The Fierce Compassion of God

"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." — Isaiah 66:13

We often focus on the "Fatherhood" of God, but on this Mother’s Day episode, Austin Gardner explores the deep, nurturing, and protective "Motherly" love of our Creator. Using his own childhood memories of his grandmother’s house and the profound imagery of Scripture, Austin reframes our relationship with God.

If you’ve ever felt like you were "auditioning" for God’s approval, listen to this. Austin explains how the Hebrew word for compassion is tied directly to the word for "womb," showing us that God’s love isn't a reaction to our behavior—it’s His very nature.

Key Takeaways:

• Love didn't start with Mamas; it started with God.
• The difference between "Daddy’s discipline" and "Mama’s comfort" in the eyes of God.
• Why God's love is a source of restoration, not a reward for performance.
• The Prodigal Son: A story of a Father who runs like a Mother toward His child.

Stop striving and start resting. You are not an employee; you are a beloved child held in the palms of a God who will never forget you.

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Transcript

Mother’s Day And Grandmother’s Love

Austin Gardner 0:26

Take your Bibles if you would and turn with me to the book of Isaiah, chapter 66. Mother's Day. To all you ladies, all you mamas, we wouldn't be here without you, and we shall appreciate you. I was meditating on a Mother's Day, and what do I preach? Do I just go on with Ephesians or what do I do? I spent a lot of time just thinking about how sweet a mother's love is. I had a much closer relationship probably with my grandmother than I did my mother, but I'd go to her house, and of course they were older than dirt. Because I was like 10 and they had to be like 65 or 70, you know? And I thought they were like, oh, they're gonna die any day. You know, but I'd go there, and my grandmother made me the center of everything. At my house, my mom and daddy told me I could drink coffee if I wanted to drink it black, no sugar and no cream. But at grandmama's house, she said, add all the sugar you want, add all the milk you want. And she was like an old-fashioned country lady. And then she said, You sop, you probably, you city people don't know about that, but you sop your biscuits in your coffee and dip up all that sugar. And then she just pushed my hair back and she talked to me about how great I was. You can't beat that kind of love, amen. And who does that? Mamas do that. But I don't know if you understand where love started.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

But love didn't start with mamas, it started with God.

Austin Gardner 2:12

God is love, but he built into mothers a picture of what love is so we can understand it. We have a hard time understanding the concept of love. The Bible says God is love, so he dipped a little bit of love in the recipe for making a mama. And you'll find that in the Bible if you read with me. And sometimes this is gonna shock you because you know about God the Father, right? You know about God the Father, you know how the Father loves us, and you know God is loving the Father, and you probably don't realize that God on purpose said, Well, I love like a father.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

I love like a mother too. I'm gonna prove that to you. In the Bible, mamas are like, we all know mamas are wild and crazy.

Solomon And The True Mother

God Comforts Like A Mother

Can A Mother Forget

God Is Love Not Mood

Austin Gardner 3:05

How many of you know that say, Amen? You don't mess with a mama. You can mess with mama, you don't mention her babies unless you want to die. Is that a fair statement? Amen. And so there were these two ladies in the Bible. The Bible tells this story about Solomon, how wise he was. There were these two ladies that lived in the same house. And during the night, one night, one of the mamas rolled over on top of her baby, and her baby suffocated and died. So during the night, she got up and got the baby from the other mama and snuck it out of her room and put that baby in her room and put the dead baby in with the other mama. And the next morning, when they woke up, the mama of the live babies knew that the dead baby wasn't her baby. Because mamas know these things, amen. They just know. And so they were trying to figure it out, and no one could find the solution. So they took the living baby and the two women before King Solomon, and he's the wise one. And this is one of the pictures of his wisdom. And uh they said, Well, who's the real mama? And Solomon said, I don't know. Bring me a sword. He said, We're gonna cut the baby in half. And the one woman said, No, no, no, just give her the baby. He said, That's the mama. Because mama do anything to keep her baby alive. Now look what the Bible says with me. I'm gonna give you several scriptures. You need to take his home. You mamas need to take these home. The Bible says in Isaiah 66, 13, as one whom his mother comforteth. Look at that. As one whom his mother, as a person that's being comforted by mama. So God says, as a person who's being comforted by mama, so will I comfort you. Because you understand how mamas are. You don't want daddy to say, basically. Oh, get up and go on. Rub some dirt in the cut and keep going. Don't whine, don't complain. That's daddy. Suck it up. Make a man up here. That's daddy. Well, mama, she's holding your arm, she's kissing your boo-boo, and she just loving on you. In fact, we raised four kids, and you know the pastor here is a big old guy, but I knew him as a little baby. But you know, whenever he got hurt, he'd run right past me. He'd run right past me, he just ignored me. Get out of the way, old man. I got to get to her because that's where the comfort is. Can I get an amen? And so God said, Do you know how your mama comforted you? He said, I want you to know that's how I comfort. That's sweet comfort. As a mother comfort, so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. That's one place he said it. Now go with me to Isaiah chapter 49 and verse 15 and look at another place he said it. He's showing us the love of a mother to help us see the love of God. Now, you need to understand, love started with God, but we're so separated from God, we don't understand love. And we don't understand how God can love us like that. And a lot of times when you talk about God as the father, we had a better relationship with our mama than we did with our daddy. And so look what he says in Isaiah chapter 49 and verse 15. He said, Can a woman forget her sucking child? Can a woman forget the baby that's on her breast? That she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Are you telling me, will a mama forget the baby she's given breast so that she doesn't feel sweet, compassion, love, tenderness, kindness. Are you telling me that a mama do that? And you know, the answer to that is that'd be a really weird woman that wouldn't protect her children. That'd be a really weird woman who wouldn't love her children. But it's what God says. This is so beautiful. Get a hold of this because you need to know he loves you. You need to know that God, the Father, loves you like a mother would love the child who nestled at her breast. And look what he said. He said, Yeah, they might forget. Yeah, there are some women that will forget. And you know that's true. We've seen, but we all know they're crazy. One woman drowns her babies, and we're all like, what? What? If daddy did it, we'd be like, yeah. But if mama does it, it's like, what? But God said, yes, some of them might forget, but I'll never forget you. Look at the verse. Yet I will not forget you. Do you understand that a mama might forget you quicker than God will? And he wanted you to see his love by showing you that these scriptures, he's saying, it's not about my power. It's not about my holiness, it's not about my authority. Although all of those are true, that's not what I'm trying to show you in these verses. I'm trying to show you my affection. I'm trying to show you my love. And when he wants to describe how tender and how sweet he can be, when he wants to reveal how close to you he'll be to comfort you, he chose the image of a mother. He chose the image of a mother as one whose mother comforts him. The love of a mother, that is not the origin of love, but it is a reflection of love. Because here's the verse I need you to memorize and remember. 1 John 4 up 18, he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Now, I will say something a little strong to you, but you listen to it. God doesn't love. He is love. See, he doesn't turn it on, turn it off.

Austin Gardner 9:23

It isn't like he gets up and says, Man, I'm loving today, and tomorrow gets up and says, I ain't loving today. He's like, No, I'm loving all the time. Fact is, if you want to look up the definition of love, you look up God. If you want to look up God, you look up love because they are one and the same. Before there was ever human love, before there was ever a parent's love, or before any tenderness existed, before there was any compassion, before there was anybody nurturing anybody, before there was any mercy, there was God. Motherhood is one of God's chosen windows to say, look at this, and you'll see my heart. And look at your mama, and look at her love, and you'll see my heart. The love we send a mother began not in mama, but in God. He said, Can a mama forget the baby out of her breast? Can I just be honest with you? Sometimes I look at moms and I'm like, you are spoiling that kid. That's old-fashioned saying you're ruining that kid. You are too sweet to that kid. And then God said, Well, you see all that sweet mama love, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

She got that from me. And that's what he's feeling for you. He chose the deepest bond imaginable. A mother nursing her baby. What a bond. What a relationship.

Austin Gardner 10:53

That's a child that she's carried inside of her. That's a child her body nourished. That other little baby body. That's a little baby that lived next to her heart. My one of my granddaughters is about to have a baby, about three months now. It's so precious. I I got grandsons that have babies, but it's my first granddaughter that's gonna have a baby. And I'm just kind of messed up by it. I'm like, that's my little baby girl having a baby, and she's gonna have this little baby boy, and she's always in there and she's talking to me about where the baby is. And we got that, I got this beautiful, wonderful relationship with her. And she can feel that baby, that baby feels her. And God says, You wanna know how I love you? I'll show you. Look at a mama. God says, My love for you is like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Then he says something else. He said, Mama's love might mess up. Mama's love might fail. But mine won't. It's hard for us to accept that a mama wouldn't love her kid. But mama love can get tired.

Austin Gardner 12:06

Mama love can fail. Even good people break down. But God's love never fluctuates, never changes. Because God doesn't love you like a reaction. God loves you because that's who He is. That's His nature. But today on Mother's Day, when we're celebrating mamas and how sweet they are and how wonderful, I'm so happy I'm married to a great mama. Let me explain something to you. That compassion originates in God. I will throw something wild at you. I didn't know until I was preparing this.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

The word, Hebrew word for compassion, is related to the same word for womb. The word compassion and the word womb are related.

Austin Gardner 12:55

And so it's like saying, you know how mama's love in the womb? God loves you that way. But it didn't start with humans and it didn't start with your mother, it started with God. Every act of kindness in this world is an echo of his eternal love from which creation came.

When God Feels Distant

SPEAKER_00 13:17

We had uh our oldest daughter. Betty's been a great mama.

Austin Gardner 13:25

But oldest daughter, you know, kids never appreciate, you know, kids don't appreciate mama. It takes a long time before they appreciate mama. They don't appreciate she stayed up all night long. They don't appreciate she put stuff on their fevered brow while daddy slept. They don't appreciate how many times she got up and fed them. They don't appreciate how many times she cleaned their dirty backside. Come on. I mean, it's facts. And uh but my daughter called her mama one day and she'd been up all night long with her oldest baby. And she's told she's telling her mama with tears, if you love me like I love him, you must really love me.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Can you get this? If your mama loves you, God loves you much more than that.

Austin Gardner 14:18

You know what he's saying, aren't you, don't you? He's not distant. He's not cold, he's not reluctant, he's not hesitant, he's close to you. It's like mamas what mamas are. Some of us kind of believe that God moved away from us. We kind of feel like God has withdrawn his heart from us. But let me explain something to you. Even in your worst moments, even in your confusion, even in your failure, his love never changes. You may have lost awareness, you may not realize how much he's loving, but he has never lost hold of you. And you need to get this: God doesn't love from a distance. It's not like God is way off up there in heaven and y'all are like trying to talk to this, God, come and love me. God's like, I come, I live inside of you. Say amen. I'm with you in the night when you go to bed. I'm with you when you wake up in the morning. He's sharing his presence with us all the time. You remember what he said? You know how mamas comfort their babies? Well, that's how I comfort you. That was Isaiah 66, 13. Mamas don't have to say much. They simply draw near, grab a hold of you, hug you, kiss you.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

And if you're sick, when you wake up, there she is. That's mama.

Jesus Gathers Like A Hen

Austin Gardner 15:49

You know how it is. The storms are raging, the winds are blowing, the lightning's flashing. There's a terrible, horrible storm. The kid runs in the room, jumps in the bed. Well, Mama, the storm might still be going on. But they're all right. Because mama's holding them. So I'm not talking to you about information about God. I want you to experience it. I want you to understand it. Jesus also used Mama, Mama pictures when he was talking to us about how much he loved. In Matthew 23, 37, he said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets and stone them which are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen, hen, mama, mama chicken gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not. I got to thinking about that. I was like, I don't want to tell these people mama chickens take care of the babies, and daddies don't, because maybe daddies do. You know what I found? Sometimes daddies will actually cover the chicks with wings about 10% of the time. But 90%, they're like, it did say this, the daddy rooster, he'll holler and say, Trouble's coming! But it's mama that says, Come here. Before they can get to you, they gotta kill me. And God said, Jesus said, How many times have I said to you, Come, I'm not gonna let sin beat you up. I'm not gonna let life tear you apart. Come and get under here. Get under my arms. An interesting story. I just did all this research, thinking about Mama's Day. In 2 Samuel chapter 17 and verse 8, when David is on the run from Absalom and all the armies thinking about attacking him, they use an illustration. I thought it was funny. I just thought it was funny. They said, you know what? When you try to rob a bear of her cubs, that mama bear, she'll kill you.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Do you get the picture?

Austin Gardner 17:52

God is saying, Y'all know a little bit about this? You can see it in the animals, you can see it in life. You know who, you know, in Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 11, it's the eagle in her nest with her young. And she spreads her wings and she puts them on her back and rings them up on her wings. And then it says, and that's how the Lord leads you.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

He's trying to say, I love you. And you know a mama's love. You might not understand love, but you understand mama's love.

Austin Gardner 18:27

I'm dealing with a guy. I love him very much. You know what he tells me when he talks to me, he's had a pretty rough life. You know what he tells me? He said, The one person's always been with me. The one I can always call, the one that always hears me, no matter how much I messed up, is my mama.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Is my mama. So Jesus is describing himself with a picture of a mama. He's saying, I gather and protect, I shelter and I protect.

Grace Over Performance

Austin Gardner 19:01

You see, when Jesus came, he didn't come to show us a far-off God. He came to say, I am God in the middle of you. He came to show us that God is not distant up in the skies looking at him saying, Whatever's gonna happen on the planet, y'all work your issues out. He said, No, I'm gonna join the planet. I'm gonna join the human race. I'm gonna be one of you. You'd gotta think, when I improve myself, then God will get close to me. But the Bible says the exact opposite of that. The Bible said he commends his love toward us, and then while we are yet sinners, while we're still sinning, he died for us. God's love is not a reward for your performance, it is the source of your restoration. A mother does not wait for a wounded child to become worthy of comfort.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

She moves toward the pain. She runs in there like you hurt yourself and will take care of you.

God Teaches Us To Walk

Austin Gardner 20:06

That's how God does. That's how God loves you. That's how God comes. So some of us are exhausted. Exhausted emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. And we kind of feel like God's standing way off, like, fix it, fix it, and I'll come hug you. Fix it and we can have a good relationship. Repent of your sin and do right, and I'll help you. But God's not standing afar off and demanding something from you. He's closer to you than your breath. He lives in you. The Christian life is not you striving to get to God, it's waking up and realizing God came to you. God came to you. I love this verse. Isaiah chapter 49, verse 16. I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. He said, if you look at my hands, you see these wounds in my hands. That's my love for you. We are permanently held in his love. We are engraved in his hands. Jesus, God, literally became human. And he got it human hands, and he let them be nailed, let them be pierced, and let those scars declare forever. You are not ever going to be forgotten. The cross isn't God changing his mind about you. The cross is revealing to us the heart that God has for us. So on Mother's Day, when we think of how sweet Mother is, and we're like thankful for our moms. And you ought to be, we ought to be, all of us ought to be. We need to realize she learned that love because God put that in her. So God could say, You want to know how I love you? Look at Mama's love. In Hosea chapter 11, she taught Ephraim to walk, to go. And it says this, I love it. Verse 4 says, I drew them with cords of a man with bands of love. You know how God's drawing you? God's not mad at you. God loves you right where you are. Whatever you're doing, God says, You want to see how I am? I'm like the mama who teaches a child to walk. You fall down, God lifts you up again. God doesn't love perfect people. Grace is saying, I will not abandon. My children, no matter how weak they are, but I'll teach them how to walk. Mama stands across the room, her arms are wide open, and she says, Come on. She's smiling and she's encouraging. And when the child stumbles and falls, she doesn't say, I'm done with you. It's over. I'm not helping you anymore. You messed up. She lifts the child again and again and again. And that's what God does spiritually to you today. Everybody else might have rejected you. They might have condemned you. They might have given up on you. But God has not.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

God is not tolerating you. He desires you. The greatest truth about you is not your failure. It's that God loves you.

Austin Gardner 23:22

The gospel is the ultimate revelation of the heart of God. And a mama does sleepless nights and carries the burdens and sheds the tears and does all the good loving. But Jesus loves you far more than any mother could. John 15, 13, he said, Greater love had no man than this, that a man laid down his life, that a person would give their life to die for you. That's what Jesus did. He went to the cross. He went to the cross to die. Not just to forgive humanity, but to bring humanity home back to him. So everything we see our mamas do, all the comfort, all the protection, all the nurturing, all the forgiving, all the waiting patiently, all the sacrificing, and all the refusing to give up because mama won't give up.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

That's just a picture of how God loves you today. Mamas aren't perfect, but God's love is, and it flows at you forever, and it never quits.

Austin Gardner 24:28

Now remember this: we love him because he first loved us. So I want you to listen to what I'm about to say to you real quickly. He's not asking you to fall in love with him.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

He's saying to you, I love you. I don't care where you are, I don't care what you've done, but I love you.

Austin Gardner 24:50

The God of heaven loves you more than any mama could ever love her baby. You saw that perfect picture of a mama loving her baby? God says, That's nothing. I love you more than that. You saw that beautiful picture of a daddy loving his child? That's nothing. I love you. They learned that from me. That's a reflection of me. And so you're messed up this morning and you're hurting, and you think no one loves you. You need some comfort, you need some rest, you need some healing, you need some reassurance. All you gotta do is wake up to the truth.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

You are loved.

Austin Gardner 25:29

The God who comforts like a mother still gathers his children together today. Now you listen to what I'm gonna tell you. It's Mother's Day, and we're very happy that we got sweet and wonderful mothers, but the God of heaven loves us far more than any mother could.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

And God's not ever going to turn his back on you.

Austin Gardner 25:49

And it would ever hurt your parent, whether it's the loss of a loved one, or whether you're dealing with health issues, or whether you messed up and you've sinned, and you know, and you you feel like a failure. I recently wrote some articles and I said, people don't need to be told they sinned, they already figured that out. They already know they're a mess. What they need to be told is this God loves you and has an answer for your problem.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

And I want you to know this morning, you are loved. Not by me, not by Chris or Hayward.

Austin Gardner 26:26

Although we love you, but the father loves you. God loves you, and he loves you more than any mother could ever love you.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

And when you mess up, come home. Come home. I'll end with the prettiest picture I think I can think of.

Austin Gardner 26:45

Radical son came home, and he's pretty sure his daddy's gonna be mad. And Jesus is only telling his story to say, Let me tell you how my daddy is. Let me tell you how my father is. And on the way home, he practices a speech he's gonna give to his dad. But when he starts talking, his dad interrupts him and starts hugging him and kissing him and pulling that pig stitch up against him. And he does yell, but his yell is, we're gonna have a party. My boy that was dead is alive. He was away and he's back, and he went running. And that's what God's doing for you today. That's the good news of Jesus Christ. For God so loved you that he gave his only begotten son. So if you haven't trusted Jesus today, he loves you. We're not talking about getting baptized, we're not talking about giving money, we're talking about just accepting the free gift of grace, the free gift of God. He loves you, and Jesus died for you. Father in heaven, I love you, and I thank you for the chance to share your word, and I pray that your name will be glorified and magnified today. I pray you'll show yourself in ways you have never shown yourself. And I will give you thanks and praise for all you do. God, thank you for your kindness in Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Amen.