Open Handed | Ps. Keith Pittman

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

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.

If you're joining us online, welcome, Family Lounge, welcome.

We're so glad that you are here with us.

Church, can we welcome our online and family lounge community that is joining us podcast?

Thank you guys so much for worshiping with us and being with us today.

If I hadn't had an opportunity to meet or connect with you as of yet, uh my wife Meg and I have the incredible privilege of serving as the lead pastors here, and alongside an amazing staff, an incredible servant-hearted team, we want to thank you and honor you for coming to worship with us uh today.

And we think that you've come at an incredible time.

Over the past uh five weeks, we've been in this series that we've entitled Free Indeed.

It's all pulled from the Gospel of John, chapter number eight, verse number 36, where the word of the Lord tells us that if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

It's it's an idea and a vision that God has for his people, for his community, for us to be not only walking in freedom, but to also be conduits to help others experience freedom.

We wanted to make some resources available to us because we don't believe that freedom is a series of messages that we move on to the next thing, but we believe that it's a lifestyle that we as followers of Christ are called to walk into.

So we made some resources available and we're going to continue to make resources available to you.

So if you have our app, you can go on to wherever you may download um apps from, look up Church Center app, download that Find Celebration Orlando in there and get plugged in.

And it's in that space, if you go under our groups tab, that you'll find all the resources that we've made available for our community as it relates to this incredible series that is also turning into a movement in our community.

So please, if you haven't had a chance to engage or check out some of the resources, um, please take a moment to take a look at that when you get a chance.

If you have your Bible, I want to invite you to join me in the gospel of Luke chapter number 19.

Luke chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible at all, please at the end of service let us know.

We have out at our connect tent.

We would love to gift you with a Bible.

I truly believe that the word of God has the ability to change our lives if we engage it and allow it to um and rightfully divide it in a way that his spirit can begin to bring transformation.

And so if you don't have a Bible at all, please go out to our Connect Tent, and we would love to resource you with one.

But also, we we are in the 21st century.

So if you do have a digital Bible, that's perfectly fine as well.

We're gonna be reading from Luke chapter 19, verses 1 through 10.

Luke 19:1–10

Um, and it's gonna come up on the screen in just a moment.

And what I want us to do is I want us all to read this together.

So if you are reading from your actual Bible, just to kind of stay on par with us, either pull up the ESV translation in your digital Bible or follow along with us on the screen.

But I believe there's power in moments when we can declare God's word together.

So looking at Luke chapter 19, verses 1 through 10, ESV, we're gonna start at verse number one, counting down from three to one, and I want us to read this all together.

Luke 19:1–10

Y'all with me?

All right, three, two, and one.

He entered Jericho and was passing through.

And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus.

He was a chief tax collector and was rich, and he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature.

So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.

And when Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.

So he hurried and came down, and received him joyfully.

And when they saw it, they all grumbled, He has gone in to be a guest of this man who is a sinner.

And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.

And Jesus said to him, Salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.

For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.

So today I want to examine this passage and take a different approach to it in a way that I hope can inspire us and challenge us.

And if you're taking notes, and of course I hope that you are, I want you to write down this thought that I have for us today, and it's simply this open-handed.

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 goodness.

We thank you for your kindness.

We thank you for visiting us today, God, and inviting us to sit in spaces where we can call upon your name.

So, Lord, we we honor you.

And in this moment, Lord, we we decrease and ask for you to increase.

We ask that that we can have open eyes to see you above all else.

God, we pray for open ears to hear your truth above all else, and open hearts to receive the word that is being deposited into our spirits that can bring transformation to our minds and our bodies and our souls.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen.

Amen and amen.

About a month or so ago, um after church, my wife and I and a couple of people from our church, we went and had um like after Sunday brunch at an amazing restaurant downtown.

Now, what you know about everything I just decided to explain to you is that we're talking about going downtown on Sunday and that brunch hour.

So you can imagine that parking is a little bit chaotic around that time.

And and I remember it taking probably a good 15 to 20 minutes for me to be able to find a spot um that not only would be suitable for our vehicle, but also one that would allow my wife to feel as if our car was going to be broken into or stolen.

So we drove around after a while and we finally found a spot that was perfect.

Well, then fast forward a couple of weeks later, um, I had another friend of mine who was in town saying, Hey man, like would you mind meeting me downtown for for lunch?

Again, I'm immediately thinking about my experience that took place a couple of weeks ago and me circling around the block for the past 20 minutes.

And so I'm flushed with a wave of anxiety and stress, and I'm not typically prone to that, but but I found myself thinking, like, okay, like okay, I gotta go, like, where are we gonna park at?

So I'm I'm beginning to already game plan about where we're going to go.

So as I'm driving and getting a little bit closer to the restaurant, my mind goes into hyper-vigilant mode and I'm trying to immediately find parking.

I I see a spot that seems like it's the most ideal location.

I felt like the sun was shining on it, it was like the glory of the Lord was telling me that this was my spot.

Spoiler alert, it wasn't.

I had I couldn't park there because it was only 15-minute parking.

So now my anxiety begins to rise up even more because I'm like, where am I gonna park?

I'm already running a little bit late, I gotta, I gotta find a spot.

So I finally identify a spot.

I mean, and it is the perfect spot.

I I pull up, and then you see when you're ever trying to find a spot in the car, try to crowd you.

I'm like, back up, man.

I put my car in reverse, I parallel park that thing like a G because my cameras are amazing in my vehicle.

And so I parallel park, I get in, and then I get out, and then I begin the journey.

But what I didn't realize is that I was so fixated on trying to find a parking spot, I didn't consider where I was parking at.

So here I am, eight blocks later, still walking towards the restaurant.

And as I'm walking, I'm realizing that as I'm seeing each block that I pass, I'm saying, oh, there's a spot there.

There's a spot right there.

I could have parked right there.

Like I felt like Oprah, like, you get a spot, you get a spot, you get a spot.

Like I was walking and I saw all of these spots that I completely had ignored because my fear had told me that there would not be anything available if I continued to go a little bit closer.

Ten blocks later, I finally get to the restaurant.

And meanwhile, as I'm passing by all of these spots, I then discover that the restaurant actually has its very own parking lot where they validate your parking anyway.

So here I am in all of my sweaty glory, walking about 12 blocks because my mind told me that this is as good as it's ever going to get.

So I took the first thing that I can find.

As ridiculous as that sounds, that is what we call a scarcity mindset in all of its sweaty glory.

This is what happens when we have enough experiences, uh, enough setbacks, uh, enough challenges that we begin to believe that it doesn't get any better than this.

So let me keep everything that I have for myself because I don't know if I'll ever have another opportunity.

Today it may be a parking spot, but tomorrow it may be our resources.

Another day it may be our time.

Because scarcity continues to remind us that you'll never have enough.

It's never good enough.

So you have to live a life that's closed-handed and look at self-preservation.

The way that scarcity is often defined, it is limited resources measured against unlimited desire.

It's when I know that there's a limit to what I have, but there's a there's no limit to what I feel I need.

And so that scarcity gap begins to make us feel that we have to keep everything to self.

It's the perception of shortage that meets us in our heart and is activated in our hands.

Scarcity is not a matter of not having enough, but it's an emotion that tells us that I never will get enough.

It activates our fight or flight and allows us to live a life of self-preservation.

And history shows us that when we live in a life of scarcity and fear and concern about how we're going to move forward, it can cause us to make some pretty interesting decisions.

One of those decisions was found in the Great Depression.

Back in that era, people were literally concerned that banks were going to steal their money, so they took all their money off the banks, they put it inside of coffee cans, and then they buried it in their backyard, only for their money to be dissolved as if the cans began to corrode away because scarcity made them believe that someone was out to take what was theirs.

Think about when we went through the pandemic.

Remember that all of five years ago?

So you you guys, let me give you a little side story.

You guys know that most recently, my wife and I, we served our church in DC for about two years, going back, so this is about seven years ago.

So, in that time that we were in DC, we established a lot of good friendships and connections and community with people in the DC and DMV area.

And the thing that you learn when you live up there is that there are people that work for the government, there are people that work in surrounding agencies, and sometimes they can tell you what they do, many times they can't, and you just accept, like, oh okay, you kill people for a living, but you can't tell me about it.

I'm looking at Ethan Hunt.

So, like, it's possible.

Mission Impossible, tie-in guys, I'm culturally aware.

Okay, so so you recognize that that's just a part of your reality.

I remember like a week before the pandemic, like, shut down the world, I got a random phone call from one of my friends in DC, and he just began to speak in code to me.

He was like, Hey, so when you go to the grocery store today, make sure you get all the toilet tissue, water, flour, and bread you can get.

And I'm like, I haven't talked to you in a year.

Like, it's such a weird way to start a conversation, but then I was able to identify that, oh, he's he's giving me a code for something.

And I'm telling you, when I got to the grocery store, other people must have got the call as well because the shelves were completely empty.

It was like an episode of The Walking Dead, like it was pure chaos.

And I'm like, well, I felt like we're walking into the middle of an apocalypse.

But here's what we understand now that we've been able to look in the rearview mirror.

There wasn't a lack of resources, they didn't actually stop manufacturing it, but the perception that there wouldn't be enough caused people to run into the stores, wipe out the shelves completely, and then sadly, the very people who were fortunate enough to get there early were turning around and hustling toilet rolls on the side of the street for$20 a pop.

Imagine that.

Look at what scarcity does to us.

It allows us to hoard everything that we can and then turn around and exploit people, and we call it capitalism.

How else can we explain how we can see such a disparaging range between how much certain people make and then also being in positions to turn down life-altering medicine, but we got to protect the bottom line and we galvanize around it, and if we stand up against it, then it means that somehow we're not being true American citizens and we've normalized something that the Bible says is a scarcity mindset that removes God from the equation.

We all fall victim to the scarcity mindset.

I almost fell victim to it just last night.

As I was preparing to go to sleep, I have an Amazon cart set up and I just dump things in there during the course of the week.

And then typically, when we get to like Saturday, I'll begin to audit: do I really need this?

Do I not need this?

Let me get rid of this, and then you finally make whatever purchase you're gonna make.

When I went into my cart last night and I was looking at the item that I had there, it said, only two left.

Act now.

I got hit with this wave of anxiety because I'm like, if I don't get it, they're never making this product again.

And and I'm and so so I almost hit the button.

I'm like, wait, I'm literally preaching on this tomorrow.

Because scarcity has an ability to grip all of us in this space of while supplies last, limited resources, get it now, and and while it right now may be small things in our personal life, but sometimes it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and now scarcity isn't a matter of what we lack, but it's a reflection of what we fear.

And we begin to exploit and manipulate and harm others because it's all about self-preservation.

And interestingly enough, that brings us into our passage with Zacchaeus.

But before we get there, let us get some context as to where this incredible story takes place.

The Bible tells us in the beginning that they were entering into Jericho.

Now, maybe you're familiar with Jericho, but but let me rewind time a little bit.

But Jericho is considered to be the entry point for the promised land.

If you read any Old Testament or are familiar with Old Testament theology and understanding the Exodus narrative of the children of Israel being led out of Egypt and going to the promised land, that land that is filled with milk and honey.

So this miracle takes place there.

But before the miracle kicks off, just before that, Jesus has this encounter with this man who's at the gates of Jericho.

This man was an ancestor of the people that experienced the miracle of Joshua marching around the walls and the walls coming down.

This place was sacred ground that signified the power and glory and favor of God, but yet there was a man centuries later, a descendant of the very people that promised, that stepped into the promised land, was blind.

He lost his sight.

And scripture tells us that his name was blind Bartimaeus.

So I want you to envision for a moment that blind Bartimaeus is sitting at the gates of the promises, but he can't see them.

That blind Bartimaeus, who's a descendant of the very people that escaped from Egypt, was sitting at a place where he was still dealing with his own bondage.

In other words, it's in this moment that he's sitting there asking for resources, asking for people to be a blessing to them, but then he hears that Jesus is in the vicinity.

The Bible says that he begins to lift up his voice and he says, Son of David, have mercy on me.

Jesus continues to move through the crowd and he lifts up his voice even louder.

Son of David, have mercy on me.

And then the very same disciples that watched Jesus multiply fish and loaves, the very same disciples that saw Jesus walk on water, the very same disciples that saw Jesus silence a storm went to this man who was crying out to Jesus and saying, Shh, you're too loud.

This is out of order.

This is uncomfortable.

This is not how dignified people call on the name of the Lord.

Isn't it fascinating that people who often experience miracles and breakthrough want to dictate how other people do?

You shouldn't lift your hands up during worship.

That's so undignified.

You you shouldn't lift up your voice because that's such a distraction.

You shouldn't worship that way, you shouldn't do it that way.

It's always religion that's trying to dictate how other people are supposed to engage God.

But I love that this man said, Man, miss me with all that.

Because the Bible tells me that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of the Lord.

And I hear that Jesus is here, and I'm gonna do whatever it takes for me to get Jesus' attention.

So I'm gonna lift up my voice even louder.

I'm gonna declare his name even louder.

Sometimes there are some voices in our ears that are telling us your praise doesn't matter, your worship doesn't matter, your serving doesn't matter, but I'm here to let you know that the devil is a liar.

God is drawn to your surrender, he's drawn to your worship, he's drawn to the way in which we choose to engage him.

He said, Son of David, have mercy on me.

And Jesus met him where he was and he healed him.

And so now this man who once was known as being blind Bartimaeus lost his first name, and now he said, You just gotta call me Bartimaeus.

Imagine that moment where me and me, people know you for your affliction, and you gotta decide what name am I going to respond to.

I know you for your past, but Jesus delivered me, and I'm not responding to who I was, I'm walking into who I am.

Blind Bartimaeus is no longer blind Bartimaeus, but he's Bartimaeus, and so now people are celebrating this breakthrough.

They're celebrating this miraculous moment that took place.

There's a party, and people are saying that Jesus is passing through, and inside of the same city, there's a man named Zacchaeus.

And what the Bible tells us about us, about him, is that he's a very rich tax collector.

He's of Jewish descent.

This is a man who was working for the Roman government, and in his community, he would have been incredibly despised.

He's very well known, but he's not well liked at all.

And here's why.

Because now the promised land has been invaded and occupied by Roman rule.

Don't miss this.

What we saw was a land that should have been flowing with the promises and favor of God got intertwined and dominated by government rule.

And so now you have Zacchaeus who knew what God's word says about trusting God, but he chose to compromise his beliefs and convictions to walk in unison with the governing powers.

So for the people who were people of faith, they saw the disconnect between Zacchaeus' allegiance to God and his compromise with the governing structure.

So in that community, Zacchaeus began to take the mindset of the Roman rule.

They overtaxed their population.

And what would often happen is the tax collectors would add a little bit more on top of what the government required in order to line their pockets.

So in that community, Zacchaeus would have been despised, he would have been considered a traitor, he would have been considered an outcast because he compromised his beliefs and he partnered with governing powers and he was exploiting the people for his own gain.

This happens all the time where we begin to creatively compromise and yet still feel that we're honoring God through the process.

This is the same Zacchaeus, that he sees the commotion as happening in the community.

And scripture says that when he sees everybody reacting and responding and kids running up and down the village and declaring that blind barterman has received his sight, that there's something inside of him that he says, I want to see Jesus, but he couldn't.

And Luke tells us that he couldn't because he was a man of small stature.

Now, what we know about geography and even understanding anatomy at that time, the average height for a man was around five foot five.

That was the average height.

Shout out to my short kings.

Five five.

That's like the average height.

So this might be a stretch, but Jesus was probably about five foot five, five, six, five, seven, maybe even five'eight.

That means that me and Jesus were like so all of my six foot two brothers, we see what happens to giants in the Bible.

Anyway, I digress.

We're right exactly where we need to be.

I see I to I was my savior.

I don't know about you.

Anyway, the Bible tells us, Scripture tells us that this man was short in stature.

So if the average height is about five foot five, many scholars speculate that he was probably about four feet tall.

We're talking about a hobbit.

Grown man, big feet, hairy ears, wanting to see Jesus.

And the thing that we know about height that I think is so captivating is that is that 80% of your height is determined by your parents.

It's all in the DNA.

It's just passed down.

Only 20% is connected to what we eat in the environment we live in.

80% is literally just passed down genetically.

So here's why this is so significant.

Because his entire life, not only is he a man that's small in stature, he doesn't fit in with the crowd, he's being mocked and made fun of, but he inherited his biggest dysfunction.

Have you ever felt that you were just born into a situation that you didn't even ask for?

Man, I'm just born into a broken family and I didn't ask for this.

I'm I'm born into a family system of abuse and trauma and I didn't ask for it.

I'm born into suffering and I didn't.

Ask for it.

I was just born into chaos.

Studies have literally shown that children who were born as the descendants of slavery, who were born as the descendants of the Holocaust, literally have pre-wired in them a disposition to have higher doses of anxiety.

It's literally built into the DNA because of what has been passed down from generation to generation.

And this is why scripture talks about generational curses.

It's not God coming down and judging you before what your dad did, but it's generational patterns that continue to repeat over and over again until we break the cycle.

This is why the language of Jesus, when he was speaking with Nicodemus, when he said that you must be born again.

Because what Jesus was helping us to recognize is that it doesn't matter what you're born with when you're born again, because the blood of Jesus does a transfusion that allows us to become new in Christ Jesus.

So does my past exist absolutely?

But I am the newness to Christ.

I've been washed in the Savior's blood, and now a new story can be told.

My past doesn't define me because I've been made new by the blood of Jesus.

What we see in scripture is that Zacchaeus had a desire to see Jesus that he couldn't because the crowd was blocking his view.

That everybody's celebrating the goodness of God, everyone's celebrating the activities of Jesus, they're celebrating that that blind bar of man's received his sight, and he wants to see it, but he can't.

It is possible to be in a crowd of people that are celebrating the goodness of God, but you can't see it for yourself.

It's possible to be in a crowd of people that are talking about the goodness and the miracles that they've seen in their own lives, but you can't see it for yourself.

Let me make it plain for some people in the room.

It is possible to be on the worship team and to sing God's presence into the hearts of the people, but feel void of God yourself.

It is possible to be on the prayer team and to lay hands on people and watch them tell you stories of how God has moved on their behalf when you're still waiting for your miracle yourself.

It is possible to be a person that can read God's word and encourage someone else while you yourself are still feeling discouraged.

It is possible to lift your hands and worship and people see your commitment to God while you yourself are still struggling with your addiction.

What I want you to know, it's possible to be in a crowd of people that are celebrating the goodness of God while you're still waiting for your breakthrough.

It is possible to be in this place where I don't know when my breakthrough is coming and I can't see Jesus for myself.

But it's in these moments that we serve the God of the impossible, that just because I can't see him now, that maybe God wants to shift something in my life that requires me to break free from my comfort.

So the Bible tells us that Zacchaeus, who was in this crowd that could see Jesus, but he couldn't see it for himself, that he had to make a decision.

And many times when we're discouraged, when we're doing everything we can do to have an encounter with God, but there's crowds that are blocking our view, the lives of the enemy blocking our view, the addiction is blocking our view, our pain is blocking our view, our struggles are blocking our view, that it's in those moments that it can either paralyze or it can provoke us.

And thanks be to God that for Zacchaeus, he didn't allow it to paralyze him, it provoked him to do something different.

And what the scripture says is that as he began to recognize that if I stay here, I will always be here.

Did you catch that?

If I stay here, this is as far as I'm ever gonna go.

So so he made up in his mind I have to reposition myself in order for me to experience my breakthrough.

So the Bible says that he was able to identify based off of the momentum of Jesus where Jesus was going to be.

So he broke free from the crowd and his curiosity overrode his comfort.

He broke free from the crowd because he was able to discern where Jesus was going to be.

What if every time we come together on Sundays, we approached it with a mindset of saying, I know that Jesus is going to meet me there?

Because so often, and I can speak to my own calendar, when I look at my schedule and I'm looking at the places that I gotta be in, or there are meetings that I need to cancel or things I need to adjust, it's it's me measuring against what other priorities are happening in my life, and time is finite.

But but what if we honestly believe that when I get to this place, I'm gonna meet Jesus?

I wonder if we would begin to look at our calendar differently if we truly believe that this is the place where I can have an encounter with Jesus.

Because I think so often that when we begin to talk about the varying things that are happening in church, the varied things that are happening in community, we're thinking of, does it fit my calendar?

Instead of me saying, Does my calendar fit my desire to have a meeting with the living Savior?

Last Sunday, or last Wednesday, that is, we had a worship night, and this place was full of people that were positioning themselves to pursue and experience the presence of God.

And the glory of the Lord fell down, and people got breakthrough, people got healed, people got filled with the spirit because some folks made a decision that I don't care what's happening in my calendar, I know on Wednesday at 6:30 there's an opportunity for me to have a meeting with Jesus.

I wonder what that would look like for some of our sisters today.

If you said, Like, I know that Friday is not always the most convenient time.

I've worked all week, it's been a long week, but we're gonna have a sisterhood gathering on Friday, and I'm gonna do whatever it takes for me to get there because I know that there is a meeting with Jesus.

What I want to encourage us with is stop looking at these moments for divine encounters as opportunities and look at them as priorities.

That maybe Jesus is challenging us to step outside of our comfort, step out of our control, step out of our preference to position us in order to have an encounter with him.

And Zacchaeus broke free from the crowd, and the scripture says that he began to ran, to run to get ahead of it.

Rich people didn't run back then.

That's not what you do.

Man, like I can just walk.

But Zacchaeus, this four-foot short king with a heart to see Jesus, hiked up his little dress and began to run because he says, I'm not concerned about how this looks as long as I can look at him.

I'm not concerned about how I look as long as I can look at him.

He he broke free from what people would have thought about him so that he can have an encounter with the living God, and it goes even further.

He then begins to climb a tree.

This is childish behavior.

Grown men, little men, they don't they don't they don't climb trees.

That's that's for kids.

But I wonder if that is what Jesus was referring to when he says that those who come to me must come to me like little children.

And the thing that I love about little children is they don't care nothing about what nobody thinks.

They'll play all by themselves, they'll have whole conversations by themselves.

They know how to self-entertain and they're not consumed with others' things until they begin to get into that preteen stage and then they begin to overthink it.

I wonder if some of us need to go back to having childlike faith where I can say, I'm pursuing God, and I don't care what you say about him.

I'm gonna chase after Jesus, I don't care what you think about it, I don't care what you say about me changing my perspective, but I'm willing to do whatever it takes in order for me to position myself to have an encounter with my Lord, and and it paid off because the Bible says that as he positions himself in the sycamore tree, he's he's there looking and shock and all, and Jesus is walking and he stops and he looks at this man and he calls him by his first name.

Zacchaeus, hurry up and come down, man.

I need to I need to stay at your house tonight.

This is such a controversial move by Jesus because in that community, Zacchaeus was a traitor.

In that community, Zacchaeus was sinful, he was flawed, and rabbis didn't commune with people like that.

So the Pharisees began to whisper and say, Can you believe that Jesus is going to go and spend time with this guy, this notorious sinner, this tax collector?

Do you know what he has done?

And interestingly enough, Jesus calls him by his name, which means pure.

The world was calling him corrupt, but Jesus was calling him pure because I believe that when Jesus looks at us, he doesn't look at us for what we've done, he calls out who we are, and he calls purity out of this man.

And now we see this beautiful convergence of hospitality and holiness.

Because I understand, I've seen all the TikTok threads, I've I've seen enough on social media where they we have these self-proclaimed experts on what Christians can and can't do, things we should and shouldn't do, places we we should and shouldn't go.

And I I love watching people pontificate and and and ramble on about you should never go see this movie, you should never go and do these things, we should never do that, and we don't even recognize that we are literally copying and pasting the behavior of the Pharisees.

Because somehow in our minds we made ourselves believe that holiness means to be isolated and separate.

But that is not biblical holiness.

The way that the Bible describes and defines holiness, it's not isolation from others, but it's a concentrated space that we invite God in for him to consecrate.

Don't miss that.

Holiness is not being removed from society, but it's inviting God into a concentrated space and declaring it as holy.

That means that Jesus was able to step into Zacchaeus's home and turn it into holy ground because of the God that was in him.

What if God was inviting us to remain in fellowship with people who are distant from him?

Not for us to feel as if the big bad world is out to get me and let's isolate and stay away from them.

But maybe God is saying, this place becomes holy because you're walking in the holiness of God.

So hospitality is holiness wearing an apron.

It's when I'm able to be a person that can embody the love and character of Jesus in a way that invites people to have an encounter with the living God because it's the goodness of God that brings us to repentance.

But somehow we still believe that it's the judgment of God, the wrath of God, the anger of God.

But the Bible tells us over and over again it's God's love that draws people into his loving arms.

Now I want you to hear me.

We have to use wisdom on where we go.

We absolutely have to use discernment on the places we go to.

I like to say it this way: don't put yourself in the area of your weakness and expect God's strength.

If you struggle with alcohol, don't say, hey, I'm gonna go to this bar, I'm gonna witness there.

There's probably another place you can do that at.

That's not your strength.

I remember back, oh much time we got.

Okay, quick story.

I remember back when I was in Jacksonville, and there was this ministry that was being birthed.

And the ministry was one where it was like, hey, we believe that God is calling us to go into the strip clubs and minister to the girls that are there.

It was a beautiful idea, beautiful idea.

They made an announcement for it at our young adult service, and every dude there said, Yeah, put me in.

Sign me up.

I'm like, absolutely not.

Absolutely not.

So, yes, we have to use wisdom on are there places that we should go, and if that is, if that makes sense.

But what I can tell you, there were a committed group of women that did feel called to go into that space, and we literally began to see revival taking place in the strip club.

There was actually a young lady that was there, and she would take pictures of the mirrors, and she would see that people were actually posting message notes from sermons they were going to.

They would pray before they went out there and said, Lord, send us somebody, send us some dollar bills, send us some$5, send us some$20.

They were praying for the wrong thing, but at least they were calling on the name of the Lord.

We'll get their theology fixed later, sooner or later.

But we began to see is transformation began to take place because people felt called to go into environments that others would have done would have identified as being off limits.

My point is, you never know what someone is calling to do if Jesus is in it.

So instead of us having comments on everything that we see, maybe we can just simply pray that God's glory can be found in it.

And what scripture tells us is that in this moment, while they were outside talking about Jesus and Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus was inside repenting to Christ.

You never know what's going on on the inside of people, or we're outside judging and offering criticism.

And this is where it all comes together.

Zacchaeus, this man who was rejected in his community, to Zacchaeus, this man who, because of scarcity, was exploiting his own people.

He had one encounter with Jesus, and he went from living a life that was closed-handed to living a life of open hands.

Literally, scripture tells us that after he has this encounter with Jesus, he says two things.

He said, Lord, anyone that I have taken advantage of, I'm going to make it right.

We call that justice.

And anyone that I have exploited financially, I'm going to return to them four times.

We call that generosity.

One encounter, a man who lived and operated in scarcity, went from greed and keeping everything to himself to recognizing that God's abundant love was poured out on him and he was welcome with open arms, so it allowed him to have open hands.

I truly believe for every single one of us that open arms leads to open hands.

That when we can be encapsulated by the open arms of Jesus and the rich mercy and grace that he pours out on us, it allows us to live a life that's open-handed.

I don't have to hoard because my God is a provider.

I don't have to have scarcity because my God has a cattle on a thousand hills.

I don't have to keep everything to myself because I know that God has called me to be a conduit to be a blessing to others.

Having scarcity is not about what you don't have.

It's being free and recognizing who you can trust.

That is what God wants to bring us freedom in.

There will always be more bills, there will always be more things.

But if we continue to function with scarcity, we will not tap into the abundance that God has made available for us.

And not only does it happen every single day, but we see it happen even in our community.

A few months ago, we we announced that we are in partnership with Young Lives, a community that's of teenage mothers, and we provide resources and funding and pampers and a bunch of other things in order to try to bless these young ladies who are navigating adulthood while still being teens themselves.

And every year they have a camp where they have revival and prayer and they're really in calling on the name of the Lord, but that camp is expensive, and so they reached out to us and said, Hey, we would we would love if you guys would consider partnering with us and just helping to pay for camp for some of these young girls that they literally can change their lives.

We put the call out and we had a family.

Many of you responded, but we had a family specifically that felt so compelled to do it that they paved the way for one of the precious young ladies, and it literally is about to bring about transformation.

But she could tell the story better than I can.

So let's turn our attention to the screens and listen to Natalia's story.

My name is Natalia Valendia, Saragneese, and we've been part of this amazing community for four years.

It's hard because like telling a story it's so it's like the romance story that I have with God, you know, from the beginning of my childhood.

From in Columbia living a very, very comfortable life to my parents losing everything.

My sister and I are originally well, my whole family were originally from Bogota, Colombia.

So when we came to the States, my parents struggled during the financial stages because of I think them not educating themselves in the process of moving here.

And we ended up moving here.

We came through some really hard times.

We didn't know anybody, didn't really have a community, so my mom's priority was to find a church, and they were able to really be giving it to us.

The church that we ended up going had a great youth group.

They had so many events that kept us engaged, like just amazing.

And I was like, oh my gosh, wait, church can be really, really fun.

We went to camp.

Camp was like amazing like summer.

We had a summer because of the sponsorships.

My sister and I, and we knew there was always a fee, but I never felt like oh, I I won't be able to participate because of the community that was in and how giving the church was for our family.

And it was beautiful, and so that was life-changing to me because somebody allowed that seed to be planted in like my heart and for me to grow it and nourish it throughout the lifetime in the way that God wanted it to somebody that was so giving that it allowed me and my sister, and I'm sure other kids that were in the camp to experience something amazing.

The person that sponsored it, I don't know who it was, but they don't know what an impact it made in my life.

So when I heard about the opportunity, my husband and I just love helping the young community get because it's hard when they're an age and they want to be a part of something.

So if you could alleviate just the nouns of that, why wouldn't it?

You know, so that's that's where that strong part comes from.

Funny enough, when my husband and I got together, we didn't have any funds of any.

We shared the common uh trend of not having good credit or anything good, and I remember we know we needed a future, and we went to the bank and got put, and uh, I still remember her name to this day in our lives, and I told her, we don't know what to do.

I need your help.

She goes, I'm gonna explain it to you like I'm explaining it to my son, so I want you to know it comes from a loving way.

And I go, Please, that's actually the language that I needed to be explained in.

And from just understanding that aspect and then putting in the work, my husband and I, we were committed to break a pattern in both of our families.

We talk about finances a lot as in like being able to give and how we can help because we know we're doing it together and we're able to be a better team and spread more of God's blessings if we do that together to do that.

I am financially free because I know where my finances come back, and they're from God.

And I'm not relying towards a boss, a client, or anything that's like, I'm relying upon God for those finances to come back.

Now it wasn't always that way.

That was those were lessons, those were seasons that I went through in order to be able to see it this way.

I think he prepared me from having everything and to losing everything and not being attached to things.

If you think that once your bills are all paid on time and you have money left over that, then you'll get the tithe that we're giving.

But we're humans, we're creature of habits, and that's not gonna change.

You're always gonna have something that comes back.

There's never gonna be a perfect.

And ecclesiastics, that's what it's about.

Everything that we live and we can't take anything with us.

So, what's the point of according to these things that don't even belong to us if we can't take them?

I just rather give it all to him that is my everything.

And why would I want to keep any of that just to myself?

Even as possible.

If somebody was able to do that for me back in the day, and I'm able to multiply it now.

Imagine how that's even gonna spread anymore in the future.

Why wouldn't I?

Why wouldn't I eat my husband?

Because it's both of us, but yeah, that's it.

That's all I would want to share with you.

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