the
the man in that wonderful
you can be seated in the house or today,
they're leading us in worship that they're not appear just as is the token youth group
,
out where they are
, they mean business with a more stove and
Is he blessed you this week?
He's good.
Enjoy getting the testimonies, the checks in the mail right on time when they get there.
lovers good to lose faith for a man is a blistery this week
easiest
Amen.
Just how faithful our holy God really is and how mindful of our current status and situation.
When we think we may be a million miles off of his mind and then he does something so amazing,
so simple to remind us, I got you.
I've not forgot you.
I'm with you.
Amen.
That's how loving and faithful the Lord is.
Father, I love you this morning as we've come prepared to receive and to worship you with
our morning tithe and offerings.
Lord I thank you for the faithfulness of your people as they give from their heart out of
worship, not out of necessity, not out of obligation, but in true sincere worship they
give.
And in so, Father, I ask you continue to bless the household of faith as they do worship
and giving with jobs and better jobs, increases, checks in the mail, refunds, rebates, blessings
in any and every way Father, as your word declares that our souls prosper, supply all
of their need according to your riches and glory by Christ Jesus.
Amen and amen.
Let's stand together and come and worship in your giving today.
Everyone just stretch your hands this way.
Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you today for your goodness, your mercy and
your grace.
Over everyone standing in this altar, that is the prayer that we proclaim over them, that
your face smile upon them.
I know this is a hard day for many, a tough day for many, but I ask God, I ask Lord today
that you bless them and you keep them and you honor them, body, soul, mind, spirit,
as we glorify you today Father, as only you can minister, minister, minister.
I see you working Lord.
I see you working this morning.
I see you working in this altar today.
I see you working in this altar this morning.
Touch today in a mighty way, mighty God.
Move this morning, mighty God.
Hallelujah.
Lord, we thank you for being for us today.
I thank you for each one, Lord, standing here today.
Hallelujah.
Could you give the Lord a hand clap for motherhood?
Thank the Lord for all these kids that have ministered to us this morning, minister to
you.
Thank you for all the people that have needed.
Hallelujah.
The Lord is so merciful.
Thank you for your sweet touch today, Lord.
Hallelujah.
A thousand generations, let your face smile upon them.
Sister Kim said this is just a different day, so you're just going to have to go with the
flow this morning.
Amen.
Please be in prayer for our church body.
We've had a lot going on this week.
And we have some who would normally be here today, but they're grieving and they're mourning
lost loved ones today.
So please remember the McPherson family, the Yates family, the Johns and the Long family,
remember them.
Remember the Westmoreland family, Sister Twinkle, Robin, remember them.
Josh and Nikki, Haley, remember them today.
This has been one of those weeks that they do not prepare you for in your ministerial
internship program.
There is no preparation for losing four family members out of your church in a week, in less
than six days.
There's no prep for that.
You can't train for that.
You just trust God during that.
Amen.
And thank you, our church family.
You're doing a marvelous job loving and caring and praying for each of our families who are
suffering from loss this week.
It's not a good week.
There's no good week.
But just remember them in your prayers.
Amen.
Could you just give the Lord one more hand clap of praise?
It is a custom of mine over the years throughout almost 30 years of ministry, at least 15 of
those.
Mother's Day is probably one of the most difficult days, Sundays of the year.
Many of you are here today.
You had to force yourself up and ready to come to the house of the Lord.
Because you know the emphasis of the day and you don't have your mother and it's a hard
day.
It's a hard day for you to get happy and to be joy-filled and I know that.
And so let me just thank you for pushing through and being here today.
Customarily, I have you stand if your mother's not with you.
But could you just raise your hand if your mother's no longer living?
Could you just hold it up for a minute?
We're going to pray for you.
We're going to have just a moment of silence.
We're just going to be very reverent to each of you this morning.
Would you do that with me?
And then I'm going to pray over you.
Our kind and gracious heavenly Father, hands all over this house were raised and I know
hearts are heavy.
And Lord, it is my customary prayer to pray for each of them that as warm tears flow,
Lord, could you not remind them of the greatest joy of their memory or a fond memory that
they may have so that this day may not just be filled with heaviness?
But could you just allow the joy of your spirit to bring about a fond and happy time so that
the enemy just doesn't have his way and bring a heavy weight on them?
But with those warm tears, could you bring joy to their heart and may they remember fondly?
Fondly today, Lord.
Grant me this request, Father, in Jesus' name.
Amen and amen.
And that is my prayer for you today.
And before you leave, on the podium here there are some white roses for you.
If your mother's no longer with you, would you please take one of those today on behalf
of your church?
We love you and we thank you for pushing forward and being in the house of the Lord today.
Amen?
Amen.
It is good to see you this morning.
God is good.
God is faithful.
Amen?
And I promise I'm not going to keep you too long.
I saw one of my pastor friends sent me a message or text this morning in our little group and
he said, my gift to mothers today not to be long.
So I'm going to try that this morning if the Lord will help me.
And y'all know he's going to have to help me if that's the case.
Amen?
The thought that I'm going to share with you today, the Lord moved on my heart earlier
this week when I read it from Pastor Andre Wright's Facebook page.
And I whispered in his ear this morning when I shook his hand, welcome to the church, I
said you may be familiar with some of what you're about to hear today.
It just, it stirred my heart with what I read.
And then the further as the week went and it's been a week.
And early this morning in the office looking in several various different places and seeking
the mind and the will of the Lord, I just couldn't get away from it.
So I just went back to it.
Time will help you do that preachers.
If the Lord won't let you get away from it, the sooner you get back to it, the more peace
you're going to find.
Amen?
Especially if you're one of those who really want to hear from the Lord and try to share
with his people something from heaven that'll minister to their heart.
And I'm one of those.
You can grab a sermon anywhere, but I need a word from the Lord.
Amen?
And we're going to just lighten it up a little bit.
If you've got your Bibles with me, with you, turn to Proverbs 1 and let's look at verse
8 and 9 very quickly and then we'll begin to, there's going to be a roller coaster this
morning.
Hopefully I'm going to lift you up and then hopefully it doesn't get you too low, but
I'm going to try to pick you up today.
Do you know laughter doeth good as a medicine?
Amen?
So we're going to try to, man, there's a wonderful atmosphere here today.
Proverbs 1 verse 8 reads, my son, hear the instruction of thy father and forsake not
the law of thy mother.
Everybody knows mama lays down the law, right?
Verse 9 says, for they shall be an ornament of grace under thy head and chains about thy
neck.
It's not a weighted chain, but it's an ornamental chain.
It's going to be grace if you'll obey father's instruction and then live according to mama's
law.
Uh, I don't know if your mother was like mine, but mine said, I brought you in and I can
take you out.
And I believe that I, in my teen years, I'm telling you, I knew the power of God, knew
all about the authority of God, knew about the wrath of God, but I also knew the judgment
of mama and I was more afraid of mama finding out things I was doing than God got already
knew, but if he didn't tell her, she wasn't likely to find out.
But that was the problem in my life.
My mother was a prayer warrior, so I didn't get by with anything.
She already knew it, but I want to talk to you for just a minute on this simple thought.
What's a mother supposed to do?
And we've already defined motherhood this morning is not just necessarily, uh, the biological
act of bringing a child into this world, but it is the act of motherhood.
Amen.
The act of motherhood.
And many of you feel that role.
So what are you supposed to do?
Father I love you.
I thank you again today as I approach your throne.
I need your help today, Lord.
Truly I do.
I need your help this morning.
Lord, you know the week that we as a church family have been through, you know the weight
and the heaviness that sits over all of us.
But Lord, we're here in your presence and we're hoping in your word and trusting in
your divine anointing.
So have your way in our hearts and lives today as we encourage, we uplift, and we live by
your word to you be praise in Christ's name.
The church said, amen, amen.
What's a mother supposed to do?
I read a little, I read a little, a little funny that really struck me.
Mom was putting little Kevin to bed on the night of his fifth birthday.
You know how it is with little children, it takes you six months for them to get the right
fingers up, right?
You know, so Kevin finally got four.
He was doing good with the four.
He finally got the thumb tucked in and he, he had four down.
So mom was tucking him in, putting him to bed and said, now Kevin, you know, tonight
you're going to sleep your four.
But when you wake up in the morning, do you know what you will be?
Little Kevin thought about it a minute and he said, a handful.
I thought there's, there's, there's some prophetic utterance in that.
He said, I'm going to be a handful and I thought of you.
I thought of you, Courtney.
I thought, my Lord, I can see little Leo.
That would be something to say, mom, I'm going to be a handful.
Oh Lord, I thought of him.
He come right straight to my mind.
That boy, isn't that the way it works though?
They go from just where's Easton at it.
He's back here somewhere.
We got Briar right there.
These little fellows, little bitty ones.
You know, you just squeeze the life out of them.
Then at about four and five, you can almost beat the life out of them.
I don't, I don't know how it works that way, but that's the way it rolls.
They may just like, Oh, they're so precious.
Then you say, you little heathen get over here.
So and what you're doing in those developmental ages is instructing the law.
And so that when they get old enough to know the law mama, don't let them transgress it.
They'll, they'll come to it and they'll, they always gonna love you.
They always gonna love you.
So with that, sometimes we feel, and many of you may feel like that, that that's the
way life is today.
Life is just simply handful.
It seems though you, you, you, you went to bed in one condition and you've, you've just
woken up and you think, well, where did all this come from?
And you begin to think, what is it that I'm supposed to do?
How am I wandering through life?
What am I supposed to do now?
How am I supposed to deal with these situations?
How we're going to make it when you begin to think about raising children, you know,
fathers, we don't, I mean, we don't get too tore up until we see bone broke, you know
what I'm saying?
Or a lot of blood, a little blood doesn't even get a dad to tore up.
Just wipe it off and send them on.
But mothers get been out of shape with scrapes and skins and little boo-boos, right?
That's I told mine, you're not bleeding to death.
Go on, get up and go on.
You're going to be all right.
You'll survive it.
Make it.
The whole time, Sister Kathy's doting over them, trying to make it all better.
And I'm just trying to toughen them up and send them on out because I know what the world
has in store for them.
So what are we supposed to do when dilemmas of life change and things turn upside down
and the heaviness of life begins to set in and the weightiness of, of life, not, it's
more than a handful.
It's a double handful.
And then you run out of handfuls and you don't know how to deal and you don't know how to
cope.
And, and you're just trying to make your way through it.
It's applicable to all of us, not just mothers, but mothers seem to deal with more.
I know I kindly left most of the child rearing to Sister Kathy.
I've done the disciplinary end of it and, and I just kind of let her tend the rest of
it.
I don't know that that was always fair to her, but that's kind of the way it turned
out.
That's kind of the way we balance life.
And I know brethren, if you'd be honest, how many of you were with me County in that
boat?
Yeah.
Let mom attend to children.
We can only take care of the rest of it.
But when life begins to turn upside down and we don't know how to handle it, we don't know
how to deal and cope because of the crisis and situation and chaos that begins to enter,
we need to know like some mamas, they ask herself, what am I going to do?
You know, when, when the handful is blown up all over the house, they may, what am I
going, what am I supposed to do?
You know, how am I supposed to deal?
We all begin to ask that question in life when things begin to turn around and it's
not going in exactly the way we want it to go.
There's some mothers throughout scripture, some women that I think give some good instruction
in it.
And it came from that, that post that the pastor Andre put out the other day.
And it just, it's not left my heart all week.
And I began to think about it little.
The first thing that I think we could take note from is little as much when God is in
it, mama, little as much when God is in it.
Little as much when God is in it.
Grandma, grandpa, little as much when God is in it.
And there's a story of a widow woman in second Kings four who comes to the prophet, Elisha,
her husband has died and they have a debt that they have to pay.
And she comes to him because they are about to come and take her to sons to be indebted
servants until that debt is paid.
And as she begins to make her way to the prophet distraught, not knowing what to do, that's
the same as us going to the Lord.
That was God's man and authority, the anointing of their day.
That's where they went to hear from God.
So she makes her way to Elisha, the prophet, wondering, what am I supposed to do now?
So she tells him her story.
She lets him know her dilemma.
And then he begins to question her.
What do you have in your house?
My Lord, I'm going to, she said, all I have, there's nothing in the house saving a little
pot of oil.
And this is where little is much when God is in it, because we are in a new Testament
world and we understand the symbolism of what the oil means to the life of a child of God.
The oil is the anointing of God's sweet Holy ghost.
It's that anointing of his power.
It represents the anointing of his grace and the anointing of his glory that's available
to our life.
Elisha says to her, what do you have in your house?
All I have is a little anointing.
Come on somebody.
All I have is a little of God's presence.
All I have is a little bit of God's power and it's going thin.
It's draining low.
It's going down, but all I've got is a little bit left.
Well, here's my instruction to you.
Gather you vessels, not a few.
Go in the house and shut the door and begin to pour out the oil.
Hallelujah.
Can I tell some mama, some daddy, some family this morning?
It may be looking bleak.
It may be looking like things are about to get carried away and you're about to go down.
No, not as long as there a little bit of oil in your house.
Not as long as there's a little bit of oil.
Can I tell somebody this morning that you are the vessels of the living God, that we
are earthen vessels containing a little bit of oil and you're not over.
It's not over.
You're not done.
It's not finished as long as you've got a little oil in your pot.
You can get in the door.
You can shut the door.
I think Jesus would say when you're going to pray, get in your closet and shut the door
and get down to business.
When you need a little more, little is much when God is in it.
You don't have to have a whole lot of anointing.
You just have to have some anointing on you.
You don't have to have your house glowing as a beacon in the night.
You just got to have God's presence in there.
You just got to have him with you.
And when chaos strikes, I want to tell somebody little is much when God is in it.
She began to pour.
She began to pour and the anointing began to flow.
She began to pour.
She began to pour and the oil began to pour.
She said, son, give me another jar.
She poured until it was full.
Boys, give me another jar.
Until they said, mama, there is no more jars, but she still had oil.
What do you mean, pastor?
When you don't know what to do next, shut the door and start pouring on the oil.
Start stirring up the oil.
What do you mean?
Start praying and let the spirit of God begin to fill you up.
And before you know it, you'll be like the psalmist David who declared, my cup runneth
over.
Hallelujah.
My cup runneth over.
I think what we need today is a little overflow blessing.
Little is much when God is in it.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Lord.
I needed some help today.
Hallelujah.
Sometimes when you don't know what you're supposed to do, shut the door.
Sometimes when you don't know what the next movie is, shut the door and start stirring
up the pot right here.
Start stirring up your vessel and begin to turn it over and let some stuff begin to pour
out of you.
Let some praise begin to pour out of you.
Let some anointing begin to pour out of you because when you begin to pour out, he will
pour in.
I'm telling you, he'll not let you go empty.
He'll restore.
He'll refresh.
He'll renew.
He'll fill your cup and keep filling your cup and keep filling your cup until it overflows
and it runs over.
Hallelujah.
Secondly, what are we supposed to do?
I only got two points to this one, so we're halfway there.
What are we supposed to do?
Live as much when God's in it.
Second thing is trust God and just see what he's going to do.
Just trust God and see what he's going to do.
There are many women of faith in scripture who just simply trusted God just to see what
he would do.
Sarah trusted God just to see what he would do.
If you were to ask her, this is what she'd tell you that God will do.
She's 75 and about this time she gets this word and she laughs, but time has to go on
by.
It would be many years later and then God will fulfill that promise in her life and
she brings the promise of Isaac into this world.
Somebody needs to know today, it doesn't matter how long you've been waiting, nothing is too
hard for the Lord.
If you need somebody to tell you that, then Sarah would tell you that.
There's nothing too hard for the Lord.
If I could bring a son in at this late in life, then there's no dilemma in your life
that God cannot take care of.
When you need a little oil, begin to pour.
When you need a little hope, begin to trust in the Lord your God because there is nothing
too hard for him.
Nothing shall be impossible to those who believe.
All God is looking for is some believing people.
He's looking for some folks who will just let a little faith out and trust him.
Let a little faith out and trust him.
Let a little faith loose and trust him.
And I know when we begin to look at these dilemmas and we're thinking, what are we supposed
to do now?
And we don't know what we can do.
We can't control it.
We can't get them in line.
We can't put them in order.
We can't put them in God's will.
But all we can do is trust God.
Why?
Because our mind goes back and we remember the day that we stood in an altar and we let
a pastor anoint them with oil and we faithfully rededicated their life to the one who gave
them to them and we have trust in him.
Don't worry about controlling the situation.
Don't you worry about getting them to heaven.
That's God's job.
Mama, you just pray.
Daddy, you just pray.
You just trust God and let God take care of it.
If you've been living on a long promise and still waiting for it to come to pass, don't
doubt the authority and the strength and the power of God because nothing is too hard for
him.
It may not have come to pass yet, but don't quit on it.
Don't quit on God.
Don't give up on God.
You just keep trusting him.
You keep holding on to him because nothing is too hard for him.
One of my favorite mama stories in scripture is Hagar.
I don't know why I'm just drawn and over the years I've probably preached more about her
than any of the other biblical mothers that we read about in the text is Hagar.
How that Hagar didn't sign up for this.
Hello?
Hagar didn't sign up for it.
She wasn't.
Hagar wasn't like Sarah.
She wasn't praying and hoping.
She got caught up in the middle of it.
And how God blessed Hagar in spite of all of it.
You may be here and you're just caught up in the middle of it and I want you to know
today that God is going to bless you in spite of all of it.
The chaos may be surrounding you is not made by you.
It was nothing you done.
Hagar didn't do anything to deserve the chaos that entered in her life after Ishmael was
born.
But something to know about this if you were to ask her, Hagar would tell you that God
sees you in your most desperate moment.
God has not taken his eye off of you.
Whether you are the cause of your chaos or not, God still sees you in the middle of your
chaos.
And so Hagar finally gets driven out of home.
She gets sent into the desert with a little bit of groceries and some water to drink.
She's been sent out on her own, left out on her own.
She has been abandoned by the one who put her in the situation that she was in and she's
found herself out there wandering in a desert to the point of death.
She puts her son under one tree.
She goes a distance away to another tree.
So she could not hear his cries knowing that he's about to die, but yet she calls upon
the God of Abraham.
There it, my, my, my, my, my.
You got to know that she was a handmaiden.
She wasn't a worshiper of Jehovah, but yet she's seeing God do something now.
And she turns to him and begins to worship him because God sees her in her dilemma.
Not only did he see her, but he spoke to her right in the middle of her situation.
And he made an identical promise to her that Sarah got fulfilled in her son Isaac.
Look at it any way you want to.
I know there's friction and always will be friction between the house of Ishmael and
the house of Israel.
But the fact is it was a promise that God fulfilled to a mama in chaos who didn't know
what she was supposed to do next.
And she said, God saw me in my dilemma.
So much for that little homily we've done blown that.
God sees us.
I know the history.
I know how it's unfolded.
And I know what's going on today in the Middle East.
But it wasn't Hagar's fault.
And God knew it.
God saw her.
God spared not only her, he spared her son and said, here's what I'm going to do for
Ishmael.
You got to remember he was the eldest son.
The eldest son.
He was the older brother to Isaac.
Hello.
Here's what I'm going to do for him, Hagar.
I'm going to make him a mighty nation as well.
He ends up with 12 sons.
He ends up with a multitude of people.
I'm here to tell you today, God sees you.
God sees you when things are not of your choosing, things are not of your choice and things are
out of your power and you get caught up in it and you can't get out of it of your own.
God sees you.
My Lord, I feel the Holy Ghost right about here.
I'm going to try to get on.
The next one on that list was Rahab.
If you were to question her about what she should do next, what am I supposed to do?
Here's what she would tell you after her testimony comes to pass.
Rahab would tell you your past doesn't define your future.
God can and will use you in spite of it.
I for one am standing here grateful for that testimony.
Amen.
How many of you know who Rahab is?
You remember Rahab the harlot who hid the spies when they come in to spy out Jericho,
a woman of ill repute, but do you know she's mentioned in the lineage of Jesus himself?
Huh?
Hallelujah.
God can use you in spite of your past.
God can use whatever he desires because here's the key.
When God touches you, he sanctifies you and when that sanctifying touch rests upon your
life, he separates you for use of himself.
So it doesn't matter what your past is trying to hold over you.
It doesn't matter what the devil's trying to tell you and trying to say you can't and
God won't.
I'm here to tell you the devil's a lie and the father of every lie that proceeds off
the face of this earth.
He is not the determining factor of the will of God.
God is and if God so desires, he'll pick anything.
He used a donkey.
He used a whale.
He used a rooster.
My God, he uses me.
We can and we can't.
Hallelujah.
So if he can use me, the donkey, the rooster and the whale, I'm guaranteeing you he will
use you.
It doesn't matter what's behind you.
We got to get with the old apostle Paul, forgetting those things which are behind.
Let's press forward toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus.
Well, I thought I'd be done with the whale but I'm not.
Who's next?
Hannah was on that list.
What would Hannah tell you when you don't know what you're supposed to do?
She would be the first to stand up and tell you that God answers prayer.
You notice we're using these mothers of the faith, right?
She would be the first to tell you that God will answer your prayer even though the preacher
might make fun of you for praying it.
Come on.
That's what she did.
She was praying in the presence of Eli, the priest.
She had been in the presence of God so deeply and so richly, pouring herself out.
She couldn't speak.
She was mumbling words, probably swaying under that anointing we talked about and poured out
a little oil.
And he says, woman, you're drunk.
Go home.
Boy, she got the last word to the preacher, I'm telling you.
God spoke to her, opens up her womb.
She brings a prominent voice of God into the world.
God's going to use that boy.
I said God's going to use that boy.
That prophet's name would be Samuel.
She gets ready to go to church the next year to go back to worship and bring her offering.
She told, Hill Kines said, I'm not going to church this year.
It was a long time before they got to go.
Don't y'all get no ideas?
I'm not going to worship.
You're not on a donkey and you're not walking 500 mile.
You got AC and heat, I expect to see you next week.
I'm not going this year.
I'm going to wean this boy and when he's strong enough, I'm taking him to the house of the
Lord and I'm going to give him back to God because God gave him to me.
He opened up my womb, he heard me and he answered my prayer and I'm taking him back and I'm
lending him back to the Lord.
I'm turning him over to him and that's exactly what she did when the time come.
Now notice, I read it again this morning and something stuck out.
When she got ready to go back, she wasn't only taking her son to surrender to the priest
that he would work around the tabernacle, but she took a three-year-old boy.
She took a drink offering.
She took a flower offering.
She went to worship God.
Hallelujah.
Why?
Because God had heard and answered her prayer and so she made her way to church and to bring
that boy and to lend him back to the Lord.
And my Lord, I'd love to see no Eli's face when she come walking up and see I told you
God was speaking to me.
I told you man of God, he had heard my prayer.
And here this boy is, let him do whatever you need.
And it would be that answered prayer.
We get to hear the voice of God through the prophet Samuel who was laying, sleeping, and
he heard the voice speak.
He stirs from his slumber and runs to Eli and says, you call?
Boy, he said nothing back, you could see a grumpy, fat old preacher.
Eli was a fat guy.
Man of kind in nature.
Probably ill when the lad woke him up in the middle of the night.
Go back and lay down.
I didn't call you.
He hears that voice again.
Because he didn't want to miss.
He didn't want to miss what the priest would ask him to do.
And so finally, after repetition, an old hard hearted priest who had let his own sons adulterate
Israel in worship, Huff 9 Phineas, he said that's God son, just go back and tell him
you're here to speak.
Why?
Because mama didn't know what she was supposed to do and the only thing she knew to do was
to keep on praying.
And so she kept on praying in spite of the ridicule, in spite of the doubt of everybody
around her.
She kept on praying.
She entered on in and let God speak to her and birth something in her that now has affected
the entire world.
Who's next?
After Hannah, we look at Ruth.
What would Ruth say to us when you don't know what you're supposed to do?
She would tell you it's not over until God says it's over.
She wasn't even supposed to be there.
She was a Moabite.
Hello?
An enemy.
But somehow I just reminded her of that phrase and I've shared it with you for.
Dr. Chris Thomas used that phrase quite often said God writes straight with crooked lines.
You got a man who backsides and leaves his own home and goes down to the enemy's place
and sets up home and takes his two sons.
They take two wives from the enemy.
They marry Orphe and Ruth.
These boys marry.
Daddy dies.
The two boys end up dying.
Naomi's in Moab not knowing what she's supposed to do now.
Oh my God.
You see how this is working?
She's in Moab not knowing what she's supposed to do next.
And then there's word that gets to her from a wayfaring traveler.
She hears that there's bread again in the house of Beth.
There's bread.
There's there's a flaw.
There's harvest again in Bethlehem, which is the house of bread.
She hears that there's bread again in the house of bread.
She looks to those two foreign daughter-in-law who she's grown to love and she looks at him
said you have permission to go home.
I'm an old woman.
I can't bring another son in.
And by the time he's old enough, you're going to be too old.
So I release you from your covenant vow.
I release you.
You go to your homes.
Amen.
And just make a new life for yourself.
I'm going back to the house of bread.
Oh, one looks and says, I will thank you and kisses her and leaves.
But Ruth falls down at Naomi's feet and begins to make a confession of faith.
Your God will be my God.
Your home will be my home.
Where they bury you is where they're going to bury me.
I'm not going to forsake you.
My God, what a testimony.
What are we going to do when you understand all that God is doing?
It's not over until God says it's over.
And Naomi thought it was finished, but no, there's a Boaz in every life.
Amen.
There's a Boaz for every life and the kinsman redeemer for you and I.
His name is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Where you're not supposed to be, you have no pedigree, but God is still.
Happy Mother's Day.
I promise my intention was to give you a homily and let you go home.
But my Lord, what a word from heaven today.
It's not over until God says it's over.
Why, pastor?
Because when you get in the right field harvesting, he's going to have your Boaz go in front of
you and start leaving handfuls of purpose, little piles of goodness, little piles of
harvest that you don't have to glean for, you don't have to work for.
All you've got to do is take it up and take it into yourself.
That's what God is doing this very moment.
Right now, he's left a handful of his anointing, a handful of his glory.
You don't know what you're supposed to do, but God's telling you it's not over because
he's not put an end on it yet and he's leaving a handful of blessing on purpose for you.
Who's next?
Man, these are powerful women of faith.
They've got some rough stories.
Not easy lives.
It's not supposed to be easy.
He never said it would be easy.
He said he'd give us grace for it.
That heaviness that many of you are feeling this morning, he said would be there.
Pastors are those who mourn, but he didn't leave you with your mourning.
He's left a handful on purpose for you in your mourning.
How so, pastor?
They shall be comforted.
In your mourning, he will comfort you.
In your heaviness, he'll be the lifter of your head and the addition of grace in your
life.
That's the reason I pray for a smile, to go along with the tear and the weight of sorrow.
That there's joy that comes.
Why?
Because weeping endures for the night and some of you need to hear it.
Your night of weeping is over.
Your joy is about to approach with the dawning of a brand new day.
Happy Mother's Day.
Esther, what's she going to tell you to do when you don't know what you're supposed to
do?
Esther would tell you, trust God.
He'll show up right on time.
No invitation from the king.
Mordecai says, honey, says, niece, honey, you've got to go approach the king.
They've got a plan made and we're all going to die.
All your kinsmen are going to die.
You've got to go before the king.
I can't go before the king, uncle.
I've not been called into his presence.
And you know as well as I know that if I go in and don't find favor, if the king doesn't
extend his scepter, I'll lose my life.
But for such a time as this, I think I'll risk it.
I think if we look at the time in which we're living, I think some of us need to take a
little risk and enter into the king's court.
My God, and we're not having to wait for the acceptance of the scepter to point us because
we have an invitation, come boldly unto the throne of grace any time that you're in need.
When you come in seeking mercy that you might find help for your trouble, come to me.
Come in.
The invitation is always open.
For such a time as this, I might have come into the kingdom.
He'll show up right on time.
Just to let you know, if you don't know the end of that story, how God works things out
the enemy builds the gallows right in the front of the courtyard for old Uncle Mordecai
to be hung on and everybody else.
And when she comes in and finds favor with the king, then the king begins to question,
has anything been done for old Mordecai other than he didn't know this gallows had been
built, you know?
Has anything been done to honor him?
He showed me favor once.
And when it all comes down, the enemy's hanging on his own gallows.
Can I tell you that the devil's going to be hung with his own lie?
The first deception of all was where he deceived himself and he's written his own demise with
his own lie.
When he decides to exalt himself to the level of God and move God off his throne and be
God over, he really didn't have a good comprehension of God, did he?
I'm reminded one more time of that wonderful Joel Snead sermon title, Somewhere in Heaven
There's an Angel Polishing a Chain.
Oh, and that makes me so happy.
Why?
Because the devil's going to be bound with a chain for a thousand years.
He's going to hang by his own lie.
Let me move on through here.
After Esther, who can we look to?
A New Testament woman of faith, this woman with the issue of blood who remains nameless
to this day, who remains nameless.
If you ask her, she didn't know what she was supposed to do.
She's broke now.
She spent all she had been to ever specialists around the countryside.
And still she grew worse.
What she would tell you is this, if you'll show up, he'll show out.
When all else fails, he never fails.
And sometimes all you got to do is show up.
Amen.
You have to make a declaration like she did in her heart.
Everything else has failed.
She didn't know what she's supposed to do next, and then she hears that this man, Jesus,
is coming to town.
And she says to herself, no one else to confess to, she's alone, lonely, in despair, disillusioned,
disappointed, but yet somehow found enough resolve to gather a mustard seed of faith.
If I can just touch the hem of his garment, I know I'll be made whole.
And then she sets out on her journey, pushes her way, a weak, weakened, failed vessel,
pushing her way through a thronging crowd who's trying to get their touch of Jesus for
themselves.
And I think maybe with the last ounce of her strength, she made the push, and he almost
got by.
You do realize if she was closer, then she would have gotten a handful of his robe.
You do realize if she was really close, she probably could have grabbed him by his shoulder
and turned him around.
But with the last effort that she had, she makes her own lunge, and all she got
was a touch of the hem.
That's all she got.
She didn't get a handful of that beautiful robe.
She just got a touch of the hem.
Can I tell you with your last lunge, if you just get a touch of the H-I-M, it's going
to change your entire perspective.
All you've got to do is just get a little touch of the H-I-M, the hem.
You don't have to get a handful.
You don't have to get him by the hand or the shoulder or by the hair or the head to get
his attention.
All you've got to do is just touch him with an ounce of faith, and faith will stop him
in his tracks.
Who touched me?
As the caboose is colliding, and probably the apostle most like me, Peter, says, what
are you talking about, Lord?
Everybody's trying to get a piece of you.
What do you mean who touched you?
This is a different touch.
He clarifies the touch.
He says, for I have felt virtue, leave me and enter them.
He don't have to be looking at you for you to get it.
He don't have to lay both hands on you for you to get it.
You just got to touch him.
Your faith just has to reach out with, I know if I can just touch him.
For most of us, well, if I can just get so and so to anoint me and pray over me, lay
hands on me.
No, that wasn't her confession.
If he will lay hands on me, her confession is if I can just get a touch of him.
If you could just get a touch of him, if you touch him, he don't have to be looking.
You don't have to have his undivided attention.
Why, pastor?
Because when your faith reaches him, virtue flows and he knows where it went.
The who wasn't for her or for himself.
It was for those around him.
He knew who touched him because he turns and addresses her.
Probably a test for the preachers in the crowd.
Somebody touched me with faith, guys.
Did you see who it was?
It'd be the woman laying on her face in the dust and everybody trying to keep from stepping
on her, weeping.
Why?
Because she felt virtue come in.
Why?
Because the scripture says that her flow stopped.
Her condition ended.
Strength come in her body.
She was healed.
She knows she broke every law in the book, getting it.
But let me tell you something about desperate people.
Desperate people could care less about religious... Desperate people can care less about religious
structure, systems, demands, and laws because desperation that is driven by faith could
care less about all of that.
Their desire is to touch him.
She knew she was breaking the law just by being within 300 feet of that crowd because
of her condition, this flowing from her body.
She wasn't supposed to be there until after seven days and then present herself.
Seven days after it stopped.
Seven days after she's healed.
Then she presents herself with the right offering and the right sacrifice.
But my God, I'm so grateful that Jesus came to fulfill that law.
He was the personification of it all.
Amen.
When we touch him, we break every religious barrier.
I'm desperate.
Stand with me this morning.
I'm closing.
What are we supposed to do when we don't know what to do?
I saw a young couple going into the hospital the other morning.
Cleveland is a baby factory.
I don't know if you know that, but when you go right through the doors and you go to your
right, man, they just bring them out of there.
This young couple, I'm going in to make a visit into the hospital.
I remember, it's just Kathy and I with Jessica trying to figure this car seat deal out.
The nurse trying to help us get the car seat buckled and make sure she's... Back when
we were little, they just laid you in the seat and you went on about your business.
You got up in the back window wherever you could get.
I had a little flashback of our getting away from T.C. Thompson's Children's Hospital.
As I walked by, I told the young couple, I said, congratulations.
Dad turned around with this grin from ear to ear.
He said, thank you.
I said, now the work starts.
He just kept on walking.
I know I left that young father scratching his head because in a couple years, he's going
to want to know what's he supposed to do now.
That little young mother's thinking the same thing.
What are we supposed to do now?
We're supposed to trust him.
Forget about your past.
He's not concerned about it.
If he's washed it out of your life, he's washed it away and he remembers it no more.
He's purged with his blood.
So don't let the devil get you caught up in your past.
Nothing's too hard for him.
Nothing.
Well, I don't have much.
You don't need much if God's in it.
What am I supposed to do now?
With the last effort you have, touch him.
As he goes by, you will find he's not too busy to hear your heart's cry.
He's passing by this moment.
Your need to supply, reach out and touch the Lord as he goes by.
Anybody need to touch today?
That's how we're going to close.
If you need to touch, male, female, young, old, mama, not, doesn't matter.
If you need to touch, if you need to touch him, you don't know what you're supposed to
do now.
We're going to try to touch him together.
Anybody need to touch from the Lord this morning?
All right.
Give the Lord a good hand clap of praise.
That's a little weak.
I mean, really, that was a little weak.