Change Breaks Chains | Ps. Keith Pittman

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What's going on, church family?

How are you guys doing?

Happy Mother's Day to all of our amazing moms.

Can we give it up for all of our mothers, our mother figures, our aunties?

We're so, so thankful that you are here with us today.

My name is Keith, and you guys were introduced to my wife Megan, and we have the incredible privilege of serving as the lead pastors here at Celebration Orlando.

And we're really glad that all of you are here with us today, whether you're in person, um, joining us online, maybe you're in our family lounge, or maybe you stumbled across our podcast.

However, you found yourself here with us today.

We don't believe that there's any accidents that you're here, not only for us to celebrate our moms and the women in our lives, but but also to hear a word from the Lord.

Can we get a good amen to that?

But I also recognize something unique about today and what today really does symbolize.

Um, I recognize that today is a day in which we honor and celebrate our moms, our aunties, the the women that have been so crucial in our lives, mentors and other women of influence.

But we also hold space for the complexity of what today can represent.

Um, for women who are longing for children, um women who have buried their mom, or women who have buried a child.

Um today can be sometimes very hard to process through it.

We also recognize that there could be complicated relationships and memories attached to what today signifies and relationships that are struggling or broken.

And so I want you guys to know that we see you, we we hear you, we love you, we are we are for you.

Um and we trust that the God who comforts us all will lead you and be with you in this season.

So today we want to honor all of these women, the women in our church, whether you're a mom, auntie, any of the categories we spoke about, and we have a couple of days that we're ways that we're doing that here as a community.

When you came in, um you passed by two different stations, and basically these are meant to be gifts for our community.

One of our stations is a fragrance bar.

And so we have an assortment of amazing fragrances that we want the moms, the women who've poured into your life, give it for yourself, give it for the women in your life.

We want to make that available to you and your community.

Just as our way of honoring you and thanking you for so much for the investment that you have in our church as well as in the women in our church and for those who've influenced you.

But we also have uh a juice bar that's available, and that's for the entire community.

We all can connect with it.

We all can go out and personalize our drinks.

It's gonna be an amazing way to be refreshed with these beverages, connecting community.

We have some pictures we can take out there.

So as we conclude service today, make sure you don't rush out of here for the women.

Go and get your fragrance for all the rest of us.

Make sure we go and get our drinks and spend some time today and really just celebrate what God is doing through today.

Can we get an amen on that?

Okay, so before we get into our word, there's a couple of other things I want to get into as well.

Ordinarily on Mother's Day, and I think it's been like this probably for the past 15 years or so, Megan has been primarily the woman that would speak on platform on Mother's Day.

Um, that's just kind of been our tradition.

We've seen it in the communities and traditions that we've been connected to over um the years.

And I would say probably the past three years, I started sensing a little bit of a shifting um in that regard.

And here's what I here's what I mean by um that.

We know that every time that Megan gets on this platform that she speaks the gospel and it's impactful and it's imparting into the lives of not only the women but also the people that are part of our church.

But I remember it's last year specifically after we concluded our Mother's Day service.

I was like, hey, did you have an opportunity to connect with a lot of moms?

Did you have some meaningful conversations?

And she said, yes, but no, because because she was preaching, a lot of her energy was meant to be shepherding the platform, which also relied required her to kind of disconnect from community just uh a little bit.

And I saw that that's a major burden for her.

And so I also began to think about like, hey, what better way than to honor um the mother of this house to not have her on platform speaking, but for her to sit and receive.

Um so I wanted to honor her in that way.

So I want to be very, very clear for our sisters that are here.

I want you to hear me very closely.

Um, I'm preaching today, not because um we lack anointed women in this house.

Our house is filled with anointed women in this house.

We honor you, and I want you ladies to hear me very closely.

We create space for you.

Sisters, your voices are valuable on the stage, on the pulpit, with singing, with decisions and strategies and prayer circles.

Everywhere a kingdom decision is made, we need the voice of our women to be present in that faith as well.

But today y'all are stuck with me.

And Megan, don't get too excited because you might be preaching next week.

This is just a one-week mulligan, but we are ready to get into today's verb.

If you have your Bibles, uh, I want to invite you to join me in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter number one.

Matthew chapter number one.

And while you're turning there, I want to give us a little bit of context and some things that we want to make available to us.

First and foremost, we're we're we're in our series called Free Indeed.

It's birthed out of John chapter 8, verse number 36.

John 8 · chapter mention

And here's what the text says it says, If the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.

This is a major theme for me personally because this is one of the transformational messages, but honestly, movements that's kind of galvanized my relationship with God, but also in a way in which I want to lead people was to recognizing that God desires for all of us to be free.

So over the past couple of weeks, we talked about getting free, staying free, and setting others free.

We talked about what it means to be unrestrained, unbound.

Um, and so for us, this is not meant to just be a series of messages and we move on to the next thing, but it's meant to be the beginning of a movement.

And so, what we wanted to do to kind of capitalize on the season, but to continue it as much as we could, we want to make some resources available to our community.

So if you are a part of our church family or you're intrigued by this content, I want to invite you to download our app if you haven't done it already.

Just go into whatever um device you're using, go and look for a church center app.

Inside of that app, look for Celebration Church Orlando.

And once you sign up or once you download the app, you'll be given the option and you'll see at the bottom portion of the screen a section called Groups.

If you click that and then click on unique groups, you'll see where it says Free Indeed, the name of our series.

What I need you to do is when you click that, join it.

Join in.

And what that will do is that as we update resources, as we put Bible reading plans in here, as we make resources available to our community, suggestions and care things, you'll be notified so that you can engage this in a way that is meaningful for you, but we want to make sure we make it available for you.

So instead of us doing a churchwide push to everyone every time we do something, we're inviting you.

So download our app, go into the groups area, click on free indeed, join the group.

It's not a physical location, but it's more so the theme of our church.

And as you we populate it with new content, you're gonna be the first to know and be encouraged through it.

Can we get a good amen around that?

Okay, so now that we're getting into our text for today, you'll find that with the gospel of Matthew, specifically, he really wants to help us to understand the genealogy of Jesus, the bloodline, the background of Jesus.

What we recognize is that genealogy in the biblical context is not meant to be ancestry.com, but it was actually something more deep.

It was meant to serve as a resume.

It also was a source of your identity that would allow you to gain property, it let people know what lineage you were connected to, what what resources were available to you depending on the bloodline that you came from.

It was a proof of your tribe, your title.

And in Israel's case, it allowed them to recognize the bloodline that the Messiah was going to come through.

So genealogy is a really big deal, and you'll see this at different points throughout scripture where they're listing all of these names that for some of us can seem wild or we don't aren't familiar with them, but each of them have significant meaning because it's allowing us to understand that there's history and people attached to it.

So in Matthew's gospel, he brings us through a genealogy that leads us ultimately to Jesus.

And looking at verse number five and verse number six of Matthew chapter one, it says this.

It says Salmon, um, the father whose father was Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.

Boab was the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.

Obed was the father of Jesse, Jesse was the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother was Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah.

Now again, I know I just read off a bunch of names and maybe some of them stood out, maybe some of them have meaning for you, but something that's so powerful that Matthew does in his genealogy is he literally lists the name of four unique women in his genealogy.

Quite honestly, most genealogies were typically connected through the men, and that was pretty much it.

But Matthew wanted to pull in some dynamics with the women, but it's not that he just wanted to include the women in the genealogy of Jesus.

He also wanted us to understand some background.

Because when we look at the names that he mentions, Matthew mentions Tamar, he mentions Rahab, he mentions Ruth, and then he also mentions Bathsheba.

Now, when we understand the background of some of these women, we are brought into a journey of something that's really profound.

Two of the women were Gentiles.

One was a former prostitute, and the other one was caught up in a cheating scandal.

Their inclusion signals how scandalous the gospel of grace can sometimes be.

It shows us that the Messiah's bloodline was wise enough for broken, for outsiders, and their stories have meaning and value as well.

The thing I love about the kingdom is that it doesn't hide the mistakes of our heroes.

It doesn't hide the struggles of people, but it includes it to let us know that God can work even through those circumstances.

And in this case, looking at the woman of Ruth.

So I want to reverse engineer how Ruth's name is literally written in the lineage of Jesus, but how did it get there?

Her story is told in the Old Testament in the book of Ruth, and we're going to spend some time unpacking some dynamics of her story to understand how the decisions we make today can determine the legacy that we live tomorrow.

So if you're taking notes, and I hope that you are, I've entitled today's message, Change Breaks Chains.

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 faithfulness.

We thank you for your word and the opportunity to stand before um your people and to gather in community.

Today we honor um the women in this house.

We honor the mothers, the mothers to be, the those who desire to be mothers, those who have complex nuances when it comes to this.

We hold space for them, we love them, we see them, and we know that you are working in and through them.

Father, I just pray over the next few moments that I decrease and that you increase.

Lord, I pray um that you give us open eyes to see you, open ears to hear you, and open hearts to receive everything that you have for us.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen and amen.

You know, having lived here in Orlando for six years now, we're closing in on our six-year anniversary, um, I've I've learned a lot over the six years, particularly with trying to navigate this very beautiful but complex city.

Having been a family that lives out in their Winter Garden, Windermere area, but all of the things that we participate in is kind of like adjacent to downtown.

You can imagine our commute is pretty exhaustive on a day-to-day basis.

So I orient a lot of my life around like how quickly can we get home?

And I've learned that getting home has a cost associated with it.

Every month, you should see my toll bill that comes in every single month.

Like it's it's nauseating.

I'm trying to do a better job.

But every time, no matter what day of the week it is, if we're in the downtown area in Maitland where we do counseling, when I look, I get out into the car, I look at the I look at my map, and I try to make a decision on what's the quickest way that's going to get me home.

And then I begin to navigate through if I take the toll road, it's gonna shave off five minutes.

Is that five minutes worth seven dollars?

Some of you may say yes, some of you may say no, but you don't know my struggle.

I just want to get home.

So more often than not, I'm going in a direction that's gonna get me home as quick as possible.

So just last week, um, it was a long day, I was tired, and I just wanted to get home.

You ever just like, I just need to get home?

Like, that's just home.

I just need to, I just need to get home.

I just need to get to my bed, I want to walk in the house, I don't want anybody to say anything to me.

I just want to walk in, I just need to get home.

It was one of those days for me.

I get into the car and I open up my map and I see that it's gonna be 58 minutes to get home.

So I'm like, okay, the devil is a liar.

So I I open up my other map to see if they're gonna give me different information.

They said 56 minutes.

We're getting better.

So now I open up another map to see if maybe they're gonna give me a different direction that maybe can shave this dang down to 48 minutes.

Can I get 48?

Can I get 45?

Anybody got 46?

I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I'm just trying to see if I can lower the time in order for me to get home.

So I have four maps open all at the same time, and they're all around the 50-minute to 56 minute mark.

I'm like, this is insane to me.

This is now I understand those pastors who take up offerings so they can get helicopters in their city.

So we're gonna take up an offering, um, close the doors.

Um I'm just kidding, I'm joking, I'm joking.

Come on, y'all, stick with me.

Y'all know how I roll.

Okay, but seriously, close the door.

Okay, so um I'm not taking an offering for that, but the jet is coming.

So, so I'm trying to make a decision on what is the best way for me to get home.

I finally look and see that there's only like a minute or two, maybe five at the most, of differences between all of the four maps.

So I make my decision on which route I'm gonna go and I'm off.

About 15 minutes into the ride, I'm just kind of riding and then I hear the voice tell me, hey, um, in about two miles, you're gonna get off in the exit to the right.

I put myself in the position because I feel like any good driving person knows that if my exit is coming up, let me go ahead and get into that lane and not wait until the last minute to cut people off.

I'm not talking about anybody, but you know who you are.

Like, so I'm trying my best to be a good citizen as I'm on the road, but as I'm on this journey, I also hear another voice tell me, hey, and another mile and a half, get in your left lane and you're gonna take the express pathway.

Conflicting information that's giving me a little bit of confusion, but then there's another voice that comes on and says, get off now, make a right and take a U-turn.

So now I feel as if my vehicle is in the midst of having some kind of schizophrenic shock.

Because I'm getting all of these different voices that are coming in that are giving me conflicting information.

I just want to get home, but now I have all these voices coming at me, and and I'm driving, I'm trying to stay focused on the road, but I got all these voices, and it occurs to me that all four of my maps are still all open and they're speaking to me at the same time.

And each of them are telling me that I should be doing something different, and it was overwhelming, it was very confusing.

So I'm trying to figure out which voice do I listen to.

The voice is telling me that I should keep going straight, but it's all red there.

I have another voice telling me to get off immediately, cut off somebody if I have to.

I have another voice telling me to get off at this one exit, travel down this back alley road and make some U-turns, maybe run over some people, but make sure I get back up.

I got all these different voices that are speaking to me, so I just kind of hold my breath and I take the direction of the one that's telling me to get off at the most immediate exit.

I get off at this exit, I make a couple of U-turns, and I'm literally in a part of town that I'm completely unfamiliar with.

I'm on roads that I've never been on before, but would you guys imagine I shaved seven minutes off of my ride?

You couldn't tell me I wasn't Dominic Toretto.

I was like just getting after it.

Like I was I was I felt so good about myself because I was like, man, like you ever like have a competition when it says that you're gonna get there in 18 minutes and you get there in 13, you get out like I got out a little bit quicker than I had anticipated.

I felt so free and amazing.

And it made me think about how sometimes in life we all just want to make it to our destinations.

That sometimes in life that we all just want to get to where we know that we're supposed to be.

But but the truth of the matter is, because life is life, because life is complex, there are moments that we have these bottlenecks, these moments where we're we're hit with unexpected delays and these traffic jams in life where it seems as if we're not making progress.

And it's in those moments that we have so many voices that begin to speak to us and tell us which way we should go.

One voice is telling you, man, you need to stay with him and stick it out.

Another voice is telling you that it's never gonna work out, you need to leave.

Another voice telling you that you need to quit that job and find a better job.

You have another voice telling you, no, stay at that job and persevere through it.

That's a it's a testimony.

We have all of these conflicting voices that can sometimes lead us to a place of confusion.

This is exactly a part of Ruth's story.

But before we get to Ruth, we have to understand some of the characters and people that are all a part of us getting to where she begins to take the primary spotlight.

See, there's a guy in the Bible, and his name is Amimelech, but his name is so complicated as I just stuttered over it, so we're going to call him Amili.

Amili.

Amelie Amili.

So Amili was trying his best to take care of his family.

He's living literally in Bethlehem.

And while he's living in Bethlehem, a name that legitimately means house of bread, house of provision, house of blessing.

While he's living there, the Bible tells us that he experiences a famine.

Now, when you look at the biblical concept of famine, it literally means an oppressive squeezing, a pressure.

That means that there was no more resources.

There was, there was, the, that the well has run dry.

That means that a place that should be providing life was no longer able to sustain the life that they were trying to live.

This is where Amelia with his family, and he's trying to make a decision on what am I supposed to do.

Some of us are familiar with what a famine can look like for us.

It's the marriage that once used to have exhaustive communication where it would be, you hang up, no, you hang up, no, you hang up, no, you hang up to not even speaking to one another.

It's the job that we couldn't sleep at night because we couldn't wait to wake up in the morning to get there, to tackle the day and to make a difference, to now being the place that drains us and wonder why we're here in the first place.

It's the prayer life that when we used to pray, and before we could say, in Jesus' name, it seemed like the anointing would come, doors would open, and everything would just work out.

To now we're wondering if God even hears us.

I think all of us know what it feels like to sometimes be in a famine.

And when those famine seasons hit, we find ourselves looking in every direction of a voice that can somehow lead us to maybe a quick fix.

So for Millie and his family, he said, Man, like I know that right now Bethlehem doesn't have what we need, so we're we're we're gonna go to the next town over.

We're gonna go over to Moab.

Now, Moab is the town that's about 90 miles away.

It's it's it's a place that the Israelites were told to avoid.

It's it was scandalous in its nature.

It was it was a little chaotic there.

I'm trying to give us a geographic reference.

It would probably be like Polk County, Lakeland, or something.

I'm not anti-Lakeland.

I graduated from college there, but I'm just trying to give you the imagery of like, okay, like there's some there's some distance between the two, and we recognize that maybe there's some chaos and some things there that we want to do our best to avoid.

But but but when Amelie hears that, but but Lakeland, they have some stuff that we need, they have some resources we need.

So he picks up his family and he moves there, but there's something so significant that the text says that we can almost overlook.

It says that he took his family there, and it says, and he remained there.

What you'll find that for most people in biblical scholarship is that whenever a famine would be happening, you would temporarily go to a place in order to get stability and then bring those resources back to your homeland.

But for Emily, it says that when he got there, there was something about the environment that probably made him feel comfortable.

There was probably something about the resources there that made him seem like this is a place that he could be successful.

So he remained there.

I think that sometimes we can find ourselves in seasons that are meant to be temporary, but we end up remaining there.

Places that God never intended for us to stay.

We have to be careful that if we treat our crisis strategy as a permanent solution, it can detour us into a place of a dead end.

It's a place where our mechanisms can calcify into decades long of us being in a cul-de-sac that lacks direction.

This is where Millie leads his family.

We all know those Moab places in our life.

It's the place that has food in one hand but compromise in the other.

It's the place that has a much bigger salary but much smaller ethics.

It's the relationship that may soothe us in our loneliness, but it stunts us of our destiny.

It's the clickbait shortcuts that feeds our curiosity, but it stars us of conviction.

It's the place that seems very logical at first, but if we're honest with ourselves, is pulling us away from the direction that God has ultimately called us to be in.

And what we find as a result, that as a result of them remaining there for 10 years, calamity falls them.

Naomi, who is Amelie's wife, she not only buries her husband, but she buries her two sons as well.

That family portrait went from high definition to grayscale in 10 short verses.

And so now Naomi is met with this catalyst decision that she needs to make.

I recognize that Moab may have been able.

To relieve my stomach, but it can't resurrect my soul.

So she makes a decision that I am going to go back to where I came from.

I'm going to go back towards the direction of the promise.

I'm going to go back towards Bethlehem.

Because Bethlehem's famine may have exposed needs, but Moab's graves exposed the limitations.

So now she begins to position herself to go back to Bethlehem.

And this is the context that we are introduced to Ruth.

Because Ruth was married to one of Naomi's sons who passed away.

Ruth is met with this dilemma of losing her father-in-law, losing her husband, and losing her brother-in-law all within a 10-year window.

And it would make much sense because Ruth is from Moab.

This is her home territory.

This is where she was born and raised.

This was her community.

So when Naomi says that, hey, I'm going to go back to my homeland and I want you guys to stay here, you and your other sister-in-law, this is where you're from.

Ruth decides to make some decisions that put her name in the lineage of Jesus.

There are some times or we enter into some seasons that can serve as change if we don't allow ourselves to change.

So I want to give us three observations that we see in the life of Ruth that hopefully can be encouragement for us so that none of us can remain chained to a season that was meant to be temporary.

Here's the first thing that I want you to write down.

The first thing we need to do when we're in this space of a season that's uncomfortable, but is not what God has for us is we need to change your direction.

The first thing we need to do is we have to decide to change our direction.

For Ruth, she steps into this space where she is at home.

They have their own gods, they have their own customs, they have their own functions.

But there's something she must have seen in the life of her mother-in-law.

There's something she must have seen in the life of her husband, there's something she must have seen in the life of her father-in-law that allowed her to know there's something about you that I don't currently have in the region in which I live.

So, so I think what's best for me is for me to go in the direction of the promises of God.

In fact, when Naomi makes the decision to go back to Bethlehem, back in the direction of the promises of God, she tells her daughter-in-laws, she says, Listen, um, you guys stay here.

This is your homeland.

You're young enough, you're still vibrant enough, go and find new husbands.

There's so much more that life has to offer.

But for me, I'm a I'm a bitter woman at this point.

I've lost my husband and my two sons.

I'm gonna go back to the land we came from, try to live with some of my relatives, and just try to live out this life until God calls me home.

The one daughter-in-law named Orpa, she says, I don't want to leave you, but I understand what you're saying, and she kisses her and she leaves.

But Ruth says, Don't send me away.

In fact, what it says in Ruth 1, verse number 16, she says, Don't ask me to leave you and turn back.

But wherever you go, I will go.

And wherever you live, I will live.

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

She makes a decision to change the direction in which her life was going to go.

So they take this 90-mile journey because changing directions isn't convenient.

They take this 90-mile journey in the sun because changing direction isn't comfortable, but they are willing to endure the suffering for something so much greater.

She changes direction, and as they're on this journey, they've made up in their minds that maybe God has more for them.

I believe that there's some of us that are in here today that maybe we've been going in a direction that's opposite of God's blessing, that's opposite of God's favor.

But I believe there's an opportunity for us to change directions, to go in the direction of the things that God has for us, recognizing that yesterday's famine will not dictate tomorrow's harvest.

We can change direction recognizing that loss does not edit my legacy, that yesterday will not script my tomorrow, that maybe God has more for me, but it starts with me changing directions.

Friends, I've found that rarely is freedom found in the place where we lost it.

It requires us to move from the place that has stripped us of freedom if we actually want to walk in the destiny that God ultimately has for us.

There are these moments where God will confront us or interrupt our regularly scheduled program.

His voice begins to speak and says, Don't listen to all these other voices.

I need you to change directions.

I've shared on multiple occasions that before I gave my life to Christ, I was just a regular guy, working hard, family man.

I wasn't living for God, but I was living a life that was in honor of my family and the way that my mom raised me.

But I was still out in the streets a little bit.

And so I remember, I still remember in my mind, thinking to myself, the moment when I knew I would have a total surrender with God.

And honestly, when I tracked when I tracked my life, I said, okay, like man, I'm like 20 now.

Like I knew that my life needed to go in the direction of God, but I was pursuing music.

I still had some dreams and things I wanted to accomplish in the world.

So I said, like, man, when I get about 35, because when I was younger, 35, sent like even like you're like over the hill.

Now that I'm about to turn 15, like, I'm like, no, 75.

Like, so, but I remember when I was like 20, I'm like, hey, when I get to about 35, that's when I'm gonna change my life directly.

That's that's when I'm gonna have a powerful moment where I'm gonna be at church one day, like 35, 36, 38, maybe 42-year-old version of me, sitting in the seat, and I'm gonna hear a preacher give an altar call, and I'm gonna be like, yes, Lord, I'm ready.

Single tier, come down to the altar.

My life is gonna be radically changed, and I'm gonna become a guy who brings my Bible everywhere and highlights it all the time.

My plan was to do that when I was in my 40s.

God met me when I was 20.

So inconvenient.

Because I was pursuing my music, I was beginning to get popular with our music, we were beginning to get some traction, and I was beginning to find some shows, and watch this, I even got paid a couple of times.

I'm like, man, this is amazing.

And then God interrupts my life and says, I need you to put down the microphone and pick up a Bible.

And I remember that that moment when I wanted to do both.

Lord, like, I hear you, man.

Like, but but God can't, can't I be one of those Christians that still does whatever I want to do, but still say that I'm a follower of you?

Can't I be one of those Christians that that cusses people out but then will say, Bless you in the name of Jesus at the same time?

Can't I be one of those Christians that has a convenient faith that doesn't require anything from me?

Can't I be one of those and God said no?

I need you to change your direction.

He literally defined repentance.

And what repentance is, is not asking God to just forgive you of your sins, but it's choosing to go in a different direction.

I just need you to go a different direction.

And even while you're walking in that direction, yes, you're gonna make mistakes, but at least you're pointing the right direction.

Yes, you're gonna fall short, but at least you're falling short in the right direction.

God was challenging me to radically change the direction of my life.

What we see here with Ruth is that she had to make a decision.

Do I want to continue my life as if I'm pointed towards Moab, a place of godlessness and idolatry and obsession with greed?

Or am I willing to really orient myself around Bethlehem towards the promises of God?

And it's gonna require something of me.

It's gonna require sacrifice, it's gonna require generosity, it's gonna require a lot from me.

But we have to answer the question: who am I willing to serve?

Am I going to serve God or am I gonna serve my flesh?

But I found that you can't do both.

Maybe for some of us, that change of direction starts when we delete our ex's phone number out of our phones.

Exactly.

Block.

Maybe for some of us, it's it's leaving that toxic environment that we've tried to talk ourselves into staying in, but we know that it's costing us our very soul.

Maybe for some of us, it means putting ourselves in a position where we're no longer being fueled by the negativity of the world that's corroding our souls.

Direction decides our destiny.

And I want you guys to hear me.

Your intentions, while they may be good, your intentions don't determine your destination, your direction does.

I can have all the intentions in the world of going to Miami.

But if I get on 95 North, we're going to New York.

And I can get to New York and see the Brooklyn Bridge and be like, oh my gosh, but I thought we were going to Miami.

That may have been my intentions, but what direction was I facing?

What direction is your life facing right now?

And if it produces fruit, is it the fruit that you actually want?

I believe that God has shown us through this story of Ruth that she made a decision to change her direction, which changed the trajectory of her life.

Here's a second thing that I want us to recognize we need to do.

We need to change our posture.

We need to change our posture.

Because for Ruth, when she gets to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law, she's made aware of this dynamic that exists within the Jewish community, which is really beautiful and powerful when you look at it in its proper context.

The idea was this concept of gleaning.

And what gleaning was is that written into Levitical law, God had built into it a social justice system and a welfare plan.

And the welfare plan was this because the Israelites knew what it was like to be foreigners, because they knew what it was like to be slaves, God built into them how they're supposed to treat foreigners and how they're supposed to treat slaves.

So gleaning was a concept that was created so that when you're harvesting the land, that when you're picking up your crop, you don't pick it clean.

You intentionally leave things behind so that the foreigners, the immigrants, and the poor, the widows, those who are fatherless, when they're passing through, they have resources they can pull from.

This is God's plan in scripture.

He had a plan for the immigrant, he had a plan for the poor, he had a plan for those who were struggling, he built a plan into it.

So Ruth is made aware that, hey, maybe we're eligible to go and glean from one of these lands so that we can get the resources we need because we've lost everything we've had.

But she had to take a posture of servanthood.

Because for those who were gleaners, they were kind of like footnotes in the community.

They didn't have any land, they didn't have any notoriety, so it required them to take a posture of servanthood.

It required them to take a posture of receiving handouts, if we want to call it that.

It required them the posture of humility.

When Ruth is told to go into Boaz's land to begin to glean, it required a change of posture.

Back where she was from, she had family, she had community, she had resources.

She didn't have to position herself in a servant's posture.

But because God was calling her to position herself to receive the promises of him, it required her to change her posture.

And because she took on the posture of a servant, because she took on a posture of a person who was willing to be teachable and to be a learner, it positioned her so that she could receive the favor that God had for her.

Here's what this means for us in our modern context.

We live in a world where everyone's an expert.

We live in a world where all of us got it figured out.

We live in a world where we're one Google search, Chat GBT, or TikTok connection away from getting all the answers we need.

And we've lost the beautiful art of what it means to position ourselves to just be teachable.

There's a big difference between being teachable and being a learner.

When I'm a learner, I'm choosing to engage content on my terms.

I'm choosing what books I want to read, I'm choosing what messages I want to listen to, I'm choosing which churches I want to go to, I'm choosing those environments.

But teachable means when someone who loves me can speak into my life and it may make me feel uncomfortable, but it will absolutely make me better.

That's a lost art in our community because we get so quickly offended when someone doesn't agree with us, we just switch voices.

But what if the voice that is meant to challenge us, the voice that is meant to help us to glean from their wisdom, is actually the voice that's going to lead us to a place of profound provision.

For Ruth, because she took the posture of being teachable and being a learner, it caught Boaz's attention.

Boaz is the man who owned the land and he recognized Ruth's servant posture.

He heard about what she did with Naomi, so he said, stick close to me, and as long as you're close to me, everything you need will be provided for you.

What that means for some of us in our modern context of gleaning are who are the people that God has surrounded us with that we can glean some wisdom from?

Who are the people around us that we can glean some insight from, some encouragement from, people that can challenge us, that can speak into our lives.

It may mean serving, even though I may be a CEO in my own company.

It may mean giving, even though I have resources and things I'm trying to do in my own family.

But putting on the posture of a servant allows me to be others focused.

When we bend low, grace will reign high.

Humility gives us stability.

And what Ruth shows us is that she takes on a posture of humility.

Here's the third thing that I want to share with us.

We need to change our preparation.

We need to change our preparation.

Because when we look at the scripture, after the harvest is over and we see the favor that's on Ruth's life, Naomi sees it and she's like, listen, I think Boaz has noticed you.

Boaz is this man of influence, this man of great character, and he's seen the life of Ruth.

He's seen the way that she she carried herself.

He called her to come close into his circle and his community to make sure she had everything she needed.

So Naomi, her mother-in-law, is like, listen, he's a good man, but ain't no man that good.

He he sees something in you.

So so we need to we need to change our strategy up a little bit.

Right now, you've been going out there gleaning and you've been wearing your widow's garment, this black cloth that they would wear that symbolize that they were grieving.

You've been going out there and and and you haven't gotten your hair done in a long time.

You haven't gotten a shower in a while.

But if you but if you want to secure Boaz, it's going to require something from you.

So she says to her, Listen, I need you to go and take a bath.

It's in the Bible.

Go ahead and read it.

Ruth 3.3.

I'm just summarizing for the sake of time.

I need you to go take a bath.

And when you get out of that bath, I need you to get some perfume.

I need you to find the most expensive, nicest perfume that you can find.

Put a little behind your ear, put a little behind your ear, put some on your wrist, let it absorb into your bloodstream, and that way when you walk by, he can just smell like, mm-hmm, you smell good.

Like he's she's telling her, This is what I need you.

I need you to prepare yourself differently, and then I need you to go put on a new outfit.

Put on this new outfit.

Like I got I went with some of the stuff, I need you to put this outfit on.

And then when he's asleep at night, I want you to go in and I need you to lay at his feet.

Again, this is this is Jewish culture.

It may not make much sense to us right now.

I'm not asking anyone to break in anybody's house and lay at their feet.

You're going to jail.

You're going to jail.

Different context.

Let me let me make let me make it clear.

That may mean something different for us right now.

But but she says, lay at his feet, and when he wakes up and sees you, you're going to invite him to cover you.

And that covering was symbolism connected to Ezekiel 16 of saying that will you be my husband?

Will you allow me to be a part of your family?

And he would take on the role of what we call the kinsman redeemer, redeeming the land for our family.

It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful message.

But Ruth had to prepare for it.

So even though Boaz had favor on Ruth, she had to prepare herself to receive the favor.

I want to help shake us into reality for a minute.

Because one of the things that I think can challenge us as followers of Christ is that we have said, I have said it on platform and I believe it that what God has for you is for you.

Nobody can close a door that God has open.

That's a powerful idea.

And it's also very, very true.

At the same time, we need to live a life of preparation.

Because sadly, we will think that what God has for me is for me, means that I don't have to live a disciplined life.

We can think that because God is for me, I don't have to do anything at all.

I'll just sit back and wait.

But imagine if Noah waited for the first raindrop before he started preparing for the ark.

Imagine if the woman who had the issue of blood said, Well, if God wants to heal me, he's going to heal me.

I don't need to press through that crowd.

But there was something inside of her that says that when my action meets faith, has an encounter with God, that's where transformation takes place.

I believe for some of us, we've been sitting on the sidelines.

When God has been inviting us, I need you to participate in the miracle that you want to see.

We need to prepare ourselves.

And listen to me.

This could be for our brothers, but also for our sisters.

I've heard it so often.

I'm just waiting for my Boaz.

I'm waiting for my Boaz.

He's gonna show up, he's gonna change my life, he's gonna redeem me, and we're gonna live an amazing life.

But hear my heart when I say this, you guys know me.

You can't expect Boaz outcomes if you're not putting out Ruth output.

Prepare yourself.

Because if you don't, you'll miss out on Boaz, but you'll get his brother.

Broke as.

Poor as.

No credit as.

But he got some siblings.

You gotta choose which as do you want.

But if you want Boaz, which literally means strength, you're gonna have to position yourself to receive the strength that God wants to pour towards you.

I've learned over and over again that God's favor flows through prepared vessels.

And I believe that God is inviting us that we need to prepare.

Change the aroma in the atmosphere with a prayer life that serves God.

Change the garments and saying that I'm no longer in that season, but God is leading me in a different direction.

Saturating myself with the truth of God's word and shifting the atmosphere.

I believe that God is leading us all towards the next space, but we have to prepare.

I believe that preparation is when our faith wears work boots.

Let's put them on and let's get active.

Here's the fourth and final thing, and I'm gonna wrap this up really quick.

We need to change your people.

Because going back to the part of the story that we began with, Ruth had a sister-in-law named Orpa.

They both were married to brothers, and both of those brothers passed away.

So Naomi says, Listen, I'm going back to Bethlehem.

You two ladies, stay in Moab, and God bless you where you go.

So Orpah was like, Man, I hear what you're saying.

I love you so much, but you got a good point.

I'm gonna go back to living in the same space, doing the same things that I was doing.

And the truth is, we don't hear her name again in scripture.

It doesn't mean that she went off into despair, but her story ends.

But we see for Ruth, she says, No, wherever you go, I will go.

Your gods will become my gods, I will live and die with you.

And as a result of that, she positions herself to not only marry the kinsman redeemer, but she ends up being the very vessel that gives birth to King David's grandfather, who gives birth to King David's father, who then gives birth to King David, which whose line gave birth to Jesus.

This woman made a decision, and now her name is written in the Bible forever.

And it includes the Gentiles because she made a decision, because she chose different people.

I think all of us sometimes don't consider how valuable the people in our lives are.

And some of us are connected to people that are leading us astray.

And I believe that there are moments when we have to make a decision.

Am I gonna stay connected to people that are leading me to do the same thing or not make progress?

Or am I connecting myself to a wise Naomi that's gonna lead me into places that may be uncomfortable, but also can lead me to a place of legacy.

Sometimes we have to change our people if we want to change the change in our life.

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

Maybe there's a season that you find yourself in and you don't want to get trapped there.

Or as the scriptures say, you don't want to remain there.

And you recognize that that there's a there's some change that need to be broken off of the current season that you're in, whatever that may be.

But you recognize that that there's a grace here that I just need to make a decision.

I need some change in order to break these chains.

If that's you, you're just in a season that you don't intend on staying in.

On account of three, I just want you to boldly lift your hand up.

One, two, three, hands up.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you, amen.

Hands up, all over, amen.

You can go ahead and put those hands down.

I want to invite you all to stand on your feet.

We're gonna go into a song of worship to reinforce God's promises.

And what I truly believe is that God inhabits our praise, he inhabits our worship, and I believe that chains break in the space of worship.

And I believe that there may be some next steps that all of us need to take, and we'll give you some of those in just a moment.

But I believe it starts with us going in the direction of worship.

So as we go into this time of worship, I want us to lift our hands up.

I want to pray a blessing on us and let's receive the change that God wants to do in our life.

Lord, we thank you so much for your faithfulness.

We thank you for your grace, we thank you for your wisdom, we thank you for the blood, we thank you for the gift of choice where we can make decisions that can change everything to break chains.

So, Lord, I just pray over the next few moments that as we engage your presence, you meet us where we are, that you allow us to experience your spirit, that chains are broken off of us, that we can experience your freedom, recognizing that you are for us, and if you are for us, nothing can be against us.

So bless us as we engage your presence in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Come on, church.

Worship together one more time.

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 Celebration ORL or visit our website, celebrationorl.org.