The Good Life | 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 Celebration ORL or visit our website, celebrationorl.org.

Any Detroit Lion fans in the house today?

I'm sorry for your loss.

Not really.

We didn't want to face you guys later anyway.

I'm so, so glad that you guys are with us today.

Um, as Nate mentioned, my name is Keith.

I have the privilege of serving as uh the lead pastor here alongside my wonderful wife.

Um and if we haven't got a chance to meet you, we would love to connect with you and just answer any questions that you may have at the end of service.

Uh, church family, would you mind doing this?

Would you mind helping me welcome those who are joining us online, those who are checking us out through our podcast.

We're so glad that you are joining us and that you're dialed in today.

We're so so glad that you are here.

And and and even though Nate did this, I can't miss an opportunity.

I love that my brothers from Fresh Starter in the building.

Y'all give it up a fresh start.

So good to see you guys, man.

Miss you so much.

So so glad that you are here with us as well.

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

The Gospel of Matthew, chapter number five.

While you're turning there, let let me give us a little bit of um context as to what's going on.

Last week, we kicked off not only our 21 days of prayer and fasting, um, and I certainly want you to lean in in whatever way that that works for you in a sacrificial way, in a meaningful way, in an intentional way.

Um, but also we we kicked off this new this new journey that we're gonna be on as a church, where we're gonna explore, examine, and really take our time going through the words and ministry of Jesus as expressed in what we refer to as the Sermon on the Mount.

This is something that we didn't really put an end date to, but I suspect that this is gonna be something that we will have spent about 12 weeks immersing ourselves in the stories of Jesus in this time.

And so last week we kicked it off and we actually started the series by looking at the end of his sermon, where he brought him to a point where he said you're gonna have to make a choice.

And so last week we talked about the importance of us needing to make a choice.

There's a broad path that's gonna lead to destruction.

It's very popular, but it doesn't produce good fruit.

But then there's a narrow path.

This path of righteousness, this path of the things of God, it's sacrificial, it's uncomfortable, but the results are something that always will produce life.

If you weren't here with us last week, I really want to challenge and encourage you to go back and check it out because every single message will absolutely build on the previous.

And I think it'll be helpful for us as we're on this journey over the next uh three months examining these words.

Now we're gonna start in the beginning.

Matthew chapter number five, as we mentioned last week, Matthew's gospel was unique in the sense that he wrote his with a very specific audience in mind.

Each of the gospels have an audience in mind when they are written.

They're written in a certain language, so it's written with a certain tone because they're written to a specific group of people.

Matthew's gospel is written to the Jews.

And so you'll see that Matthew is connecting Jesus to a lot of messianic prophecies more than any of the gospels, in fact, combined.

He's quoting Old Testament scriptures and showing us that Jesus is the fulfillment of everything that had been proclaimed in the Old Testament.

He he wanted to present Jesus as the new and better Moses.

And so the Sermon on a Mount, the imagery that Matthew tries to create for us, is that in the same way that Moses went up to the mountain to download and get the Ten Commandments from God, Jesus ascended up into a mountain to now declare the words of the Lord.

And I want to read verses 1 through 12.

Over the past uh few months, I would say, we've been reading these passages all together.

Um, but today I just want to read this to you.

So I want all of us just to just calm your minds, take a deep breath, and I want you to hear and receive the words of Jesus as he was sharing it with the community that was in desperate need.

Starting here at verse number one, it says this when he saw the crowds, he went up to the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.

Then he began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the humble, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven.

For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

When you look at the dynamics of their life, there is no evidence based off of conventional understanding of why they would have been considered blessed, at least in the way that we understand it.

But perhaps Jesus has a vision of what it means to be blessed that differs from ours.

So today I want to talk about this.

And I've entitled today's message, The Good Life.

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 word.

We thank you for this opportunity for us to gather in your name.

It's not something that we take lightly.

God, we humble ourselves and we're honored that you would create space that is sacred, that we're invited to be in, with our flaws and all, and you would call us blessed.

So, God, I just ask that I decrease and that you increase.

In my own strength, Lord, I'm not able to do it, but with you, all things are possible.

Father, I pray in the name of Jesus that you give us open eyes to see you and only you.

Lord, I pray for open ears to hear your truth above it all.

And God, I also pray for open hearts so that we can be transformed by the incorruptible seed of the Word of God.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen.

And amen.

I think we all probably have seen instances where we are seeing words that are used that are taken out of context.

We we live in a world, we live in a culture where a word can be taken from its original intent, its original meaning, be hijacked with a lot of other innuendos, and then it almost gets diluted and it misses what it's intended to be.

We can look and see this everywhere in culture where when someone says a word and someone else says a word, it's like, I don't think we're referring to the same thing.

Maybe you have added some components to this word that aren't consistent with my understanding of the word, and that ultimately breeds confusion.

There's countless words that I could certainly say, but but I want to keep this in the Christian paradigm.

And I would honestly say that I don't think that there is any word that is more used, misused, understood, and misunderstood than the word blessed.

Because when we think about it, we we have all probably have gone on social media and have seen someone and they're flexing on a gram for us.

Just got this new car, hashtag bless life.

Going on vacation, hashtag blessed.

Like we we've seen people take something that is going good in their life and they put the hashtag blessed in it, and it's like, okay, like, okay, I feel like that that may be God, but but maybe it's not.

In my days, well before me becoming a sold-out Christian, I remember that that I had friends that that would be involved in all kinds of illicit activity, and they would pre-repent before they went out into the streets.

They're like, Lord, forgive us for what we're about to do.

And I remember that they would come back home and they're like, man, God bless us that we didn't get caught.

And I'm like, did he?

Maybe, maybe not.

I don't know.

I'm not I'm not here to debate the theology with you, but but I've seen instances of how we can take this word and we can apply it to anything that makes us feel good.

And I've wrestled with it through the years.

I've wrestled with it personally, I've wrestled with the implications of what does it really mean to be blessed.

I I remember um several years ago when I got a new car, Mazda 626.

You couldn't tell me nothing.

Instagram wasn't a thing, or else I would have posted it and said, hashtag bless2.

But I remember when I got it and I brought the car to my church.

And back then, this is a time when like you would invite your pastor into these things.

We went to a small church, and so we're like, your pastor would come and pray a blessing on your home.

Your pastor would come and pray a blessing on your family.

And so we were at the church, we're about to leave them like, hey pastor, like I got this new car, man.

I want you to come out and and and give it a good blessing.

He's like, Oh, absolutely.

So at the end of service, he comes outside, he looks at the car, he walks all around it.

He says, Somebody go get my oil.

Like he said, in this real, like deep, like anointed spiritual voice, somebody get the oil.

Somebody came and got him the oil, and then he splashed them on his hand.

He he anointed the bumper all around it.

He got aside of the steering wheel, began to speak in the spirit.

He anointed the steering wheel.

I'm like, yo, this car is filled with the Holy Spirit.

I don't have any, I don't have any Bible to support it, but this car is blessed.

I said, this car is anointed and highly favored.

He had prayed that God was going to use it to be a missionary vehicle, that I would be picking up people and bringing them to church, that lives will be changed.

I was like, man, this is amazing.

Two weeks later, I get in a car accident.

And and I remember that when I get someone falls asleep, I'm at the red light, somebody smashes into the back of me.

And I'm like, Lord, but my car is blessed.

This can't be happening.

I remember when I called my pastor up and I was like, hey man, like, I got in a car accident.

He's like, Are you serious?

I'm like, Yeah.

He's like, What which car was it?

I'm like, the man, the car you prayed for.

I want my money back.

And he said, without skipping a beep, he said, I guess the other person's car wasn't blessed.

I'm like, man, come on, bro.

Like, like that was an example of me trying to understand this discrepancy of blessed, because one could say on one hand that if I was blessed, why did I get into the car accident?

But on the other hand, someone could say, I'm blessed because the car accident didn't kill me.

Which which way do we look at it?

I I remember nothing shifted my understanding of this concept of being blessed more than when I went on my first missions trip.

I went to Costa Rica and when I got over there, this was a missions trip with college and young adults.

I was leading it alongside a friend of mine, and we were there and we were in the trenches.

It was it was beautiful, it was messy, but it was something that was so that was so that was so challenging to our faith because on one hand, I am this American that's partnering with this local church, and and I'm here for a short period of time and I'm going back to my air-conditioned home.

But but meanwhile, they're they're dropping us off into these small hut towns that don't have electricity, they don't have running water, they don't have any resources, and we're coming in and we're dropping off stuff, we're playing with the kids, and then we're out.

So I'm feeling a little bit conflicted, but nonetheless, I want to complete my assignment.

Before we leave, after we spent our time giving food away and giving drinks away and and playing games with the kids, we're about to leave and they said, Hey, would you mind stopping at a couple of homes with people who were sick that couldn't make it out to the event?

So I go to a couple of the homes and we go in and I pray and I have a translator there, and it's really beautiful.

And then there's one person's home that we go by and they say, Hey, let's let's make sure we go and pray for for her.

Her name was Mary.

I go into the room and and there's this precious elderly lady.

She has to be at least a hundred years old.

Elderly, precious lady who had this calm, sweet spirit and demeanor that was all over her.

You could just see.

And people around the community called her the blessed one.

They said that she has such a sweet and genuine spirit.

As I was sitting there and the translator and I are communicating with her and seeing that she's not feeling well, it turns out that she had drank in some water that that had a little bit of some poison in it, and so she wasn't doing well, her body wasn't processing it well.

So we had prayed for her, but then as we were leaving, she had told the translator, she said, Hey, can you can you tell him that I would like to pray for him?

This is the first time I saw that happen, and and I'm a person that doesn't believe in shutting down anybody's prayer.

So I was like, absolutely.

And and what I really had anticipated was going to be like this this moment where she would kind of give like this very surface level prayer, this this very basic level of stumbling through it.

But but what she did is she she laid her hands upon my shoulder.

She was a short lady, she laid her hands upon my shoulder and she looked me in my eyes and she just began to pray.

And the the translator initially was translating the words and then he stopped and he just began to weep.

Now, I'm listening to the best of my ability, and at some point I lose the translation, but my spirit could feel exactly what she was communicating.

My spirit could feel the hand of God on her life.

My spirit could feel the truth that she was declaring.

She began to prophesy over my life and things that I hadn't shared with anyone as I got a chance to communicate with the translator later.

Now I tell you this because up until this point, when I would look at people and see their suffering, I would say to them, and to myself, I would say, Man, we are so blessed that we are able to help them.

Man, we're so blessed that we're we're blessed to be a blessing.

And and then and that somehow maybe they will be blessed as a as a result of what we do for them.

But but God has really been messing with my understanding of that by helping me to recognize that she was already blessed before we got there.

That the hand of God was on her.

And that if we can begin to shift the way that we understand what it means to be blessed, it could allow us to be content with where we are.

I have one single point for us that I think I will reinforce over and over again.

And here's what I want you to write down.

You are not blessed because of what you have, you're blessed because of who you have.

I want you to get this deep into your spirit, church.

That sometimes we are so consumed with the next thing, we're so consumed with meeting a finish line that we have defined success and being blessed as an outward goal.

But but God has shown us over and over again in his word that his blessing is not contained by external resources.

The Bible shows us that this word blessed is it's so weighty that the English rendering of the Greek word blessed is sometimes translated into happy.

But but that's not enough for what the word of God is truly trying to communicate with the Greek word makarios.

It's uh in the in the truest form of the definition, it is a profound sense of flourishing, not because of material wealth or health or success, but it is because the hand of God is on your life.

Now that's a long definition.

So we reduce that down to blessed, we reduce that down to happy, we reduce that down to a good life.

But being blessed is so much bigger than the superficial things that we have been conditioned to crave.

Well, the Bible is helping us to understand that when we consider what it really means to be blessed, it is the internal reality that God is present in our lives.

I want us to take a moment to let that sink in.

Being blessed isn't about having the perfect job.

Being blessed isn't about having the biggest home, it's not even about having the best health.

It's not our highlight rail on social media, but instead, being blessed is God's nearness and his promises and his hand guiding us through every circumstance.

So here I say to us one more time, Celebration Church Orlando, you're blessed.

Your blessing doesn't have a future date attached to it.

There may be some fruit in the future date.

There may be an expression of it in the future date, but I'm here to encourage, to challenge, and to build you up to let you know that you are blessed exactly where you are.

And I want to unpack to you and help you to see why that is true.

The passage that I just read is referred to as the Beatitudes.

It's pulled from the Latin, which is beatude, which is where we get the word blessed from in Latin.

And Jesus begins his sermon by talking about this concept of being blessed.

Now, I want you to understand the group of people that Jesus is talking to.

Jesus, naturally, he was he was born in poverty, he he he lived in poverty.

We understand that in the life of Jesus that he didn't necessarily flex in a way of having a lot of wealth, which I believe it was intended to give us a model of what it means to be blessed, and I don't think anyone would say that Jesus isn't blessed.

But even as Jesus begins to launch into his inaugural message, he he doesn't go into the richest areas of the city to proclaim that they are blessed.

It doesn't mean that they're not, but Jesus chooses to go to the poorest in the community to start his mission, and he tells these people that they're blessed.

In other words, he he didn't go out to Winter Park.

Shout out to my folks in Winter Park, I love Winter Park.

He didn't go to Windermere, I live in Windermere, the normal side, not the shack side.

Um, um, he didn't go to Windermere, he didn't go to Lake Nona, he didn't go to any of these places where we ride by and see these homes and we're amazed at what we're looking at.

Jesus went to Pine Hills.

Jesus went into the depths of the hood, and he gathers these people around him and he says, Hey, I want you to understand something.

You're blessed.

These are words that they never would have conceived.

These were regular people, these were people who were fishermen, these were farmers, these were marginalized, these were immigrants, these were people that were shunned by society, and yet Jesus decides to go to them and tells them that you're blessed.

And he uses these eight phrases in ways that I think all of us can find some relation to.

Here's the first one that he says.

He says, Blessed are the poor in spirit.

You see, to be poor in spirit is to acknowledge our dependence of God.

It's admitting that we have areas of our lives that there's a deficit.

When we think about poverty, when we think about poor, we think about hitting a wall where we recognize that there's a gap, there's a lid to the things that I have.

He says poor in spirit because he wants to make sure that we're not looking at this from an earthly wealth, but he's referring to people who have a humility and a brokenness of spirit.

People who recognize that I cannot be self-sufficient.

This is people who recognize that ultimately I need a savior.

One of the biggest challenges that I think we find in this world is that sometimes people can be so successful with earthly things that it actually impacts their dependency on God.

That sometimes when you have so much resources that you don't have to seek God about where your next meal is coming from, it can cause you to stop seeking God altogether.

That sometimes you can be so comfortable that things can be so good in your life that your pursuit of God gets lost in the midst of all of it.

But but Jesus is saying, blessed are those who in their spirit knows that they can't do it without me.

We're talking about a culture that so often emphasizes self-sufficiency, a society that praises independence.

But but Jesus redefines this strength as a willingness to admit that we're weak.

This starting point of the kingdom, living out loud, is acknowledging everything that we have, that it indeed comes from God.

The poor in spirit are those who recognize the broken areas of their lives and will and will boldly and confidently present them to their Heavenly Father.

A couple of months ago, we had our grandchildren with us at the house and my youngest Trey, he um we bought him a little basketball court.

And and it's one of those little suction cup things.

It's nothing fancy, but we would put it up on our sliding glass on our patio, um, and then he would go and and and dunk it.

Now, when him and I were playing, he would try to dunk it on me, and I smack like, get that out of here, man.

No participation trophies in this house.

You gotta earn every point you get.

But when I wasn't looking, he would go and he would practice his his dunks.

And every time he would practice, he would he would pull the rim down and he would break it.

Now it's not literally broken, but it's it came off of the wall.

And then without hesitation, he would come to me and he would say, he would say, G Pop, I broke it.

And then I would say, Oh son, it's okay, it's not broken, I'll put it back up.

Two minutes later, break it.

And you know, with kids, once they see something, they just do it over and over and over and over and over again.

And and and so there got to a point where I was like, okay, like how do how about we play something else?

But he wanted to continue to play it, but he continued to present it to me with the same phrase of G Pop, look, I broke it.

I did it.

And and I think that there's something pure about that because I want you to see this.

No matter how many times it was broken, he was willing.

To bring it into the presence of his grandfather.

I believe that sometimes with us, that we can become so spiritually prideful or so detached from the reality of what we're going through that we stop presenting our brokenness before God.

What this text is telling us is that Jesus is saying, Blessed are the people that recognize the brokenness in their lives and they will come into the presence of Jesus and say, Lord, I broke it again.

Lord, I'm still struggling in this area.

Lord, I'm broken before you.

But the Bible says that the person who has this posture of heart, that the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

It speaks to them about recognizing that there's this transaction that takes place that when I can recognize that I've come to the end of myself, that somehow the resources and the hand of God begins to infuse me where I am at.

Jesus says, Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

He then goes on to say, Blessed are those who mourn.

See, mourning at this time in this culture, in this tradition was a process.

And the mourning process typically would take about 30 days.

And it was a process of a couple things all connected together.

There's the mourning process, which included the emotion of grief and the expression of lament.

These all need to work together in order for there to be a healthy place.

But if we could be honest with ourselves, when we think about people who are mourning, we very rarely think of them as being blessed.

In fact, we often will say to ourselves, why do they have to mourn in the first place?

Why are they going through the suffering and disappointment in the first place?

But Jesus says, people who are in this space where they're dealing with brokenness and they're dealing with loss, that the blessing is potential for them as well, as long as they're mourning in a healthy way.

And here's what I mean by a healthy way: there's a big difference between grief and lament.

The truth of the matter is, grief is an emotion.

This is the emotion of what we're processing through when we've experienced loss, when we've experienced a setback, when we're dealing with a challenge of some sort.

That's the grief.

The sad reality is many of us get trapped in grief because we don't know how to adequately express it.

And maybe that's because we live in a society that tells us that as people of faith, that it's going to be okay.

That somehow maybe we get to a place in our lives where we we've concluded that, oh, they'll they'll be healed on the other side when we're dealing with loss.

Sometimes we can minimize our present pain because we're looking so far into the heavens that we're not processing in a healthy way what we're dealing with in our current reality, which then can create a cycle of being stuck in grief.

We haven't processed it yet.

We haven't given it to God yet.

This is why God gives us examples through the book of Psalms.

Have you ever really taken time to read through the book of Psalms?

That brother David was going through some things.

Because he would have these high moments of things going great, but he would also have these other moments when he was dealing with despair and fear and brokenness.

What psalm is meant to invite us into is recognizing how it's possible to express our concerns, to express our tears, to express our frustration in a way that keeps our grief from being bottled up in such a way that it expresses itself in other unhealthy ways.

Jesus says, Blessed are people who know how to mourn, because when you mourn, you will be comforted.

And the word comfort that he uses is the same word that is the root word of the Holy Spirit.

He's saying that when you uh allow yourself to really feel the disappointment of what you're walking through, when you don't put Bible band-aids on it, but when you're willing to really sit in the disappointment, you're inviting my spirit to come alongside you and comfort you where you are.

I think so often we're in such a rush to get out of the uncomfortable seasons that we miss out on what God wants to do in a silence.

This is why when we look at the the resurrection, we love to take a moment to pause on what we refer to as silent Saturday.

Because as followers of Christ, we understand that Jesus dies on Friday and that he's in the tomb on Saturday, and that he's risen on Sunday.

But in real time on Saturday, can you imagine how those disciples felt?

In real time, can you imagine their concern and their lack of understanding of what was to come next?

What I believe Jesus is trying to do is invite us into this space of saying, you don't have to rush through the pain to prove how faith-filled you are.

But sometimes we just need to learn to allow the blessing of God's comfort to meet us where we are.

He said, You're blessed when you allow yourself to mourn because I want to come in and comfort you.

Here's the third thing.

He says, Blessed are the humble, for they will inherit the earth.

Humility is not weakness, it's not passivity, but it's actually strength under control.

What God is ultimately telling us as a people group who have somehow made highlight reels out of being prideful is He's saying that the currency in the kingdom is actually humility.

That the currency in the kingdom is learning how to be a person who operates with a humble spirit.

And when we can function with humility, that doesn't have to say, look at me, that doesn't have to say, look at my accomplishments, that doesn't have to say it's all about me.

That when we can be people that posture ourselves with a humble spirit, that the scriptures say that there will be an inheritance that we will face on the other side.

The meek are not forgotten, they are entrusted with the earth because the meek shall inherit the earth.

Here's number four.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Have you ever been like really, really like hungry for something?

I mean like legitimately craving something.

I know that every time we prepare for this time of prayer and fasting, I kind of go on like a pre-fast preparation process.

And my pre-fast preparation is me indulging in everything that I won't be able to eat over the next 21 days, but I try to fit it all in within three days.

And and some, but there's times when you have a craving for something that it just won't do when you try to get a weak substitute for it.

Like if you have like a favorite spot that you like to get certain things from, and then someone brings you something similar, but it's not from that same spot, man, you might as well throw it away.

It's not gonna work.

Because I have a craving for that specific thing.

Megan and I, we have this burger spot in Lakeland, Florida, that we absolutely love.

It's it's it's unreal.

We we absolutely love it.

We we love uh a good burger.

And so leading up to the fast, we were like, okay, like man, we're like we're craving a burger, we're gonna have a burger before the fast starts.

And so, lo and behold, we like we try to get a burger from one spot.

On its own, it may have been good, but it just wasn't the burger in Lakeland, so it was trash as far as I was concerned.

We tried another spot.

We tried like two or three different spots, hoping that that craving would be satisfied and nothing would work.

Now we're two days before the fast is about to start, and I look at her, I'm like, look, I'm not going 21 days without getting this taste of this burger.

So we're about to mount up and we're gonna take a trip down to Lakeland.

She said, Hey, ain't saying nothing but a word.

So we hopped in the car, drove down to Lakeland, an hour drive to get this burger, an hour and 20 minutes to get back, stuck in traffic, but I was filled with so much joy.

You couldn't tell me nothing.

You know why?

Because the thing that I was craving, I finally got it.

No cheap substitute would do it.

What Jesus is saying to us is blessed are people who have a hunger for the things of God where nothing else will do.

I have a hunger for the righteousness of God and nothing else will satisfy it.

That I'm not gonna take a cheap substitute, I'm not gonna take a fast food version of it, that I have a hunger for the things of God, and let me tell you what the righteousness of God for is an active desire to see God's justice and goodness prevail.

It's a God-sized justice desire.

It's not personal piety, but it's about a social justice that we're looking and hoping for, that we're seeing.

Amos 5 24 says this Let justice flow like water and righteousness like an unfailing stream.

These are words that were quoted by Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr., who we'll be honoring tomorrow as a celebration for what he's done for this country.

And his motivation, his inspiration was from the very words that we're studying right now: a hunger for the things of God, an appetite for the things of God, hungering for righteousness is a hunger that challenges injustice wherever we see it and we confront equality, inequality wherever we may find it.

Here's the fifth thing: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.

Jesus says these words to these individuals, and he's helping them to understand that mercy is compassion and action.

That in essence, what he is saying is that when we can extend the grace that we have ourselves have received, blessed are people who know how to be merciful.

That means don't lose sight of the reality that we have been on the receiving end of God's mercy.

So because we're on the receiving end of God's mercy, we too need to learn how to extend God's mercy to others.

It means not forgetting what you came from, it means not forgetting where you came from, it means not forgetting what God has done in your life, and now making yourself a conduit or vessel that could perpetuate it in the life of other people.

When we can extend mercy to others, what Jesus said is that even more mercy will be extended to you.

The beautiful currency of the kingdom.

Here's number six.

He says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

When he's talking about being pure at heart, he's talking about our motives.

Have you ever asked yourself, why do I do what I do?

Why do I serve?

Why do I give?

Why am I doing this?

What Jesus is saying, that we need to align ourselves with the things of God in such a way that we're doing it whether someone sees it or not.

That we're doing it whether we're celebrated or not, we're doing it whether we're shouted out for it or not.

Naturally, we all want to be appreciated, that's understood, I do as well.

But when he's talking about a purity of heart, he's talking about our motives.

Why do we do the things that we do?

Nothing challenges me more than asking this question.

Because when we're in the roles that we're in and we have the opportunity to have the impact that we have, there's that tension of making sure that we tell the story of God, but we're not looking for the attention because God gets all the glory.

Even if Pastor Nate got up and shared what God is doing through our community, that's a fraction of it.

But because we're doing with the whole intent of having pure hearts behind it, we want to make sure that we fall short of bragging about what we're doing as a church, but also vocal about what God's doing through our church.

I believe the same thing can be said of us, that there are times that we have we've gotten so consumed with validation from other people that we've missed the purity of why we do the things that we do.

What Jesus said, blessed are the people who can actually have clean hands and a pure heart.

That we're not doing this for any outcome, we're not doing this for any accolades, but we're doing this because it's as unto the Lord.

And what Jesus said is that when we can do things unto the Lord, that we will see God.

Let me say it this way: that when you can give unto the Lord, you will see God in your finances.

That when you can serve your spouse as unto the Lord, you'll see God in your marriage.

That when you can when you can show up at work with an attitude and a posture of gratitude, but unto the Lord, you're gonna see God in your workplace.

What I'm telling you is that Jesus is challenging us to make sure that what we do, we do it with the pure intent to glorify God, and we will see God in that very same area of our lives, but we gotta make sure our intentions are pure.

Here's the seventh thing: blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.

The peacemakers.

These are people who are actively working towards reconciliation and healing.

Church, did you know that there's a difference between a peacekeeper and a peacemaker?

A peacekeeper is a person that doesn't want to upset anybody.

I don't want to step on any toes.

Let's just keep things status quo.

Sometimes in family dynamics, when when there's conflict, you're like, hey, let's just keep the peace.

Let's just let's just do our best to keep the peace.

Like we don't want to upset you, we don't want to upset you, so let's not deal with the issues, but I want to make sure you're good, I want to make sure that you're good, so that we can all kind of dissolve this moment and have the illusion of unity.

But when we talk about what a peacemaker is, that is a person who says, I am willing to forego the temporary comfort now and be uncomfortable, but for it to have a longer effect later.

That means I'm willing to confront things now that are wrong so it can be peaceful for others later.

Jesus says, Blessed are the people who can recognize dysfunction and systems and can confront them in a way that is going to be beneficial for others that'll come later on.

Peacemakers.

Did you know that you're called to be a peacemaker?

We're not called to keep peace.

We're not called to be indifferent with suffering, but we're called to step into these spaces, uncomfortable spaces even at times, and say that I'm going to challenge the comfort of all of us, but it's meant to produce a sense of peace.

And Jesus is saying that when we do these things, that there's blessing attached to it.

And what he says is, when we do these things, we shall be called the sons of God.

That means we're in right standing with God.

We're in right fellowship with God.

The last thing that he says is, Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

I I want to, I just don't have enough time to say this, but I'm gonna say as much as I can.

Notice the words here.

He says, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom.

Persecuted for righteousness.

Can can I be honest with us in church today?

I have noticed in the church and in the West more specifically, we just we have a craving to become martyrs of everything.

Like we just insert ourselves into everything and we we upset people and then we're offended at their reaction to us.

Jesus says, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness.

You're persecuted because you're in relationship with me.

You're persecuted because you're in fellowship with me.

I have found that sadly, that many people who may be well-meaning find themselves trying to force their Christianity on people who are not ready to accept it.

And then when there's a reaction to it, now all of a sudden they're a victim.

Come on, I'm gonna tell the truth this morning.

What we have to recognize is that this world was never intended in its way that we are functioning right now, in that fallen world that we live in, was never intended to be a mirror of the kingdom.

We are the called-out ones that represent the kingdom in the world.

So that means that your job is not your church.

That means the government is not your church.

That means that these things are not your church.

So, what that means for us is can we stop being offended that the world is the world when it was never expected for them to be the world?

Can we stop being upset about it?

They were never meant to uphold our Christian values.

But because we get so upset and then we dilute what it means to be a Christian with our anger, then the very people that we're trying to invite to come to church are saying, if being a church person means acting like you, I'm not interested in it.

If we only understood that we're diluting our witness, what Jesus is saying, you will be persecuted.

But please stop making it so easy.

Please.

Because the behavior that you're exhibiting, it doesn't look anything like me.

I've come to believe this, and I believe this is at the core of my being.

If representing Jesus doesn't look like Jesus, then you're doing it wrong.

And I think sadly, we live in a world where we can become up on our high horses to such a point and we're saying we're doing this for Jesus.

I'm taking a stand for God when Jesus didn't even behave that way.

Do you remember that when Jesus was getting arrested and Peter cut off the man's ear?

I'm gonna fight, I'm gonna stand ten toes down for Jesus.

And Jesus looked like, bro, what are you doing?

I never needed you to do that.

I never needed you to pick up a sword, I never need you to cough anybody's ear, I never needed you to attack anybody on my behalf.

I just want you to reflect me everywhere you go.

We've gotten so far away from that.

But Jesus is saying that when we do represent him well, we will face opposition.

And when we face that opposition, the Bible says we're blessed.

I want to close with this thought.

You're not blessed because of what you have, you're blessed because of who you have.

Over and over again, we see through scripture that Jesus tells us that you're blessed because of who you have.

I want you to hear me this morning, church.

Because some of us may be waiting for us to get to a finish line in order for us to be blessed.

But I want you to know that you are blessed right now.

You're blessed if you have, you're blessed if you don't have.

You are blessed exactly where you are.

Be encouraged and lift your head up and recognize that the hand of God is on your life because I would suppose to you that the very fact that you have survived everything you survived is evidence that God's blessing is on you.

The Bible tells us about Joseph, who had this vision of being a place of influence.

And what scripture tells us is that it took him over 12 years for his dream to come to fruition.

He was betrayed by his brothers, he was beaten up, sold into slavery, falsely accused of rape, put into prison, which he should have gotten killed for, finally made it out of prison, was interpreting dreams, and then made it up to being the second man in control of all of Egypt.

I want you to check this out.

At any given point, if God's hand wasn't on his life, he should have been dead.

But because God's hand was on his life, even in those uncomfortable places, he was blessed.

I believe that's the same thing for us.

Don't think that you're blessed just when you get to the palace, but understand that you're also blessed while you're in the pit.

Several years ago, I remember when I got into that car accident I told you about, I was not able to work for over a year.

And in that time, I remember like Megan being the only provider in our home financially.

Insurance was tripping, and we weren't getting the money, like it was just it was a struggle.

And and there would be a lot of reasons if we look at it on paper, to certainly say that we were not blessed.

Finances were tight.

Like every time we did the budget, there was just enough money to be broken.

Like we we didn't have any excess.

And and interestingly enough, every time when things got to a point where it's like, okay, I don't see any way out.

Like, I don't know how we're gonna pay this light bill this month.

Because I mean that's it's like we had to literally rob Peter to pay Paul.

Y'all heard that phrase before, right?

Like I was out in the street robbing dudes named Peter, and like I'm just joking, I'm joking.

Bring it in, bring it in.

But we had to get creative with how we navigated that season.

But every single time, something would show up.

Grace would be extended from the company, someone would give us some money, it would always work its way out, and and now here I am, removed from it, probably about 20 years removed since that happened.

And I can say it's only by the hand of God we were able to survive that season.

We were blessed.

What I want y'all to do is don't wait until it's in the rearview mirror for you to celebrate the goodness of God.

You're blessed right now.

Lord, I thank you so much for your favor.

I thank you for the grace, I thank you for your hand being on all of our lives.

And I recognize that there are times when we're dealing with a variety of struggles and disappointments and setbacks and things that categorically don't fit into our understanding of what it means to be blessed.

But Lord, we are reminded by the words of this sermon that we're not blessed because of what we have, we're blessed because of who we have and who has us.

So, Father, I pray over every one of our precious brothers and sisters.

I pray that wherever they find themselves, God, for the ones who are mourning, for the ones who are in despair, for those who are dealing with brokenness, for those who are struggling with fear, God, for the litany of things that we all can be carrying.

That yes, we are believing you for a qualified miracle, and yet simultaneously recognize that your hand is on our life today.

Two things can be true at the same time.

We're believing for our breakthrough tomorrow, but we believe that we're still blessed today.

So, Father, I just pray that you give us the perseverance and the focus to continue to keep our eyes on you.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen.

Amen and amen.

Y'all welcome up, Pastor Nate.

Can we thank God for his word?

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.