John: That You May Believe, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 443.Jesus said this to John while on the cross. In his last moments Jesus is making provision for his mother whom he loved.
John 19:26–27 (ESV)
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.
it is wonderful to remember that even as he hung dying on a Roman cross, suffering as the Lamb of God, he took thought of and made provision for his mother.
D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 616–617.
The language that Jesus uses here is similar to that of adoption.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
This brings us to our first point, To love mother’s rightly we must realize
1. We are adopted into love
1. We are adopted into love
Jesus gives us a commandment about what to do with this love.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.
Our status as brothers and sisters in Christ gives us love share with our mothers and with the world.
It was this reason that God sent his son
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
I think that most of us in this room believe this. I also think we compartmentalize this and treat this information as a something used for special projects. When we believe this correctly we start to see that our adoption into love is also a calling to share our love and invite others into the same adoption.
Mother’s day is a good day to reflect on this love. Of course we want to direct our love to Mom but I want to invite you into somehting more. I want to invite you to consider who well do you share the love you are adopted into? Are you known by sharing your love?
This brings us to our second point,
2. Will you be known by your love?
2. Will you be known by your love?
The gospel writer John, recorded these words in John 13 which is repeated in John 15 and again and again. Jesus says,
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
It is the calling of every Christian to live this way, to share our love and to make the love of Christ known. It’s sad that so many Christians feel that we can only love those who: think, look, and act like we do. This is not the Christian call. Let’s look at 1 John,
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
This is not just something we hear at church it is direction to love our siblings, our friends, and our mothers well.
By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
Dont miss this we do not love, really love, abide in love we abide in death. These are stern warnings to share love and abide in love. Not just for those we want to, not just for our neighbors, but for all those around us. This is how we become known by love, when we love those who do not love us.
This brings us to our third point,
3. Share the love
3. Share the love
To love our mother’s well today and every day we have to realize it is more than just fancy words, kind gestures, or days full of acts of service. I really like how the message puts 1 Corthians 13,
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
Conclusion
Today we celebrate mom. We should celebrate mom. To celebrate her we have to remember that,
We are adopted into love, will you be known by your love? Share the love
It’s easy to love those who love us, but how do those who don’t love us know us? Are we known by love when it really counts?
Table Questions
Table Questions
How do you love someone who hates you?
Why is it important the Jesus remembered is mom from the cross?
How are you known by your love where you live, work, learn, play?
Where is one area that you want to grow in your love for those who are hard to love?
