Sermon Central
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Behold Your Son/Behold Your Mother Series
Contributed by Scott Maze on Mar 21, 2022 (message contributor)
Summary: The crowds were mocking, the thieves were taunting, the priests were jeering, the soldiers were indifferent, the Savior was bleeding — and all the while His mother witnessed the horrible mockery.
Pause and think with me, moms and dads. Don’t you imagine Mary shared with them the stories of the angels visiting both dad and mom? Don’t you imagine Mary shared how Jesus taught in the villages, healed the sick, raised the dead, and even turned the water into wine? Yet, the half-brothers did n t believe. They didn’t believe when Mary told them how Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, Israel’s teacher: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Some of you have children who are grown and refuse the most precious gift you want to give them, faith in the Lord Je us Christ. You feel like a failure. Get this now: Had you met James just after he graduated from high school, he might have said, “Don’t listen to my brother. He thinks He’s Jesus! He thinks He’s the Savior of the world! What does He know! He’s always been my mother’s favorite.” Can you imagine the brothers of the very Son of God don’t believe He is the very Son of God?
Look afresh at Mary, the mother of Jesus. Even Mary, as great as she is, cannot automatically get her children to believe in Christ for a long period of time. You can pray, and you can teach, but you cannot make anyone believe. Believing moms everywhere, take comfort in the “failure” of the best of all mothers! Keep praying! Keep teaching until your children trust Christ.
2.2.2 The Conversion of Jesus’ Brothers
What’s interesting is that as you turn the pages of your Bible from the Gospel of John to the book of Acts, we discover that Jesus’ brothers believe: “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers” (Acts 1:14).
Now how did this happen? How did they go from unbelief to belief in a matt r of days? Paul has a whole list of people the resurrected Jesus made appearances to, and then Paul says, “Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles” (1 Corinthians 15:7). While there’s a number of “James” running around in the New Testament, there is no doubt that Paul is referring to Jesus’ brother, James here. How did his family final y believe? Plain and simple: it was the resurrection. Jesus’ biological brothers worshipped Jesus as God only because they were convinced Jesus rose from the dead. They were nowhere present when Jesus was dying on the cross. Jesus turned to the disciple John and said, “Behold, your mother!”
1. Behold Your Mother
2. Behold His Family
3. Behold Your Savior
“and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places…” (Ephesians 1:19-20).
We all know Jesus didn’t stay on the cross. On the third day, the stone was rolled away to show everyone that Jesus was no longer dead. He was alive.
3.1 Jesus’ Ability to Take Care of You
If Jesus cared for His mother on the worst day of His life, He will not abandon you in the best days of His life, my dear Christian friend. If Jesus could take care of the needs of his family at the moment of His deepest need, surely He can take good care of you now that He is seated at the right hand of the Father! He’s in a much better position to care for you now that He is on this side of the cross and He has ascended to the right hand of the Father!
