The sermon, titled 'A Woman of Sorrows, A Man of Sorrows,' examines the biblical account in Luke 7:11-17 where Jesus raises the widow's son in Nain. The speaker emphasizes Jesus as a 'man of sorrows,' referencing Isaiah 53, highlighting His compassion and power in entering into human grief. This miracle is paired with the previous week's account of Jesus healing the centurion's servant to demonstrate His dominion over life and death through the authoritative word. The speaker references David Garland, explaining that Jesus's word is authoritative, extending even to the dead, combining compassion and power. The widow's son, who was her only child, is raised by Jesus during a funeral procession, illustrating Jesus's ability to transform sorrow into joy. The sermon draws parallels to the story of Naomi in Ruth, reflecting on the cultural context of grief and loss. Jesus's miracle leads to awe and reverence among the crowds, with the acknowledgment of Jesus as a great prophet and God visiting His people, though the full understanding of Jesus's identity and mission is progressively revealed through His life, death, and resurrection. The speaker offers four applications: the firm foundation of faith through eyewitnesses of Jesus's miracles, Jesus's ongoing intercession and compassion, the spiritual realities illustrated by physical miracles, and the ultimate comfort provided by Jesus, who rolls back the curse of sin and offers eternal life.

The title of the message today is a woman of sorrows, a man of sorrows. Of course, the woman of sorrows in our text is a widow. Her husband is already dead and she's just lost her only child, has died too. So she is a woman of sorrows, and she encounters the man of sorrows. I'm pulling language from Isaiah 53, calling Jesus a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

The point is that Jesus is able to enter into our sorrows. Our sorrows are not experienced apart from the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ, but He has compassion for us and is able to enter into our sorrows. In last week's text, Jesus healed the servant of a centurion who was about to die. The servant was dear to him, and so he sent to Jesus, and Jesus healed his servant. This week, the patient's already dead, and the dead man is the only son of a widow.

I normally don't introduce quotations in the introduction. I wait until we get a little further into it, but I thought these two quotes from David Garland provide an excellent framework. So I'm going to give them to you in the introduction. Here's what David Garland says. This incident on Jesus's raising to life a widow's son is a twin to the preceding healing of the centurion slave.

The main theme is laid out in the preceding episode. Jesus's word is authoritative and he has dominion over life and death. So David Garland is telling us to take these two episodes, these two accounts together, the healing of the centurion's servant and the raising from the dead of the widow's son, and to put them under the heading of the authoritative word of Jesus. He speaks and everything that he says comes to pass, and that he has dominion over life and death. I think that's a great framework for last week's text and this week's.

Then David Garland says that this is the main idea of our text. Quote, Jesus combines compassion and power. And the authority of his word extends even to the realm of the dead. Even the end of life isn't the end of the authority of his word. The authority of his word extends beyond the grave into the realm of the dead.

And in Jesus, we have the combination of compassion and power. Let's ask God to help us. God, again, I thank you for the encouragement of today's text. My soul has been so encouraged and emboldened by the things that I've considered this week and reading commentators and just thinking about the text before us. I pray the same would be true of my brothers and sisters today.

Oh, encourage their hearts, refresh them. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, let's begin by looking at verses 11 and 12 together. Hopefully, your Bibles are still open to Luke chapter 7. Follow along as I reread verses 11 and 12.

Now it happened the day after that he went into a city called Nain and many of his disciples went with him and a large crowd. And when he came near the gate of the city, behold a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the city was with her. So in these two verses, we have the funeral procession of the only son of a widow. If you're taking notes on the handout, filling in blanks, widow fills in the blank.

The funeral procession of the only son of a widow. This is just a day after Jesus healed the centurion's servant. He wasn't even present. The centurion understood that Jesus didn't even need to be there, that he could just say the word at a distance and his servant was healed and That's exactly what happened. Jesus goes to a city called Nain.

Nain is a small city six miles southwest of Nazareth. So if you've ever run a 10K, that's six miles. Jesus is a 10K away from where he spent most of his childhood in Nazareth. So he's actually very near his hometown. Archaeologists and historians and scholars believe that Nain was a city no larger than a few hundred people.

It actually might have been even less than a few hundred people, but probably something like a few hundred people. Who is with Jesus? Many of his disciples. So that term now it means something broader than just the 12. When it says many of his disciples, it just means people who are following him.

These are people who have heard his preaching, appreciate the things that he's teaching, have seen his miracles, and now They're following him. Many of his disciples are with him. And a large crowd. So not necessarily his disciples, but probably people who have a mixture of motives. We know that some people are keeping tabs on Jesus.

The scribes and the Pharisees are sending from Jerusalem to see, to hear what he's teaching and to see what he's doing and to challenge him. We know that people are coming to be healed, to have unclean spirits cast out of them. They're probably following Jesus and we know that anytime you have things like this going on there's always people who are curious and want to know and want to be part of those things. So many of his disciples are with Jesus and a large crowd is with Jesus. As Jesus and this sizable crowd approaches the city gates at outskirts of Nain, they encounter another sizable crowd.

So it's a sizable crowd meeting another sizable crowd. And this sizable crowd is a funeral procession carrying the body of a young dead man out of the city to be buried. In a city this size, most everyone would know, most everyone, so we're thinking a city of a few hundred people at most most everyone knows most everyone And it was viewed as an act of love and a duty to participate if you knew the dead person or the family of the dead person. So culturally, everyone knows that it's an act of love if you know the dead or the family of the dead to participate in the funeral procession. And it's a duty to do so.

In this case the only immediate family is the mother of the dead young man. The father had already died sometime in the past, making the mother a widow. Kids, that's what a widow is. It's a woman whose husband has died. And there are no brothers or sisters.

The young dead man was an only son. When you read it in the English, it leaves open the possibility that there could be sisters who aren't named, but when you look at the Greek word, it really means an only child who is a son. So there are no sisters, there are no siblings. That's clear in the Greek and not so clear in the English. In this culture, the husband is expected to protect and provide for the family.

Not too dissimilar, at least in our microculture, what we expect the husband to protect and provide for the family. And if he died, that would normally fall to the oldest son. So this grieving mother is now in a very difficult position. Her husband would have protected and provided, then when he died, this firstborn son would have protected and provided, and now he's dead. We can't know if she is in a very challenging financial and or social situation.

That is likely but uncertain. The text doesn't say, so we don't need to know, meaning the things that we need to pull out of this passage don't depend on how dramatic her financial and social situation now are with the death of a husband and her young man son. Set those aspects aside and focus on this. This is a woman who has already grieved the loss of a husband. So she's been living as a single parent And now she is forced to grieve the loss of an only child son, a son that has grown into early adulthood.

So she's not grieving the loss of a child as terrible as that would be, but he's actually grown into early adulthood. And so she's known him for a decade plus. They've lived together for a decade plus. Jesus will address him as young man. And in this section, he's called the Dead Man.

So we're talking about an adult, a young adult son here. In the book of Ruth, Naomi had moved with her family to Moab to escape the famine in Israel. So she's from Israel, there's a famine, there's not enough food for everyone there, so she goes to Moab with her family where there's more food. While she was in Moab, her husband died and then her two sons died, leaving her alone. And she says this in Ruth chapter 1, verses 20 and 21.

So this is a woman in a similar situation. She lost her husband, then she lost her children, and this is what Naomi says in Ruth chapter 1 verses 20 and 21 Do not call me Naomi That means pleasant that name means pleasant. Do not call me Naomi meaning pleasant Call me Mara, which means bitter. Don't call me pleasant, call me bitter. For the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.

I went out full and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi since the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?" Our text doesn't say it, But it's impossible for me to believe that the grieving woman in our text doesn't have some sense in that, some sense of the hand of God's displeasure on her. Naomi said, the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. It's impossible for me to believe that this widowed woman who now loses her one child is not feeling that the Almighty has dealt bitterly with her and that in some sense has testified against her and afflicted her. Before I move on, a couple of things about funerals in this culture.

One, they often occurred on the same day as the death. So all of this is very fresh to the mother. Certainly the day after. So the day of the death or the day after the death, probably depending on the time of day of the death. Contact with the dead body made you ceremonially unclean according to the Old Testament.

So then there would be a period of time and things that you would have to do in order to have contact with other people and in order to participate in the worship that the Old Testament prescribed. So the less time between death and the funeral, the better. This is why they're taking the body outside the gates. You almost never buried within the gates because of these things. And also, this is a very warm climate for much of the year.

So dead bodies start to decompose rapidly in this climate. They aren't embalming or any of the things we do to slow down those processes. They wouldn't do any of that. And so the natural decomposition would be happening rapidly. Two, they aren't using coffins as we think of coffins.

So the phrase open coffin appears here and they're trying to get English people to understand but really it's more like a stretcher simply for transporting the body and you'd be done with this stretcher like thing for transporting the body when you got to the burial site they would actually lay the body in a cave or in a carved out area typically above ground they weren't digging and burying underground like we do this would be a cave or a carved out place. If you think of Jesus's death and burial, that's exactly what you're encountering there. So that is the introductory section of the text. The stage is now set. Jesus is encountering the funeral procession of the only child son of a widow.

What a sorrowful, and the death probably happened that day. What a sorrowful sight. What sorrowful events have been set before us. Now continuing in verses 13 through 17 reread with me verses 13 through 17. When the Lord, this is the first time Jesus is simply called the Lord in the Gospel of Luke, when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, Do not weep.

Then he came and touched the open coffin, and those who carried him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say to you, arise. So he who was dead sat up and began to speak. And he presented him to his mother. In these verses, Jesus says the word, if you're filling in blanks on the handout, word fills in the blank.

Jesus says the word. He's about to give a command to a dead body. This grieving mother was weeping as she accompanied the body of her only child to his burial. Of course she was weeping. Jesus sees her and he is filled with compassion for her.

And he speaks to her. He says, do not weep. Now if you go to a funeral and you say that you're doing something so cruel, but Jesus isn't doing anything cruel at all, he says that because he knows exactly what he's about to do in a matter of seconds and that her sorrow has a very short time limit. Jesus can say to her at the funeral of her son, do not weep because he knows in a matter of seconds exactly what he's about to do and that her sorrow is about to come to an end. Then he comes to this sort of stretcher, simply used to carry the body until it can be laid in the place of burial, and he touches it.

He puts his hand on it. And when Jesus says that, do not weep to the mother and when Jesus does that he puts his hand on this stretcher with the body on it everything comes to a halt. Everything just stops. Those who are carrying the stretcher stop. Now Jesus speaks again, But this time he speaks to the dead body of the young man.

He says, young man, I say to you, arise. Now in the 4, 000 years of Old Testament history, three people were recorded to have been raised from the dead. 4, 000 years, Three people. Elijah raised a boy from the dead in 1st King chapter 17. Elisha raised a boy from the dead in 2nd Kings chapter 4.

And a man was raised from the dead when his dead body came into contact with the bones of Elisha in Elisha's tomb in 2 Kings 13. That is the comprehensive list of people across 4, 000 years of Old Testament history who are recorded to have been raised from the dead. It's been about 900 years since the time of Elisha and the last time it was known that someone was raised from the dead. Remember, last week the centurion said, say the word and my servant will be healed. The centurion believed and it proved to be true, he was right to believe it, that when Jesus speaks, reality immediately conforms to his word.

Just like Genesis 1. Then God said, and there was, Jesus is doing exactly in Luke chapter 7, in the healing of the centurion servant, in the raising of the widow's dead son, what God and Jesus is there. This is Trinitarian theology. Jesus is in Genesis 1 speaking these things into existence. That's what happens here.

Jesus simply says the word, young man I say to you arise and reality conforms to his word. The young man sat up and began to speak. Funeral over. Burial canceled. So Jesus presents him to his mother.

Here's your son, alive and well. He's sitting up, he's speaking. Jesus presents him to his mother. What a moment! Jesus gives this son back to his mother.

A wife who lost her husband and a mother who lost her son who must have felt very alone but who now has her son back. Okay, what do we have in these two verses? Two things. The compassion of Jesus and the power of Jesus. Have you ever noticed how often a person has compassion but no ability to affect the outcome?

They feel bad for you, but they can't help you. They don't have power to help you. Here in this text, Jesus has both. Luke as a gospel writer sets before us Jesus full of compassion with unlimited power that reaches beyond into the realm of the dead. He is moved with compassion for this woman, and he has the power to command this young man to rise from the dead, and then reality instantly conforms to his word.

Like I said this last week, reality is just a word we use to describe what God has decided is going to happen. Isaiah 53 verse 3 says, he is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. That's the description of the Lord Jesus Christ in Isaiah 53, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. So when he comes to this woman of sorrows, he has compassion on her. He is a man of sorrows who can enter into her sorrows.

In John 11, when his friend Lazarus has died and his friends Mary and Martha, the sisters of the dead, are grieving, Jesus weeps too. Kids, that's the easiest Bible verse to memorize. Jesus wept. His friend is dead and the grieving sisters who are also his friends, Mary and Martha, are grieving and he weeps with them. But Jesus is not only a man of sorrows, able to understand and enter into our sorrows.

He is also the creator of all things. John 1 says that all things were made through Him and without him nothing was made that was made. There's never been anything that was made that was not made through Jesus Christ. John 1 says that in Him was life. No one's ever had life except that it was in Jesus.

Why are you alive? Because of Jesus. He made you. You have life because of Him. This is John 1 verses 3 and 4.

So Jesus is both willing and able to raise this young man from the dead for his mother and he will be willing and able to raise Lazarus for his sisters. He has compassion on them. He enters into their sorrows as a man of sorrows, as one acquainted with grief, and he has the ability to help them. He's willing and able. So that is verses 13 through 15.

Jesus says the word, young man I say to you, arise. Imagine speaking to a corpse And the young man sits up and begins to speak. Finally, verses 16 and 17. Follow along as I reread verses 16 and 17. Then fear came upon all and they glorified God saying a great prophet has risen up among us and God has visited his people.

And this report about him went throughout all Judea and all the surrounding region. These two verses, we have the response of the multitude. Our response fills in the blank if you're taking notes that way, the response of the multitude. This moment is not lost on these two sizable crowds that have unexpectedly met up, those who come to name with Jesus and those who have been in this funeral procession. The text says, then fear came upon all and they glorified God.

This is not terror that drives you from God. They feared God. This is not the terror that drives you from God. This is the reverential awe, awe that comes out of reverence for the experience of God that you're part of, that accompanies God breaking into the things that we call normal, we call funerals normal. God broke into that and raised this young man from the dead and it gave these people this awe of God that comes out of reverence for being there when something like that happens and God doing what only God can do.

And this is what should happen when God does something like this. He should be worshiped. You become aware in a new and powerful way that God has to be worshiped, that God is so worthy to be worshiped. And that's what happened. They all glorified God.

These two convening crowds have a unified sense of what has just happened. And they say two things. A great prophet has risen among us and God has visited his people. In their scriptures, in the Old Testament, that's the scriptures they had, it was Elijah and then Elisha, these two great prophets, who raised a person from the dead. The people witnessed this young man rise from the dead and conclude, after a thousand years it's happening again.

God has visited us. God is drawing near to us. This is coming out of what is known by scholars and theologians as the 400 years of silence, no prophetic voice. Now, they're seeing this happen, the things that Elijah did, that Elisha did, and they're saying a great prophet has risen up among us. God has visited his people.

God is doing these things again. God is drawing near to us. And of course that is good but incomplete. Who Jesus actually is in all its fullness, and what Jesus has ultimately come to do in all its fullness is being progressively revealed, meaning little by little, through the cross and the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus. They won't have the full picture of this, but they're starting to get it here.

This is a somewhat early installment of that progressive revelation of exactly who Jesus is and ultimately what he has come to do. What the multitudes say is true in a much more profound sense than they know. Yes, a great prophet is risen among them. The prophet of prophets, and God has visited his people. God is visiting his people in the person of Jesus Christ.

He is the image of the invisible God as the Son of God taking on flesh, dwelling among them. God is dwelling among them. So what they said is true in a much more profound sense than they mean it. But we can read back and know the profound sense in which these things are true. Naturally, as you would expect, word of this man being raised from the dead, things that haven't happened in a thousand years in Israel, spreads everywhere, spreads like wildfire.

Jesus raises a dead man in Galilee And the text says the reports spread throughout all Judea, 70 miles away. The man is raised in Galilee, the report spreads in Judea, where the powers of Israel are. Applications, I'll give you four. In other words, what should we do with this? God has given us a text.

Let's not do nothing with it. Let's do something with it. I'll suggest four things for you to do with it. Number one Our faith is set on such a firm foundation A multitude of signs and wonders are done in front of a multitude of eyewitnesses. I want to just take that apart.

A multitude of signs and wonders, not one sign and wonder, but a multitude of them. We should add them up. We should Google how many signs and wonders did Jesus do in the gospels and we'll get a range of answers and all the numbers will be big. The people who have the lowest number in that estimate will be a big number. It's a multitude of signs and wonders are done in front of a multitude of eyewitnesses.

Here it's two converging crowds. So how many people saw this? Hundreds of people saw this. The people in this town all have friends and relatives who have an eyewitness that they know who was there and saw the dead man sit up and speak. In Acts chapter 26, Paul is testifying before King Agrippa.

And Paul says that he knows King Agrippa knows none of the things that he's testifying about, has escaped his attention. He's testifying about Jesus and the things he did in his life. And he says, King Agrippa, I know this hasn't escaped your attention because none of this was done in a corner. It was multitudes of signs and wonders done before multitudes of eyewitnesses. Think of how different this is from the other faiths.

Abby just got back from Utah, where Joseph Smith has no eyewitnesses to these things. Our faith is on such a solid firm foundation. We know that the teaching, the revelation of truth from Jesus, is actually from heaven because they were stamped and authenticated and shown to be real by things no one else had done for a thousand years. They are marked out by God. That's number one.

Our faith is set on such a firm foundation. You should never take that for granted. Number two, at this moment and every moment, Jesus is sitting at the right hand of his father interceding for his blood-bought people. At this moment and the next moment and the next moment and the next moment And every moment, Jesus is sitting at the right hand of his Father, and he's interceding for his blood-bought people. He bought those people with his blood.

I'm one of them. And he's interceding for me. And he is as compassionate now as he was in Luke chapter 7. And he's not different now. He's omnipresent, present everywhere at once always, so he knows exactly what's happening in my life.

And he's a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and he has compassion for his bloodbought people. He's interceding for them out of the same compassion now that we see in Luke chapter seven. Listen to what J.C. Ryle says. Our Lord Jesus Christ never changes.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His heart is still as compassionate as when he was upon earth. His sympathy with sufferers is still as strong. I hope you can be brought to believe that. You'll leave here so encouraged today if you can be brought to believe that Jesus's sympathy with sufferers is still as strong today as he sits at the right hand of his father interceding for his people as it is in Luke chapter seven.

Please believe it. Ryle continues, let us bear this in mind and take comfort in it. There is not a friend or comforter who can be compared to Christ. He lives to come again to his people that they may weep no more at all and that all tears may be wiped from their eyes. That's so lovely.

That's so true. It's so lovely because it's so true. That's number two. Number three. Jesus' miracles are pictures of even greater spiritual realities.

So we ought to be awestruck by the physical raising from the dead, but just know that this miracle is just a picture of an even greater spiritual reality. When Jesus gives sight to the blind it is a picture of the even greater spiritual reality that he can take away the spiritual blindness that holds us back from repenting and running to Jesus. When Jesus gives hearing to the deaf, it is a picture of the even greater spiritual reality that this deafness, spiritual deafness that we have that has us sitting through sermon after sermon but never actually able to receive these things because they're spiritual and we're not spiritual, that Jesus can give people like that ears to hear. When Jesus heals the leper of the leper's uncleanness, it is just a picture of the greater spiritual reality that all of our filthiness can be cleansed away by Jesus. When Jesus makes the lame to walk, it is a picture of the even greater spiritual reality greater spiritual reality that Jesus can make us run and leap spiritually.

Jesus can cure all that needs to be cured. And when Jesus raises the dead, it is a picture of the even greater spiritual reality that though we're dead in trespasses and sin, Jesus can make us alive in him. Listen to what he says in John chapter 5. This is John chapter 5 verses 24 through 26. Jesus says, Most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment but has passed from death to life.

Most assuredly I say to you the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live for as the Father has life in himself So he has granted the son to have life in himself. We should come to this funeral procession at Nain and see Jesus physically raising from the dead, this dead young man, and know that Jesus can give us eternal life. He can raise us to life spiritually though we were dead in sins and transgressions. 1st Corinthians 15 verse 54 says that in Jesus death is swallowed up in victory. That's not talking about physical death.

Finally, application four. The Spirit of the Lord anointed Jesus to comfort all who mourn. This is Isaiah 61. I'm going to read Isaiah 61 verses one through three. Jesus actually quoted that in the synagogue in Capernaum in Luke chapter 4.

Do you remember that? He stands up and he reads out of Isaiah 61 and he says, today this is fulfilled in your hearing. I'm gonna read actually from Isaiah 61 because I'm gonna go further than Jesus quoted of himself, but this all applies to Jesus. Jesus applied this text to himself. This is Isaiah 61, verses one through three.

This is the voice of Jesus Christ. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord or to proclaim the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. That's exactly what we're seeing in our text. We're seeing the brokenhearted healed.

We're seeing the mourning comforted. We're seeing this widow with the dead son given beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the Spirit of heaviness, that God may be glorified. Why is all this happening? That God may be glorified that we can see the goodness of God and worship Him for it. You See, sin brought death into the world.

The wages of sin is death. Why this dead man? Sin, sin brought death into the world and all our sufferings into the world. But Jesus came to bear that curse. When you see Jesus hanging on the cross, He's bearing the curse and rolling back the curse and bringing us to a point where every tear will be wiped away.

There will be No more sin, no more death, no more mourning, no more effects of sin of any kind. Praise God, praise God. This text is crying out these things. Let's pray. God, we do praise you.

You ought to be glorified and worshiped, you raise the dead. I thank you that you don't just raise the physically dead, but that you take every day around the world today, You are taking people who are dead in sin and trespasses and bringing them to life, raising them from the dead spiritually and giving them eternal life. A future where all the effects of sin and death will be a thing past and every tear will be wiped away and we'll be with you to enjoy you forever. Thank you God for the glories of the truths we're learning in Luke. I pray in Jesus name, amen.