Trust Builds Better Attitudes

Let's honor our moms this morning.

We love you and we thank you. And as I prayed earlier, without you, we literally would not be here. Amen. You made be feeling now. This is what I realize all too well now, for many as this is a joyous day to celebrate our mothers who are still here with us, there are just as many where this day is bittersweet, right?

Because we celebrate and we honor those mothers who have gone on to be with the Lord. And then there are many here who may not even have a relationship with their mother the way a son or the way a daughter should. And we are praying that God restores that then. We also know there are several of those who are still praying and believing for motherhood for themselves. And we're going to come into agreement and pray with you for that today.

So we celebrate, we honor mothers, but we also realize this is kind of a bittersweet day, depending on the situation that you find yourself in there. There are so many backgrounds with people in this room. There's so many stories. There's some that's full of hurt. There's some that's full of joy.

But one thing Remains is that a mother, she helps shape who we become, right? And she has a great impact on our life, whether that be negative or whether it be positive. One thing always remains the same about a mother when it comes to relation to her children is that she has impact, influence. She has influence. She helps shape.

She helps mold who we become and who we are. And moms that are here, you out there know that that isn't always the easiest thing to know and to be burdened with. Because every situation that arises and how you handle it, mom, it is an opportunity for you to pour into your children. It's an opportunity for you to give them vital information for life. It's an opportunity for you to give them things that help them to learn and to grow.

So I want to start out and tell you a story I'm reminded of. And so it's about a mom that goes like this. There was this little boy who went to his mother, and he asked this question. It's a question that we, as parents, all hope to avoid. So he goes to his mom and he says, mama, where did I come from?

Where did I come from? Now, upon hearing this question, this mom's heart began to race, right? It felt like it was going to beat out of her chest. Her breathing became pretty heavy. Her palms became sweaty.

There was this lump that formed in her throat, and she. Her mind was racing, and she was like, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And she's like, where's his daddy at?

He ain't ever around when I need him.

Then she began to talk to herself. She said, I can do this. I'm going to just tell him the truth. I'm going to tell him the truth. So she started out with the story of creation in Genesis and how God created both man and woman, male and female.

She went into his commandment to be fruitful and to multiply, to procreate. And she talked about the birds and the bees, and she just laid it all out there. And when she was finished, it felt like this weight was lifted off of her. It just seemed to lift off her shoulders. The heavy breathing returned to normal.

Her heartbeat returned to normal. She had this sense of pride. She had this sense of accomplishment, and she did it. She thought to herself, I did it. I did it.

I'm successful. I am the woman mom of the year. And in the midst of her finishing all that, the little boy just looked at his mom and said, that's fine, mom. Kind of interesting, but Johnny's from Philadelphia. I was Just curious where I was from from.

Now. That's a funny story. I love a good and funny story. But I'll say this. Despite the circumstances not being ideal for this mother, this mother rose to the occasion and she did what she needed to do in that moment.

Right? And so this morning, I want to start out and talk to you about a mother who rises to the occasion and a mother who sets the example. The mother who teaches her children and everyone around her that despite what it looks like, despite what it feels like, despite what it sounds like, despite what all our circumstances may be, we are going to trust God. Right? And because we're going to trust God, we're going to be better for it.

I'm going to be better for it. My kids are going to be better for it. We're just going to trust God in it all and through it all. All. If we could teach anybody anything, I think one of the most important things we could ever teach them is to trust God.

Okay? Because trusting God will only ever produce a better attitude in the long run. Do you know what trust is? Trust is faith. In my opinion, it's faith in its highest form.

Okay. And we know, according to Hebrews, chapter 11, faith is what pleases God. That's what it says. It actually says, without faith, it's impossible to please God. And then it says, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

So guess what? God is who he says he is, and he'll do what he says he'll do. Right? And so we've got to learn to trust God in it all and through it all. Because how many know that this life can sometimes put you through it?

Anybody life ever put somebody through it? This morning? Right? Yeah. How many times God brought you out, though?

Amen. Amen. The difference between the one who trusts God in it all and through it all and the one who doesn't is this. One of them loses hope, the other doesn't. Okay?

Now, I'm not saying you can't be a real realists and, and see things and call things the way they are. Okay? I'm a realist a lot of times. And sometimes it probably gets on Amanda's nerves. Yeah.

She's nodding. Nodding. Yeah. But in the midst of things sometimes getting really bad, do you still have hope? Do you still trust God?

Because if. If you don't have hope, you don't have faith, and you surely do not trust God, that everything's going to be okay. So how can I say that? Because Hebrews 11:1 2 actually says, now faith is. It defines faith, right?

Now faith is. It's the substance of things that is hoped for. That's hoped for, right? It is the evidence of things that's not seen. And then it goes on to say for by it, by hope and faith, right?

The elders, those who have gone before, before us, they obtained a good testimony. There are countless people. You can go in Hebrews 11, we did a whole series on it, right? You can go in Hebrews 11 and read about all these great men and women of faith in the Bible. And they went through hell on earth sometimes.

But the difference was they never gave up hope. They never gave up trust and faith in God. In the midst of what seemed like hopeless situations. They had a red sea in front of them, them and an army behind them. But they said, still, we're going to trust God.

Well, at least Moses did. And he held his staff up and God made a way where there was no way, right? Daniel was thrown into the lion's den and instead of panicking, he said, I'm going to trust God. Either they going to eat me or God's going to protect me. And God protected him.

The three Hebrew boys were thrown into the fiery furnace. And they said, look, we know that our God is more than able to protect us and save us us. But even if he does not, we're still going to trust him. So can we trust God in it all and through it all? So having hope and trust will produce a good testimony, a good report.

If I've lost hope, then I've lost faith. And I surely don't trust. And do you know what lost hope does? It makes the heart sick. It makes the heart sick.

Proverbs chapter 13, verse 12 says this. It says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. So when hope is lost, it brings an emotional, it brings a spiritual, a mental, and sometimes even a physical kind of sickness, right? There's some fruit of lost hope.

And it can be. It's not always, but some of the fruit of lost hope is depression, fear, worry, anxiety, laziness, which can all lead to a bad attitude, a bad outlook, right? Lost hope can cause all these things. But then it says when the desire comes, or when things, God turns things for good. It is a tree of life.

What happens is all those things fade away and then God will turn it to good. According to Romans 8:28, he works all things together for Good. For those that love him are called according to his purpose. And he'll do that right? And when he turns it for good, it's a tree of life.

It energizes our faith, it electricizes our faith, and it strengthens our trust in God. So I want to briefly talk about a mama who was a realist. And she called things like she saw, but she was also a mama who didn't just say it, but she showed it above all else. Despite my circumstances, I'm gonna trust God. If you have your bibles, go to first kings, chapter 17.

First kings, chapter 17. I'm gonna read verses 8 through 16. First kings 17, 8, 16. They will put it on the screen as well. It says, then the word of the Lord came to him.

Him being Elijah, the prop prophet. The word of the Lord came to him, saying, arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I've commanded a widow there to provide for you. So he arose and he went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks.

And he called to her and said, please bring me a little water in a cup that I may drink. And she was going to get it. As she was going to get it. He called to her and said, please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. So she said, as the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread.

Only a handful of flour in a bin and a little oil in a jar. And c I am gathering a couple sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die. And Elijah said to her, do not fear. Go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first and bring it to me. And afterward make some for yourself and your son.

For thus says the Lord God of Israel, the bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth. So she went away, and she did according to the word of Elijah. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The bina flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Elijah. So here we are, we're in first kings 17.

And if you go to the first part of this chapter in verse one, you see Elijah the prophet come onto the scene. And what's interesting to me is that there's not some big introduction for the prophet Elijah, as great as he was, there wasn't no leading into his appearance in scripture. There's just him getting right down to the nitty gritty of business. And he's declaring the word of the Lord, and he's declaring it to King Ahab of Israel. And so this is what we know, according to the previous chapter, First Kings, chapter 16, that King Ahab of Israel had married Jezebel, the daughter of king of Sidon, okay?

That's what it tells us. She was the daughter of the king of Sidon. And right after he marries Jezebel, it says that Ahab works baal, this false God. He served baal, he built a temple and had an altar for baal, right there in Samaria, okay? And so Ahab was leading the people of Israel into demonic and idol worship.

And God was not happy about that. And so God sends Elijah the prophet to the king of Israel, to Ahab. Elijah walks onto the scene, right? No introduction, not nobody written. You know, we don't know who he is.

They obviously knew who he was. And he walks up to King Ahab and he says, look, as the Lord God of Israel lives before whom I stand, he sent me here. He says, there will not be any dew or any rain for these years except at my word. So what he was saying is, hey, guess what? It ain't going to rain again.

It's not even going to be dew on the ground until God says, I say it's going to rain again, right? And if you read through the book of First Kings, you'll find out out that this drought happened from the moment he spoke it, and it stayed for three and a half years. Three and a half years. So. So during this time, God had told Elijah to go to a place westward from Samaria and camp out by a brook called Cherith, okay?

And God told Elijah, while this drought's going on, while this is happening, you can go, you can camp out by the brook. You can. You can drink from the brook. And that he, God, would command ravens of all the birds, the stingy birds of the air, right? He would command ravens to come feed him there.

Now, I'm just telling you, that takes a high level of faith, that takes a high level of trust in God just to believe that God's going to send ravens, very stingy birds to you in the wilderness, and they're going to be carrying food so you can eat in a drought and a famine. God says, you just go there and wait, Elijah. The ravens are going to bring you food. I'm going to be honest with you, I would question the Lord on that one. Right.

Be like you do. What? Wait by the brook. Ravens are going to feed me. I haven't made it to that level yet.

I stand before you. Admit it. I hadn't made it to that level yet. But guess what? Elijah, he goes westward to the brook cherry, and he drinks water from the book.

And then in verse 6 of First Kings 17, it tells us that not once, but twice a day, ravens would bring Elijah bread and meat to eat to sustain him in the morning and in the evening. Now, I could preach a whole nother sermon on that, but I don't have time for it today. So after he'd been there a while, Elijah's been there a while. This brook, the brook Jareth, it dried up because there was no rain. There was no dew.

It was a severe drought. So the word of the Lord come to Elijah again and said, arise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. And then God goes on to say, look, I've commanded a widow there who's going to take care of you. I've already commanded it. Can you imagine Elijah when all this is transpiring, when all this is taking place?

He's only done what God has asked him to do and said for him to do. And he's waiting at the brook, drinking the water in the wilderness, and all of a sudden it just dries up. He got nothing else to drink. You ever just tried to be obedient to God and you find yourself what feels like in a drought and in a wilderness, and you feel all dried up? Up.

Well, don't sweat it. You're in good company. That was Elijah in this moment. Right. Then on top of that, God says this.

He says, I want you to go to Zarephath. I've got a widow set aside there that I'm going to use to take care of you. Listen, this was the most unlikely place that he would go. And God is actually going to use the most unlikely source. Zarephath belonged to Sidon, which was where Jezebel was from, and it was the very center of Bel worship right there.

Zarephath in the Hebrew literally means to smelt or to melt. And it was where they made the idols of baal. It was the capital city of idol worship for baal. And God says, I want you to go there, and I'm going to use a gentile widow from this town to provide for you. So here we go.

Elijah goes to Sarapheth and When he got to the gate of the city, guess what he sees? He sees a widow, and she's gathering sticks. And Elijah says, hey, there, would you please bring me a little water and a cup that I may drink?

She starts to go get it. It just says as she goes to get it, no questions asked, she just goes to get it. But as she's going to get this drink of water for the man of God, he calls out to her again and says, hey, also bring me a little bit of bread as well in your hand so I can eat. And this is where this mama just kind of kept it real, right? Now, obviously, this widowed mother knew God, and she knew that Elijah was a man of God, because God told Elijah, I've commanded a widow there to provide for you.

And maybe the Lord had prepared her in some way or another that this prophet was coming and to take care of him. And she didn't know how all that was going to go down. But either way, in this moment, she just kept it real. She was like, man of God, I know I'm supposed to take care of you. I've been commanded by the Lord to do that.

You asked for a cup of water in the middle of a drought, and I was gonna go get it, no questions asked, but now you're actually asking me to take the last bit of nourishment that I got for me, but more importantly, for my son, and you're asking me to give that to you, but I don't have enough for him and for you. And as a matter of fact, I only got enough left that I was going to gather these sticks that you saw me picking up, and I was going to build a fire, and I was going to use the last bit of flour I got, and I was going to use the last bit of oil I got in this jar, and I was going to bake a cake so we could eat it. He and I could eat it. And then we was going to die because we got nothing to else, and nobody else has got anything else, and the land isn't producing anything else, because if you didn't realize, we're in a famine and a drought.

And do you know what Elijah, the man of God, said to her right after that? He said, do not be afraid. In other words, he was saying, trust me. Don't be afraid, but trust you. Go do what you was already gonna do.

Only make me a small cake from it first and bring it to me. Then after that, you can go make you and your son some. Can y' all imagine Me saying something like that to a single mom in this church.

Excuse me, ma', am, can I have that Twinkie?

Well, Pastor Andrew, this is the only groceries we got in our house. This is the last Twinkie we got. And me and my son, we were going to half it and we were going to eat it, and then we wouldn't have anything else. Could you imagine me saying, that's cool and all, give me the Twinkie first.

Can you imagine that?

Now this mama had a choice to make in this moment. Was she going to put her trust in herself? Was she going to put her trust in the jar of oil? Was she going to put her trust into a handful of flour? Or is she going to put her trust in the word of the Lord that came from through the prophet Elijah?

And despite her keeping it real earlier, she did trust God and she obeyed. Because verse 15 says she went away and she did according to the word of Elijah. And it says that after that, that her oil never ran out and her flour never ran. Ran out until the famine had ended. But do you know who got to see all of that transpire?

Her son. Her son. Her son got to see mama trust God no matter what. Even if it didn't really make sense to her. Even if it didn't really make sense to him.

She said, baby, this is what we're to going do. We just going to trust God. We're going to take God at his word and we're going to trust him. We're going to put our hope, we're going to put our faith in God, and we're going. We're going to have a better attitude.

This is why. Because I know that God is faithful. All right? And let me tell you something. God did show up, right?

And he was faithful. And you know why? Because he can be trusted. Listen, as I turn it over to a man, Amanda, trusting in God will always build better attitudes. It'll always build better attitudes.

Y' all welcome. First lady.

So the last time I spoke was in January. And that day I told the people that were here a little story, but maybe some of you haven't heard, was when I got delivered from my foul language when I was 8 years old. Does anybody remember that? The foul language and how I pulled my sister into it, drug her into the filth.

But we found just a little bit of hope in a little bar soap because my mother made us actually got 10 minutes of soap in her mouth. I got 20 minutes. But how many Got your soap with you today? You hold it up. Hold up Your soap.

Now show it to your neighbor and say you need to clean it up.

So we have talked about language, and now we're talking about. We're cleaning up our attitude today. And, you know, I'm speaking to more than anybody in this house is myself. I'm preaching to myself today. And if you want to receive it for you, then you receive it normally.

Andrew preaches a very loving, nice, sweet Mother's Day message. And Father's Day, they get. They get the tough one. But today, mothers, we're talking about attitudes. So.

So our kids, they love. They love to play basketball. And we have watched a lot of basketball over the years, and one thing that we've seen a lot of is a timeout. And basketball, you get a lot of timeouts because the team just needs to bring it in and refocus. And so sometimes when I get bad attitude or I'm in a bad mood.

Now, I want y' all to be honest and raise your hand if you have ever been in pretty bad mood. There we go. This is my people. The rest of y' all come to the altar. Yeah.

Because I know y' all had a bad attitude before. So. So what I have learned to do in those moments is I'm gonna take a little time out. Somebody do that with me. Say, I'm going to take a timeout.

Yes, you need a timeout. What does that mean? It means literally, go to your room. Go to your room. We always want our kids to go to our room.

We want them to take a timeout. Well, sometimes we still need a timeout, and so we need to calm our emotions, and we don't want the whole house to suffer for our bad mood. I've learned to do that. I've been in a bad mood, and I'm. Man, the atmosphere of this house is changing because my bad mood, when I can just go take my time out and let everybody else live their life.

Right? So something else in the game of basketball that you see is a technical foul.

You should have brought your whistle. A technical foul. She gets a lot of them at that. Wow. You get them at the games.

You know, it's a good game when somebody gets teed up. It honestly is. I'll be honest. It is. It's a good game when somebody gets a technical foul.

But some of y' all in your house, you've been. You've been needing. You have been needing more than just a timeout. You've been needing a technical foul. You.

And I'm not giving you permission to give Your spouse, a technical foul. I'm not giving you permission to do that. But how are we going to move from a bad mood, bad attitude into what God has for us? And I want to give you three attitudes today that we should take on. The first is an attitude of humility.

The second is an attitude of gratitude, and then an attitude of prayer. And I'm going to start with humility. The scripture we're going to go to, Philippians 2, 5, 8. It says, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of man and being found in appearance as man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And we all know Jesus was humble.

Every step he took, he was humble. So sometimes I'm like, well, who am I to not be humble if he was humble? And so if I'm getting in this bad mood, this bad attitude, like, I'm going to put on, like a garment, humility, and that will sometimes just let that mood just go. Because if you're humble, then the world doesn't revolve around you, and we're putting on humility like a garment. The second thing is gratitude.

Philippians 2, 14, 16. Do all things without complaining and disputing that you may become blameless and harmless, harmless children of a God without fault, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in labor in vain or labored in vain. We here, we sitting here in America, we have no reason to complain. We just don't. We have no reason to complain.

I do something every single night when I lay my head down on my pillow. I don't tell anybody about this, but I just. As soon as my head hits my pillow, I start to give thanks. And the first breath that I take, like, I'm like, thank you, God. Thank you, God.

And I start to thank him for a lot of things, but really simple things. Sometimes if you deal with any kind of worry, like mamas do, anxiety that can be combated with thankfulness and being thankful. And so I thank him for the breath in my lungs. I thank him for safety. I thank him for peace.

And I thank him for the most simple things, like my pillow. I'm like, I'm so thankful for this pillow. Can anybody relate to that? Do you love your pillow? Who doesn't really care for their pillow?

You need a new pillow. You really do. You don't have the right one because when you lay down on your pillow you're like, ah, this is my pillow. And so I was thinking there would be a couple just, just the most, just the most simple things. We need to count our blessings.

If you're in a bad mood towards your spouse, your kids or your boss, start to recall the blessing that they have been to you. So my third point is an attitude of prayer. And that is in Philippians 2:1:4. Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affliction and mercy, fulfill it, fulfill my joy by being like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit but in lowliness of mind.

Let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interest, but in the interest interest of others. And that is what the Lord has been dealing with me on here lately is selfishness. Not only looking out for myself, but others and preferring my neighbor esteeming you better than me. And so I am married to Pastor Andrew Hyde here.

And so he has taught me. We've been married, was it 13, 13 years. I've changed a lot being married to Andrew. I have. I've come a long way because Andrew, Andrew does this.

Andrew's a selfless person, naturally, I guess. But if we are walking in a restaurant or we're walking in a store and we're walking with a group or several people are with us, I've learned we're not going in that door for first. He is going to get the door for you and he's going to be like, you first. And I used to be like, see, hurry, I'm going to beat you in. There's a crowd coming.

Let me hurry and get in here. I have learned to just chill out. Chill and just watch. An example of someone that prefers his personal brother. He does this in other situations like when you're in traffic, you know, bumper.

I'm not talking about interstate really. I'm talking about just town traffic. If you live in Rome, I'm sorry because Yalls traffic is real bad right now. You know, you're just in traffic and you know that car that just wants in and I'm like, I don't want to let you in. I Do not want to let you in.

I want to go. Oh, my people are laughing right now. That's my people. You tell it on yourselves. You're telling on yourselves.

Pastor Andrew Height. And when I'm the passenger, Pastor Andrew Height wants, yes, please come ahead of us. And I want to be like, see, you really wouldn't want to be you and go. But not Andrew. I had the opportunity to go a hospital visit with Andrew.

I guess it was in the last month or so. And I've always have this thing where I want the best parking space. My people are laughing, you want the best one. Some of y' all did that today. You're like, I want the best parking space here.

And that's been my mentality. I even do this chant where if I'm in a car full of people and I'm not the driver, I'm like, they're like, oh, let's just park back here. I'm like, no, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith. Because I'm like, we can. We have favor.

We're gonna get. We have faith. We're gonna get the best parking spot. So I'm doing this at Floyd Hospital this week. And he's like, I'm like, oh, Andrew, just go up there.

You're gonna gonna. You're gonna find that we have favor, we're gonna have favor. We have faith, faith, faith. And he's like, amanda, I am an able bodied person. Some of these people are not able bodied and they need the better parking spaces.

We are going to park in the very back, which is basically Cedartown. And, you know, so, you know, it's a long walk.

And so I am learning selflessness. It didn't come natural for me. It apparently comes natural for him. I'm thankful for that. But the Lord is working on me.

So sometimes we can always. I'm getting close to being done here. But sometimes we can also be a little bit selfish in our prayer. Our attitude of prayer can be selfish. And there's nothing wrong with us praying for our family.

I feel like I monotonously pray for my kids all the time. When they go to sleep. They don't know this. They have no clue. I do it every night as soon as they go to sleep, which Evan doesn't really.

Evan just kind of moved back home. But I've been praying over him. Even when he was in his dorm. I was just like, lord, you know, I pray for him. But when Elisha goes to sleep, I'm like, lord, I plead the blood of Jesus over Elisha.

I pray peace. I pray safety. I pray protection. I pray that he will have a good night's sleep. No evil shall befall him, no plague come near his dwelling.

I just start praying, it's just without fail, all the time. But the Lord has stretched me into extending my prayer for others. Not just what benefits me, but other kids, other. Other people's children. And so in 2023, that year, we, as a church, we declared the Lord did it and we started to really believe for this place that we sit in right now.

And he did. He did it. But the one thing that I was praying for that year that I wanted to see the Lord do was move on the friends of my kids. And we were, like, we mentioned basketball. We were always at basketball with these people that sit right here, over here.

I mean, just. It's just we were always together. And I would pray for your kids. I don't know the condition of their heart. I don't know them that well.

I watched them play. But I started to pray for them. And the Lord started to burden my heart with more than just mine, but your kids and the kids that go to this church already. And in 20. So that was in 2023, when we opened this church.

Last December, this January. I don't remember when it was. I just know it was in January. I counted 21 of Evan's friends sitting right here, 21 of them that came in to the house of God. And it was prayer.

It's prayer. Begin to pray for the kids that your kids are surrounded with and bear one another's burdens. And I'm going to just tell one more little story and then I'll close it up. But when I was in youth, I was about 14 years old, we had to write down our burdens, how many burdens we were carrying. And in my spoiled life, my spoiled, rotten self, I don't remember what I read down.

I have no idea. But I remember I wrote eight things down that I was carrying eight burdens. And I know myself and I'm like, there weren't. There were no burdens. It was probably.

I had to put my own gas. I had to. My homework was hard. That's probably all it was. Don't go in intercession.

For me, that's about all it was. And so a couple of weeks later, our youth pastor's watch took us on this. What is it called? Is it a lock in, like, for just the girls? And we had a great time.

We were having fun. We stayed up all night playing games. And I Fell asleep under a dining room table, I think around 4am because that's what we do, right? When we're young. You stay awake, you know?

And at 5am, our youth pastor's wife and helper, they came in making a lot of noise. Get up, get up, get up, get up, get up. So I'm like, we just fell asleep. I'm not ready to get up. But they made us get up.

And we had to go outside in the cold, rainy day. It was a cold, rainy morning, and we were met out there with a backpack with the number of bricks that represented the number of burdens that we had been carrying, had eight bricks. The homework just wasn't as hard anymore, or the, you know, so we had to carry. We had to put our backpacks on and go uphill. Muddy, rainy, Just a muddy hill.

It wasn't short either, that I remember. It was a long hill, hill.

Before we set up the hill, they wanted us to take notice of how many bricks were in each other's backpacks. And we noticed that One girl had 15. And they challenged us to bear one another's burdens that day. And I probably didn't take another brick. I probably said, I'm telling y' all who I was before Jesus.

Okay? Before. I probably just, like, I got eight. See ya. You know, my sister probably took like, five bricks off of that girl.

She probably did. She's the one that did that. But we shouldn't be that way. We should bear one another burdens and take that on as ours. Take it on as ours.

And so we have some mamas coming up to the altar this morning. You can just make your way up, Mamas, if we ask you to come and pray. And also. Worship team, come on back up. And the mamas that are coming this morning will be an example of bearing one another's burden.

And today I want you to bring. I want you to bring your burden. It doesn't matter if it's small, doesn't matter if it's a big burden. I want you to bring your burdens. That's the first thing.

The second thing is I want you to bring someone else's burden. It might be a prodigal son. It might be a prodigal daughter. I want you to bring their burden to the Lord today. And the third thing this morning, as we sing, turn to your neighbor and say, if you need to go to the altar today, I will go with you and bear your burden this morning.

So this is what we're going. This is what we're going to do. If you want to go ahead and stand with me, go ahead and stand. That'd be great.

Whatever burdens you're carrying, we got how many knows that the prayers of a mother are very effective. I'm a product of the prayers of my mother. Anybody else? Amen. Anybody got a praying mama, right?

And we really felt led. These are moms that we trust and we know that are prayer warriors, but also pray for their families, but pray for other people. And we know, we've seen them trust God through various trials and tribulations in their lives, they've trusted God and they come out better because of it. And so we have them up here. What we're going to ask is when the music begins to play, if you've got burdens that seem heavy that you're carrying, they're going to pray with you.

Whatever those burdens are, maybe there's somebody beside you that is weighed down. As Menda said, we want you to just ask, hey, you need to go. If you need to go, I'll go with you. They'll pray for you, and I'll pray for you. Maybe you're here this morning and you need a better attitude.

And you know what? That might be all of us. But maybe the Lord really spoke to you about a better attitude and what's been going on even within you, between you and the Lord. It's just been going on with you. And you're like, I need a better attitude.

I know it.

Maybe the Lord spoke to you and said, hey, I need to walk in more humility and esteem others as better than myself and walk out. Practical Christianity, let me tell you this, Practical Christianity. Serving others actually causes you to die to yourself.

Right? I love the benefits and the blessings of God. I talk about them. I live in them. Right?

He's a. He's Jehovah, Jireh. He's our provider. But what we don't harp a lot on in the church anymore is that Jesus said, if anyone would be my disciple, let him first deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. We don't preach about denying ourselves anymore and serving others.

Jesus said, I didn't come to be served. I come to serve. And that is Practical Christianity 101. Being humble, clothing yourself in humility and serving others, and that causes you to die to yourself. And so maybe you say, there's some areas in my life I need to die to myself, and I just need my kingdom, family, some praying mamas to pray with me about that.

Whatever the reason, for whatever purpose, Whatever. Maybe you just need prayer. You need healing. Maybe you're a mom that feels overworked and stressed out. Maybe you're having relational issues.

Maybe you've got financial issues. I don't care what it is. If you need prayer, we want you to come. They're going to begin to sing. These mamas are in place and they're going to pray.

And I promise you, they'll pray with you and bear your burden with you. You, father God, I thank you for the word. I thank you, God, that our trust in you will always build a better attitude. And I pray, God, as people get ready to come forth and receive from you, I just pray for anointing on every one of these moms, God, you give them the words to be able to pray for each and every person that comes forward and let your ministry take place right here, right now, in Jesus my name. The altar is open.

Would you come? If you need or if you want prayer for any reason, these ladies are here. They're available to pray with you, to pray for you. Just come.