The God Who Sees (Lk. 7:11-17)
Good morning, BCC!
Over the weekend I took part in Secret Church which is put on by pastor David Platt. It’s a 6 hour intensive Bible study and prayer time focused on spreading the Good News around the world. I learned so much about what spiritual darkness exists in other parts of the world, places like Nepal, India, China and more. I also learned of some incredibly powerful ways Jesus is revealing Himself in many of those places. For example;
A few Christians went around sharing the Gospel in a village in SE Asia that was overrun with idol worship. As they did, some of the villagers turned from their idols and placed their hope in Jesus. Days later, the village leader died and the villagers began to think that the cause of his death was as a result of them abandoning their false gods, it scared them so much that they turned back to their idols, forsaking Jesus. The missionaries were discouraged, but they agreed to pay their respects to the dead village leader and as they stood before the corpse they began to pray, “God would you exalt yourself in this place.” As they prayed, all of a sudden, the dead man started to cough. After a few moments, he sat up fully restored to life and this eventually turned the hearts of many of those villagers back to Christ.
It has been well-documented that our third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was not particularly fond of the miracles of Jesus. As an Enlightened-thinker, Jefferson took it upon himself to construct a document (I personally choose to not call it a Bible for its many exclusions of God’s original record) which focused exclusively on the teachings of Jesus and His good moral life while, at the same time, completely eliminating the miraculous works of our Lord.
In his book, Grave Robber, pastor Mark Batterson says,
When you subtract the miracles like Thomas Jefferson did, you're left with a very wise yet weak Jesus. I'm afraid this is the Jesus many people follow. He's kind and compassionate, but the raw power is missing in action. So we follow His teachings but never experience His miracles. And that doesn't just fall short of the standard He set-it misses the point altogether.[1]
And what is the point?
The point is this, since we are all weakened by the flesh, incapable of healing and saving ourselves, we need to rely on a Savior who not only caresabout us, but who also cares for us and who is more than able to meet the needs we have.
The story of the raising of the widow’s son is a masterclass in the compassion and power of God. No matter what you are experiencing today, you can - with great confidence - trust that God sees you and is willing to assist you in your suffering.
Open your Bibles to Luke seven and let’s pick up at verse eleven.
Luke 7:11–17 NKJV
11 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. 12 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. 13 When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 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.” 15 So he who was dead sat up and began to speak. And He presented him to his mother. 16 Then fear came upon all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen up among us”; and, “God has visited His people.” 17 And this report about Him went throughout all Judea and all the surrounding region.
Nain (Lk. 7:11-12)
Luke 7:11 marks a distinct shift from the previous day's miracle—the healing of a Roman centurion's servant in Capernaum, Jesus' established headquarters. This new encounter takes place about thirty miles southwest in the beautiful city of Nain. The name "Nain" itself means "beauty" or "pleasantness," a fitting description for the miracle that unfolded as Jesus passed through.
Nain is not a significant location; in fact, this is its only mention in Scripture. Its low importance is comparable with the status of the widow at the center of the story. The difference between her and the centurion is immediately noticeable.
As Dr. Diane Chen notes:
"Luke is fond of pairing stories that highlight a male and a female character, as in the healing of the centurion's slave in Capernaum and the raising of the dead son of the widow in Nain. The contrast in status between the two is stark. The centurion is a ranked Roman officer who because of his generosity is held in high esteem even by the Jewish community....The widow is doubly destitute, having lost both husband and son, with no one to provide for her."[2]
A further difference between the two events lies in the initiation of the miracle. In the case of the centurion, Jesus’ presence is requested. On the other hand, in the case of the widow, she didn’t ask Jesus to come, He chose to intervene, initiating the miracle on His own accord.
These contrasting displays of God's grace and power serve as a parallel to our own personal encounters with Jesus today. Like the centurion, Christians are those who have heard about Jesus and requested that He come into their hearts. For those present who may not yet be Christians, hearing the Word of God and the message of Jesus today is God’s invitation to you; if you ask Him to come, He will.
Romans 10:12–13 NKJV
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever callson the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
And Jesus makes this promise to you,
John 6:37 NKJV
37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
And yet, what we also discover in the story of the widow is true for all of us, we cannot know life without the prevenient grace of God initiating for us the way of life. Prevenient grace is an old Wesleyan theological term which refers to the grace of God that goes before us providing us with the ability to respond to the miraculous works of God. Without God’s prevenient grace we are dead in our trespasses and sins. As dead as the son of the widow. However, because of His grace, those who have trusted in Jesus, have been made alive (Eph. 2:1), like the son Jesus raised, and able to exercise faith in Him.
John tells us in the open chapter of his Gospel record,
John 1:11–12 NKJV
11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
He has come to you today; you have heard His Word, will you call on Him that you might have life?
God Sees (Lk. 7:13-15)
As Jesus is passing through Nain on this particular day He notices a funeral procession. The person in mourning is a woman. She has lost both her husband and now her only son. She has no one to care for her. Women had little to no agency in those days and relied heavily on men for their survival. With both of her caregivers gone, this childless widow was as good as dead herself.
But Luke tells us something incredibly significant.
Luke 7:13 NKJV
13 When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”
The Bible repeats this theme of how God sees what is happening in the world He created, but not only does He see, He also acts.
Exodus 3:7–8 NKJV
7 And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 8 So I have come down to deliver them...
Yahweh saw their oppression. Yahweh heard their cry. He knew their pain. He delivered them.
In the book of 2 Chronicles we are told,
2 Chronicles 16:9 NKJV
9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth...
In the prophecy of Jeremiah Yahweh asks,
Jeremiah 23:24 NKJV
24 Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?”
And finally, in the book of Genesis we discover the only time in scripture where a woman names God and the name she gives Him is reflected in our story of the widow and her dead son raised to life.
Hagar was the female servant of Sarai, the wife of Abram. At Sarai’s insistence, Abram agrees to lay with Hagar and after she gets pregnant with Ishmael, tension fills the house. Well, one day after Sarai has been incredibly unkind to Hagar, she packs her things, along with her grief and shame, and Hagar runs away. As she is sitting alone in the wilderness the Angel of the Lord visits her and blesses her and the child she is carrying and has her return to the home of Abram and Sarai.
Next, we read these emotionally charged words about Hagar.
Genesis 16:13 NIV
13 She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
When Jesus walked into Nain on that day, He saw the widow. Her pain was real. Her grief was heavy. Her concern for her life was insurmountable. And Jesus saw her.
Has death come knocking at your door? Are you grieving today? He sees you.
Have you received a troubling diagnosis from your doctor? Jesus sees you.
What life circumstances keep you awake at night? He sees you.
Are you at the end of your rope? Do you feel like giving up? He sees you.
But, not only does He see you, He suffers with you.
God Suffers
The next thing that we are told about Jesus and this childless widow is that He had compassion on her.
In his book, The Familiar Stranger, Tyler Staton says,
"Without the courage to crawl down into this world and feel the darkness with the same helplessness as the rest of us, how could God be trusted? How could he be relatable? Without suffering, how could God tell a story deep enough to hold our own suffering?"[3]
Compassion in the Bible is often used in the sense of being able to feel what another person feels; to have your stomach turned because you can so identify with their pain, and then to be moved into action on their behalf. Compassion is another one of those Biblical themes that helps us trust the Sovereign hand of God (Dt 30:3; Ps 135:14; Is 14:1; 49:13; 54:7, 8; Jer 12:15; 30:18; Mic 7:19; Zec 12:10; Col.3:12; James 5:11; Rom. 9:15; 2 Cor. 1:3-4; Phil. 2:1-3). Thankfully, we serve a God Who isn’t off in a distance pushing buttons that affects our lives, rather,
Psalm 34:18 NIV
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
There are several of you here today who know just how true this is, as you have walked through your own valleys and shadows of death. As you continue to face the difficulty of the pain you are enduring. God is there with you.
The Hebrew writer reminds us of the Lord’s compassion by stating,
Hebrews 4:15–16 NKJV
15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are,yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
The late Andrew Murray, in his commentary on this passage of scripture, shares this profound thought on the compassion of God displayed in Jesus.
It was to effect this that God sent His Son to become Man, and as Man perfected Him through suffering. That not one single feeble soul should be afraid to draw [near] to the great God, or in drawing [near] should doubt as to whether God is too great and holy fully to understand, or to bear with his weakness. God gives us a glimpse into the heart of our compassionate, sympathizing High Priest![4]
This is why we call Him, Immanuel - the God Who is with us - in our pain and sorrow. He has entered our dark world in order to give us a light that shines brighter than we can imagine. To give us a hope that will never run out. He is full of unfailing compassion for us (Ps. 116:5; Lam. 3:22-23) and He yearns to grace us with the compassion He has for us (Ps. 103:13; Isa. 30:18). The compassion of God is what leads many people to discover Him in their darkest moments of life. The reason why there are so many testimonies of people’s lives being changed in prison or on a hospital bed or after the loss of a loved one or in the midst of great sorrow is because Christ didn’t abandon them in that place, He met them those places and He suffered with them and restored what they had lost.
My friend, if you’ll trust Him today, you’ll experience the same power and compassion of God that leads to life.
God Restores
This story of the childless widow parallels a similar story found in the book of 1 Kings. And that story helps us to understand why the crowd responded to Jesus raising the widow’s child, by calling Him a prophet.
In1 Kings 17:8-24, we are introduced to the Sidonian widow in Zarephath whose son dies and Elijah saves his life by the power of the Word of God.
1 Kings 17:17–18, NKJV
17 Now it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. And his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him. 18 So she said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?”
Well, Elijah responds by taking the boy upstairs, lays on him and cries out to the Lord three times for his life to return. Eventually God answers Elijah’s prayer.
1 Kings 17:23–24, NKJV
23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives!” 24 Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth.”
God’s compassion is not passive, but active. It springs into action. And that’s exactly what happened on the day Jesus sees this childless widow in Nain. Several actions took place as a result of the compassion of God. First, Jesus speaks. The Man of sorrows. The holy One who is acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3) tells the grieving, childless widow not to weep. Something that I find to be particularly interesting is this, it appears that Luke is the only Gospel writer who uses the encouragement “Do not weep.”
Luke 7:13 NKJV
13 When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”
When everyone was crying because Jairus’ daughter had died Jesus says,
Luke 8:52 NKJV
52 Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, “Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping.”
And finally, as the Lamb of God hung on the cross where He defeated sin, He says to the women who are crying,
Luke 23:28 NKJV
28 But Jesus, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
Now listen, please don’t ever go to a funeral and tell the grieving family to stop crying. The only reason anyone could have the confidence to speak those words would be if they had the power to change that situation. Jesus isn’t being insensitive when He speaks those words. Those words aren’t spoken because there’s nothing to cry about, like when your child or grandchild comes crying and asking for a Band-Aid because they got “hurt” and then you notice that there’s really nothing wrong with the child, so you tell them to stop crying. No, Jesus tells her not to weep because He is “the compassionate Benefactor of the poor.” [5] He is the One who swallows death up in victory (1 Cor. 15:54). The One who was dead and yet He lives (Rev. 1:18). He is the Resurrection and He is the Life. Jesus says, don’t cry.
The next thing that happened is Jesus stops the coffin with a touch. In Capernaum, He was willing to defile Himself by entering the home of a Gentile for the sake of showing mercy. Now, in Nain, compassion compels Him to actually come in contact with ritual impurity. The whole procession grinds to a halt. Then, Jesus gives a command.
Luke 7:14 NKJV
14 “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
In Capernaum, neither the centurion nor his sick servant was present to hear Jesus speak healing. Jesus just says the word and it is done. The widow’s son is as “out of the picture” as they were, yet, when Jesus spoke,
Luke 7:15 NIV
15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
Death gave way to life in response to the Word of God!
Through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, Yahweh says,
Isaiah 55:11 NKJV
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
If He can restore a life to a dead boy, is there anything that you are facing at this very moment that God’s Word does not have command over?
Two lives were saved that day in Nain. The son of the widow and the widow herself. Again, without a caregiver, without a kinsman redeemer, this woman was as good as dead. But Jesus saw her need. He had compassion for her and He stooped down into her pain and lifted her out. Joel B. Green says,
In fact, it is not too much to say that ‘healing’ in this instance, although it entails the miraculous raising of this young man from the dead, should be interpreted as the restoration of this woman within her community.[6]
Let me remind you of Mark Batterson’s words. If we reduce Jesus down to only being a good moral teacher, a wise sage, as Thomas Jefferson did, we will tragically miss out on the power of God that is necessary to live in the fullness of life for which Christ has died and rose to make available to all who will trust in His Name.
Respond
Vivian was 23 years old. Seven years earlier she had suffered a traumatic event that left her feeling like she had two minds. To commemorate the schizophrenia she got a tattoo of a bird with two faces on her forearm. One day, while she was sitting on her doorstep, there were some other women on the other side of town praying and asking God where to go and who to talk to. Well, because the Lord could see Vivian, and because He had compassion for her, He entered into the pain she was dealing with, and He sent these women to Vivian. They shared the message of God’s love with her and then this happened.
“Terrified by the voices in her head and ready to be done with the drugs that only gave her temporary relief, Vivian put her trust in Jesus! Tears streamed down her face as she prayed to him. She experienced the presence of God, and received his deep peace for the first time. She said she felt like she had taken off her old self and that she was brand new (2 Cor. 5:17)!
Honestly, what happened today is the most authentic, whole-hearted, visceral transformation I have ever seen. The Lord had prepared her in so many ways for that conversation; all we had to do was show up and be available.”
And get this, Vivian’s name means ALIVE.[7]
If you are grieving, if your heart is heavy, if you have been kept awake because of the weight of life’s circumstances, let me remind you that Jesus sees you and He loves you. You don’t have to struggle under that pressure anymore.
1 Peter 5:7 NKJV
7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
You’re hope can be restored today. Will you trust Him?
Maybe you’re not a Christian and you need to know the compassion of God in your own life, it begins by surrendering to Jesus. Will you trust Him?
Listen, the boy that Jesus raised to life in Luke seven, he died again, but the Word of God records this promise,
John 11:25–26 NKJV
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
That is the question. Do you believe what Jesus said? If you do, confess your need for life right now. Tell Him, God I know that I am a sinner. I believe that you sent Your only Son to die for me. Jesus, come and set me free.
[1] Mark Batterson, The Grave Robber, 24-5
[2] Diane G. Chen, The New Testament in Color, 142
[3] Tyler Staton, The Familiar Stranger, 177
[4] Andrew Murray, The Holiest of All, 167
[5] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 290
[6] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 290
[7] Amy Parks, June 9th, 2016, https://www.facebook.com/amy.m.hildebrandt, accessed April 16th, 2026.
