The Gift of The Holy Spirit - Pastor Efrem Smith | Sacramento

📖 For Sermon Notes and Guide, visit: https://midtownchurch.org/note/5-10-2026-midtown-church-sacramento-campus/

Give through Midtown today: https://midtownchurch.org/give/

Thank you for your support online family!
         
          🌟 Quick Links:
         
  New to Midtown? Discover more here: https://midtownchurch.org/new/
Share your prayers with us: https://midtownchurch.org/care/
Plan a visit and join us in person: https://midtownchurch.org/

Visit our website at www.midtownchurch.org for more information about our church community and upcoming events.
 

More about Pastor Efrem

Rev. Dr. Efrem Smith is a pastor, consultant, speaker, and author. He is passionate about life transformation, multiethnic development, healthy churches, and community development. Within his church congregation he is known as Pastor Efrem, Pastor E, and Dr. E.

Pastor Efrem was the founding pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church, a multi-ethnic church in Minneapolis, MN, He served as the Superintendent of the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church. He also served as the President of World Impact, an urban missions organization. Currently, Pastor Efrem is the Co-lead Pastor of Midtown Church, a thriving and multi-ethnic community in Sacramento, California. He is also Co-Owner of Influential LLC, a speaking, consulting, and coaching ministry. Pastor Efrem is the author of Raising Up Young Heroes, The Hip Hop Church, Jump, The Post-Black and Post-White Church, Killing Us Softly, and Church for Everyone.

Pastor Efrem is a graduate of Saint John's University and Luther Theological Seminary. He completed the Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary and received an honorary Doctor of Ministry degree from Ashland Theological Seminary. Pastor Efrem is married to Donecia, and they have two daughters, Jaeda and Mireya. 

Give through Midtown today: https://midtownchurch.org/give/
Thank you for your support online family!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

I want to say happy Mother's Day to all the mothers here. But I I also want to acknowledge that this is a day of joy and celebration, but for some, this can be more challenging. This might be the first year you're without your mother. Or you might be a mom and your child is already in heaven. And so this can be just such a celebratory day, and it can be a challenging day. So let me lift up a prayer to those that are celebrating motherhood, those that are navigating, not walking in motherhood, and those that have lost their mothers. God, we just come to you. You are our creator, our heavenly Father, our Almighty God, and you are a nurturer. And God, we pray that wherever we find ourselves on this Mother's Day, that you would meet us right there. That we would experience love, we would experience joy. We would experience strength. We would experience healing. Whatever it is we need on this Mother's Day, let it be so. In Jesus' name, amen. My name is Ephraim Smith. I'm one of the pastors around here, and we are in a sermon series on the Holy Spirit, empowered by the Spirit, dealing with the Holy Spirit and spiritual matters. We are going to be in this series for a little while longer. And uh I just want to start out by uh just acknowledging that you know, on a day like this, it would make sense for mothers to say, it's Mother's Day. What you doing? What we doing? It's Mother's Day. There are certain days that you just you kind of expect something. You know what I mean? Like your birthday, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, you know, you know, anniversary. There's just some days where you like, you expect a gift. You, you know, it don't have to be, you don't have to spend a whole bunch of money on me, but like something, you know, something, something. You know, on certain days, you kind of just expect a gift. But have you ever received a gift on a day when you weren't expecting it? Wasn't your birthday, wasn't Mother's Day, wasn't Father's Day, wasn't Christmas, wasn't Valentine's, wasn't anniversary, and somebody presented you a gift and it meant everything to you because you weren't expecting the gift. Or maybe sometimes you were expecting a gift, but the gift turned out to be way more than what you ever could imagine. That's the case here in Acts chapter 2, where there is a group of men and women that are receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. It's been promised by Jesus, but they receive more than what they could have imagined. Go with me to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, beginning with verse 1. It says this when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound, like the blowing of a violent wind, came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now they were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked, Aren't all of these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Frigora, Pamphyla, whatever those words are, Egypt. The parts of Libya, near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans, Arabs, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. Amazed and perplexed, they ask one another, what does this mean? Some, however, made fun of them and said, They have had too much wine. From this text, I want to preach to you on the title, The Gift of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit. God, I pray this would be your message. Ultimately, you would be speaking. And I'm just the vehicle that you have decided to speak through to these, your beloved children, my sisters and brothers. God, I want to be obedient to your word. So please let it be done. In Jesus' name, amen. The gift of the Holy Spirit. Some gifts become more special, more meaningful over time. Maybe you've received a gift, and at the you know, at the time that you received it, I mean you appreciated it, but years later, you look at that same gift and it brings a tear to your eye. You get choked up. And you know the reason why? It's based on who gave it to you. So my daughters are grown. But if I look back on something that they gave me when they were small, it gets to me. Even if it's the littlest thing, something they drew with a crayon. But it gets to me because the more that time goes by, the more the gift means something to me based on who gave it. Some gifts are better over time based on who gave you the gift, who promised you the gift in the first place. That's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a gift that should get better over time. It should mature us, develop us, comfort us, strengthen us, equip us, uplift us. This is God taking up residence on the inside of us, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here in Acts chapter 2, we are looking at the receiving and the witnessing of the Holy Spirit. Theologian Dr. Willie James Jennings of Yale University and Divinity School says the Holy Spirit coming upon a group of people in this way is a revolutionary act. A new community is created by the Holy Spirit. What we witness here, Dr. Jennings is saying, is that is God touching, God taking hold of tongue, voice, mind, heart, and body. In the women's Bible commentary, uh female scholars remind us that women are among the number of this group. This group represents about 120 or so men and women that are waiting in the upper room for the Holy Spirit to arrive. These women are present at the moment of Pentecost, translating this new message into the empire. Women are enlisted from the very start of this inbreaking into the Roman Empire with this revolutionary act of the Holy Spirit. And it's important, sisters and brothers, to know who these people are. These men and women, that the Holy Spirit comes upon them first. They are not the wealthy, they are not the elite, they are not the political powers of the Roman Empire, they are not the religious voices of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. These are marginalized people. These are oppressed people, these are working class people, people with calloused hands. These are the colonized of the Roman Empire. These are the suffering, which should tell us something that God would choose first to pour the promise of the Holy Spirit from Jesus first on the marginalized. Those that don't have a political voice in the Roman Empire, they didn't have a voice. We should not take for granted that we live in a nation where we can vote. Uh-oh. Oh, that's a whole nother sermon. I'm so glad that I stand on the shoulders of ancestors who were willing to use their Holy Spirit-filled voice to sing, to pray, to shout, and to cry out, to have a voice in the democracy. But let us still look at these folks right here that had no voice, but yet God gave them voice through the Holy Spirit. That they would speak courageously and boldly and supernaturally to the powers that surrounded them. It's important to know that they didn't open their mouths until the Holy Spirit came upon them. They waited in the upper room. They waited for the Spirit to hit their tongues and then they spoke. Maybe that's a principle right there. Maybe sometimes we should wait and not open our mouths until the Spirit directs us. Maybe there are times when you should be silent. Maybe there are times when you should hold your tongue. Maybe there are times when you should not defend yourself until the Holy Spirit moves upon you in such a way that when you open your mouth, it's not gonna just be any old kind of human language. It's gonna be transformative, it's gonna be healing, it's gonna be liberating, it's gonna be truth. Sometimes you gotta wait to speak and let the Holy Spirit move first. And then when you do speak, it should be something that speaks to evil and brokenness and wrong in love. Could that be a gift from God? Maybe it was a gift from God that you didn't open your mouth because what you would have said wouldn't have been nowhere close to Jesus. If come on now, you remember that time you wanted to say something, you you, but it wasn't gonna be righteous. It was gonna be ratchet, but it wasn't gonna be righteous. It wasn't gonna come from God, it was gonna come straight from you. It was gonna be in the name of you. You was gonna say something, wasn't you? You was gonna say it wasn't had nothing to do with Jesus. And maybe that was a gift that God wouldn't let you speak. Maybe that that's why you're here today, because you didn't open your mouth when you wanted to. You waited for the Holy Spirit to come. Is that a gift? So the big question that I want to wrestle with in this sermon is how is the Holy Spirit a gift? How is it really a gift based on what we're seeing take place in Acts chapter 2? How is it a gift? One, it's the gift of a new language. The gift of a new language. It says here in Acts chapter 2, beginning with verse 1, when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now they were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked, Aren't all of these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? These men and women were speaking a new language informed by the Holy Spirit. Oh, come on now, let's not let's just pass that by. Without taking a class in another language, without Rosetta Stone, without a tutor and a teacher that was a human being, they start speaking in other languages so that the diversity of Jewish Hebrew people from parts of Europe and parts of Africa and parts of Asia and parts of India, what we would call today Israel, Palestine, Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya, the Sudan, uh what we would call today Iraq and Iran and Saudi Arabia. People from all those different places are hearing something powerful and transformative spoken in their native language. The Holy Spirit did it, gave them a new tongue, a new speech, a new language. Why is that important? Why do we, as those who follow Jesus in this broken world, need a new way of talking? Why are we in desperate need of a new way of speaking? Because without God, without the Holy Spirit, our voices are unclean. Our tongue is untamed. Without God, without the Holy Spirit, I am tempted. You are tempted to say some things that are destructive, something that sabotages, something that is not unifying, something that will tear up and rip up. Without God, without the Holy Spirit, we should be concerned about how we talk. Because we're surrounded by ungodly language. We are surrounded by ungodly talk. Don't take my word for it. Let's go over to the prophet Isaiah. Prophet Isaiah and Isaiah 6. Now, Isaiah is in the midst of experiencing a vision from God, while his people are being sinful and rebellious. His people in Judah are being wicked and sinful, they're being rebellious, and God is giving Isaiah a vision of the judgment and eventually the restoration that is going to come in the midst of that. And in Isaiah 6, verse 5, Isaiah says, Woe to me, I cried. I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips. He's saying, Even though I'm the prophet, even though I believe in God, even though God talks to me, I have to admit that my talk is not always godly. I am a man of unclean lips. But before you pick on me, he says, uh, but wait a minute, wait a minute. He says, I live among a people of unclean lips, which means the people around me, they're not talking all that good either. Like I'm not talking all that good. The people around me aren't talking all that good. Uh, we we are a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the king, even though I've seen God, even though I've experienced God, I still have things coming out of my mouth that are ungodly. So, what do we do about this? Here's verse six. This is a vision now. He says, Then one of the seraphim, an angel, flew to me with a live coal in his hand. Coal, like from a fire, coal? Mm-hmm. Which had been taken with tongs from the altar. With it, he touched my mouth and said, See, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, your sin is atoned for. Wait a minute, that's how it works. So if I'm not saying something good out of my mouth, God's gonna take some hot coal and put it. What happened to just put some soap in your mouth? Remember that? Back in the day where you you said something you weren't supposed to say as a kid, and then somebody that now, those of you that came from that family, God bless you. I didn't grow up in that kind of house where if you said something you weren't supposed to say out your mouth, they put some soap in your mouth. If my mom is watching, I wish you would have put some soap in my mouth when I was a kid and said something I wasn't supposed to say. I didn't get no soap. I got something that started with an S L A P. Oh Lord, I'm in church. So, so, but that the soap in the mouth, even the little pop on the mouth, that would be better than put some hot coal on your mouth for speaking unclean. That's what we get. You get a burnt mouth, you get fire on your mouth, and that cleanses you. That atones for your sin. That makes it right. No, you wouldn't be talking too much. If somebody put hot coal, you'd be talking like me.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

I can't say nothing now. I can't say I'm I'm so sorry for what I said. I can't, I can't somebody give me some ice or some medicine or something.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

We should be glad for the Holy Spirit. You know why? Because in the Old Testament, you got burning fire for unclean lips. Today you get blessed fire to cure your unclean lips. The Holy Spirit is medicine for our mouth. Praise God. It's not a burning fire, it's a blessed fire that gives us a new language. Why do we need a new language? Let's ask James in the New Testament. James in chapter three, he's talking about why people shouldn't be in a rush to want to be a public speaker. He's like, you shouldn't, like, like he's basically saying in chapter three of the book of James. Well, he just says right here, it says, Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, people like me. Because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. And then in verse three, he starts talking about why being a teacher, a public speaker, a preacher can be a problem. Says verse 3 of chapter 3. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. With the tongue we can praise our Lord and Father, and with it we can curse human beings who have been made in the image of God. You can use your mouth to bring life and dignity and upliftment, or you can use your mouth to look at people that that and speak to people that don't look like you, don't come from the country you live in, and talk about them like they are not made in the image of God. This is the tongue. This is our speech without the Holy Ghost. It says it can be a fire. Wow, a fire. A fire can do multiple things. A fire can do good, and a fire can do bad. With a fire, you can cook a good meal. With fire, catfish, collie greens, yams, mac and cheese, cornbread with fire. Biscuits, gravy with fire, sausage eggs, bacon ham with fire. Turkey lasagna, pizza pie, deep crust with fire. See what can happen with fire. Oh, you can eat good and fall asleep based on fire. Won't he do it? Do it, won't he? Talking about fire. Fire can make a good meal. Fire can produce beautiful pottery. You can take what's broken and put it back together again with fire. Fire can forge, fire can restore, fire can make something beautiful, but fire can also burn everything to the ground. What kind of fire will your tongue be? Will your tongue be a fire that produces something beautiful? Will your tongue Tongue be a fire that produces something digestible? Or will your tongue be a fire of destruction, a fire of division, a fire trying to burn something to the ground? We have a choice to make which fire is going to reside on our tongue. And I want to propose to you that you have a better opportunity, a better shot at your tongue being a fire of something beautiful if you allow the Holy Spirit to ignite it. We need a new language. I have a friend, the Reverend Dr. Greg Boyd. He's a pastor and theologian in Minnesota. He recently preached a sermon called Watch Your Mouth. That was the name of the sermon, Watch Your Mouth. And he said that our mouth can be the instrument of Satan or it can be the instrument of God. I mean, think about it. We don't exist without God speaking. Let there be light. God, that's why it says in the Gospel of John, first chapter, in the beginning was the Word. The Word was God, the Word was with God. Nothing came into being without Him. The Word speaks life. The Word sets everything in motion. The whole universe is created based on speech from on high. But as soon as God creates everything, what brings sin into the world? The speech of a serpent. I just got some advice for you. If a snake starts talking to you, walk away. Run, Forrest. Speech can create something beautiful, and speech can incite sin and evil and wickedness and destruction. Who is in control of the fire in your mouth? I gotta get out of point one. The gift of a new language. Point two, the gift of a new proclamation. So here in chapter 2, after the Holy Spirit comes upon these men and women and they start to speak in all these different languages, it says in verse 14 of Acts 2, then Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice, and addressed the crowd. Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you. Listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning. If they're drunk right now, it's a problem. No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. In the last days, God says, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, even on slaves, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. Verse 22. Fellow Israelites, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through him as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge, and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Verse 36. Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, brothers, what shall we do? Peter replied, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the same Peter who walked with Jesus but denied him three times. But now he's proclaiming something different. It's one thing to learn a new language, it's another thing to use the new language correctly. Peter had been hearing a new language from Jesus the whole time, but his speech was not always in alignment with Jesus. He knew the language, but he didn't always use it appropriately. Do you know you can memorize scriptures in the Bible but use those scriptures wrongly? You can learn a new language and say the words wrong. I I I went to uh college for undergrad where no matter what your major was, because it was a liberal arts education, you had to take other classes regardless of what your major was. So even though I I was hoping, because I was a theater and communications major, that for four years all I would have to do is take theater and communication classes, but no, you had to take math, you had to take science, uh, you had to take a language. Couldn't graduate without taking a language. I started in French and I did horrible, so I quit in the middle of the semester. And then I decided to take Spanish because I thought at the time Spanish sounded so much like English, this is gonna be easy. So I took this Spanish class, my professor was Mr. Hernandez, and I was not doing good, and the reason I knew everybody in the class had a Spanish name, my name was Jorge. And so um he came to me and he said, Okay, Jorge, your turn. And I was supposed to say some stuff, and I said it, and he looked at me, he said, Jorge, you are killing me. What are you talking about? So I went, so I decided, you know, I'm gonna work harder, I'm gonna get better. And so uh I was reading and I and I learned this word um uh embasadaro, uh, embasadaro. So I was like, I'm gonna use this Spanish word I just learned, Embasadaro, embasadaro. So I I was like, I looked at Mr. Hernandez in the next class, I said, me, embasadaro, I am so embarrassed that I have not been doing as good in this class as I should do. And he said, Jorge, you just told the class you were pregnant. It's one thing to learn a new language, but you gotta use the words right. And that's what the Holy Spirit wants to do. There are words that we are learning now that we're Christian, but we have to use them appropriately because some people have taken these words and enslaved people. Some people have taken these words and colonized people, some people have taken these words and stripped women of their full humanity. It's one thing to learn the language, but please use it right. Our words from the Holy Spirit, they're gonna threaten the social orders and the structures of the day, but in love and in humility, boldly present Christ, passionately and lovingly point people to repentance. But don't use this language to shame people, don't use this language to demean people, don't use this language to puff yourself up and make you think that you're more religious, you're more spiritual than somebody else, and they need to look up to you. Do not use this language inappropriately. It's a gift of a new proclamation. And third, it's the gift of a new community. Acts chapter 2, verses 41. It says this those who accepted this message that Peter preached were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day. 3,000. That's important for us. That's our average attendance on Sunday here here at this church. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. If you speak right, it'll show up in your behavior. That the Holy Spirit started with what they were saying, and it overflowed into what they started doing. This is the history of the church right here. This is how the Christian church begins. I know in our Western culture we think the church starts with Lutheran, Methodist, uh, Catholic, Protestant, Baptists, and if it's Baptist, you got to think: is it Southern Baptist, American Baptist, National Baptist, National Baptist Convention USA, National Baptist Convention of America, full gospel Baptist? What's a Baptist? We got whoa, we didn't split up a lot. It's not about simply what we say, but how that moves to how we treat one another. Do we mean it when we say brother and sister? You know, we're a very diverse church. And so there are gonna be some things that are gonna be non-negotiables about what we believe. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior, the Son of God. God. We believe that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe in the authority and centrality of the Word of God. We believe in the fellowship of the church, we believe in the Holy Spirit moving, we believe in the mission and justice of God for Sacramento and the world. That's the essentials of what we believe, right? But there's some things because we're so diverse, we're not gonna argue over. Like because we're so diverse, we we baptism, we acknowledge infant baptism and believer baptism. We're not gonna fight over that. We're also not gonna we're not gonna fight over speaking in tongues. Some people do it here, some people don't. That's okay. But this is the main issue. The core main evidence of having the Holy Spirit is not what comes out of your mouth anyway, it's what comes out of your heart. That's the real way we know you have the Holy Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit is the main way we know you have the Holy Spirit. Because you can speak in tongues, yabba dabba do. But if you're mean and nasty, what difference does it make? If you speak, I pray in tongues, but if I'm mean and unforgiving and stubborn and rebellious, you're not gonna receive the Holy Spirit through my tongue because my testimony's corrupt. And so the the main way you're gonna know if the Holy Spirit is moving in here is their kindness in Midtown, is their generosity in Midtown, is their hospitality in Midtown, is there safety in Midtown? Is this place of refuge, of reconciliation and righteousness and justice? Are we kind to one another? Do we give each other the benefit of the doubt? Can we love each other when we're burdened? When we're hurting, do you have a shoulder to cry on? That's how you know the Holy Ghost is moving at Midtown. There's generosity and kindness in this place, there's gentleness and patience in this place. There's long suffering in this place for those that are burdened. They know I'm not suffering alone. So I close with that line, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day. We believe in growth here. We do, but we believe in numeric growth out of the overflow of spiritual growth. To grow spiritually and to grow numerically. I would love for every seat at every service to be filled at Midtown. But I also yearn that those filled seats are filled with people that are filled with the Holy Spirit over time. Don't get me wrong. If that's not where you are right now, that's okay. The house is open. We are a multi-ethnic, multi-inclusive church. The door is wide open. But it would, we would not be the church if we let you come in here, sit down, connect here, and five years later, you're the same exact person you was when you walked in here and sat down. Now you saying, what you talking about? You don't know about me, that right there is why you need to grow. Getting all in my business, stepping all on my toes. I don't want to be the same person next year that I am this year. If the pastor has to keep growing, you too. If the pastor got issues to work through still, you too. I was talking about Pastor Susie. So, sisters and brothers, your words should produce growth. You know what I like about my wife Danisha as a mother? I've watched her speak over her daughters at every stage of their life. There were times when they couldn't receive what she was saying. There were times when she was ready to give up on saying, but she kept speaking anyway. Because a mother's voice can impact every stage of a child's life. There are some of you in here, you have grown year after year off the words of your mama. You know I'm telling the truth. And the bigger principle is you are meant to grow every year off the words of God. And there ought to be somebody else growing because of the words you're speaking over their life. So, sisters and brothers, brothers, if it's alright for a minute, I want to call out the mamas first. The altar's open. If you're a mother here today, and you just need the words of God to reign fresh over you, to give you fresh wisdom, fresh knowledge, fresh strength. Would you just come to the altar? Would you just come? I want to prioritize the mamas today. You need an additional dose of God's grace, God's healing, God's strength, God's power, God's love, God's wisdom. Maybe you've been doubting yourself, you've been beating yourself up too much, thinking you were doing this all by yourself. You've grown weary of praying for your kids and your grandkids. You've grown weary of praying and you need God to give you some more strength. Something you you need your voice revived by God. Yeah. Maybe you're here and you're still beating yourself up because that baby didn't come into the world. And yeah, it may take some therapy and take some more counseling and take some more trauma healing. But would you bring that pain to the altar today? Would you bring that to God? Would you let God remove the shame? Would you let God remove the pain? Would you let God heal you and let you know that you are so deeply loved? Maybe your baby's already in heaven and it's been a wrestle. But God, if God can have your baby in his arms in heaven, surely he can have you in his arms here on earth. Surely God's grace can cover you, surely God's healing can cover you. Now, those of you that are out here, if you need prayer because of your relationship with your mom, or you need prayer, you you you lost your mom recently. This is your first Mother's Day, your second Mother's Day without mama, and you just need some additional healing and strength for whatever reason you're dealing with. Just stand where you are. Because this prayer can start here with these mamas and overflow into whatever your needs are, whatever your hurts are, whatever your issues are, it can reverberate like like a wave of the ocean. It can capture us. So, God, restore the mothers here. So glad that I'm married to a good mom. So glad that I was raised by a good mom. So glad for grandmothers and aunties. Have aunties that didn't have their own children, but they loved on me. So, God, restoration, healing, strength, power, forgiveness, wholeness. Whatever it is that these mamas need. Give it to them. Raising kids that ain't their own, but they love them like they are. Thank you for the foster mamas. Thank you for the mamas that adopted. Thank you for the mamas that took in grandchildren and nephews and nieces and cousin them. Thank you, God. Dry the tears, strengthen them, let them know their labor has not been in vain. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let the church say, Happy Mother's Day.