Read The Fine Print | Ps. Keith Pittman

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Alright, if you have your Bibles, I would love for you to join me in the book of Isaiah, chapter 54.

Isaiah 54 · chapter mention

Isaiah chapter 54.

Isaiah 54 · chapter mention

We're going to read uh, I would imagine a fairly familiar passage of scripture for people that may have been in the church family for any period of time.

It's one that we often quote in moments of hardship.

As you're turning there, I want to give us some context really quick so we can have a good understanding of the nuances that we're entering into.

Isaiah is a court prophet.

That means that he was close to the kings, but he was closer to God.

He understood the political landscape, and he would often speak to the powers that be on behalf of God.

The book is structured in ultimately three different patterns that you'll see when you read through Isaiah in its entirety.

Isaiah's chapter 1 through 39 is the confrontation passages.

These are the passages where Isaiah is confronting the children of Israel and calling them out on their idolatry, their injustice towards one another, and telling them that they've placed too much trust in the empire.

Then we have Isaiah's chapter 40 through 55, which are the comfort passages.

This is where he begins to comfort them that even though they're in exile and even though they're dealing with significant struggles, he begins to encourage them and letting them know that their story isn't over.

And then we have the renewal section, which is found in Isaiah 56 through 66, where he's reorienting them around what does it mean to worship the true and living God because there's been so much distance.

But what's important to know is that in all of the three segments, he's always found ways to weave in the Messiah.

In fact, we see in Isaiah chapter number seven the mention of Emmanuel that was going to come forth.

We see in Isaiah chapter 9, we hear about the child king who's coming.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

In Isaiah chapter 11, we hear about the spirit, anointed branch that's going to grow forth.

Isaiah 11 · chapter mention

We hear in Isaiah 52 about the servant who's going to bear our sins.

In Isaiah 61, we hear about the anointed preacher who's going to declare the good news to all people.

We see that even while they were in the midst of despair, Isaiah would confront them, he would comfort them, he would lead them to renewal, but he always found ways to weave in the Messiah because it's all built on that.

As we get into Isaiah 54, he's dealing with a group of people that he's in the process of shifting them from comfort to letting them know what renewal looks like.

Starting here at 54, verses 16 and 17, the word of the Lord would say this to us Look, I have created the craftsman who blows on the charcoal fire, and produced the weapon suitable for its task, and I have created the destroyer to cause havoc.

But no weapon formed against you will succeed, and you will refute any accusation raised against you in court.

This is the heritage of the Lord's servants, and their vindication is for me.

This is the Lord's declaration.

Maybe you've heard this passage in another translation.

I know I constantly quote it in the New King James because that's when I typically would engage scripture through in an earlier formation of my faith.

And so it says, No weapon formed against you shall prosper.

There's songs about it, there's ideas around it, and I think there's an application for us as a community.

So today, I just want to talk to us for a few minutes on a subject that I have entitled Read the Fine Print.

Let's pray and let's see what it is that God wants to speak to us today.

Lord, we thank you so much for your presence.

We thank you for allowing us to gather in your name.

And we thank you that your spirit is with us.

This is your house, and we invite you to have your way.

God, we decrease and ask for you to increase, occupy every bit of this space within me, within us, so that we can receive everything that you have for us.

So, Lord, I just ask that you give us open eyes to see you.

I pray that you give us open ears to hear you and open hearts to receive what it is that you want to do in us.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen and amen.

You know, um, I've been doing a lot of uh reflecting, and Megan and I are celebrating some pretty significant milestones this year, just throughout the entirety of this year.

One, um, we're celebrating being alive for 50 years.

Like my birthday is this upcoming Saturday.

My birthday's this Saturday.

If you notice on the screen, my Cash App and my I'm just kidding.

I'm joking, I'm joking, it's what I do, it's what I do, relax.

Um, so I'm uh, you know, I'm turning 50.

The other milestone that we're celebrating is that we've been together for 30 years.

30 years of of being together.

25 of those is is has been in marriage.

Now, Megan got to 50 before me.

She's like three months older than me, so yes, I do have an older woman.

Um and I remember when I met her in high school, we were freshmen in high school, and we sat directly across from each other in typing class.

Do they even have typing class anymore?

Like, like, you know, I like listen, your boy is nice.

I type like 100 words a minute.

Like, yeah, I'm nice with these keys.

Um but but I remember us looking at each other and knowing then she couldn't keep her eyes off of me.

And I don't blame her for it.

So so we've been together all this time, and and if you go into Megan's office, you'll see that there's actually a picture on her desk of when her and I came to Orlando for our honeymoon um 25 years ago.

And and for us, it was a bold move.

It was so exciting.

It was the first time I had been to Orlando outside of my family.

I felt like a grown-up, but but I was broke.

And so we came here with just a couple hundred dollars to try to make the best of the week that we were gonna have here.

And so when we got to Orlando, and I cannot remember where we saw this, but I saw some signage that said something to the effect of free tickets to Disney.

And I said, Oh, like so y'all knew the joke.

I didn't know the inside track.

I'm thinking to myself, Orlando is so kind.

Like, this is amazing.

Like, free tickets to Disney?

Like, what do we need to do?

So I call the number and they're like, Yes, like come on in.

Are you calling for the Disney tickets?

And I'm like, Yeah, they're like, just come here tomorrow at 12 o'clock, we got you covered.

I'm like, this is amazing.

So Megan and I pull up and we get there, and there's a bunch of people in the parking lot, and we're all excited, and they're like, Are you guys ready for the Disney passes?

We're like, yeah.

They're like, come on in.

And we go in and then we sit down for a second, and then they're like, Okay, like we want to have you go into this other separate room.

It's almost like when you go to the doctor's office and you're waiting in the waiting room, and then they make you wait in the other waiting room before you actually get a chance to see the doctor.

So we waited in like three different waiting rooms, and then for the next four hours, we were interrogated on why our lives wouldn't be complete if we didn't get a timeshare.

And I just remember sitting in the room wondering what was happening.

And then as we're talking, and the guy's like, okay, like, how long have you guys been together?

And we're telling him our story, and he seems so empathetic, but actually, I know the salesman techniques now.

He's trying to mine out ways to tap into people's emotions and things like that.

And so he's like, Oh, you guys have a family?

Well, you gotta have a timeshare.

So now I went from being broke and being newly married to if I don't get this timeshare, I'm a terrible husband and a terrible father.

What are you setting up for your kids?

So I remember this moment, and finally said, Hey, bro, like, it's four o'clock.

I I just came to get the tickets.

He said, Oh, yeah, we we have the tickets for you, but you have to sit through the whole presentation.

It's in the fine print.

The bold line said that I have free passes to Disney, but the fine print said that I had to sit and endure and be subjected to the interrogation and the accusations and the attacks in order for me to get it, and you have to ask yourself, is it worth it?

We live in a world that speaks in bold headlines and it always seems to disguise the fine print.

Fine print is ultimately just those small font things behind the big promises where the conditions, the cost, the exclusions live.

And the fine print doesn't necessarily negate the promise, but it tells you how the promise actually works.

And what I've learned is that life often screams at us in bold print, but wisdom reads the fine print.

And every day we're surrounded by it.

We've all been duped into sign up here for the free trial.

But then they ask for your credit card information and your email address, and then by the time you get it all submitted, the fine print says that if you don't cancel within the first 60 days, then they're gonna charge you the annual fee and that you can't get out of it.

In fact, you can't even cancel it online.

You got to call and talk to you me.

I'm trying to get out of my Sirius XM membership right now.

It's amazing how quickly they can take your money and how complicated it is to get it back.

It's in the fine print.

We often see with our cell phone plans that they say we give you unlimited data up until you use about 20 gigabytes, and then we're gonna throttle that data and make it two gigabytes.

You see what I'm saying?

Like it's it's the it's the illusion of getting something, but it's also something suppressed beneath the surface.

Or buy now and pay later.

Oh, thank God for Klarna.

Thank God for all of these things, right?

But but watch that.

Watch this.

The fine print shows you these fees and these these things and and interest rates that can sometimes accumulate, and by the time you end up paying it off, you could have paid for it twice if you would have saved it for it once.

It's the it's the fine print.

And the truth of the matter is that same thing that we see in the world that is pushed to us through marketing is the same way that the enemy functions as well.

He speaks to us with bold headlines, but there's often fine print that can lead us to bondage.

Here's some of the bold headlines.

That person doesn't deserve your forgiveness.

They did you wrong, you need to put these walls up, they don't deserve it.

But the fine print says, your heart will be hardened and your soul will become heavy.

The bold headline says, get whatever you want.

You can have whatever you like.

YOLO, treat yourself.

All of these phrases that lead us to a space of indulging in things.

You deserve this, you work so hard.

But the fine print is now I'm trapped in debt because I've been following comparison and I feel trapped, and I can't even be generous with my resources because I didn't pay attention to the fine print.

Or the way that we can sometimes misuse substances.

There's a difference between casually having a drink and getting to a place where I need a drink.

I need this to take the edge off.

It's been a long day, and before long, what was once taking the edge off becomes a dependency.

And now it traps me, and my resources and my anxiety is now tied to it.

We even have these ways in which we indulged the temptation of the flesh.

We say, man, it's good to have these relationships with no string attached.

We live in a hookup culture.

You should be able to do whatever you want to do.

It's autonomy, all these wonderful things that the enemy will often put in front of our eyes.

There's no pain, no harm, no foul.

Do whatever you want.

But the fine print says that it begins to numb us when we do have intimacy with the relationship that we really want to be a part of because we've given ourselves out so much that we've lost what it means to really have something sacred before the Lord.

The fine print, the enemy often hides the consequences of the things in which we buy into.

And if I'm honest with you, we're living in a world where we have to be more mindful of the fine print than never.

Another way in which we see the bold headlines that can sometimes lull us into a place of buying into the headline without looking at the fine print is when it comes to considering our words.

Because in our words, we often are told, man, speak your truth.

Say what's on your chest, what's on your mind, freedom of speech.

But the fine print that often is attached to that is it can cause me to dehumanize other image bearers, and I literally hand my tongue over to the God of this world, and I pour accelerant on something that actually needs to be nurtured with love.

Church, this is not a theory, but we're living in a world where our words are literally becoming weapons, and people are dying, and relationships are failing as a result of them.

We've all seen the headlines that have been gut-wrenching.

We've seen headlines of school shootings, and you can go to a dark place when you begin to look in the comment section after there's a tragedy and look at the heartless things that people say around it.

We see public figures attacked and murdered, and instead of being people of empathy, we are quick to have comments that that somehow dehumanizes the person based off of their position on things, whether I agree with it or not.

I remember when Melissa Horton and her husband and their dog was killed and other people were injured.

And in the comments section, people that have a different political leaning were finding ways to justify it.

We just witnessed this past Wednesday, Charlie Kirk get murdered in front of thousands of people to live on an infamy on the internet.

I was literally on my boat, just trying to live my best life on vacation.

And when I was made aware of it and I didn't even know that I was about to see the image of it, it marked me.

It marked me.

I was like, oh my God, like what is happening?

And immediately in the comments section, you just see people that are, and it's like, how do we get to a point where we can watch someone take their last breath right in front of us and we dehumanize them in a way that is so harmful and damaging to us?

How did we get here, church?

And these words, they shape worlds.

I recently saw a video of a woman gets stabbed in the neck on a commuter train.

The man walked off and the lady fell and died right in front of us, right on camera.

We're not meant to see these things, but in the comment sections, instead of empathy, it's it's it's salacious words that are being thrown at one another.

And the words that we're saying are are shaping worlds.

And so now we see the rise of neo-Nazis going out to campuses saying we have to fight back.

Recruiting.

HBS HBCUs had to close this week because of threats to black students.

While I was on my ship, my son texts me.

He goes to UCF, he said, Dad, like uh they closed our campus because there's been a threat to all black students, and so we're trying to navigate through this because of words that people are saying in this social sphere that are beginning to shape people's reality.

And then we look to people that are supposed to be anchors of wisdom and insight, and instead of them trying to find a way to be rational and empathetic and find ways to bring us together, they're just adding fuel to the fire.

Literally watching political people say words that are so harmful and hurtful in the face of tragedy.

I literally watched the commentator on the news say, we are at war with them.

Rise up.

Who's them?

And people take those words seriously, and then they begin to rise up.

We see elected officials when asked, hey, how do we get unified?

They blatantly say, I could care less about unity.

And people are like, Yeah.

And there are Christians who are amening that.

Which Bible are we reading?

And why are we allowing the culture and the empire to shape our theology?

This is the issue that we find ourselves in.

I've come to believe that as much as I love and appreciate the value and power of social media, I often wonder if there was a multiverse where it didn't exist, what would life be like?

I just wonder what friendships would still exist.

I wonder what churches would still be united and connected if we just felt the need to watch this exercise the fruit of the spirit, the one that says self-control, and says, like, you know what?

I'm not gonna say nothing about this right now.

I don't think the world needs to know everything that I think.

Because I don't think that I'm so important that I need to pontificate on everything that happens in the world.

As things were happening, they're like, what are you gonna say about it?

What the Bible says about it.

I I don't feel like I need to give my narrative on every situation in the world, and it's causing friendships to fracture.

I have been in ministry for over 25 years, and in that 25 years, I've served in five different churches and different states and different coasts and different places, and in that 25 years, I've seen five different presidents come and go, and how that shapes culture and the energy that they bring and the words that they speak and how it affects the church.

And then when I begin to look at our community, diverse communities of people that have different beliefs and different ideas, and I begin to see how the words of others begin to shape and cause disruption into a community, we have a responsibility to speak to it.

I'm not the pastor of Instagram, I'm not the pastor of the world, but I am the pastor of Celebration Orlando, and I recognize that in this room we have people that wrestle with tension and pain and wounds, and simultaneously have to figure out how to navigate through it.

This is not about right or left, this is about death and life.

The Bible says that the tongue is fire, and it literally has the ability to burn your life down if we're not mindful of our words.

That's James chapter 3, verses 5 and 6.

James 3:5

Proverbs chapter 11, verse 21 says, Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Proverbs 11:21

But here's another thing that we often leave out.

Matthew chapter 12, verse 36 and 37, it says, On judgment day, we will all give an account for every word that we speak.

Matthew 12:36

We have to be mindful of the fine print and the things that we say and how it will affect people.

Because when words and rhetoric dehumanize people, someone unstable will take that stuff literally and put it into practice, and then what was once in a thread becomes a threat.

And what was once a slogan becomes a crime scene because we're haphazardly throwing our words out there under the guise of freedom of speech.

So, what do we do as Christ followers when we recognize that our words have power?

I think that we have to go to the book and allow us to recognize that in diverse environments our experiences differ, and we have to be people that hold space for wounds and disagreement simultaneously.

We need to practice what James 1.19 says, where it says, quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

Listen to me, friends.

Listening is not surrender, it's an act of love.

Refuse contempt even when we hold convictions.

Matthew 21, Matthew 5, 21 through 26, Colossians 4.6.

We challenge and correct ideas without attacking image bearers.

Genesis 1 27, 1 Peter 3 9.

We we let our speech be gracious and seasoned with salt, Colossians 4.6.

We build others up, Ephesians 4.29.

We aim for shalom, which means peace, not owning the other side.

Matthew 5 9, Romans 12, 18.

And this is the one I really want you to get in your spirit.

Let this let this marinate.

We let it is written out rank, it is trending.

We let what God's word says shape the way that we respond to things.

We're in very interesting and challenging times where we literally have people in positions of influence who could use their words to mitigate and lead us to a place of peace, but instead they choose to say, We're heading towards a civil war.

This is where we as the church have to recognize the fine print and the consequences of this and begin to make a decision that we're going to be kingdom-minded people.

But I got good news for you.

Somebody say good news.

The good news is we don't have to end on our words, we can begin with the word made flesh.

Because where rhetoric destroys, Jesus heals.

Where the accuser indicts, Jesus intercedes.

And where the culture shouts war, Jesus declares being people of peace.

At the cross, he addressed all of the fine print that's in the world and paid the price that none of us will ever have to pay.

And in his resurrection, he opened up a new account, making it available for all of us to have a newness of life.

That could be the recipients of the Spirit.

And now all the promises of God are now contingent and connected to Jesus and they're made available to us.

Listen, the bottom line is this that when we engage Christ, there is no fine print because He's already paid the work, He's already done the work for us.

We just need to walk in it and position ourselves for it.

So when we look at Isaiah 54, we are now able to look at a promise that God makes available to us, but I do believe that there's something that we need to do in order to occupy the promise.

Can I get a good amen to that?

Here's a couple of things I want to share with us really quick that can hopefully become actionable for all of us.

Here's the first thing I want us to write.

Weapons are formed, but they're not final.

Weapons are formed, but they are not final.

The text says, No weapon formed against you will prosper.

Weapons are well made and they're very intentional.

In fact, Isaiah uses some very specific language.

When he speaks about the weapon, he's talking about a vessel or an instrument that's engineered to accomplish a certain task.

When he uses the word formed, he's talking about something being intentionally shaped.

So when you put it together, weapons are not random.

They are crafted on purpose and for a purpose.

But the Bible says it will not prosper or it will not succeed or advance its goal.

I want us to imagine a blacksmith and how the meticulous work that he's putting into making a sword.

I I've watched enough mid-movies that that kind of share and show the process of a blacksmith and uh the sparks that are flying, the cooling it off, the hammering of it, the intentionality, the process, the precision of shaping this weapon.

This is exactly how the enemy works.

You're not in the battle that you're in by accident.

This was a weapon that was meticulously formed with an end goal in mind.

And these weapons come in different shapes and sizes.

Sometimes the weapons come with the structures and the society in which we live in, with predatory economies and policies that punish the poor.

Sometimes these weapons are meticulously formed in our families of origin, with our family systems where unhealed generational pain gets passed down and we experience extreme attachment wounds.

Sometimes these weapons are formed internally, where the trauma that doesn't get dealt with, we ruminate and it gives birth to anxiety and depression and sometimes addiction.

Sometimes a weapon is formed through scrolling on social media and allowing the images and the words and the things we see to shape our ideas and to shape our emotions, and we're now being pastored by algorithms, getting caught in comparison loops and performative identity issues.

These weapons are meticulously formed with a very intentional, specific goal in mind.

But the Lord says, I know the creator, I know the forge, and I have the final say.

So the Bible is simply saying to us that though there may be weapons that are formed, that God has the final say.

That even though you may be in the midst of an attack, but God has the final say.

He says that ultimately I am in control.

But let's let's tell the truth.

Because sometimes it does look like the weapons are prospering.

Sometimes it does look like the things that we have declared are not going to happen do indeed become our reality.

Because here's the truth.

Sometimes the scan does come back negative.

Sometimes we do end up putting our loved ones in casket.

Sometimes the marriages do fail.

Sometimes the wounds do stay empty.

So if I'm to read God's word and say that no weapon formed against me shall prosper, why am I currently dealing with something that looks as if I'm not able to move forward?

We have to acknowledge that.

First and foremost, we have to look at the scripture and its original intent.

When that passage was written in all of these promises in the Bible, we have to approach it in its context.

And something that I believe that we often lose sight of as followers of Christ is that the Bible was not written for individuals, it was written for people.

Let me say that again.

That when the Bible was written and it was being spread, it was never meant to be, this is just for me.

It was this is a word for us.

This is going to help us to understand that when we engage the word of God and it says you, it is speaking about us collectively.

For the children of Israel, they were dealing with significant oppression.

They were dealing with the consequences of the fine print that they didn't look at with idolatry and trusting in the empire.

So when Isaiah comes to speak to that people group and says, No weapon formed against you will prosper, he's talking about the community.

Individuals within that community were still going through hardship.

Individuals within that community still had challenges.

But the overall goal of God advancing a people that can stand for his name, the enemy would never be successful at accomplishing that task.

What it means for us personally, when we begin to really break down what does this text mean for us today as New Testament believers, we have to first understand what exactly is the weapon intended to do.

The Bible gives us a very clear indicator of that.

The Bible tells us in Genesis, or and I'm sorry, in John chapter 10, verse 10, it says that the enemy comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy.

John 10:10

But I have come to give you life and life to the fullest, or life of abundance.

The enemy's goal is to steal, to kill, and destroy, but we're not talking about just the flesh.

What we're actually talking about is that the enemy's goal was to separate us from the love of God.

That is the ultimate end game for him, is to separate us from God's purpose and plan for our life.

So when the enemy shows up, he's not giving you a flat tire and giving you a bad day for no reason.

He's trying to give you enough bad experiences so that it separates you from the love of God.

That's his ultimate goal.

His goal is to get us to a place where the things that are happening in my life had led me to a point where I no longer believe that God is for me.

So this is the paradigm shift that we need to have when we read these promises in the Bible, that if God is for you, for us, he is for us.

And this is why the Bible says that nothing will separate us from the love of God.

That means that even sickness won't separate us from the love of God.

That means that even death won't separate us from the love of God.

So when we understand the context that God is speaking to us, then we can confidently say, yes, no weapon formed against me will prosper.

In other words, there's nothing the enemy can do that'll make me stop loving God.

There's nothing the enemy can do to make me leave and forsake what God has done in my life.

So when Jesus begins to speak about abundance, he is talking about us practically.

When our health is stolen, abundance shows up by allowing us to be surrounded by community and a peace that surpasses understanding and a hope that outruns the grave.

When our reputation is being killed, abundance shows up by allowing us to be connected to community that is redemptive and helps us to stay on a track that God has designed for us.

That when our plans are destroyed, abundance shows up by God showing us that He's going to be our provider even in the midst of moments when it appears as if we are in lack.

When it says no weapon formed against us will prosper, it means that no matter what I am going through, I will still always have God's presence.

That is indeed the good news.

And the way that we overcome these lies of the enemy is that we first need to identify and name the weapon.

What exactly is this weapon that's being formed against me?

Then I need to stand on God's word.

I need to trust what God says, and I need to remember the blood on the cross and that the tomb is empty.

And those are the things that allows us to be anchored in the midst of it all.

Some of us are feeling the flames of the weapons that are being formed against us, but that is not the end of the story.

The weapon may be formed, but it is not final.

That enemy does not have the final say.

God's word is the ultimate authority.

Here's a second thing that I want us to write down.

Voices aren't the verdict.

The text tells us that no weapon formed against us will prosper, and every tongue which rises up against you in judgment, you shall condemn.

Those voices aren't the verdict.

Isaiah shifts from talking about a forge to talking about a courtroom.

And he uses some very specific language.

He says, no tongue, that means no speech, no language, every script that is written or rised against you, it will not be successful.

It says it will not rise up on you.

That means that it's going to take the stand and testify against you.

So Isaiah is using some very specific language that communicates a courtroom in which we will often be dragged into, but ultimately we will be set free.

But where are these voices coming from?

Sometimes the voice is coming from the outside, it's the external aspect, it's the critics, it's the biased systems, it's the labels that seem to never die.

Sometimes it's coming from our own internal struggles.

That inner prosecutor, that the trauma echoes, the anxiety forecast, the clinical thing that we call it is cognitive distortions that catastrophize everything.

And we think it's just part of our temperament, but it's actually unhealed trauma.

These internal voices.

Man, I I was I was on our vacation and Megan said to me, She's like, hey, so you're about to turn 50.

How do you feel?

And up until this point, every time you ask me that, I'm like, man, I feel amazing.

Life is great.

I look incredible.

I mean, look at me.

I'm like, I'm like, man, this is amazing.

You're lucky to have me, Megan.

Like, every time I think about me turning 50, I'm like, bro, I'm just getting started.

But on this particular day, when she asked the question, my mind began to process through some of the things I hadn't accomplished yet.

Man, you're 50, man.

I thought by now you finished your doctorate degree.

Man, you're 50 now.

I thought by I thought by now you've been had your debt paid off.

And now the voice that began to build and take me and detour me was echoing louder and louder because all of my goals somehow turn into critiques, and now I didn't feel like I was good enough.

I'm like, yeah, I'm I'm good, babe, but I'm just I'm not I'm not where I want us to be at yet.

I got so many things I want to accomplish.

This is what happens when our ambition outpaces the grace in our current season.

And so I'm just there, like, man, and I just feel like I'm not there yet.

And she says, Hold on.

The devil is a liar.

We still may have some things that we want to accomplish, but look at how far God has brought us.

Look at how good God has been to us.

And I needed to have the truth to replace the lie of the enemy.

That if I wasn't careful, I would have begun to rehearse and then I would have drifted into self-deprecation because I didn't think I was going to be there.

But you know what?

The enemy hates the fact that I am here now and God is not done with me yet.

And I'm here to encourage somebody right now that maybe you've been rehearsing a script in your mind telling you that you should have had this done, you shouldn't have done that, you should have been in a different place.

But the reality of it is that God is not done with you yet, and that God is saying to you that as the enemy tries to speak these words of condemnation on you, that Jesus says the devil is a liar.

I am still working in you, I'm working all things together for the good.

You are my chosen vessel, and the enemy has no place in your life if you don't give it to him.

This is what God is ultimately leading us to.

The enemy is trying to drag us into a courtroom and present evidence on why we're not good enough.

But thank God for Jesus, whose nickname is the advocate, which means that he literally says, objection, Your Honor.

I paid the price of that on the cross.

They've been set free and they can't be tried for something that I took the penalty for.

I command that this case be thrown out.

The enemy's lies are trying to trap us in the past that Jesus has delivered us from.

So when it talks about these voices that can sometimes come into our minds and into our hearts, we have to respond with the devil is a liar.

Jesus took that to the cross, and I am victorious because of the finished work of Jesus.

But I do want to say this before I move on because this is important.

Every voice that we hear isn't always the enemy.

And here's what I mean by that.

I've seen a shift to the other side of things where anything that challenges us is the devil.

That's not true.

I want you to understand there's a difference between condemnation and conviction.

Condemnation attacks your identity, conviction addresses your behavior.

Condemnation is vague and vicious, but conviction is specific and leads you to a place of hope.

Condemnation isolates you, but conviction draws you to Jesus and community.

Condemnation produces paralysis, but conviction produces freedom.

If the voice that you're hearing isn't leading you to Jesus, then it's the devil.

But if the voice you're hearing is challenging some things in our lives, that could be the conviction of the Holy Spirit leading us to be more conformed into the image of Christ.

But we can't be on either end of the extreme where everything that challenges us is the devil, and every challenge that we have in our lives is evidence that God's not with us.

Are you with me?

Okay, here's the third and final thing that I want to say.

Posture unlocks the promise.

Posture unlocks the promise.

Let's revisit this passage.

No weapon formed against you will succeed, and you will refute any accusation raised against you in court.

This is the heritage of the Lord's servants, and their vindication is from me.

Did you see this?

No weapon formed against you will prosper.

Every tongue that rises up against you, you can shut it down.

Here's the fine print.

This is the heritage of my children.

This is the heritage of my servants.

Being a servant of Christ unlocks the promise that he has for our life.

We often are so busy quoting and tweeting and getting bumper stickers about the promise, and we've completely lost sight of the posture that we need to do in order to unlock that promise.

The text tells us that everything that Jesus is speaking to us through his word is available to us, but we gotta have a posture for it.

Because the posture unlocks the promise.

He literally says that this is a heritage that's passed down.

That means you don't have to work for it.

You inherit this, it's already done.

But you need to be a servant, you need to be a person that has an allegiance to the king and that you're available to him.

And when I can position myself to receive what God has for me, the promises then get unlocked for me.

I remember when Keith Jr.

was playing pop winter football, and he was primarily a wide receiver.

But he had an amazing arm, but he just didn't have the ability to kind of throw slants and all that type of stuff.

So the coach would specifically put him in a quarterback position only when he wanted to throw a streak route.

And so there was this one particular play where he brings Keith in.

And so we all know on a team, oh, Keith's coming in, he's just gonna throw, he's gonna throw the streak.

So he hikes the ball, and the wide receiver that he's supposed to be throwing it to, he runs a different route.

So so Keith throws the ball, the guy goes a different direction, the ball falls on the ground.

And the guy is really upset, like, man, like you didn't see me, I was wide open.

And and Keith's response to him was, hey man, like you didn't run the play.

So then the guy goes over and he starts talking to the coach, like, man, I was wide open, I was wide open, I can't believe he didn't get me the ball.

And he said, You you you didn't get the ball because you didn't position yourself where the play told you to be in order to get the ball.

You you got you lined up on a line of scrimmage and you decided to run your own plays.

Y'all can tell football season's background.

You lined up to the line of scrimmage and you decided I'm gonna do a slant, but the play call required you to run straight because this is where the ball is gonna come.

And I think sadly, so many of us in the body of Christ were wondering why I haven't gotten the ball yet.

And God is saying, Why haven't you run the route that I told you to run yet?

If you could just run the route that I told you, the promise is going to come, the favor is going to come, the blessing's gonna come, the breakthrough is gonna come, but you gotta position yourself to get it.

You can't be running your own route because you're gonna miss out on what I want to do in your life.

I know we live in a culture of do what you want to do, but in God's economy, your obedience unlocks so many doors in your life over and over again, and we see in scripture that posture unlocks the promise.

Isaiah 119, if you're willing and obedient, you'll eat the good of the land.

Willing and obedient, that's posture.

If you trust in the Lord, he'll make your path straight, that's posture.

If you remain in me, my word remains in you, then you will get asked whatever you want, and I'll do it.

That's posture.

Seek first the kingdom of God, that's posture.

If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and repent and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and then I will heal the land.

That's posture.

So many of us want God to heal our land.

We want God to heal our land of violence, we want God to heal our land of racism, we want God to heal our land of division.

But in order to unlock that promise, it requires my people, God's people, to humble themselves, to turn from their wicked ways, to pray, and then healing will come.

We're trying to get the promise, but we're not willing to take the posture in place because we're so busy arguing with one another and pointing fingers at one another instead of being humble enough to say, I don't have all the answers, but let's invite God into this situation.

I remember in the book of Genesis where the Bible speaks about Adam and Eve after they had fallen, and when God confronts them, they're so busy pointing their finger at one another.

Adam said, Well, it's the woman's fault.

That's the reason why we're here.

And Eve, with her wisdom and discernment, says, There is a serpent that deceived me.

I believe that so often we're so busy pointing the finger at one another, we've lost sight that there's a serpent that's causing all of the confusion and the division that we're feeling right now.

We're calling each other out, but we won't call out the devil.

And God is saying it's time for my people who are called by my name to humble themselves, turn from their wicked ways, and then you will see healing in your land.

I want to see healing in my land.

I want to see healing in my family, I want to see healing in our community.

But the posture unlocks the promise.

With every head bowed and every eye closed, I want to ask you this question.

We're gonna go into worship in just a moment.

But maybe you're in here with us today, and you would recognize that you're away from God right now.

You're not a fellowship with him, you're not communing with him, that you're you're not a disciple of Christ.

You are familiar with proximity, but you're not walking in alignment with him.

And weapons are formed against you, and you're not experiencing the breakthrough that you want.

I believe that right now there's an opportunity to position yourself, to posture yourself to receive what God wants to do in your life.

If that's you and you're ready to say yes to Jesus, and we're gonna walk alongside you.

I do want to include you in a prayer.

So on account of three, I would love for you to boldly lift your hand up and saying, Yes, today is the day that I'm gonna run the play that God has for me, and I'm gonna position myself to receive the promise of salvation and everything that comes with it.

One, two, three.

Yes to Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.

Amen.

Hands up everywhere, amen, amen, amen, amen.

Church, we put our gathering hands together.

Come on, church, let's be celebrating church and celebrate for our brothers and sisters that are coming home.

Amen.

I want you all to stand on your feet.

We're gonna go into a song of worship and really just celebrate the goodness of God.

But before we do that, I do want to lead us in a prayer together as a community, specifically praying alongside our brothers and sisters that are saying yes to Jesus.

Some of them may be doing it for the first time.

So, as a community, let's all repeat this together, declaring the healing and the salvation that is coming to this house.

Repeat after me.

Say, Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins.

I believe you died on the cross and that you rose from the dead.

Today I am saved.

Fill me with your spirit and order my steps in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, church.

Let's celebrate one more time and worship it together.

Thank you for joining us to learn more about Celebration Orlando, a church devoted to reaching the lost, equipping the found, and helping the hurting.

Follow us on social media using the handle at celebrationorl or visit our website, celebrationorl.org.