Turn to Matthew chapter 23. I hope I can share with you what's on my heart this morning. In Matthew chapter 23, Jesus is speaking to scribes and Pharisees. The scribe was one who perhaps even copied the law and so forth, and was very careful, very meticulous in copying the law. The Pharisees were a special group of men who really endorsed the keeping of the law, but they also added to the law. They had a number of regulations to the law, and they expected the Jewish people to keep the law, and they were, pretty adamant about the whole thing. So we're gonna see what the Lord says to these scribes and Pharisees right after I pray. Father, thank you that there is no, there'll be no tears in heaven. That thought just kind of grips my heart this morning, it's amazing. We know that to be true, but since that Lord, there'll be no sorrows there, no pain, no suffering. All will be well for those who have put their trust in Jesus. The sadness is that those who choose not to trust Jesus as Savior here on this earth during their lifetime will not be in heaven. They'll spend eternity separated from God, where there'll be much pain and much sorrow. I pray that you might bless our time in the Word this morning, Father. I think we all need the Word. The word is critical to our lives. And I pray, God, that something will just filter into our hearts and lives by the Spirit of God and speak to us in a very clear fashion this morning. But above all, we want you to be glorified, honored, Jesus to be exalted. We're not here to praise ourselves or to lift ourselves up. We're here to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray this in Jesus' name. Look with me at Psalm 23. We'll read three verses here. Chapter 23, beginning in verse 13. Jesus is speaking to the scribes and Pharisees, and he says, but woe unto you. Woe, this is not a good thing. Be careful. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against man, for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Verse 14. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense, notice that, for a pretense make long prayer. Therefore you shall have the greater damnation. Verse 15, again. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you can pass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye have made him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. There's some other verses in that particular chapter where the Lord calls these scribes and Pharisees, these extremely religious who went about doing things in such an outward way so that they might get the glory. Do you know that? And the Lord condemns that, denounces what they were doing because they were wanting the glory for themselves. These folks gave their alms like they were supposed to the poor. They gave in such a way that people knew what they were giving. When they put their money out, they kind of held it up and threw it in the container, the basket or whatever so people would know what they were doing. They would go and stand on the streets of the city and would out loud pray as loud as they could to impress people with their religiosity. They kept the Sabbath. They wouldn't do anything on the Sabbath that needed to be done. They fussed about people who didn't keep the Sabbath. They fasted regularly. People knew they fasted. They put dirt on their face and made themselves look like they were, oh, I'm fasting. They did all these things. But the Lord says to them, you hypocrite. You're a hypocrite because the Lord, listen to me, knew their heart. You see, they were seeking to be self-righteous, going through the motions of being right with God. But in reality, they were not right with God. Jesus says, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, you will not see the kingdom of heaven. There's a lot of folks being righteous in their own self, righteous doing religious activities, but they're not saved. Do you understand the point? So these Pharisees, these Hebrew Pharisees were called hypocrites. Look at verse 27. One of the most picturesque denunciation of the Pharisees is seen in verse 27. The Lord says to them in verse 27 of the same chapter, He says, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto white encephalicurs, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." Back in the day, people were buried perhaps in caves or in some kind of a cave-like form that was carved out of the rock, or perhaps some kind of a mausoleum or something above ground. And once a year, the Jews would go out and would whitewash the outside of these caves and these sepulchers, these burial places that make them, or whatever, conspicuous. And Jesus said to these scribes and Pharisees, these hypocrites, that's you right there. On the outside, you'll look like everything is good and well and things are fine and so forth, but inside of sepulchers is nothing but dead men's bones. Your heart is not right with God. You understand why? That's a pretty strong enunciation, right? To call somebody a hypocrite? We're pretty strong. Let me deal with this idea of hypocrisy. Now, stay with me. Hypocrisy is what? It's pretending. It's pretending to be something that we're not. In the original language, in the Greek language, the word hypocrisy was the word used for play acting or an actor. An actor is defined as one who is assuming a part that's not in. Have you ever been in a play? I mean, you're a star in a play. Whoa, you're a star. You hypocrite. Technically, that's what you are, right? You're playing a part. That's what the word means. To play a part, an actor is a hypocrite. Let me show you some pretensing illustration. In the paper this week, I read an article that, actually I read it Friday, a 28-year-old lady from Cleveland, on June the 25th of this year, entered into a patient's room in Irving, pretending to be an employee and a nurse. Did you read that? And she began undoing IVs, These two, I think there were two elderly ladies in this room, IVs, and she began removing medical equipment from the room. She told these people, well, I'm gonna be your nurse for the next night shift or whatever, pretending to be something. She was found out later. Her purse was searched, and they found in her purse, she had a false Erlanger badge. She had, I don't know how many, but describe it, a lot of bottles of pills in her purse. She'd get in some of these rooms, I guess. And she also had, I don't know, one or two syringes. Wait a minute. Wait for it. They still had blood in it. Man. She was pretending. She was a hypocrite, right? She was pretending and was dangerous of other people. Let me even illustrate that always intrigues me. Remember the name Frank Abagnale? Frank Abagnale. Frank Abagnale is a real person. I don't know if he's still alive or not. But in his late teens and early 20s, he became one of the greatest pretenders that I've ever heard of. At a young age, he actually posed as an airline pilot and got by with it. Now, he never flew a plane. Praise the Lord. But he would hop on these planes and, you know, I'm about ready to go over here to this particular airfield. And he would go all over the world in the, what do they call it, the jump seat, the jump seat there, and actually pretended to be a pilot. He got by with it. He bought himself a pilot's uniform and hat and all kinds of things. Also, that's not the end of it. Also, he pretended to be a doctor. And he was actually, was in the emergency section of a hospital. I'm responsible for a number of nurses and other doctors. He did not perform any medical procedures. Again, praise the Lord. Can you imagine what gall this man had, a young man. I mean, a young man had at being a pretender. He was also, he also pretended to be a lawyer. In Louisiana, true story. And he actually, this guy was smart too. This young man was smart. He actually passed the bar exam in Louisiana without going to school. Tremendous story. He forged checks, he did that, forged checks and all kinds of things, made all kinds of money, but of course he was finally, he was caught. For a while, I'm not sure, I'm sure he's not there anymore. He became a businessman and became a consultant for the FBI in the Czech forging division. Because he was so good at it. It's a movie, there's a movie out for a second, you know what it is? Catch Me If You Can. What's that? Catch Me If You Can. Catch Me If You Can, that's the name of it, interesting. Pretending, catch me if you can. Is there hypocrisy in the world today? A lot of hypocrisy in the world today, isn't there? People put up a front. You go to this, the cowboy goes into this cowboy town, you see all the, there's the hotel and there's always a saloon and there's this, that, but if you look behind It's just a facade. It's just a front. There's nothing behind it. And that's how people live today. There's people who are pretending to be rich, trying to live high on, people say high on the hog, but I'm not even sure what that means. Anyway, they're not sure that's true. Trying to live in such a way that in reality they're indebted. People trying to pretend that they're happy and content with life, but they're struggling. People who are friendly in public, but when you get along and they're just ugly so forth. Politicians pretend, don't they? Let's get a little political burger in here. Politicians pretend to care for their constituents, but they're going to do their own thing. Why do people pretend? Why do we pretend to be something that we're not? I guess to impress people because we're embarrassed, we're trying to protect our self-image. We really don't want others to know what we really are, who we really are, don't we? There's also religious hypocrisy. People are acting religious, but they're not. The worst kind is that person who acts like, pretends to be a born-again child of God. They go through the motions, they go to church perhaps, they do their religious responsibilities, they do other things, but they are not saying, they know they're not saying, they're just pretending, going through the motions, and as the Lord said, that self-righteousness will not work. That's the worst kind. That's the worst kind of hypocrisy I can ever understand. I know many testimonies, don't you? Of people who have pretended to be saved, who've been in church, who function in church. I know a man that actually was a preacher. He wasn't saved. He finally got saved, praise the Lord. Pretending to be something you're not. Be careful! Don't be pretending to be... To be a believer, you have to truly be born again by the Lord Jesus Christ, by trusting in what the Lord has done on the cross. You understand me? Please be careful. But I also label what I call Christian hypocrisy. I know there's some hypocrisy in all of us, don't you? Come on, you're afraid to shake your head. I don't want to shake my head because I'll have to agree with you. Don't sometimes we pretend that all is well when it's not? It's not malicious hypocrisy. We're not trying to hurt anybody. We're not trying to deceive anybody, but we just sometimes pretend. I did a little survey this morning with some of you. I asked a number of you, how are you? Remember me asking you? How are you? You know what answers I got? I got one of two answers. I'm fine. Well, I got three. Fine, okay, or good. I didn't ask you, I'll ask you later, right? Only one person, when I asked that, did not say fine or okay. That was Jim Simmons. He said, I'm not feeling well right now, my stomach's hurting. If I ask you again, how are you really? How are you really? Well, would you tell me about your aches and pains? Would you tell me about some murder? Would you tell me something? We really don't always share how we really feel, do we? That's hypocrisy. I'm not denouncing you. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. We give the impression all is well, but things are not. We give the impression, aren't we, I've got everything under control. Larry's so calm and comfortable here. He is so much in control, look at that. Doesn't that look like a picture of control? There you're in control. We get the impression that we have no problems. We're enjoying life. Life is fine, we're in reality. We're fearful, we're worried, we're anxious. We say we're trusting the Lord. Yeah, I got faith. At least we can give that impression we're trusting God, and yet in reality, we're struggling to trust God. We're struggling to have faith. Some get the impression that they're living such a godly life for the Lord. But you don't know their hearts. You don't know what's inside their heart, the evils that's in their heart and in their actions, their habits and so forth. Just a, there's some hypocrisy there, isn't there? Why do we do that? Why do we do that? Why did you tell me I'm up when you're okay if you're not okay? When you're really not fine as you say you are, well, you just, I think there's a number of reasons. Partly or perhaps mostly, it's a matter of what? What do you think? What? It's a matter of pride, isn't it? We really don't want to get into that issue. We really don't want people to know that we're not what we seem today, and so we kind of hide behind that. It's okay not to pretend, folks. It's okay to tell folks how you really feel. Perhaps we think to ourselves, well, it's just nobody's business. Now, you're right, it's not anybody's business unless you share it with them. Perhaps we do that because we really don't think people care about it in any way. I don't care, Connie. I'm not going to say how good it is. Pat doesn't care anyway. I do care. Or perhaps we're really not sure we can trust people how we feel. By the way, gossiping is sin. Don't talk about people, okay? I recently counseled a believer, a gentleman. He's not a church member. He's not here. Actually, I did more listening than counseling. It's one of those things. He needed to share. His heart was heavy. A very serious emotional situation. No details, of course. He was having a hard time, or he is having a hard time, continuing on in this life, going forward for the Lord, he's a believer. He really doesn't know exactly what the next step in his life should be. But you know, if you saw him today, and just by looking on his outward appearance, you would think that everything is fine. There's nothing wrong, there's nothing outwardly revealing that he's doing anything, that something's wrong, he smiles, he's friendly and so forth. If you ask him how he is, he'd say, I'm OK. He's not. Again, I'm not trying to put him down by you. I do not fault him for that. He chooses not to share his troubles. And sometimes we don't need to share everything, right? But we do that, don't we? Again, I'm not accusing us of really being hypocritical. No one knows our hearts but the Lord himself. We're quite secretive sometimes, aren't we? But I can assure you, God knows your heart. What I'm really concerned about this morning is this. We have heavy burdens on our hearts. We have situations, people raise their hands and pray, and I have a silent request. There's burdens, people are hurting on the inside, trying to deal with their hurts and their pains and their crises or tragedies or so forth. They don't know what to do. What do I do? They continue that all is well, but all is not well. So I'm gonna focus on just three thoughts here this morning to help us when we need that help. What do we do when we need that kind of help? I don't want you just to clam up and go hide in the corner somewhere. What do we do? Three simple thoughts here this morning, and I hope it'll help you. What do you do when you have a burden? When the burden is heavy, when the cares are great, when you really don't know what to do next, what am I supposed to do? You're in such a turmoil, the most obvious thing is to, number one, is to talk to the Lord. That's obvious, isn't it? Before you and I fall into despair, we must talk to the Lord. See, the Lord already knows what's in your heart. He knows your burden. He knows your hurt. He knows the pain. He knows it. And He also understands. I heard people say, well, you don't understand. No, there's some things I don't understand. I don't know, I don't understand certain things that people go through. I don't, I may not understand, but I can assure you, God Himself understands. Peter said, quoting the Lord, casting all your care upon him for he careth for you. Casting, casting, the word casting means to throw up on, like casting, taking all of our cares and burdens, casting, how many cares? All your care, all your troubles, your stresses, the word care means pressure. All that pressure, cast it, put it on Jesus. Give it to Jesus because he cares. He's deeply concerned about his children. He's deeply concerned about what believers are going through. He's deeply concerned for your burden and your hurt. He knows you're hurting and he's there waiting for you to come to him. What do we tell the Lord? We tell him, how do you feel, all right? You share your heart. You just pour your heart out to God. Tell him your hurts. Tell him your fears. Tell him your heartaches. Tell him your worries, your doubts. Tell him, there's no need to pretend with the Lord. That would be the essence of pride to hold back from the Lord, but he already knows. He knows. Speak to the Lord, pour your heart, let the Lord speak to your heart through the word of God. Respond to what the Lord says. Listen to this. If you're pretending to be saved and you're not, beware. Beware. You need to be born again. Don't continue pretending because there are dire, eternal, serious consequences. Am I clear? I don't care how many times you go to church. I don't care how many times you're religious. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ is your personal Savior and Lord? I'm not talking about being a Baptist. I'm talking about being born again. Amen? Don't pretend. Don't pretend. If a believer, if you're pretending to be right with God and you're not, why? Get right with God to pretend that you're living a godly life here in church. Everybody sees you. You're doing well. Boy, look at me. I'm such a nice Christian. But you go to the workplace and you, how do you say it? Is it cuss or curse? Which word do you like? You either cursing or cussing like a sailor. You know the idiom. And you're living a life that's not right with God and it's ungodly? Shame on you! You're a hypocrite! You're pretending it's wrong! Sorry for raising my voice. If you're hiding sins, we're good at hiding a lot of things, aren't we? We'd all like to hide our age, wouldn't we? Hide that sin. Nobody knows my sin. Nobody knows what I do in private. Nobody knows what's going on in my heart. Nobody knows what I watch on the internet. Nobody knows this and that and the other. I'm telling you, God knows. And God will bring conviction to your heart as a believer. God says it's wrong. If you don't get it right with God, he'll chase you down. You're pretending to be in control of your life when you know inside your emotions you're falling apart. Tell it to Jesus. Run to the Lord as fast as you can. Get with the Lord and get before God. He's like, God, I need your help. I can't handle it. I'm like, please help me. Amen. This gentleman I'm counseling, somewhat counseling. So I told him, go to the Lord. I'll pray for you, brother. I'll pray for you, but you need to go to the Lord. And that's what he's doing. God knows your needs. Why pretend? Why pretend? What do we get out of pretending? Go to the Lord, talk to God, ask God to help you. Second, we talk to the Lord. When you talk to the Lord, you gotta trust the Lord. I didn't count this morning how many times, but T.M. used the word trust several times, didn't he, T.M.? Trust the Lord. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. Paul was a person who was aware of troubles. He had troubles. But he was not one that actually pretended that he didn't have troubles. Paul didn't say, well, I'm having a wonderful life here. There's no problem. No, he didn't say that at all. There were times that Paul had some serious emotional problems that he was dealing with. Look with me a second. St. Craig's chapter 1. Look at verse 8. He's writing to this church, and he's telling this church, for we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble. I want you to tell you, he said, I want you, I want, I'm telling you about my trouble. The word trouble means to, it means pressure, the afflictions. Which came to us in Asia that we were, watch, pressed out of measure. out of measure. Burned, and we were so, this burn, this, whatever Paul was going through was just so heavy on his heart, above strength. He says, more than I could handle, I couldn't handle it. I mean, we're talking about the Apostle Paul here, probably the greatest Christian that we know in God's Word, that we despaired even of life. We think we're going to make it through. This is hard. Can you imagine the emotions that he was going through? I mean, he's not pretending. He's telling it like it was. But notice what he says. We had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in the God who raised the dead, who delivered us from such great death, in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us. Can you identify with the Apostle Paul? Trust and a thought. You know, if we as believers, if we are not trusting the Lord as believers, we are, what's the word I was looking for? We're insulting God. When we choose not to put our faith in the Lord and trust him. We are insulting our God. We're saying God is not worthy to be trusted. We can't trust him or he's not able to meet our needs. That's insulting the very character of a holy and all powerful God. We sing this song purposely. He is able. He is more than able. And we choose not to trust our living God and our Savior who raised Jesus Christ from the dead and raises up the dead. If we're not trusting in Him with all of our hearts, then we're insulting the God we claim to believe in and to trust. The challenge to trust, though, to a lot of believers seems like a worn-out cliche. I've already heard it several times this morning. You're hearing it now. You'll hear it this morning. Is it a cliche? Flip over a couple of pages over to St. Petersburg's chapter four. How can we have faith and not pretend? If I ask you this morning, okay, you're in for this question, raise your hands. Don't raise your hands. If I ask how many of us are really living by faith? Don't raise your hand. We'd have to stop and think, wouldn't we? Am I really living by faith? Am I living every day putting my trust in the Lord for whatever happens? Believing that all things work together for my good and His glory? Say, Precious, do you have struggle with faith? Absolutely. Anybody have struggle? You don't have to raise your hand. It's a struggle because my flesh doesn't like to live my faith. My flesh wants everything, use another idiom, fine and dandy. My flesh wants to know what's going on. My flesh doesn't want any problems. My flesh doesn't want any pain. My flesh wants to know that everything's going to be well. But it doesn't happen that way, does it? It hasn't ever happened. It'll never happen that way sometimes. And God says, trust me. Trust me, I'm able, I'm here, I'm for you. I'm present, I'm always here. I'm Emmanuel, Tim. God is with us, God is with you. He's there, always, if you're a believer. He's there, right in the head, waiting for a prayer, waiting for us to go into his presence, and trust me. By the way, halfway through my preparation for the message, the message I'm giving to you, I realized what the Lord was doing. He was giving a message to So what I'm saying to you, I'm saying to me, because that's what the Lord says to me. Yes, we struggle. Yes, we have trouble, but God promises. How can my faith be increased? It's not, do I just stand around and wait for something to fall in my hands or in my body? No, no, you're right. You go to the word of God. Look at chapter four for a moment. Look at verse 16. Paul's talking about his problems. Actually, we'll come back to this in just a moment. He says in verse 64, for which cause we think not. But though our outward man perish, though we're not sure what to do, our inward man is renewed day by day. How do you renew your mind? How do you reassure yourself that God is able? You go to the Word. You remind yourself of the Lord God that God is everything. He says Jesus is able. He's there. He has all power and might. He wants to help. He's able to help. He'll get you through. Trust Him. Verse 17, for our light affliction. I like light afflictions. Actually, I like no afflictions. Humanly speaking, our afflictions are not always light, are they? Sometimes they're heavy. Sometimes they're more than we can handle. But God says they're light compared to eternity, which is but for a moment. But I've been suffering a long time, listen, compared to eternity is what? Which worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of the Lord. Wow. God is working in your life and mine to strengthen our faith. Listen, you and I will never reach a point where we have all faith. Well, I'm at the top of the faith heap. No matter what happens, I can handle it. You're in serious trouble. Our faith is more like levels. Wherever you are, there's another level. God wants us to come to that point where we're really trusting in Him. Rather than doing something immediately and making a decision or a rash decision, we trust God and look to God. What would you have me do, Lord? What is your way for my life? And we do that by renewing our minds in the truth of God's word. Amen. That's two points. Talk to the Lord. Trust the Lord. And then my third point is this. There are times we need to tell other believers. Now, please don't misunderstand. Let me clarify. I'm not suggesting that we just tell everybody all of our problems all the time. Not at all. But there's a time for it. Turn over to Galatians chapter 6. The principle you need to see. Galatians chapter six, very simple. Verse two. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Bear ye one another's burdens. The word burden means what it says. It's that weight. It's that trouble. anxieties, that fear, whatever's troubling your heart, whatever's on your heart that you don't know what to deal with. He says, or what believers deal with, that we are as believers are to bear up, help carry, share the load for someone else. I'm trying to remember the time frame, but I was at Lowe's picking up something. You ever been to Lowe's, man? I spent so much money in Lowe's, have you done that? Yeah. Anyway, I'm trying to think which way it went. I'll tell it this way. No, I'll tell it this way. There's two ways I can go on this. I was loading something, I think that's when I had a little trailer that I was pulling. I was loading something up in my trailer. It's not by myself. I didn't go down and get everybody to load it. So I was struggling with this thing, and somebody, I didn't know who this guy was. Came over, can I help you? Yeah, you sure may. And he helped bear the burden. We lifted that, I don't know if it's some kind of a lumber, maybe it's plywood or something. Lifted that together, much easier though, and loaded it into the trailer. That's the idea, bearing together. We're to bear, we're to lift up one another's burdens. Come here. And we'll build the law of Christ. What's the law of Christ? What's the greatest law? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, and soul, and thy neighbor as thyself. Demonstrate the love of God to other believers by helping bear the burdens of other believers. It's a principle, maybe not a command, but it's a principle. It's a principle that we need to exercise as believers when we know somebody else is hurting or we ourselves are hurting. It's okay, folks. Let me just make some suggestions here. In order for us to bear somebody's burdens or them to bear our burdens, we need to be willing to share our burdens. Again, we want to pretend that all is well with our fellow believer. We don't want anybody to know who we really are, do we? Whenever we have prayer requests, we do that on a Wednesday night, you're welcome to come and be with us on Wednesday night, indulge, be here, we share prayer requests. Typically, 95% of the time, most of the prayer requests are what? They're mostly physical. Do we not want those? Those prayer requests? Absolutely, we're gonna pray for their physical needs. We're gonna pray, we're gonna pray. What if a believer says, Esther, congregation, I'm struggling with such and such. Is that okay? We don't do that, do we? Oh, I can't let people know how I really feel. Okay, I'm gonna take you back one more time to the scripture. Don't close your Bibles up, guys. Go back to St. Gregory's 4. You know, an apostle life was just perfect, right? Let me show you what. Apostle Paul had it all under control, didn't he? He said, I've got it. No, no, no, no, no, no. We are, what's the word? Troubled on every side. The word troubled needs to be pressed, pressure. Do you ever feel that way? But not, yet not distressed. We are perplexed. Perplexed means what? I don't know what to do. Where do I go? What's my next move? How do I deal with it? I don't know! But not in despair. Persecuted. Persecuted means to pursue, being pursued by someone who wants to do you harm. Paul was being persecuted for a righteous desire, for being a preacher of the gospel, but not forsaken. Cast down means discouraged. But he said, I'm not distorted. You know why? Because he took his burdens of the Lord and trusted God. God had his knees. So it has to be a willingness to be transparent. You've heard that word, right, a lot? Transparent. Let me give you a second thought. Not only do we need to be willing to do that as necessary, as God leads, and I'll get to that too, Sometimes you just need to seek somebody's help. You know, there were several times, and I won't look at the verses, but there were several times that actually Paul said, pray for me. Paul? What, did some other believer pray for him? The great apostle Paul, who talked about prayer and God's revelation and all faith? Paul says, hey, I'm praying for you, but please pray for me! Sometimes, we don't do this a lot either, sometimes we just need another believer to get along with us and pray with us, right? We pray on Wednesday nights in groups, sometimes we break up in men and women and pray, but sometimes we just need to say, hey Steve, could you come pray with me? We just get along and pray together, share a burden and pray together. Is that encouraging? Somebody said to me this morning, Praying for you, preacher. I can't hear any better news than that. Praying for you, preacher. I appreciate that. Now, being transparent, this is our danger, or our fear. Being transparent makes us more vulnerable. What if that person starts, what is that person going to think about? What is Steve going to think about me if I share a bird with him? What is he going to think about me? Or he's going to go around and tell somebody else and gossip about me. So there is a vulnerability there. So you have to be careful who and how you share, right? But there's a place to ask. It's okay to ask. Jim got on the phone this morning, Jim McCord. He said, Rose is not feeling well, preacher. We should pray for her. And then Rose got up and went home. Prayed for me. Prayed, child, for my blood pressure to go down. That's a simple thing, right? I'm glad they asked that. I said, I can assure you we're praying for you today. Amen. Let's not be too proud or too embarrassed to ask for help. Little child, when we're doing something, trying to put something together, can it help you? And the child may say, no. Sure. What would Tripp say? I'm good. Huh? I'm good. I'm good. I can do it myself. We're that little choppy poor guy. We're down here trying to put our pieces of our life together. Humpy Dumpy's falling off the wall. We're trying to put our life-yellow piece together. I think God may whisper, can I help you? No, I can do it. Or another believer, can I help you? No, I'll do it, because we don't want to share. And then my last suggestion in this area is we share and open up to others as God leads. You understand? I'm not suggesting. Did you tell me every trouble that you have? I'm going to share it with you. In just a moment, everybody's going to come back here and share all your troubles. No, we don't share all of our troubles, but it's got to leave. Sometimes we don't share our troubles at all. Sometimes our troubles are for us. They're personal between us and God. Just you and God. God will get you through that. Don't do that. Sometimes we limit what we share. Again, it's all about the words of leadership. Let me also say this. If your problem involves somebody else, Don't you share that with somebody else. That's gossip. If your trouble involves somebody else personally, you go to that person and you deal with that personally. You talk to God as to what you have to do. Sometimes you share with a limited number of people. You don't have to share with everybody. But you can share with those who you can trust that's gonna pray for you. That's gonna be a help to be a source of encouragement. Sometimes, as the Lord leads, your heart's breaking, and you share it openly and honestly with the believers and say, here's how I feel. I'm broken, I'm distressed, I'm discouraged. I need God's people to pray for me. In other words, what am I saying, folks? You don't have to hide your burdens. You don't have to pretend all is well. I doubt there's anyone in this room this morning that doesn't have some burden upon their heart. It might be physical. Physical affects the emotions. It might be spiritual. It might be financial. It might be societal. It might be family-oriented. There's burdens. And if God says, deal with it yourself, then deal with it. If you just need somebody to pray with, you're just overwhelmed, then seek that person out under God's leadership and say, pray with me, please. Share your heart with God. Share your heart with Him. Stop pretending. No more hypocrisy. No more pretending. Let me say this to kind of the other side. Do we as believers care enough to bear one another's burdens? Someone comes up to you and says, Brothers, sisters, look, pray for me. I'm having this going on in my life. Pray for me. Do we? Do we? Or we say, OK, we never even think about it. If nothing else, pray right there in your own heart for that person. Do something. Pray. Are we willing to bear one another's burdens? Are we so selfish and so self-centered that we can only think of ourselves? Mary, I know you've got problems. Let me tell you mine. You heard that? Some Christians play games. It's a game. You say, well, I'm not feeling well. Jim, I know your stomach, but my stomach hurts worse. And Jim knows how to play the game well. My head's hurting, too. Well, you're right, Jim. My head's hurting, too, Jim. Boy, my legs are hurting right now. You ever play that game? I've seen people play it. When I get involved, I quit. Okay, you win. Jim, you win. Are we really willing and have a spirit of help that we really want to help one another? I know for a fact that many of you have burdens, and there's others that I do not know your heart, but I'm sure that you have burdens. Not just problems. Burdens. We all have problems. Burdens. God is able, right? If you need somebody to help you pray with you, then you seek out somebody. And you share with them as the Lord leads. Get a prayer partner. Get somebody to meet you. You can be accountable to, and so forth, and just, hey, pray for me. Not just right now, but pray for me this week, or pray for me that God will get me through this situation. If you're lost, stop pretending. Amen? If you're not living right as a believer, you're not right with God, stop pretending. Get right with God. If your life is not holy, you act like it is, then confess your sins and get right with God. If you're fearful about the future, you're struggling, talk to the Lord about it, trust the Lord, share with others, stop pretending. God is able to do exceeding above, exceeding above, above all that we ask or think. Praise God.