Mothers's Day - by Kenn Kington

Good morning.

How many of you at any point in your life have ever had a mom?

Raise your hands.

Okay.

Some of you are looking around.

That's disturbing.

I I absolutely love this day, and I'm I'm excited about a couple things.

One, I love being back at his hands.

There's so many things.

Every time I'm here, I see something new.

And I do want to encourage you, if you're a guest, I want to just encourage you a couple fronts.

One I observed this morning, and that is that I don't know, somewhere between the music, if you're one of those that kind of comes in late, or maybe you're a first-time guest.

I thought it was 10:30, not 10, and you came in late, and it's hard to find a seat, it's a little bit dark.

Let me just tell you, this is the greatest thing ever.

This is one of the things I love about this church.

All you have to do is just kind of linger and go ahead and get your elements for the Lord's Supper.

And then when he says, okay, everybody go get the elements, you just wait till everybody else goes, and then you pick your seat.

And uh if if you sit in someone else's, they gotta forgive you.

It's church.

So, you know, I just I love that.

Um it's about doing things different, and I'm very fortunate.

I've got uh most of my family with me here today.

My um my two boys are in here, my daughter's in the in the kid section, my wife.

My wife informed me this year for Mother's Day um what would be most precious about her family was for her to go to the beach with her friends for a few days, so she left.

Wow.

Did not expect applause at that point.

All right.

But she left Thursday for the beach, and I was with I was my ver she went with four or five other moms to the beach, and uh I went on a seventh grade field trip to Charleston with 137th graders, and that was whew, yeah.

Talk about a hormonal explosion, that was it.

But uh, I just love doing things differently, and I'm so thankful.

My wife, she goes, you know what, really, I would just love a break.

We've got this time, and I've got some of the other moms in the neighborhood.

We want to go to the beach.

Is that okay?

And I'm like, yeah.

So it's kind of not like Mother's Day, more like Mother Fest.

Uh she likes to celebrate, which is great.

And it happens again, it happens again on her birthday.

My wife's birthday is New Year's Eve.

And I'm usually gone every New Year's Eve.

I'm performing somewhere.

For those of you who don't know, I do stand-up comedy, and it's one of the biggest nights.

And it was so funny because a couple years ago, I'll never forget this, I was actually off.

It was for the first time since we had been married.

I was home on her birthday.

And she was like, Oh, I'm so glad you're home.

But then we woke up the next day and she's like, Oh man.

See, because what normally happens is that I'm gone and then I come home, and we have her birthday as a family with her parents, with my parents, and then with our friends.

She has like five birthdays during that week.

We call it Heatherfest, and she gets these birthdays, and she that that one year, she's like, it's over.

She said, I think I like you being gone so I can have many.

And I'm like, okay.

So it's about doing it differently.

And I can say this about Mother's Day.

It's it's great for her to do that differently.

But I hope this morning we can we can take it and maybe see it just a little differently this morning, what Mother's Day really is.

And I love the way that Susan opened up and just the characteristics of God he poured into his creation.

And the whole foundation of this morning is very simply that every bit of God's creation is not to be worshipped, but to point us to where to worship.

It's about describing who God really is, and the whole of creation describes who he is and points us to him.

And I hope that we grasp that, and I hope this morning that mothers, you who are moms, would get a glimpse of in your most struggling, frustrating parts of life.

I pray that these verses ring to the forefront of your minds, and you see the greatness in those moments that are, by earthly standards, nothing more than frustrations and deviations to what life is supposed to be like, but it really is.

I want to open with a very simple verse in Proverbs 1.8.

It says, Do not forsake your mother's teachings.

God said that for a reason.

Chances are that everybody in here has a mother, has heard some of mom's teachings.

I believe when moms get pregnant, they go to mom's school and they learn all the phrases moms have to learn.

You finish them for me.

Keep your elbows.

If you can't say something nice, don't frown or your face will stick that way, freeze that way.

This is mom school.

Now, my mom used to ask a few questions I am certain that she did not want answers to.

Do you people think I am talking to hear myself talk?

If we're honest, we'd be like, Yeah, nobody's really listening to you.

One of my favorites was my mother would say, Do you think I was put on this planet to be your maid?

And then I will say this though, because of what moms go through to be moms, they get to live by a double standard.

I will never forget this.

The first time it was a revelation to me was when I played little league baseball.

I was nine years old.

My mother picked me up after practice, we're going to dinner.

Now I'm a boy, I'm playing baseball, I'm in the dirt, playing baseball, I am dirty.

She said, Okay, are you ready?

We have to go to dinner.

She goes, Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, look at your face.

And then and I don't know if you've ever tried it, nine years old.

I actually attempted that.

I'm like.

And she said, Come here.

And and before that, we were chewing bubble gum.

Now I loved gum.

Our heroes would chew tobacco and spit, and we would chew gum and spit.

We just, you know, my mother would be like, that's gross, that's disgusting.

Stop that.

It's gross.

And but we would spit.

Just she'd be like, that's gross.

She said, look at your face.

I looked at my face and she said, Oh my goodness, we've got to go to dinner.

Come here.

And she took my face in her hand.

She took a Kleenex, spit on the Kleenex, and wiped my face.

I said, That's gross.

And she goes, Hush, it's not gross.

Moms get to live by a double standard because they're moms.

And this morning, if I could be so bold as to say that to take that, we would all take a glimpse, a look, a gaze, ponder, even muse into a couple key verses of God's incredible grace and truth that he is buried in the DNA of moms, and that he is calling our hearts to be.

And let me read this one.

In Matthew chapter 20, it says simply this whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

Whoever wants to be first must be your slave.

Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

As I read that, you and I could very easily take a few of those words, change them around, and see that our moms are truly great and are truly first.

Because they did not bring us into the world so that we they could be served, but so that they could serve and give their lives into and bolstering children.

And what I've learned from this concept of others is simply this, and and it just one of the observations I've made of Christ and of my mom and of my wife as a mom is that this quality of she made others' faults her strengths.

Jesus made our faults his strengths.

And he turned it upside down.

He says, if you want to be great, you must be a servant.

If you want to be first, you must be a slave.

He took others' faults of the direction we were looking at what we thought would make us fulfilled and happy, and he goes, No, you're missing it.

I'm gonna take your faults and I'm gonna make them my strengths.

I saw this in my mother.

I was born in Los Angeles, California.

At two and a half, almost three, we moved back to Montana, where my parents are from for a little less than a year, and then we moved to this place so far away called Smyrna, Georgia.

I mean, it was like to them, it was literally my grandparents asked my parents, do they have indoor plumbing yet?

Back in the day.

I was three years old.

And I remember vividly my mom's struggles.

We would play, but she was frustrated because no one, she was like, you know what, I hear all about this southern hospitality and I haven't seen it.

Nobody's come and greeted me, nobody's done this, and she was just frustrated.

And what she decided to do was instead of wait for that to just happen, she decided to make others' weaknesses or faults her strengths.

She decided that she was going to make a difference.

For those who were moving in, she was going to she joined a group that I don't even know exists anymore called the Welcome Wagon.

These were ladies who would get together and get coupons and doctors and all these little things, and she would say, hey, and they would find out who was moving in through the closings or whatever, and there was no agenda, there was nothing other than, hey, we want to welcome you to the community.

We want you to feel welcome.

We want you to feel apart.

I saw this in my wife as well.

We saved up our money.

We moved into a little cracker box from a townhouse into our first home, this little three-bedroom home, and we were so excited.

And as we got into the house, she was so frustrated because here she is with two little boys, and she didn't know anybody.

And one day she decided, you know what?

I am tired of this.

After a month and a half of telling me that nobody was friendly and she didn't know anybody, she said, you know what?

I'm going to find somebody.

And I pity that poor first person, but she she put the boys in a double stroller.

They're 11 months apart, and she's going through the neighborhood.

And she said, I'm going to walk around until I find somebody outside, and I'm going to introduce myself and I'm going to find out something about them.

And she did that.

And she found that one, and then she found another, and then a few others, and to the point where, after about six months, she knew everybody in the neighborhood.

And everybody knew her.

And she just kind of was this lightning rod of community.

And she would get phone calls of, oh my gosh, what about this?

And it was amazing to me how one person could say, I'm going to take everybody's faults.

And here's what we discovered.

Everybody was waiting and looking for someone to do it for them.

And yet she said, I'm going to take everybody's weakness, and I'm going to be, I'm going to make it my strength.

And I took that to heart, and when we moved into a new neighborhood, our boys started to grow, and my wife says, We need a basement.

We need a concrete room where they cannot destroy things.

So we sold our house and we moved into another and we made it a point.

We are going to make it a point to where anybody moves in, we are going to greet them.

We're going to make some muffins, we're going to just give them our number, and we are going to be that welcoming factor.

And we live in an incredibly diverse neighborhood.

There's over 17 countries in 71 homes represented in our neighborhood.

This is one of my favorite facts.

There are all different nationalities, all different origins, all different everything in our neighborhood.

My favorite, though, is there's a couple that lives right behind us in the cul-de-sac behind us.

He's from Scotland, she's from Zimbabwe.

She is the only authentic, actual, dual citizen African American in our neighborhood.

And she's white with red hair.

And it's just, it's awesome.

Now we have we have some African Americans in our neighborhood, but she's the only one who's actually African American, and she's white with red hair.

And it's just this diverse neighborhood, but we made it a point, we are gonna get to know people.

And we're gonna make a fundamental weakness our strength.

And that's I learned from my mom.

Make others' faults our strengths.

I learned this, whatever I the other quality, if you will, that Jesus really lived and just embodies through mothers.

And yours may be an exception, and I'm so sorry if it is, but for the vast majorities, mothers are others obsessed.

They are others obsessed.

Specifically with their children, they are just crazy.

And the verse that comes most to mind is Matthew chapter 6, verse 8.

Matthew 6:8

It says, Your father knows what you need before you ask him.

And that quality he just jammed into the DNA of mothers.

I will not forget how many times I've heard my wife say to my kids, grab a coat.

I don't need a coat.

Yes, you do.

I'm not cold.

Yes, you are.

I'm really not cold.

Well, you're gonna be.

Trust me on this because moms are obsessed with others.

They are completely obsessed with knowing our needs before we even need them.

I would say this: if there was a creed for moms everywhere, it would be worry early, beat the rush.

That would be it.

God knows our needs before we do.

He knows and wants to meet them before we do.

I will not forget Easter just passed.

And I remember this one Easter, I don't know why, I just remember it.

Because it was Easter and we were still in school, but our dream was to get to go to Six Flags and get a season pass to Six Flags.

And that was the furthest thing from my mind because school wasn't even over yet.

And yet, in the prize eggs during this Easter egg hunt, where season passes for each of us to six flags.

She knew our desires before we even fully knew how to have those desires.

I'll also not forget when I was in college, I learned as much outside of class as I did inside of class.

And my mother was others obsessed.

She could feel, she could sense.

And it was back before cell phones, it was when long distance cost money, and it was very rarely that you call home because you didn't have much money, but I would call and talk to my mom at least once a week, and I would give her an update, and she just sensed.

She was so focused on her son away at school.

I didn't say anything about the need, but I was down to that last bit at the end of the quarter.

And I don't know if you had the college experience or if you're on your own, but there's at every point, no matter what your station of life, there's that point where you're just kind of you're running out of money before you run out of month, and you're at the end, and you I didn't even have money to do laundry.

I was down to that one pair of uncomfortable underwear that was the last one that was clean, and I didn't have money to do laundry, but I was gonna go home in another week and a half or two, and and I was just struggling to make it through.

I know that's moms are going, oh, don't say that in public, you know.

So I I get that.

But I was just struggling, but I was gonna make it, I was gonna make it, and then I go to my little box, my mailbox, and there's a note that there's a box that wouldn't fit, and I go and I open it.

And in that box, it's 20 bucks and some supplies and a note and just a care package.

She knew my need, hundreds of miles away, and yet because she is others obsessed, she knew this need.

So not only make others' weaknesses our strengths, that quality is incredible, but being others obsessed, I'm gonna step out just a little bit on a ledge here theologically for a second.

It breaks my heart.

I was talking to some gentlemen that I was uh quasi-mentoring, and and they brought up some concepts, and I and and I was blasted for this concept.

I said, you know what?

God is obsessed with us, and his passion is people.

And they said, No, his passion is his own glory.

That's why he created everything was for his own glory.

And I said, Are you telling me that that God has created all this?

He tells us, do nothing out of selfishness or empty conceit, but yet he created everything out of selfishness?

And they said, Yes.

And I was like, Wow, I don't want that faith.

Because everything I read is that God has others obsessed, that he would leave glory and he would come in and become a man, not just a man, but a servant, not just a servant, but obedient servant, not just obedient, but obedient to death, so that God could glorify him.

But his whole purpose was you and I, that we could experience full forgiveness and hope and purpose.

And if you're here today, and it appears like most of you are, I don't know what you're going through, but I know what God's plan and purpose is.

It's uniquely and incredibly for us to experience that full forgiveness and have the purpose that He created uniquely for you, no matter what that past is, no matter what those issues were or are.

Say what you mean and do what you say.

Mean it.

I remember Christmas.

Growing up, we would always have a wonderful Christmas as our family, but at the end of the day, in the evening of the day, we would go share a Christmas meal with our neighbors who were Jewish, which I just loved that we celebrated Christmas with our Jewish neighbors.

That just, it didn't hit me till years later that went, wow, how odd was that?

But how wonderful.

And my mother would always tell us going over, she goes, now you be patient, you be polite.

You say please and thank you.

Be polite.

And the reason I really loved it, at least as a younger child, was because we were going to get one more present.

We exchanged gifts.

And she goes, I don't care what it is.

You say thank you and you mean it.

Okay.

And I don't know why I remember.

This is one of the few Christmas gifts I remember ever.

I remember getting this opening, and it was a puzzle and a tube.

It was a puzzle and a tube.

I'm like, huh.

And it was a football player action scene, and I'm like, oh, that's cool.

And the funny part to me was I thought, okay, remember, thank you and mean it.

So I'm like, thank you so much.

I love football, and this is going to be so great.

And they said, well, let's do it.

So we break it out, we start doing it.

Well, we start putting together, we got them all turned over and got the regs, and then we started putting them, and then we started looking to the picture and trying to find the pieces.

I think they got it on sale.

Because the picture was different than the puzzle.

But what I remember about that puzzle was not that the picture was different.

What I remembered was everybody coming together, and people would come by and go, Oh my goodness, let me see that.

And just I love the look on their face going, okay, oh.

Where is this?

And then the hovering of literally probably 30 different people coming around and doing it together.

There's something about when we are genuine and we mean it, that is an absolute magnet to who God is.

I love the mean it part.

And and before I share this verse in Isaiah 49, I want to lay just a very quick and simple foundation is that mom always means it.

When it comes to our children, mom always means it.

God wired into the DNA of a mother's.

I don't care if I'm the biggest foul up, I failed the biggest way.

I have a friend whose son was strung out on drugs, went through rehab, was arrested, was in jail, and from the bottom of her heart, she says, He's such a good kid.

He's just made some bad choices, and she meant it.

And he has now gone through that, and she's walked with him, and he is now done, and he's clean, and he's got his life together, and he's now literally excited about God, really does have a plan.

He had to go through that to get to that point where he's like, you know what?

God is real.

It's not just about going to church on Sunday, it's about experiencing him, and he's got his kids and his family together, and it's just a joy to watch.

But the catalyst to that was a mom who would visit him and look at him, and she goes, You are amazing, in the midst of his greatest failures.

And she meant it.

And there's something About a mom that God wired up so that he could show you and I a physical example.

And in this part of Isaiah, I don't have the time to do the whole story, but basically the people were discouraged.

Their protection was gone.

The wall that they wanted to build had been attacked and knocked down, and they were thinking, where is God?

And the whole time, God is like, it's part of the plan.

You gotta trust me.

I mean this.

And listen to the phrase that he uses to communicate that to these people.

God says, I don't get it.

You say, God has left me?

My master has forgotten I even exist.

Can a mother forget the infant at her breast?

Walk away from a baby she bore?

But even if mothers forget, I'd never forget you.

Never.

Look, I've written your hand on the name on the back of my hands.

The walls you are rebuilding are never out of my sight.

I love that he puts that together.

He's like, your mother will forget you exist before I forget you.

And I read that verse for one of the first times after I had that conversation with a few gentlemen who had said that God is ultimately selfish.

And I love my friend.

She gave me this verse and she said, Read that verse and tell me that God is selfish.

That God has written my name on the back of his hand.

I read that verse several times.

I ended up grabbing a sharpie.

I still do it to this day, at least probably once a month, twice a month.

I'll just take and I'll write the initials of my wife and my kids on the back of my hand.

Just small.

It amazes me in my normal day how many times it grabs my attention.

But for God to say, your name is on my hand.

I will never forget you.

And I don't care how old you are or how old your mother is or how old you will ever be when your mother passes away or passes on.

She will always be your mother.

We had an ice storm a few months ago.

Do you remember that?

First thing my mother did, called me.

Where are you?

And I'm not making this up.

I said I just had a show.

I'm like, I'm in Orlando, Florida.

She said, well, be careful, it's icy out there.

Not where I am.

It's amazing to me.

She cannot stop caring.

She cannot stop being obsessed with her children because of that love that is there.

I want to wrap with one of the most beautiful examples I've ever heard personally of this concept of being others obsessed, meaning what they say, and meaning it in a huge way.

I have a friend who's an incredible talent, unbelievably gifted athlete.

Played in the NFL, played college football, did really well in college football.

He's one of, I think, 70 people that won a little trophy called the Heisman Trophy.

If you don't follow football, that's really good.

And after he won the Heisman and he was in the NFL and he was playing for a couple years, they told him, they said, you know what you ought to do?

You ought to write a book on what makes you different.

What made you better?

What got you here?

What is it that made you great?

And he said he sat down.

And he started to think, you know, you know, work hard and surround yourself with good people.

He says, everything I thought of was pretty much the same as everybody else.

He says, but then I got to thinking, what's different?

And they said, just think of what's that different piece.

And he says, you know what?

As long as I can remember, there's been this voice in my head.

And it doesn't matter what it is, it just this voice spurs me on.

He says, when I was in elementary school, he says, I remember the field day was coming up and the 50 yard dash.

And he says, I wasn't the fastest kid, but this voice said, You are awesome.

You are fast.

You can do this.

And he said, I would run and get prepared and I would do it.

And he said, you know what?

This voice in my head convinced me I can do this.

And I won the blue ribbon.

And he said, in high school, he said, it wasn't on the football field, it was on the basketball court.

He said, He said, I'm not the tallest guy in the world.

He says, I'm 6'1, 6'2.

He says, but on the basketball floor, we were in the state playoffs.

And this other team had a guy who was like 6'10 and huge, twice my size.

And they said, Danny, you have got to stop him.

And he said, This voice.

He says, I was overwhelmed, but then this voice, you can stop him.

You are good enough.

You're quicker.

You're faster.

You're smarter.

And you are able and you are powerful.

And you have the ability to do this.

And you can do this.

And he says, by the time I got out of the locker room, as I was really kind of thinking through and praying, the voice just kept showing me and telling me, you can do this.

He says, I shut the guy down.

He was averaging 30, 40 points.

I held him to under 10, and it was unbelievable.

We won the game, and this guy got frustrated and he fouled out.

He said, I did it.

And the voice.

And he says, I remember that voice over and over and over through my college career and even the pros when I was struggling with voice, but you know what?

You are good enough.

And he said, It's got to be that voice.

Maybe that's it.

Unique to me that I have the voice.

I have that ability.

Most people don't.

I have that voice.

He shares the story that he and his wife had a child.

His mom came into town to help with the child.

And he said that he and his wife had had a couple rough nights with the baby, and mom came in to save the day.

And he said he was in the midst of this writing.

He said he didn't hear his son cry, but as he got up about three or four in the morning, he walked down his hall, and mom, his mom, had already gotten up and was in the baby's room, and she was rocking his son.

And he says he didn't walk by to let her know he was there yet, but he heard his mom as he's in the hall in the middle of the night, and his mom speaking to her grandchild.

You, you are so strong.

You are so great.

Look how look how handsome you are.

You can do anything.

And he said he just sat there and he realized that wasn't his voice.

It was hers.

And he said, I just realized.

He shares how thankful he was for his mother, but he realized that wasn't him.

It was this woman.

This woman who was others obsessed and that meant what she said.

And he said in his heart of hearts he could feel it and sense it.

Moms, this morning, if I could be so bold as to plant some seeds in your heart, the next time you are at the end and you feel like that slave.

And you feel like the last person on the totem pole.

Remember God's whisper.

You are the greatest, and you are first.

And I have put you here for a reason.

I have put you here to be my voice in the heads of my people.

I have created you this way to speak my truth and to be my voice into the hearts of children, to let them know that I do have a plan.

They are great, they are unique and wonderful.

And I have charged you with the privilege of getting to do that with your children.

Oh, God can use many ways to speak to our hearts.

But we'll be so bold to take that up.

Thank you.

Thank you for embodying that aspect of God.

And for those of us who have moms, let us be thankful that we have that mom who is that reflection to point us.

And if there's anything good in us, it's because God gave it to us through moms.

Let's close an order of prayer.

God, thank you.

Thank you for my mom.

And Lord, even right now, collectively, we want to say thank you for our moms.

Lord, thank you for that amazing truth that you said your mother will forget you before I do.

I've written your name on the back of my hand.

Father, I thank you that you have written my name on my mom's mind and her heart and her fingers and her eyes.

Lord, thank you for such a tangible example of how you love us.

So, Father, today we rejoice in your creation, but let us let it point us to you and thank you for the way you love us.

It's only through the precious gift of your Son Jesus we can know, and the power of your spirit that we can experience it.

Guide us this week, and it is only through Christ we can pray.

Amen.