The People Who Carried You | Lessons from Ruth on Love, Loyalty, and Legacy

Dr. Gregg Marutzky:

Happy Mother's Day.

Yeah.

We're celebrating moms today.

We're thankful for moms.

Without moms, we wouldn't be here.

Amen.

It's the start of our story.

Exactly.

Our mothers gave us life, and we are so very grateful.

And I am one of the very blessed people in all life to have an

amazing mother, a loving mother that taught me secure attachment,

that was a tremendous caregiver for me and my three older brothers.

And, uh, I adore my mother.

My wife thinks it's too much sometimes, but, uh, there really...

I- Somebody had to be mama's boy, and, uh, the other three

passed, so I took up the position.

My mom is 95 years old.

She's in a memory care facility in Grand Junction, Colorado.

She no longer recognizes me.

It, uh, broke my heart the first time that happened.

I walked in and said, "Hi, Mom," and she just gave me that blank

stare, and then she faked it.

And she's that kind of loving person.

She started s- telling me hi and all these things.

She didn't say son.

And, uh, sometimes she would call me Jody or Sam or Philip,

my other brothers' names.

But, uh, uh, eventually she caught on and remembered.

But, uh, I'll call her today, and she'll fake it.

And that will make me feel good.

Amen.

But we love you, Mom.

Yes.

Amen.

And we know you did the best you could, and nobody's perfect.

And today, the sermon is to encourage you, and it's really not as much

for you as for all the rest of us to tell us how to love you- Yeah

how to honor you, how to obey you, how to respect you, how

to give you our very best.

But I wanna start with a story.

We should never mess with moms.

You've heard about mama bear, right?

You've heard of different stories about how you, uh, need to be careful

and not, uh, rile a mom while she's, uh, taking care of her chicks.

And, and, uh, a mother came out of the store, uh, she'd been shopping.

She was going to the car with her small child, and she got to the car,

and there were four men in her car.

Wow.

And it really upset her.

And she dropped the bag and, and she put her daughter behind

her, and she pulled out her gun.

Whoa.

Not in the state of California, all right?

And she turned her gun on the four men and said, "Get out of my car right now."

And they did, and they went running off, and she got in the car, put her

child in the car, and she tried to turn the car on and it wouldn't start.

And she realized her car was four spaces down.

So she went right to the police station to turn herself in.

She had such a good heart.

She went there to turn herself in, and the, the sergeant on duty

just started laughing and he said, "Ma'am, look down the, the counter."

And there were the four men reporting a carjacking.

No charges were filed.

No charges were filed.

I have no idea whether that was a true story or not.

But don't mess with mama.

No.

Don't mess with her.

There's a, a few great quotes that I wanna share with you by Abraham Lincoln and by

George Washington about, uh, Mother's Day.

And, uh, they talk about...

They say this, and never use your phone for reference with my eyesight.

Abraham Lincoln said, "No man is poor who has a godly miner- mother."

That's a great quote.

"I remember my mother's prayers, and they have always followed me.

They have clung to me all of my life."

That resonates with me because one of the great memories of my life is

my mother coming into m- my room and getting on her knees beside my bed,

praying for me and our whole family.

Maybe that's why I'm a minister, because I witnessed her faith and her

love for God and love for our family.

George Washington said, "My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw.

All I, uh, am I owe to my mother.

I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual, and physical

education I received from her."

My mother's cute.

She's short, little Hispanic lady.

She, uh...

I didn't put up a picture because, uh, she wouldn't have wanted me to.

All her life her mother was a hairdresser, so she'd always have fancy hair, and

now that she's older, she just puts it back in a bun and she would refuse,

almost refuse, to have her picture taken.

And the most beautiful woman in my life is my wife, so, uh, I can't say

that about my mom, but she's cute.

One last quote.

"Life doesn't come with a manual.

It comes with a mother."

Amen?

Amen.

Turn your Bibles over to the Book of Ruth.

We're gonna see how and a- A daughter, an adopted daughter, an

in-law daughter, loved a mother.

And if she can love her mother, then we can love our mothers.

Amen?

Amen.

But we love our moms why?

They bandaged our wounds.

I don't know about your mom, but my mom would always pour antiseptic on our leg.

We'd scream a little bit, and she'd blow on it.

I don't know how, uh, healthy that is, but it felt good.

She bandaged our wounds.

What else?

She changed our diaper.

Now if you remember that, I don't believe you.

She cooked our meals, and in our home the staple was Mexican food, so amen to that.

Amen.

She read us stories.

She played games with us.

She held and hugged us.

And last of all, Mom loved us.

Amen?

Amen.

And if you didn't have a mom that loved you, I'm sorry.

I wish you did.

There's some people that become moms and don't mean to, and become moms

before they should and before they're able to mature, so give 'em some grace.

Extend them love.

They did the best they could, but they tried to love us,

and those that did, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Here's our outline today.

I always tell you where I'm going before we go there in case I get lost on the way.

Amen?

Love your mom.

That's what I'm gonna challenge you to do today.

Serve your mom, obey your mom, and honor your mom.

Just a few passages here.

And you know this story.

This is an incredible story.

All right?

It has tragedy in it, it has hardship in it, it has love and romance in it.

It might have even a little mature audience stuff in it.

We won't go there, though.

All right?

But Ruth 1:16 and 17 says, "But Ruth replied, 'Don't urge me to

Ruth 1:16

leave you or to turn back from you.

Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.

Your people will be my people and your God my God.

Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.

May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but

death separates you from me.'"

We know the story.

Naomi and her husband left the promised land and went to a far-off country because

of a famine in their land- And they went there, and all the, the men died.

The husband died, the sons died.

And the sons had married some, some foreign women, and one of them was Ruth.

And the other two decided that they would go back to their families

because in the ancient world, a woman was very, very, very vulnerable.

Very vulnerable, all right?

And they had to be protected, and they needed to be taken care of, especially

by their father, and that was his charge.

And so the other girls went home, but this is what Ruth said.

And we use it at weddings sometimes.

It's a call of great love and commitment and loyalty.

"Where you go, I will go.

Where you die, I will die."

And, and Naomi said, "No.

No.

No, you're not doing that."

She was trying to be a good mother to Ruth.

She says, "You need to go home to your people.

I can't take care of you.

That is not a good idea."

But there was something in Ruth that wanted to take care of

Naomi, that wanted to take care of this woman who had lost so much.

She saw her grief, she saw her pain.

She had her own grief and pain, but she wanted to take care of Naomi.

And so what does it teach us?

Love.

Sacrificial love.

Love in our world is so misunderstood.

It's quid pro quo.

If you love me, I'll love you.

To the degree you love me, I'll love you.

I do a lot of marriage counseling, and most of it's sad.

It's hard work.

I do it every Wednesday night before church with a couple

that doesn't come to our church.

It's a long story, but I, I, uh, like doing it.

I like just to, to, uh, you know, keep my skills up.

And, uh, God always gives me a complicated situation.

And I love these people.

I love them individually.

I wish they loved each other as much as I love them, and sometimes they do.

And sometimes I think, "Wow, it's going awesome," and then right before we

end our session, it's not so awesome.

And that's what happened this week before midweek.

And it's good for me to, to wrestle with people and to love people sometimes

that are easy to love and sometimes people that aren't easy to love.

Yeah.

But all I have to do is remember how much my mom loved me.

And I know all of you didn't have a mom that was tireless, that worked day and

night- That didn't need to be thanked, that did the very best, cleaned our

clothes, and cleaned our house, and tucked us in, and fed us great food.

Every morning, got up, she'd make us toast and eggs, and we'd say,

"Mom, we don't want toast and eggs.

We just want cereal."

"No, honey, you need toast and eggs."

And half the time, the, the eggs would stay on the table and the

brothers wouldn't eat them, but I'd always eat them, you can tell.

'Cause I love my mama, and I appreciated the work that she put in.

And I, I would get up when she'd tell me to get up, and, oh, I didn't wanna get up.

What teenager wants to get up on time?

I mean, I was normal in that way, but I'd still get up 'cause she wanted me

ready to go to school before she went off to work, and I didn't need to be ready

when she left 'cause school wasn't for another 45 minutes, but she just wanted

to make sure I was dressed, and cleaned, and presentable, and up, and ready.

And so what would I do?

I had some time, so I would clear the dishes and I'd put them in the dishwasher.

And our family had to buy, I think, four dishwashers as I was growing up

because I didn't scrape the dishes.

And now supposedly that, that would, will work for modern dishwashers,

but the old days, it burned them up.

But my mother never got on me as she appreciated me trying at least.

I was a dumb kid.

Would've been easy to rinse them, right?

But

yeah, Greg, you're a dumb kid.

Love your mom.

Whether she loved you or not, love her now.

Love her now, 'cause what goes around comes around, right?

And love her before she's gone.

Yes.

Some of us, our moms have left.

Thankfully, mine hasn't.

My dad has, though, and that's, that's tough.

It's tough if you've lost your mom.

And, and there's some pains that never go away.

A child that passes before their time, especially a stillborn, never goes away.

But a mom that leaves, too, even though it's a natural course

of things, it still hurts.

You miss them.

They're a touchstone for your life.

When everything's spinning, when everything's surreal

at times, you just want mom.

Like Charlie shared, sometimes you just need to hear her voice.

Can I get an amen?

Amen.

Happy Mother's Day.

Second little snippet we wanna look at is when N- Naomi, uh,

was having her pity party.

And she, you know, some people are entitled when they've lost so much,

and they're hurting, they're grieving.

It's okay.

They've gotta process.

But in Ruth 1:20 and 21 it says, "Don't call me Naomi," which means

Ruth 1:20

pleasant, she told them, "Call me Mara," which means bitter, "because the

Almighty has made my life very bitter.

I went away full, but the Lord..."

She blames God.

Why do we always blame God?

Don't blame God.

Blame the author of evil and death.

Blame the father of lies.

Blame Satan.

Well, God made Satan.

No, he didn't make Satan.

He made all of us with free will, and Satan chose to take the evil course,

just like there are wicked people in our world that take the evil course.

We all have free will.

All right?

But do not blame God.

She blamed God.

"But the Lord has brought me back empty.

Why call me pleasant?

Why call me Naomi?

The Lord has afflicted me.

The Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."

You know, that was the ancient, unfortunate, false theology that they

held to, that if you were blessed, you were prosperous, you were rich, and if God

was against you, you were poor, and you were impoverished, and you were enslaved.

It's...

Life's not that simple because of Satan and wickedness in the

world because of free will.

Sometimes you try to simplify things.

You alway- we always want answers, but sometimes we don't get the answers.

Please, please, God is good.

Don't blame God.

Naomi was hard to love at this point, but Ruth still loved her.

Please, love your parents if they're hard to love.

I had one that was easy and one that was hard.

I had it pretty easy, I guess.

Some kids, and I've counseled some, both parents were difficult to love.

Both were selfish and so full of their own desires that they neglected their

kids, or they abused their kids, or they let someone else abuse their kids.

It's heartbreaking, and I'm sorry.

I'm sorry if that was your life.

But please don't get bitter.

But God will love you out of your bitterness, and that's what we

see in this story with Naomi.

Amen?

'Cause Naomi was destined, and every one of us is destined.

She had a great destiny, a destiny to be in the lineage of the

Messiah, the lineage of Christ.

She would go from widow, not Herb, but Ruth, to wife, but she would help,

uh, Ruth to become that wife, and she helped to find a kinsman redeemer.

This is such a noble thing in the Jewish community.

Oh, if we just had it, if we had a rescuer for our life, if we had that uncle that

could pay our bills and get us out of debt, if we had that relative that was

a goel, that was what the, the Hebrew word was, that provided this kind of

hesed, redeeming love for their relative.

But the Jewish community had a system because they didn't have a government like

ours that has services, social services, and welfare, and some other things to take

care of people relatives needed to, and that's what they had in the ancient world.

Stay with me in Ruth 2:10-12.

Ruth 2:10–12

Serve your mother.

I was a pretty rotten kid.

I told you the one thing I did do, load the dishwasher.

I would tell my brothers to take off their shoes, but they wouldn't take off the

shoes, so I didn't clean the floor that often, and I didn't vacuum that often.

Now, I am a great house cleaner.

To...

Ask Cathy.

I'm a great house cleaner.

All right?

Now, I don't do all the things around the house, 'cause she does them better

and she doesn't want me to do them.

Like, I don't wash clothes because I don't separate them.

I didn't in college.

Why start now?

And so there's some things she doesn't let me do, but the things

that I do do, I try to do them well.

And I love to vacuum, and I love to get those, those, th-

those lines going, you know?

Oh.

And I hate it when I walk on those lines.

Oh, bums me out.

U- usually when we've bought houses, because one daughter's allergic to cats

and one's, daughter's allergic to dogs, we'd always have to buy new carpet.

And so I tried so hard, we'd take off our shoes so we could keep those lines.

Amen.

And even when we sold our house in Palmville, I put the

lines in before we moved out.

Oh, the simple pleasures of life.

See, sometimes you gotta just make yourself happy.

Amen.

M&M's, lines in the carpet, amen.

Serve your mother.

Let's read together verses 10 and 12.

"Boaz replied," and Boaz was the kinsman redeemer, the goel.

He wasn't the first in line, though.

We see in the story as we read the book of Luth- Ruth.

He was second in line, but he was a shrewd guy, and he figured

out a way, and we'll get to that.

"I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since

the death of your husband, how you have left your father and mother and

your homeland and come to live with a people you did not know before.

May the Lord repay you for what you have done.

May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose

wings you have come to take refuge."

What's the point there?

Always do the right thing.

And in this world, guys, there is so much evil propaganda.

The three terrible, evil spokesmen for Satan.

Think about them for a minute.

Guess who they might be.

I'm gonna tell you who I think they are.

Freud, Marx, all right?

And I forgot the third one on the way here this morning, too.

What's the matter with me?

But I know where to look.

Sometimes you just gotta know how to do research, folks.

All right?

Just gotta know how to research.

Here it is right here.

Nietzsche.

Oh, yeah.

Those are the evil ones in my mind.

See, Nietzsche...

What are the three great temptations according to 2 Timothy 3, and according to

Luke, where Jesus goes out and is tempted?

What are the three great temptations?

Money, power, and love.

Freud said it's all about sex.

It's all about sex, and he came up with some really perverted thoughts

and philosophies about how young men have these thoughts about their mother.

That's garbage.

I never had them.

You know?

He had them, and he projected them on all of us.

He thought the world was about sex.

And Nietzsche thought it was all about power, that leave people to themselves.

Some will rise to power, and those will be the men that we should follow.

His philosophy helped create Hitler.

Helped create Hitler.

And then who?

Marx.

Says it's all about money.

It's all about money.

And that's- What's caused a couple of overthrows of countries and of peoples

and enslavement of peoples and, and genocide of peoples throughout the world.

I think those three false prophets of Satan are wrong.

Amen.

And if you go after sex, love, uh, I mean, sex, money, and power...

No, go after love, please.

It, I mean, isn't this at what Hollywood and just up the road

is known for, those three things?

Yeah.

But let's always do the right thing, folks, 'cause what was Jesus all about?

He- Love and sacrifice and giving and serving.

Serve your mama.

Think of a way.

You know, my daughter brought Cathy what she really wanted, a new suitcase.

Isn't that what all you moms want?

Amen.

She travels every once in a while with me and travels to go help the

grandkids in Texas, and she get, uh, a- and, and Love Field just takes

a long time to get your luggage.

I don't mean to be critical.

I'm sure those people are working hard.

All right?

And so she wanted just a big enough suitcase where she can carry

it on, but have all her stuff, and she got that this morning.

"Greg, what'd you get her?"

I got her the most thoughtful card and the most fluorescent

flowers you have ever seen.

Amen.

She's not my mom, but I wanted to encourage her, and I told

her what I really believe.

I think she's one of the most outstanding mothers in all the world, and she always

tells me after Mother's Day service, "S- I wish you would stop saying that, Greg.

I, I'm not all that."

And I s- "Yes, you are."

And we have these arguments, you know?

But I believe that.

And women, you're way too hard on yourself.

You're like Cathy.

You're way too hard on yourself.

You are awesome.

Yep.

You are amazing, and we need to tell you, and we need to thank you, and

we need to honor you, and we need to serve you, and we need to love you.

And if we can't love our mom, we can love you.

All right?

And we won't treat you like Mama, but we'll love you.

All right?

Yeah.

Amen.

10 women lived with us over the years, 10 younger girls, college grads

usually, before they went off to their careers, and every one of them are

faithful to the Lord and great mothers.

And it isn't because of Greg.

It's because of, because of Cathy.

Aw.

And our daughters- They, uh, they, they, they're not perfect people,

but they're great mothers Amen.

And I've gotten to live with my daughter, my older daughter, for the last 10 months.

We just got a house, praise the Lord, amen.

If you wanna help unpack, just give me a text.

All right?

We're taking our time.

We're still living with our daughter.

But, you know, when you've moved as much as us, you're not in a rush.

All right?

And we're weaning oursel- up off slowly, getting into the new hou-

'cause we're having to downsize a lot, but that's a good thing now.

But I've loved watching our daughter with her kids, and the patience

and the kindness and the verbiage and how she explains things and

how she says things and, and

Oh, I just think it's so amazing, and I know she didn't learn it from me.

No.

But she learned it from Cathy.

Moms, thank you, and you're a gift that's will be giving for generations

to come, so happy Mother's Day.

Can I get an amen?

Amen.

And then

I believe mothers are goels today, kinsmen redeemers.

Says, "The name of the man I work for today is Boaz," she said.

"The Lord bless him," Naomi said to her daughter-in-law.

"He has stopped, sh- he, he has not stopped showing his kindness to the

living and to the dead," she added.

"That man is our close relative.

He's one of our kinsmen redeemers."

And we know the story how he talked the closest kinsman redeemer into

not choosing Boaz because he would, h- that person would have to not

only take Ruth, which was the real prize, but have to take Naomi as well.

And Naom- Naomi did not have quite the same reputation that Ruth had.

All right?

So this is a little bit of good thing that she was bitter and angry

and ornery for a little while.

All right?

Sorta worked out for Boaz that way.

Everything works together.

But I think, moms, you are the goels of society today.

You're the ones that redeem and, and save us so often.

You're the ones that rescue us.

You're the ones that, that blow on our wounds.

All right?

And help heal us from the different pains of life.

So thank you, Mama.

Thank you.

Ruth 3:1-5.

Ruth 3:1–5

Let's read together.

"One day, Naom- Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, 'My daughter, should

I not try to find a home for you where you will be well provided for?

Is not Boaz- With whose servant girls you have been a kinsman of ours.

Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor.

Wash and perfume yourself, put on your best clothes, then go

down to the threshing floor.

But don't let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.

And when he lies down, note the place where he is lying, then go

and uncover his feet and lie down.

He will tell you what to do.

I will do whatever you say, Ruth answered.

I will do whatever you say.

Obey your mom.

It all worked out 'cause she obeyed her mom.

And what mother was asking, what Naomi was asking Ruth to do,

was to be incredibly vulnerable.

Some commentators, I don't agree with them, and you can decide for yourself,

they say this is a little bit risque.

That this eu- this is a euphemism, uncover his feet.

This, this, he's saying crawl into bed with him.

No, I don't believe that's what it says, especially when I read you

the next verse I'm about to read.

'Cause Ruth always had a noble character, always had a great reputation, and

even obeying Naomi didn't s- didn't blemish that re- that reputation.

So what it was was going to him at, at night and uncovering his feet.

What's gonna happen?

He's gonna wake up.

I, I just read recently the way to get back to sleep at

night is to warm your feet.

I get hot at night, so I throw off all the covers, and then my

feet get cold, and about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, I wake up.

And I look at my Apple, you know, phone, and I see it's only

2:00 or 3:00, I'm like, "Oh."

And then I start trying to fall asleep, and I can't fall asleep.

And then I put my feet under the covers.

I don't put the rest of my body, 'cause like I said, I get hot.

I'm a warm-blooded, you know, big man.

All right?

Don't laugh.

Some of you started to.

I heard that.

No, it's all right.

And I go back to sleep.

And so when she uncovered his feet, what happened?

He woke up.

And here's this younger, beautiful, awesome character, noble woman,

and he's a little surprised.

And let's go to the next verse, because it's truly a great story.

Again, happy Mother's Day.

"Who are you?"

he asked.

You wake up any guy in the middle of the night, he's not gonna see clearly,

and he's gonna ask this question.

All right?

There's even times, if you're like me, you've looked at the light on the TV

and as you're waking up, you think it's the eyes of the devil looking at you.

You know.

But I don't ask the devil who he is.

He, I just stay quiet and sneak it away.

"I am your servant, Ruth," she said.

"Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman redeemer."

So she's asking him, "Is it okay if I stay?

Is it okay if I'm here?"

"The Lord bless you, my daughter."

He's recognizing the difference of their age.

"This kindness is greater than that which you have showed earlier.

You have not run after younger men, whether rich or poor.

And now, my daughter, don't be afraid.

I will do for you all you ask.

All m- my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character."

She basically asks, "Is it okay if I'm here?

I'm putting myself out there.

I want it, you to marry me.

I want you to take care of me."

He's asking her.

She's asking him.

And you know, you see these dances between young couples.

They're, they're, they're afraid to say how m- how they feel about

each other, and they make movies about it all the time, and they just

keep passing in the dark, you know?

They just, they keep missing each other.

They ke- quit...

They don't admit their love for each other.

Neither one chooses to be vulnerable to the other one.

But here's Naomi telling Ruth, "Ruth, go be vulnerable to this man."

And you know, Boaz is like, he is fired up.

He wants to say, "Yeah!

I'll marry you.

I've been wanting to marry you since I met you.

It was love at first sight, but I thought you would reject me, 'cause,

you know, and I didn't want you to marry me just for my money."

All right?

But he knows, and he's done the research.

This is how we know.

It's what's in between the lines.

He has checked out whether he was the first goel or not, and he knows he's not.

He's bummed out.

When he found out that day he wasn't, he's like, "Oh, I could be married to Ruth,

but oh, what's-his-name's gonna get her."

But then he schemed.

He figured out a way to get Ruth.

And so we know the rest of the story.

He does, and they marry, and then what happens?

Ruth honors Naomi with a child.

Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife.

Then he went to her, and the Lord enabled her to conceive,

and she gave birth to a son.

And the women said to Naomi, "Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not

left you without a kinsman redeemer.

May he become famous throughout Israel.

He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age.

For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than

seven sons, has given birth to him."

You know, there's a lot of moms in this audience, and you don't

have to be related to be a mom.

I got a little choked up driving here as I remembered a lot

of moms in the church to me.

I got choked up about, uh, Mrs.

Ryan in Boulder.

Mrs.

Ryan would pass me a note after my sermons on Sunday night.

The main preacher would preach in the morning, I'd preach at night, and

she'd pass me a note after my sermon, and it had all my grammatical errors.

And the first time she did that, Mary Ryan, I was, I was just crushed.

I didn't ever wanna speak again.

It's a true story.

See, I had a speech impediment when I was a kid.

I couldn't speak very well.

Some of the things I couldn't pronounce.

All through grade school, I got taken out of class.

Yeah, I was one of those.

No wonder I stayed in school my whole life, you know?

I had to go to Peggy Saxton, who was a mom to me and taught me how to talk.

But Mary Ryan made me work harder at speaking so I wouldn't sound

like Jethro on Beverly Hillbillies.

And then Raylene Walker, my secretary, first secretary

when I was a campus minister.

She told me, "Greg, just read more books.

It will help you to, to learn better grammar just by reading more books."

And that's why I've read so many books in my life.

So I would s- not sound ignorant when I speak, you know?

And praise God for Raylene.

I remember the first time on a Wednesday afternoon, I handed her my notes.

I said, "Would you type this up and run off copies for my midweek tonight?"

She said, "Nope."

I said, "What?"

Said, "No sir, I'm not doing that.

You need to give me these notes on Monday, and I'll type them up, and I'll

run them off on the mimeograph, uh, machine, but it takes a while, and I'm

not gonna r- you know, stay late and just because you're undisciplined."

And boy did that sting.

And boy did I want to claim to be the boss, which I knew I would

never be the boss of Raylene.

But I started getting my papers in on Mondays- ... 'cause of Raylene, and

I've always got my papers on in time.

It's cool.

Maybe because of Raylene.

And then they don't even have to say much, some of you moms.

After a sermon one Sunday up in Antelope Valley, I was walking down the aisle after

the sermon, and one of the older Black women came up to me, and she did this.

And I thought, "Uh-oh, I'm in trouble."

And when Alma tells you to come on over, you go on over.

And she's this shorter lady, and she goes, "Greg, look at me."

I must've been looking down or...

I was scared.

A- and she says, "Look at me."

She goes, "I'm proud of you."

And then she walks away.

And to this day, I don't know what she's proud about.

But this morning as I'm driving here, and I'm thinking about the mothers

in the church, I think about her and what she said, and oh, it feels good.

I've just decided I...

She c- she's proud about, about a lot of things.

All right?

And she probably isn't, but I've decided that's the end of this

or the rest of the story, amen?

Amen.

Be a mom, moms, to as many as you can, 'cause it'll make

a whole lot of difference.

And I could go on and on with people and stories like this,

because moms make a difference.

Amen.

They make a difference.

So we love you, Mom.

We love you deeply from the heart.

We wanna love you more, and we wanna love you better.

And moms, we wanna serve you.

You serve so much, and you should be served back.

And so we honor and celebrate you this morning, and we

wanna obey you the first time.

We don't want you to have to nag us and to continue to prod us.

We wanna listen.

We don't wanna turn you off.

We wanna do the right thing, 'cause just like Naomi helped Ruth,

you're just saying it for our good.

And then we want our lives to honor you.

My first, uh, doctorate degree, I g- asked for two copies.

Paid some extra money and got a second copy.

Went down to the frame shop and got a frame, and then got

a plaque for my mom and dad.

I said, "You know, I'm a doctor now, doctor of the church, but I'd never have

gotten here without the both of you."

And I now have that frame.

My brother left it at our house for the estate sale, and I know no one

would buy it, and I knew my mother wouldn't know what it was about anymore.

So I have it, and it's behind my bookshelf up there in my office because

I am what I am because of my parents, and especially because of my mama.

And so this, this sermon this morning is dedicated to all of you moms.

We celebrate you, we love you, and we thank you, and God bless you.