How to Love Your Mother

See you there. Next, on In Touch, How to Love Your Mother. Do you love your mother? Let me ask you this, does she know you love her? Did you just tell her? Have you ever hurt your mother's feelings? Do you really and truly love her? And if someone walked up to you and said, well, tell me why you love your mother, what would you say? Would you say, well, because she's my mother? That's not a good answer. A lot of people think they love their mother, but they don't. They don't even know how. Many people do and are willing to pay the price, whatever's necessary, to take good care of their mother. And so, I think the best example of that is Jesus Himself. And I want you to turn to John chapter 19. This little incident, which is not little, not just an incident, but a beautiful example of the kind of attitude we should have toward our mothers. You say, well, my mother's already gone to Heaven, well, so is mine. But you know what? Mothers today, no matter where your mother is, whether she's with you or she's in Heaven, we thank God for them if they're in Heaven, and we thank God for them if they're here. I think a lot of people do not, honestly do not know how to treat their mother. And how many people have I heard say over the years, well, you know, if I'd have, if I'd have just realized, I'd have done this for my mother and that for my mother, and I wouldn't have done this, and I wouldn't have done that. Well, how do you love your mother? That's what I want to talk about in this message, and in this nineteenth chapter of John, it's a good example.

And what's happening here, of course, Jesus has been crucified. And I want us to look, if you will, in the twenty-fifth verse, which says, therefore the soldiers did these things then. But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Now that could be three or four women, depends upon how you interpret that. When Jesus then saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved, standing thereby, He said to His mother, Woman, behold your son. Then He said to the disciple, Behold your mother. From that hour the disciple took her into his own household. Now, you and I might ask the question, Well, why didn't He say mom or mother? Why did He say woman? Well the real true interpretation of that and the meaning of it is, not just woman, but dear woman. This was His way of saying what He wanted to say to her. Now, why wouldn't He just say mother? Probably for two reasons. One of the two, maybe, or maybe both. One of them is this, at that moment in His life, hanging there with being nailed to the cross, bleeding and dying with a few moments or maybe an hour or so to live, what He wanted her to do is to see Him and to look upon Him not only as her son, but the Messiah. He was God's son. God sent Him to do exactly what He was doing. And probably thinking, maybe, that if she could look at Him as the Messiah, not just her son, that it wouldn't be quite as painful as it was just to see Jesus. Because naturally she was thinking what any mother would have been thinking, looking at Him. Thinking about when He was a little baby and how He was born, and born, she was a virgin, and holding Him and feeding Him and watching Him grow up. And remembering the things that He had said to her which she didn't quite understand.

And now there it is. There He hangs on the cross. The most painful thing that a mother could possibly endure. And knowing this, that He'd been the perfect son. The rest of her kids weren't that way. The perfect son. Now He was hanging on the cross. And I believe in order to relieve some of her own emotional pain, He was saying to her, Mom, I'm God's Messiah. Remember that. that, while I'm your son, I'm the Messiah. And then to express his awesome love, he turned to her and said, looking at her, said, speaking of John, and then to John, Behold your mother. What in the world was he saying? Here's what he was saying, Mom, I love you so much, I'm dying, I'm going to leave you, but I want you to know, I want to be sure you're taken care of for the rest of your life. And notice how he says this, Jesus then saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved, which was John, the writer of the gospel, because three times in the gospel he describes himself as the one whom Jesus loved. And so, when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. I'm putting you in John's hands. And then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. I want you to take care of her. I'm trusting her into your hands. And from that day the disciple took her into his own household.

Now, we don't really know exactly what happened to Mary except two ideas that have been put forth. One of them is that John took her home to his home in Jerusalem where she lived approximately eleven years and then she passed away. And John started his ministry among the Gentiles. The other view is that he took her to Ephesus where he was the pastor of the church, became the pastor of the church, and she lived with him for a number of years. How many nobody knows that? Here's what I would have loved to have gotten in on. I would have loved to have been sitting there at the table between the two of them and listening to John ask her the questions. Now, wait a minute. Tell me about Jesus when He was a little boy. Did He ever fall down and scratch His knee? Did He ever cry? Did He ever get angry? Can you imagine the conversation that the two of them had over those years that they talked together? But what I want you to see is this. In Jesus' dying moments, He was concerned about His mother. That is the most beautiful expression of love for a mother that I know of. So what I'd like to do is just, I'm going to give you ten words. They're going to be all on the screen here, just the words. And I want you to think about how you love your mother and think about it in this way. First of all, you should love her verbally.

That is, you should tell her that you do. And you say, well, how often should I tell her? You should tell her every day. If it's possible, you ought to tell her every day that you love her. As long as I had my mother close by and I could talk to her every day, I'll tell her every day I loved her. And I believe mothers need to hear it. You see, sometimes, you know, and I've heard wives say this, well, I wish my husband would just, I wish he would just tell me he loves me. When I bring it up, he says, well, you know I do. Don't I treat you like I do? No, a woman needs to hear it. She needs to hear you say, I love you. Mothers need to hear their children say, Mom, I love you. And not only say it once, but say it often. But not only just say it that a way, but tell her why. If I should ask you this morning, you say you love your mother or you loved her if she's gone, why did you love her? If someone says to you, I love you, well, that's fine. But then when they say, here's the reason I love you. You're so sweet and kind and loving and tender and considerate and thoughtful and generous to me. In other words, mothers need to understand why we love them. So, we love our mothers, first of all, verbally. Secondly, we should love them physically. Well, what do you mean by that? Well, you know, there are some people who do not know how to love, and have you ever hugged anybody, for example?

This is a legitimate hugging now. Have you ever hugged anybody and it's like hugging this table, solid rock? I mean, there was nothing emotional in that at all. You got nothing in return. Well, there's some people who are like that, I understand that, you say, well, my mother's one of those hard women. Well, we have to love her anyway. But to love them physically. That is, a mother needs to be touched. Remember this, the first person who touched you the first nine months of your life was your mother. Nobody touched you for the first nine months but your mother. And you know what, I think mothers deserve to be touched many, many times thereafter. We should hug our mothers. We should not just give them a handshake. I can't imagine walking into my mother's house. and saying, hello, Mom, that will not fit her nor myself. A third way we should love them is patiently, because they are not perfect. Mothers are not perfect. God didn't grow up mothers to be perfect. We should be patient with them. And sometimes they're going to say things that maybe we don't necessarily appreciate. But if you'll think about this for a moment, I don't know of anybody who has a larger, a greater responsibility than a mother. Let's say here's a mother, whether you got two children,

three children, or five or six, or whatever it might be. When she gets up in the morning, imagine the job that a mother with three or four, five, six children has. And she's thinking about all the children. She's thinking about what they're all going to eat, and they all want something different. And she's going to think about getting them all dressed, and they always want to wear something different. Now, would you think about all the different things that a mother has to think about, and think about this. We expect her to think about all of them and to have the meal on time. We expect her, if she's a working mother, to be able to get everything done before she goes and works eight hours and comes home. And then, of course, there's dinner. And who's going to prepare dinner? Most husbands are not going to do it, probably because they don't know how to cook. But secondly, because they think it's her job. A mother has an awesome responsibility, and we should be patient with them. Then, of course, there is the whole idea of loving them gratefully. How do you, do you love her gratefully? You say, well, I think I do. Well, she's the one who gave you life. And if you love her gratefully, you're going to express that.

You're going to be looking for ways. How do I show my mother how grateful I am to her? How do I express my love to her and my gratitude toward her in ways that she, there's no question in her mind about it. Gratitude works outwardly in expressing what I feel, but it also works inwardly in expressing who I am. I'm either a grateful person or an ungrateful person. And I think it's easy to spot somebody who is ungrateful. And I think about how many times you grew up and you cried and your mother was there. You hurt yourself and she was there. You had some difficult times in your life and she was there. She was always willing to listen to you. You say, well, you're talking about a mother that I don't know anything about. I understand that. I understand there's some mothers who grew up in bad situations, who act just like their mother, who didn't know how to treat them, didn't know how to love them. But you know what? You can change. And the truth is it doesn't make any difference how they are. I'm still responsible. And I still have a right and I still have a responsibility to be grateful. She gave us our life.

And you know what? There's no substitute for that. Love her gratefully. Love her generously. For example, what is it that you have that maybe you ought to share with your mother? How can you have so much and not want to share it with her? Love her generously. I'm not talking about just a Christmas present, but I mean all the time. What can you do for her? You see, if you love her, here's what you'll do. You'll be listening carefully for something that she wants or needs because she's not going to tell you. Most mothers are not going to say, I've met a few who would, but most mothers are not going to say, well, here's what I need. Here's what I want. You know what? Those godly mothers, they just go right ahead. One of these days they'll think, well, maybe I'll have enough money to buy this, or maybe I'll be, you know what? If I love her, my ears are open to figure out what is it she doesn't have. Look around and see what she doesn't have. Doesn't take much to make a mother happy because you see, a little bit goes a lot further

with a mother than it does with a man. She doesn't have to have a boat and a new rod and reel and all these things. She just needs a few simple things in life. Things that express what? That you're grateful and that you haven't taken her for granted and that you haven't overlooked her. Then of course, we need to love her tenderly because you see, that's the way mothers love us. And I think about that. Mothers have tough times in their life and they don't always feel up to the task. And sometimes they just need us to be thoughtful. That is, be sensitive to what you hear her say and what you don't hear her say. And sometimes I would go see my mother and I knew when I got there what we were going to do. She cooked me this big dinner at night. And in fact, she would have cooked me three meals a day if I'd have showed up. And I said, I can't do that. But I would go sometimes and But just the two of us would sit down, and we spent some of our most precious times here on this end of the table, and me on this end is a small table, and she just wanted to talk. And I knew that she didn't need to hear from me. She just wanted to talk. And some of my most tender moments with my mother was not telling her that I love her, but listening to her tell me what

she was thinking about. Things that had happened in her past. And the thing that she would oftentimes say to me, I just don't quite figure out why God took Charlie. That was my father at my nine months of age. I just can't figure out why He took him. Well, I heard that many times. Every time she said that to me, I acted like it was the first time I ever heard it. And I'd say, well, why don't we talk about it? We'd already talked about it many times. But you know what? Aren't there some things in your life you don't understand? How many times have you brought the same subject to somebody? To be tender means I'm going to be sensitive. I want to hear what you have to say. You may have said it a thousand times. I might even not want to hear what you have to say, but I'm going to listen and I'm going to be careful how I listen. And here's what I'm going to do, and anybody can do this, you can encourage your mother no matter what's going on in her life. You can encourage her. You can encourage her to forgive you for what you've done. You can encourage her to forgive you for what you've done. You can encourage her to forgive you for what you've done. Then we should love them forgivingly. Now, there are young men and women who look at their mothers and they have things in their mind and heart for which they blame them. And what they say about their mothers may be true, but you can

mark this down. There are lots of, we could go through a lot of Scriptures for all these, but I wouldn't have time to talk about some of them. But when I think about what Paul said about forgiving, he says, you know, we're to love each other, we're to be forgiving toward each other, but we're to love others and to forgive them as Christ, as God has in Christ Jesus forgiven us. And when I think about mothers, in other words, what could a mother do that I would not forgive her for? He said, honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the earth. And you see, all of us, how many times do you suppose that your mother forgave you? And you think about this, we all grew up in different situations and circumstances in life. And so, sometimes people have a much more difficult time than others do. And when you think about, for example, I think about my mother who stopped school in the sixth grade because she saw her mother faint at the well drawing water and she never went back to school. So, she didn't have much education. In fact, sixth grade's all she had. But you know what? It's amazing how wise she was about so many things. And one of the wisest things she ever said to me, and you see, you as a mother can plant into your children's minds and hearts, ideas and scriptural truths. And my mother couldn't take the Bible and flip through and say, Let's turn to Ephesians chapter four.

Let's turn to Genesis chapter. She couldn't do that. But somehow she could tell me what it said. One thing she said to me that I'll never forget. She said to me one day, she said, Now remember, don't ever do anything you wouldn't want to be doing if Jesus came. Boy, that put a noose around my neck. I mean, but you know what? I'm seventy-seven and I've never forgotten it. Mothers can build into their children awesome truth. And one of the things that my mother built into my heart was to be forgiving no matter what. You forgive no matter what. That's what Jesus says. That's what the Apostle Paul, we forgive no matter what. And it may be that probably most of us need to be asking mothers to forgive us. And I hope after this message, if you've not been kind of son or daughter, you ought to do, you ought to call your mother and tell her, You know what, I heard a message today and I realized how much I really love you and ought to express it and don't express it as I ought to, whatever it might be. Here's something I noticed about a godly mother. They're so grateful for so little. And sometimes, oftentimes we take them for granted. Then of course, to love them devotedly. You defend your mother. When I hear somebody talking about their mother in a negative way, it just, everything in me riles up against that. For the simple reason we're to defend her and protect her,

whatever. And support her, whatever is necessary. To be devoted to her means that I am interested in the things that she has, the things that she doesn't have, where she's going, and if she's going to be well. In other words, if she is well or if she's, in other words, if I'm devoted to her, she's a big part of my heart and my life. Then, of course, I need to love her cheerfully. And here you say, well, I'll try to do that. Well, let me tell you one thing you need to do. If you've got something that's hurting you pretty badly, think twice before you dump it on her. In other words, a mother wants to hear about your pains and ills and the good things that happen to you, but it's just good if you can be cheerful around your mom and talk about the good things and to make her laugh and to make her happy. Now, let me ask you this, can't you, if your mother's already gone, can't you visualize right now how she looked when she was happy, when she was smiling, or when she was laughing about something, when she was cheerful about something? We should love them cheerfully. Hug them. Tell them how wonderful they are. Talk about the good things. And talk about all the things that you remember she did for you, and the fun you all had together, and the mistakes you made together. And when you were going through a tough time and how God brought you through that, to bring back wonderful memories in your mother's mind is a gift to her.

She loves to think about those things, and especially when it comes to her aging a little bit. Then the last thing I would say is this, and it's all wrapped up in this, love them honorably. You say, well, how do I love my mother honorably? And I believe this is the thing that most honors your mother. Give your mother a godly son. Give your mother a godly daughter. Give your mother godly grandchildren. That honors them. Here's what it says, it says that I've poured my life into you, now you've poured your life into your children, and now look, you're pouring that same life into your grandchildren. And so, nothing so honors a mother like seeing her life being continued and poured into those who are coming along. How can you dishonor her? By living in sin, wasting. I think about mothers who see their children, who see their sons or daughters as drunks. Let's call it what it is. Alcoholic, you name it, drunkards. Or you see them living immorally. Or you see them living wastefully and carelessly and indifferently and using profane language in the presence of their mother. If you love them honorably, you will ask, if you love them honorably, you begin to look at yourself. How can I best honor my mother? By giving her a godly son, because she's a godly woman. So, you put all of those things together and either it honors

her or dishonors her. And I would just ask you what I said in the very beginning. Do you love your mom? How do you love her? When did you tell her last? How did you express it? Do you need to go home and ask her to forgive you? Do you need to go home and just hug her good? In other words, what do you need to do in light of what you just heard about loving your mother? The truth is, every day ought to be Mother's Day. In other words, there's not a single day I should not treat my mother like these ten things that we've talked about. And so, it may be that today if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, you may be a mother and you've said, you know, I'm not a Christian. How are you going to hand down godly characteristics to your children? You may be a father and you're saying, I don't want to have any children. I want to keep the faith that we've had until Christ comes into your life. You may be a father here and you're saying, man, I've got to go home and do some homework. I need to begin to express to my wife, the mother of my children, how grateful to God I am for her and for who she is. Only you know what you need to say, but I trust that you'll be wise enough and listen. Please forgive me. If you're too prideful to say, I haven't been what I ought to

be, then my friend, you have a major problem. How many times has God forgiven you? you many times, and I want to encourage you, be the man and the husband you ought to be to your wife, the mother of your children. And be the kind of child you need to be, young man, young woman, older man, older woman, to your mother, and express to her if she's alive what you want her to know about your love for her. Amen? Father, how grateful we are this morning for these who brought us into the world and given us so much. And I pray the Holy Spirit will sink these ten words into our hearts to be reminded, not only to our mothers, but to the mother of our children. May we be the kind of examples that our children will grow up loving their mother. And our grandchildren loving their mother. Being an example to this unbelieving world, may our godly people love one another in Jesus' name. Amen.