Honour Your Mother

[0:00] What are you doing, my son? What are you doing, son of my womb? What are you doing, son of my wolves? Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings.

[0:12] It is not for kings, O Lemuel. It is not for kings to drink wine or for rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.

[0:27] Give strong drink to the one who is perishing and wine to those in bitter distress. Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.

[0:40] Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.

[0:51] The woman who fears the Lord, an excellent wife who can find. She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain.

[1:08] She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant.

[1:20] She brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her husband and portions for her maidens.

[1:33] She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong.

[1:43] She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the staff and her hands hold the spindle.

[1:56] She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet.

[2:08] She makes bed coverings for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.

[2:21] She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant. Strength and dignity are her clothing.

[2:32] And she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom. And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.

[2:47] Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also. And he praises her. Many women have done excellently.

[2:58] But you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands.

[3:10] And let her works praise her in the gates. Our second scripture reading is Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 to 3.

[3:22] Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise.

[3:34] That it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Here ends today's reading. Thank you very much for reading for us this morning, Ashley.

[3:46] I want to join all the others who have so far wished the mothers a happy Mother's Day. And I wish all of you mothers a happy Mother's Day this morning.

[4:01] I'm always grateful for my own mother. And I'm always especially grateful for her on Mother's Day, even though she has gone home to be with the Lord some four years ago.

[4:14] We'll have a gift this morning for all the mothers and hopefully for the others as well. I aim to give a short sermon this morning.

[4:27] And I pray I'm able to fulfill that. But I have two goals for the sermon this morning. First, I sincerely want to encourage mothers. I want to encourage mothers.

[4:40] Motherhood is not for the faint-hearted. Motherhood is not for the faint-hearted. Motherhood is not for the faint-hearted. And I hate to say it, but I thank God I'm not a mother. I don't know.

[4:53] God would have to give me a different constitution to be a mother than the one I have. I think I would have given up mothering me. So I thank God for mothers.

[5:04] I want to encourage them this morning. But also my second goal is I want to encourage the rest of us to honor our mothers. So those are two goals this morning, to encourage mothers and then to encourage the rest of us to honor our mothers.

[5:24] Would you bow in prayer with me as I ask the Lord to help me to achieve these goals this morning? Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the privilege we have to gather this morning.

[5:39] We thank you, Lord, for this occasion where we are able to, in a particular way, celebrate mothers.

[5:51] And, Lord, as we open your word this morning, would you grant me grace to be able to encourage mothers from your word and to encourage the rest of us to honor the mothers that you have given to us.

[6:12] Lord, you know where each mother is. You know where each child is, young or old. And I pray that you would speak to us where we are.

[6:25] Would you give us airs to hear and hearts to obey all that you say to us? We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. While many mothers today will welcome the many different expressions of love and care that would be shown to them, I know that some mothers would much rather receive honor where it is lacking.

[6:59] And sadly, many mothers are not honored as they should be. And Scripture commands us to honor our mother.

[7:11] But over time, we've witnessed in our lifetime how relationships have changed. And we've seen how the relationship between parents and children have changed.

[7:29] And many children today don't honor their parents. And this is especially true when it comes to mothers. There are a lot of children who would think twice before they dishonor their father because they know the consequences that will quickly follow.

[7:47] But many children don't hesitate to dishonor their mother because they fear no consequence.

[8:01] And sadly, because mothers are nurturers by their very nature, sometimes they end up encouraging the very dishonoring conduct that they don't appreciate.

[8:15] And so many mothers long for the gift of honor. Not just today on Mother's Day, but they long for that every day.

[8:29] And so this morning and our remaining time, I want to use these two scriptures that have been just read for us. And I want to call us afresh to honor our mothers.

[8:41] And I want to offer this morning two reasons from these two scriptures why we should honor our mothers.

[8:52] The first reason is this. Honor your mother in obedience to God. This is the first and most important reason that we should honor our mother.

[9:06] Because the true and living God, the God of the universe, commands it. The one who brought us into this world, the one who holds our very breath in his hands, has commanded us, honor your mother.

[9:27] We do our mothers no favor when we honor them. We give them what is due to them based on the commandment of God's word.

[9:38] In verse 2 of Ephesians 6, it says, Honor your father and your mother. Now, because today is Mother's Day, I want to encourage us to primarily hear this as a command to honor our mother.

[9:52] Now, some of you may be wondering why I started in verse 2 rather than in verse 1.

[10:02] Verse 1 calls us to obey our parents. And verse 2 calls us to honor them, honor our father and our mother. Well, the first reason that I've used honor instead of obey is because honoring parents is what God calls children to do in the Ten Commandments.

[10:30] So in Exodus chapter 20, verse 12, we read, Honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

[10:41] So the command to children in verse 1 to obey their parents, it really flows out of this fifth commandment, this command to honor your parents.

[11:01] Obedience to our mother is an expression of honor. Honor is the all-encompassing command that we are given, rooted in Exodus 20, verse 12.

[11:17] And when we obey, that's an expression of honor. And so if we focus, for example, on obedience, you can find someone who's obeying but really not honoring.

[11:31] But true obedience would be rooted in honor. If we truly honor our mother, then we would obey because obedience is an expression of honor.

[11:48] The second reason I use honor rather than obey is that to honor is an absolute command.

[11:59] No matter what, we're called to honor our mother. No matter what. Obedience, on the other hand, is relative. Obedience is circumstantial.

[12:11] So, for example, if a mother commands a child to do something wrong, to lie or steal or to do some other sin, commit some other sin, that child is not obligated to obey that mother or father in that command that is wrong, and they know that that's wrong.

[12:34] But honor is absolute all the time. No matter what, honor is our duty towards our parents. And so even in a situation where we may have to disobey a parent because something is wrong, we can do that in an honoring way.

[12:49] We can do that in a way that is befitting a child towards a parent. Our honor to our parents is not based on their conduct.

[13:00] It's not based on their character. It's based on their unchanging role in our lives as our mother. And that never changes.

[13:12] It doesn't matter how old we are, how old we become, we will always be our mother's child. And so this duty to honor them is always upon us until the day we take our dying breath.

[13:25] One of the interesting things about these two words, obedience and honor, is as you get older, obedience looks different in your life.

[13:38] And parents generally understand that. They understand that as a child gets older, they don't call that child to do things in the same way as they did when the child was younger.

[13:49] We don't have that relationship. Parents recognize that it happened with them, and they recognize that it needs to happen with their children as well. So over time, obedience to our parents decreases simply because they're not demanding as many things of us.

[14:07] But you know what? Over time, honor increases. Over time, honor increases because as we grow from a little immature child into a more mature child, we come to appreciate the mothers that we have.

[14:25] And the result of that should be our honor for them should grow. It should increase. It should not diminish. The older we become, hopefully the wiser we become, and the wiser we become, we recognize the extent to which we should be honoring our mother.

[14:44] And especially when we look back and we realize how in our foolish years, we didn't do it as we ought to have done it. By the grace of God, we should seek to even make up for that in our latter years.

[14:58] Now, what does it mean to honor? What does it mean to honor your mother? It means to value her. It means to put her in a place of high esteem.

[15:10] She's already there, but in your eyes, you esteem her highly, with high regard, with high respect. This is a hard attitude. Leviticus 19.3 says, Every one of you shall revere his father and his mother.

[15:27] Every one of you. We revere our father and our mother. And since it's Mother's Day, I ask, Do you revere your mother?

[15:40] Do you hold her in a place of high esteem, high respect, high regard? Do you honor her?

[15:51] And this is in particular for the younger children who are with us this morning. Do you honor your mother in the same way you honor your father? And if you don't, you have to consider why is that?

[16:05] You have a duty to equally honor your mother and your father. And certainly that would entail obedience.

[16:20] Sometimes children, young children in particular, can find themselves giving more heed to their father's command, obeying the words of their fathers, because they know there's a consequence generally to follow if they don't obey.

[16:33] But to their mothers, that goes through one ear and out of the next. That is something God is not pleased with, because he calls you to obey your mother with the same conviction, with the same attitude and responsiveness as you do towards your father.

[16:57] Let me just offer some practical guidance. I think they'll be helpful for three categories of children.

[17:09] I think all of us would find ourselves in one of these categories. First, to minor children. If you're not obeying your mother's instructions promptly and completely and without complaint, you're not honoring your mother.

[17:27] You're to be obeying promptly, completely, and without complaint. And that is an expression of honor towards your mother.

[17:43] To adult children living at home. In many ways, you're not like minor children who are at home. But in some ways, you are like minor children.

[17:56] There's no difference in terms of how adult children should relate to their mother versus how minor children relate to their mother. In some ways, it is the same.

[18:10] One of the realities is that when a child turns 18, a child doesn't all of a sudden become endued with the wisdom when they turn 18 that they didn't have the day before.

[18:25] It doesn't work that way. You don't automatically just become independent. You know everything and you need no guidance. As a matter of fact, you show wisdom and recognizing that you still need guidance.

[18:36] And God has given you parents. Who have gone before you. And God has given you the best parents that you could possibly have.

[18:48] If God has not given to us the best parents suited for us, it means he made a mistake.

[18:59] And he makes no mistakes. But God in his wisdom has given us the parents that we need to give us the guidance we need, to give us the instruction we need, to give us the support we need.

[19:11] And we need to see that. And we need to embrace that. God will give them what they need. It's on-the-job training that he does in his mercy and his grace.

[19:24] And so turning 18 doesn't make us our own man or our own woman making decisions without reference to our parents, and especially when we are living at home.

[19:37] We owe honor and respect to our parents. Scripture says we're to give honor to them. Honor is due. Honor is due to our mothers. But again, what is your attitude?

[19:54] What is your attitude towards your mother? Is it one of honor? Or is it one of dishonor? And this is something that we just all need to honestly assess before the Lord.

[20:08] And perhaps it could even be helpful to engage our mother in a conversation. Mom, do I honor you?

[20:23] Is there any way that I am living, anything I'm doing that is dishonoring to you? And then listen and heed what is shared.

[20:38] And then the third category, where a lot of us find ourselves, is adult children who are not living at home. We too are to honor our mothers.

[20:50] We are to hold them in high esteem and high regard, and we are to highly respect them. Maybe your mother is a difficult person.

[21:05] Maybe she doesn't like your wife or your husband. Maybe she shows favoritism towards the grandchildren. Maybe she's nosy. Maybe she's bossy.

[21:16] Maybe she's many other things. We are still called to honor our mother. When I was younger, my parents, and your parents probably said the same thing to you, they would say, we're not company.

[21:37] That is always true. It's always true. We are never in a place where we can match our parents word for word. That is dishonor.

[21:50] Never. A mother raises her voice. She demeans you, shouts, that's wrong. But it doesn't justify a wrong from us.

[22:04] We entrust that to the Lord. We learn how to bite our lips. We learn how to restrain our words. We learn how to obey God's word. And guess what? God doesn't call us to do anything that he doesn't give us grace to do.

[22:15] He gives us grace as children to honor our mother. And there should never be an occasion where someone watching gets the idea that these are peers who are talking.

[22:32] There should always be deference from children to their mother, to their father, no matter what the circumstances might be. God calls us to do this unconditionally.

[22:49] He doesn't give any of us a pass. He doesn't give any one of us a blight. He says, this is what you are called to do.

[23:01] Do you know what the punishment was for disobeying or dishonoring a parent under the old covenant? The punishment was death. It was death.

[23:16] And how many of you know that we would be underpopulated if we... And some of us who are laughing would be dead. We wouldn't have children.

[23:27] But... That law no longer applies. But it is still nonetheless a very serious sin.

[23:38] If you want to allow the weight of it to rest upon you, read Leviticus 20, verse 9, and Deuteronomy 21, verses 18 to 21, and see the penalty that was attached to a disobedient child.

[23:53] And because it was something that affected the whole society, the whole community took responsibility for dealing with a disobedient or a rebellious child.

[24:10] God's attitude towards dishonor, although the law is no longer applicable to us in that way, God's attitude towards dishonor and rebellion in children has not changed.

[24:23] and it is a sin and all sin will be punished. All sin will be punished in one of two places. It will be punished on the back of Jesus Christ when he hung on the cross for all those who would believe.

[24:41] All will be punished in hell on the backs of those who do not believe. But all sin, including the sin of rebelling against parents, would, will be punished.

[24:56] God makes a big deal out of honoring our parents because it is impossible to dishonor our mother and say we are honoring God.

[25:09] We cannot dishonor our mother and at the same time be honoring God. And so many of you have already started, no doubt, to shower your mother with gifts and other expressions of appreciation.

[25:28] But if you're not honoring your mother, if you're not holding her in a place of high esteem and high regard and high respect, then you're withholding from her the best gift that you can give it a day.

[25:47] The person to whom honor is due but withheld knows better than anyone else the pain of that because it is due to them.

[26:01] Some of us have thought we were going to be rewarded for something we didn't get rewarded for, didn't get honored for it, and it passes away because it was just a passing thing. Not so with this honor that is due to mothers.

[26:13] This remains a void in their heart that our honor alone will be able to fill. And here I'm not saying don't give the material gifts as you're able to give them.

[26:27] Give them. But don't give them while withholding this gift of honor that belongs to them. Notice that in Ephesians 6, the first part of the text commands us to honor our mothers, but the second part of the text in verse 3, it says that there's a promise that is attached to this command to honor.

[26:57] Verse 3 says that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Here again, Paul is quoting from Exodus 20, verse 12.

[27:12] And these words were originally spoken to the children of Israel and essentially what Paul was saying to the children is when you honor your parents, the blessings of the covenant will come upon your life.

[27:27] You will enter into covenant blessings when you honor your parents. in other words, he was saying to them, when you honor your parents, the effects of judgment, the effects of dishonor will not come upon your life in terms of judgment or in terms of punishment.

[27:48] And the same principle is true for us today under the new covenant. when we honor our mother, when we give the esteem, the regard, the respect that is due to our mother, we come under God's blessings in that way as well.

[28:05] This is a general principle. It doesn't mean that our lives may not be marked by hardship and difficulty, but what it means is that those hardships and those difficulties will not be because of dishonor and disrespect.

[28:21] and a lack of regard for our mother. As we live in a fallen world, we will all experience the effects of living in a fallen world, the brokenness, the heartbreaks, the setbacks, the surprises of life.

[28:38] Yeah, all of us will experience that. But we can experience those things knowing that none of them can be attributed to the fact that we did not give honor where honor is due to our mother.

[28:53] So to all of us young, old, living at home, living away from home, let us honor our mother in obedience to God. And now I come to the second reason that we should honor our mother, which is this.

[29:11] Honor your mother in gratitude to her. Honor your mother in gratitude to her. First we do it in obedience to God, but then we do it in gratitude to her.

[29:27] I don't know how the reading of Proverbs 31 this morning landed on your soul. But I think if we were hearing those words, the effect of them should have been to cause us to see our need to grow in gratitude for our mothers.

[29:50] Verse 1 of Proverbs 31 opens by telling us that they are the words of King Lemuel. We don't know who King Lemuel was, but he says these are words that his mother taught him.

[30:01] And when we look at the words, they don't appear to be words that King Lemuel's mother taught him as a young boy.

[30:14] They seem to be words that his mother taught him as an older man. As a matter of fact, when you read it, when he was serving as king. And so we get this picture of this woman in his life who continued to be a mother to him even beyond those formative years that he would have been under her care.

[30:34] And I think we all have experienced that to some degree or another. Mothers continue to be mothers. Even though that may look a little differently, they continue to be mothers even for their adult children.

[30:46] And we see this with King Lemuel. And he starts out in Proverbs 31 sharing words of counsel and advice that his mother gave him.

[30:58] As an older man, as he was serving as king. The words in verse 2, they seem to point that she was correcting him.

[31:11] She was bringing a correction to him. Look at what it says in verse 2. What are you doing, my son? What are you doing, son, of my womb? What are you doing, son, of my vows?

[31:26] He's asking him. She's observing something evidently and we can surmise that the advice that she goes on to give him was rooted in what she observed about him.

[31:39] So in verse 3, she warns him about improper relationships with women, which can prove destructive to him as a king, as it has proven destructive to other kings.

[31:52] And she says to him, don't give your strength to women. because many kings have been destroyed in that way. Mothers, there's a valuable role that you can serve in your son's lives by advising them concerning women and the ways of women, to help them in how they relate to women.

[32:21] In verses 4 to 7, she warns him about the destructive nature of alcohol. And she tells him that drinking alcohol was not appropriate for him. He was to be sober so that he, as the king, did not forget the law and subvert justice.

[32:38] And this would apply to us today, not just with alcohol, but any kind of mind-altering substance. To be sober-minded so that we're not forgetful of the things we need to remember.

[32:51] And this is a mother who is correcting her son. And I will pause here to say to mothers, and I don't mean to in any way dishearten you by these words, but I would say to you mothers, don't withhold correction from your children.

[33:12] Even as they're older, and you observe it, don't withhold correction from them. faithfully give them the correction as we see this faithful mother doing with her son who is serving as king.

[33:29] In verse 8, she urges him to speak up on behalf of those who can't speak for themselves, for the rights of those who are in helpless circumstances.

[33:40] And these ones who are helpless, those who can't speak for themselves, are the easiest ones to neglect. They're the easiest ones to join the line and just put down and exploit and take advantage of them.

[33:52] She says, no, don't do that, my son. Speak up for them. Stand out as you speak up for them. In verse 9, she urges him to speak up and judge righteously and defend the rights of the poor and the needy.

[34:07] This is the advice of a godly mother. I have no doubt this morning that all of us, without exception, have received advice from our mother, and in many cases, godly advice, the same way that King Lemuel's mother was instructing him and warning him and advising him.

[34:36] And the question for us this morning is, did those words of advice fall on deaf ears? Or did we take them to heart?

[34:49] Did we value them and take them to heart and saw the wisdom in them and to live them out? To take the advice of our mothers, the godly advice of our mothers, is to honor them.

[35:01] To reject it is to dishonor them, no matter how sweet our words may be. Mommy, I love you. Mommy, I love you. When we reject the godly advice that we receive, we are dishonoring our mothers.

[35:18] And so I pray that by God's grace, all of us who find ourselves in that situation where we are mindful of advice that we have been given by our mother that we have not received, that by God's grace, we will heed that godly advice.

[35:32] love. And we will be better for it. The remainder of Proverbs 31 from verses 10 to 31 is a poem.

[35:45] It's an acrostic poem that celebrates the ideal mother. And, you know, I think for many, many years, a lot of women thought that this is what they're called to do.

[35:56] And how many of you know this is superwoman? And this woman is not a real woman. It's a poem. It's, and I pray that some of the mothers who thought this was real and they had to emulate this, I encourage.

[36:08] No, this is a poem. But it's a poem celebrating the ideal mother, celebrating all the aspects of what a wife, a mother who fears the Lord looks like.

[36:25] If you have the English Standard Version Bible, you would note at verse 10, there's a footnote, number four, and it explains that this is a poem, it's an acrostic poem, and an acrostic poem, each verse of this poem begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

[36:44] And so the goal of these verses, 10 to 31, is not so much for a woman to seek to emulate this woman who is celebrated in this poem, but instead it's to be inspired by her, to be inspired by her example towards her husband, towards her children, in all that she does.

[37:12] And this is a woman whose heart is towards her husband and her children and her home. And I know that we live in a very different context today than when these words were written, women, and I know that there are single mothers, and so there's no husband in view, and you're doing double duty, and I believe with all my heart that if there are, if there's a group of women who are to be celebrated above all other women today, it is the single mothers who do double duty, and who take that seriously in raising their children.

[37:55] Some of you, you work right alongside your husband, have full-time jobs. But what we see from this woman is that she was very industrial, she evidently had business activities outside the home and so forth, but what never changed for her, what is very clear in this passage, that her eyes were set on her home.

[38:19] That was still a concern for her, that was still a priority for her, and she gave herself to that. This poem has three main categories, and I want to share them and then we'll be done.

[38:36] This poem has three main categories. The first part is the introduction in verses 10 to 12, and it emphasizes the value of an excellent wife.

[38:52] She is to be valued above costly jewels. And the second part of this poem, the body of the poem, from verses 13 to 27, it lists a wide range of activities that this woman is engaged in, many of which require sacrifice.

[39:12] putting her husband's interests above her own, putting her children's interests above her own. You see in verse 15, for example, that she rises while it's still dark.

[39:28] In verse 18, it says, her lamp does not go out at night, meaning that when others have gone to sleep, she is up working. when others are still in bed, she is up working, she is serving, not herself, but her family, her husband and her children.

[39:49] And I think for us, we can think beyond this poem. There are many of us who can think of modern ways that our mothers have served us, continue to serve us. And in gratitude, we should honor them.

[40:03] The poem concludes in verses 28 to 31. In verse 28, we're told, her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her.

[40:19] It's interesting that we don't have any words of blessing or praise from the children. Instead, we have the words of the husband who says, many women have done excellently, but you surpassed them all.

[40:39] These words are the unrestrained words of a grateful husband for his wife, for all that she does, not just for him, but also for their children.

[40:52] And brothers, may I suggest to us this morning that we should be the first teachers of our children to appreciate what their mothers do for them, to let them show gratitude to their mothers by our own example.

[41:14] You know, at Mother's Day, there's this thing that goes around, and recently, just on Friday, I had a conversation with a particular guy, and he was just saying to me, man, she and my mother, talking about his wife, she and my mother, you know, Mother's Day for my mother, I can be with my mother, and he was running home with all kinds of things.

[41:32] And I said to him, I said, you realize that a lot of things your mother did for you, your wife now does for you? And for some of us, our wives have been doing it for us longer than our mothers have been doing it for us.

[41:47] And we need to show gratitude, and we, in showing gratitude, will give an example to our children. to show gratitude to their mothers.

[42:03] It's the best example that we can give to them. Verse 31 says, give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.

[42:23] Honor and praise to our mothers for all that they do, gratitude to them for all that they do. That's part of the fruit of their hands. That is what is due to them.

[42:34] And notice it says, in the gates. This is the place where, this is in public, this is where the community gathered, the leaders gathered, where decisions were made, where business transactions took place.

[42:50] This is a public setting. It is even there that she is to be praised for these private duties that she does at home. It is what she is due.

[43:07] Proverbs 31, 30 says, charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. How persuaded are we by these words?

[43:19] In particular, husbands. How persuaded are we of these words? That charm is deceitful, that beauty is vain.

[43:30] That charm is not all that it appears to be. Charm is not all that we make it to be. And beauty is not permanent. Beauty is like the mist. That's what the word vain means.

[43:43] It's like a mist. It just disappears. And sadly, we can find ourselves being fixated on charm and fixated on beauty.

[43:57] And we miss that a godly woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Not just on Mother's Day, all the time, to be celebrated.

[44:12] And when we are persuaded of this, whether as a husband or as a child, we will praise our wives and our mothers because they fear the Lord.

[44:25] And we will honor them in gratitude for them. And again, fathers, let us lead the way. Let us lead the way for our children to honor their mother and show gratitude to them for all that they do for them.

[44:49] Mother's Day is generally a happy day, and I pray it is a happy day for mothers, for children, for husbands. But for some mothers, they can be a day that's marked with sadness.

[45:06] For some wives without children, who desire children, Mother's Day can be a disheartening day because it reminds them of an unmet desire that they have for children.

[45:20] For some like me, who have lost their mother, this could also be a sad day, as we reflect on the reality that our mother is no longer with us.

[45:33] for some mothers, there might be regret, maybe thinking that you weren't the mother that you ought to have been in so many different ways.

[45:51] Some mothers today may even be burdened by a wayward child, an unbelieving child who has turned his or her back on the way that he or she was raised.

[46:03] And maybe some children may be saddened and burdened by the regret they have and the sorrow they have brought to their mother, the tears they brought to her eyes.

[46:22] In some cases, relationships are broken between mothers and their children. And sadly, some today won't even have a conversation or if they have a conversation it's a brief conversation.

[46:39] And you know what all of these categories have in common? Whether it's just a longing for what we don't have in the moment or an awareness of our failure, whatever it is, what all of us have in common is we need Jesus.

[46:56] We need the Lord. We need to draw near to the Lord with all of our burdens, all of our sorrows, all of our regrets, all of our sin. We need to come to him and lay them at his feet.

[47:12] And he invites us to come. He invites all who are weary and burdened and heavy laden to come to him and that he will give rest, give rest to their souls. And so I invite you this morning, wherever you may find yourself, any degree of awareness of an absence or something that you had or wish you had, any failure, any circumstance, bring it to Jesus.

[47:52] But there's another group of people this morning who should feel regret, but don't feel any.

[48:04] Whether it's a child who's not honored his mother, whether it's a husband who has not valued and appreciated his wife and all that she does, whether it's a mother who has failed to be the mother that she ought to have been.

[48:22] And yet there is no regret, there is no sense of remorse, there is no conviction of heart, though there should be. And those people need the Lord as well.

[48:35] And what a blessing it is to have a Savior, an all sufficient Savior, a Savior who is sufficient for every circumstance. Maybe I didn't mention some way that you need the Lord this morning, but I can say this to you, whatever it is, there is a sufficient Savior to whom you can come and whose arms are open wide to receive you as you come to him, and especially if you'll be coming to him in faith and repentance and trusting him as your Lord and Savior.

[49:10] And so I want to pray for us this morning as we close. Father, thank you for mothers.

[49:22] Thank you for this day that we get to honor mothers and celebrate them. Lord, work in our hearts this morning, whether it is the wife who desires children, children, but in your providence you have not yet granted that, or whether it is those who feel the pain, especially today, of a mother who is no longer here, whether it is a mother who is aware of her shortcomings today and the ways that she has failed, whether it is a husband who has not been appreciative of his wife and all that she does for him and for any children they might have.

[50:32] Lord, for those who should be feeling conviction but feel none, have mercy on them. As we come to you this morning, oh Lord, I pray that we would find rest for our souls.

[50:51] Lord, you're the all-sufficient Savior, and I pray your sufficiency for each one, whatever we need, wherever we are this morning. Father, work in our hearts, encourage mothers, and encourage all of us, whether children or husbands, to honor and praise these women who give so much, they've given so much, they continue to give, Lord, you help us to recognize that, to honor their many sacrifices.

[51:40] We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. who