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Okay, so we’re going to get into a little bit of something more. Steve took kind of my intro. I wanted to really make an acknowledgment of the moms.So first of all, surprise, I’m speaking today. Hope it’s a pleasant surprise, but here I am. So every year we kind of do something a little bit different.Mother’s Day last week, I said, do you want me to talk this week? Are you doing something? And he’s like, I don’t know. So I prayed about it. I feel like I have a really strong direction on what God wants to speak to us today.And so here I am. So thank, thank the Lord for that. So I did want to acknowledge the moms.He did say there is a gift. Please don’t forget to grab that on the way out. Just a small token from us to you, just saying, you know, we see you.We know you’re in the trenches of life and motherhood is not for the faint of heart. So we just pray that you’re blessed by our gift and thank you Lisa for the awesome table out there. That is such a blessing this morning to all of us.I know it’s not always easy to have breakfast on Sundays with family. So that’s a blessing. So I wanted to mention that, just bless the moms.And I would like to say a little bit about me. I don’t really talk too much about me, but I wanted to share my background a little. As you all know, I am mom as well.The focus of the message isn’t so much on motherhood or mom, but I did want to share a little bit. As you know, like I said, I have three kids. You all know them very well by now.And if you’re new, they’re three adult children at this point. If you haven’t met them yet, two of them are in your presence today in the front row beside their father. Bethany and Megan are here.Nate, I don’t see him, but he’s soon to be a dad. So that’s wild. So yeah, I’ll soon be not only mother, but also grandmother soon.Also, I’ve had the honor of being the pastor’s wife here for the last 14 plus years. And with that honor, I had the privilege of praying for all of you on a regular basis. It’s my heart to see everyone succeed and do well in their walk with the Lord.I don’t always connect with everyone on a regular. I teach the children. I see a lot of them and get to connect with them.And also now the teens, I’m getting more time with them and getting to know each one of you guys too, which is exciting. But everybody else, you know, sometimes we’re all going different directions. So I just wanted to share my heart a little bit about where I came from, why I’m here, and a little bit about our journey to come to New Hope too.It’s been a long time, but I wanted to share just a smidge of that too, just to give a little background of why we’re here, why we’re dedicated, why we’ve been here, why we’re staying here throughout ups, downs, and all arounds all these years. As some of you do know, because a lot of you were here at the time and served right beside us as we joined this church, now it’ll be 18 years in September. And when we joined, we were just members too, serving as you all do.And we felt the Lord leading us away from a church that we were at for, it was five years at that point, and we had gotten married there. We had all our children there. We were dedicated there.Steve was a deacon. We were leading youth group. We were part of, I was part of women’s ministry.Like it was just, we were completely dedicated there for a good, what was it, five years or something like that. And the Lord basically picked us up and put us here in New Mine. We used to live right down the street, and it took us a whole year to realize that he brought us to this church.We came, our very first time we came, we never left. We’ve been here ever since. This is our home, and we’ve, you know, that’s where we came.We knew God brought us, and he had a plan and a purpose. And so five years into that, he revealed more of that plan and purpose, and now, you know, Steve eventually took on pastorate. It’s just been a, it’s been a journey.It’s been, it’s been good. It’s been ups and downs, as I said, but I just wanted to share a little bit of that, and why we’re here is because we have obedient hearts to the Lord. We want to do what he says.Both of us, that’s how we live our life. That’s why it seems like, wait, why is he going from full-time pastor, then part-time, then full-time? Like, why? But he just feels God’s leading in that, and God has revealed that so many times. Every change we’ve made is based on his leading.He’s confirmed it over and over, and Lord, I’m thankful for that. But we’re dedicated to hearing the Lord and walking in it. And so, again, I just wanted to share a little bit of our background, where we’re coming from, before I got into the message that I feel like the Lord wants to share today.So before we get into that, we’re actually going to do one song of worship first to prepare our hearts, to get us focused, and let the Lord speak. So go ahead and show that video, please. Thank you, Lord.Thank you for your word today that’s going to pierce our hearts, Lord. We pray right now for whatever it is you want to do in this place, have your way. Lord, we’re here to hear from you.We’re here to serve you. We’re here to honor you. We’re here to glorify you in everything that we do, say, everything that we are.Lord, have your way in the service this morning. Speak to our hearts. Have your way in our lives.Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. So as we get started into the sermon, we’re just mostly hanging on one verse.We will have more worship after I’m done, but we’re going to be hanging into, we’re going into Proverbs. If you have your Bible, go ahead and open up to Proverbs. Proverbs is, as most of you know, the book of wisdom.Most of it came straight from King Solomon, who was the wisest man that ever walked the earth, because he asked God for wisdom, and he had that supernaturally given to him. So thank you for this book. I’m excited to jump into Proverbs.We’re going to learn and glean from this wisdom that comes from the Lord, and I pray that revelation from the Lord will be given to each of us and bless us this Mother’s Day. So as some of you may think, those of you who have been in church and know about Proverbs, we are not going into Proverbs 31. Sorry, sorry to say, but what we are going to do is turn that number.We’re going to move to Proverbs chapter 13, and we’re looking at verse 12, specifically verse 12. Any kids in the room, as I tell you, in kids’ church, you’re going to find Proverbs, look for the big 13, and then the little 12 after that, and we’re going to read that together. So that’s that.All right, so this verse is a little nugget of wisdom that we all need to grab, not just moms, not just kids, everybody. And this verse is one that you’ve probably heard lots of times, you’ve probably just read past it, you look at it and you’re like, okay, yeah, that makes sense, right? But we’re going to dive a little deeper. If anyone knows me at all, I’m not a surface person, or I’m not shallow, I’m a very deep person.I think deep, I go to the heart of the matter most of the time, that’s how God designed me. Thank you, Lord. So that’s just who I am, that’s what I do.So we’re going to dig deep a little bit in this one verse, we’re just focusing on this. So in Proverbs 13, verse 12, and I use the New Living Translation, in case anyone’s in a different one, that’s what I’m going to be using. And it says, hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.So we’re going to focus on hope. Now our church name is New Hope, and I believe that God put us here for that purpose, to bring hope to those around us in this valley. You know, we’ve heard a prophecy of Healing Valley, I believe that’s a huge part of it, is hope, that brings healing.So hope, defined in Webster Dictionary, is desire accompanied by expectation of obtaining what is desired, or the belief that it is obtainable. So that’s hope. And now we’ll move to the next word, deferred.This is where I got hung up before. So the word deferred, I always thought it meant, when I would read this, misplaced. Like my hope was put in the wrong thing.And that’s not totally wrong, but it’s not exactly right. So it’s not that it’s misplaced, but the word deferred means to withhold, suspend, postpone, or delay. Okay? So when you defer, or withhold your hope, we’re walking into doubt, we’re walking in sin.And we don’t want to do that, right? We don’t want to do that. So we’re not trusting in God. We’re not hoping.If we stop hoping, then we’ve lost our trust, we’ve lost that, and we’re hopeless. So if you’re struggling with depression, if you need, we need to evaluate where our hope is. What are some ways that we can be guilty, or prone to becoming hopeless, or worn out by life? That’s usually when we get to that place, is when we’re just tired, right? Or we’re just worn out.An example I was thinking of, since it is Mother’s Day, I was thinking about my own life, and different seasons that I’ve been in as a mom. And I remember a season where I had three toddlers. My kids are very close in age.So at one point, I had a one-year-old, a two-year-old, a three-year-old, right? So that’s how close they are. And so at one point, they were all toddlers, and I really needed desperately to have them potty trained, okay? This is a vital part of growing up. We need to be able to do this.I have three diapers. I’m paying four for three children. We needed this process to start with the oldest, who isn’t here, so I guess I can say more about him.I wasn’t going to go into much detail with it, but either way, he was very harder than the girls, but I think it’s because they were there a long learning with him. So it took a while, and I got to a point where I’m like, this is never going to happen. He is never going to, like, okay, diapers, they make them for adults.We have to consider this idea that this may be our future forever. And obviously, that’s not the case. Clearly, we’ve grown up, and he obviously was able to do that.Yay. He’s not here, but yeah, I’m sure he would love this conversation. So anyway, so obviously, I pushed through, we pushed through as a family.I know it seems basic, but it was at the time extremely difficult, and God showed us to continue to hope, just be consistent, continue what you’re doing, and it pays off. Thank you, Lord. So when you feel physically worn out, this is another time where we might lose hope, we’re tired or striving, that’s when we really need to lean in on the Lord.If we have times where we’re waiting for medical results, that’s a big one too. Maybe they’re for your child, something’s going on, maybe it’s for yourself, maybe it’s some other loved one. You’re waiting on results of something, and you’re trusting the Lord, and either way, whether the result comes back and it’s not what you wanted to hear, or whether it is what you wanted to hear, either way, we have to continue to hold out for hope.We have to trust the Lord in all of it. And those are times where it is the most challenging to trust, when everything’s uncertain, when you don’t know, when you can’t see the next step. That’s when He has to be our light, right? And shine onto the path.So when you feel like you’re striving, we need to lean on Him. When you try to do it ourselves, that’s moving in distrust and doubt. That’s moving in a lack of hope, we’re putting our hope, it is misplacing the hope, but you’re putting it into yourself.When we doubt, it’s like building, this was a revelation going in me, it’s like building walls up around your heart. And the good lifeblood, which is the Holy Spirit, can’t flow freely. So we become sick.We begin to produce fruits of our flesh. We can get into depression, you can be angry, jealous, envious, wrathful, which bring about sin when we walk in those fruits. And it pushes God, pushes us further from the Lord and where we’re supposed to be.Not only do we block the Lord, but we often become stuck in life. We’re unable to move forward in life. We’re extremely, in extreme cases, you just don’t want to live.So when we put our hope, our eager expectation in Him, the walls come down, the lifeblood flows again, healing our hearts, and we will produce hope, faith, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control, all the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And when those walls come down, we’ll be able to move again, and we’ll want to live. And that’s exciting.So let’s look at that other part of that verse, but a dream fulfilled is like a tree of life. It means as we see hope fulfilled, we will prosper, we will grow, we will look forward with hope. So how do we daily choose to place our hope in the Lord? We must learn to trust Him by giving Him a place in our lives.Jesus is a gentleman. He doesn’t force Himself on anybody. So how do we trust? By relationship.The relationship is built by communication, just like any other relationship you have earthly. We grow our relationships by communication. So there’s a few ways that we can communicate with the Lord.Number one is pretty obvious, but number one, prayer. We pray, which means basically talk to Him. We talk to God, and we open this line of communication.He can come and be a part of our life. God created us and knows that we, but He wants us to choose. He knows everything about us.He knows our situation. He sees everything. But He wants us to choose to share that with Him.This communication is how we build our foundation for trust. And we’re reminded in 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 and 18, Always be joyful. Never stop praying.Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you, who belong to Christ. Those seem really easy, right? Right? Always be joyful. Never stop praying.We’re always praying. Right? Not always. Those aren’t always easy to do.That’s why it has to be commanded and called out in Scripture for us. All right. So another way that we build this communication is actually through the Bible reading.So as we all know, the Bible is God’s word. And there’s a reason we call it God’s word, because He speaks through us through it. So this is another communication avenue.His word, by opening His word and reading it line by line, it’s a way we open another form of communication with the Lord. It helps us grow our trust in Him. And these are both prayer and reading our word, are ways that we keep the lifeblood flowing back to that in our hearts, which, again, helps us grow fruits that come from the Lord.Psalms 119 reminds us, Thank you, Lord. And the final way I would like to talk about with communication is worship. Worship is another way we open lines of communication in our hearts to His.And John 4, 23 to 24 reminds us again, So as we keep our communication open, this keeps those walls down, and we begin to choose hope almost automatically. Our way of thinking goes to hope first. This is when we start to walk in the abundant life.Jesus died and rose again for this. He wants us, and He wants what’s best for us. He wants us, and His ways are better, and He is trustworthy.So the challenge for all of us is to trust Him and watch what He will do. Well, today is the day to get it set on the Lord and begin living again. New Hope, our church’s name, reminds us that we need to be renewing our hope on an ongoing basis.We need to keep our hope on. As we worship, and feel free, because we’re going to enter into worship. As we worship, feel free to come forward.Come to the altars and let the Lord search your heart. Speak to Him about this. Get right with the Lord.