The Narrow Path | Ps. Keith Pittman

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Alright, alright, alright.

Church family, how you guys doing?

You guys doing good?

Thank you.

Six of us are doing good.

Let's start again.

Church family, how you guys doing?

You guys doing good?

That's the 1030 energy.

Don't be bringing me that nine o'clock energy in here.

I'm joking.

9 30, 9 o'clock is actually amazing.

Which, having said that, if you look around and see how crowded it is in here, one, we're so happy to see you.

Part two, I would love to see some of you at our 9 o'clock service.

We have plenty of space there, but again, come to the service that best fits you, but also want to let you know, remind you or inform you that we do have a 9 o'clock service that has a little bit more room as well.

So you're invited to that one as well.

Um, church, I'm so glad that that you're here.

If I hadn't had an opportunity to meet you, uh, my name is Keith.

I have the privilege alongside my wonderful wife, Megan, of serving as the lead pastors here at Celebration Orlando.

Um, and we're genuinely so glad that you're here.

In fact, would you guys help me welcome our online family as well as those who are joining us in our family lounge podcast community?

Um we're so glad that you're with us as well.

If you are in the Orlando area, please consider coming and joining us in person.

I just believe that there's no substitute for being in the presence of God in the midst of community.

Now, now today I'm I'm really excited, and and I I say that pretty much every time I have an opportunity to stand before God's people and I have an opportunity to engage God's word and go into um what I believe God's speaking to us, but but I want to bring you on a journey as to how I typically approach uh the new year.

Ordinarily, what happens for for me personally um is that I I begin the conclusion of the previous year with a sense of like, God, what is it that you're speaking um to me for our church?

Um I don't reduce it down to a single word, but it's a concept, it's a theme, something that God begins to speak to me.

Then I pray about that, and then when we kick off the new year, it kind of gets solidified in our 21 days of prayer and fasting, and then from there it kind of sets the tone of whatever the theme may be, so to speak.

Um and that served us very well.

And it's not that we're not doing that, but but it looks a little bit different.

Ordinarily, whenever God does give us a word, an idea, a theme, something that I believe he tells me is my responsibility to lead our church through, um, we break it up into different sermon series and and and ways that we kind of promote it that kind of makes it um accessible to us as a church.

Like, oh, we're doing a series on this, and we kind of come and and we engage it and it's packaged in unique ways.

Um but this year, at least in the first quarter of the year, God has really kind of pressed me to kind of have a different approach.

Um, and and the approach that God has given me for the first quarter of our year, so now, probably up until Easter, is that we're just gonna take our time and we're just gonna go through the Sermon on the Mount.

We're just gonna examine the words, the life, and the ministry of Jesus over the next 12 weeks or so and really immerse ourselves in this because I truly believe that that is the template and the blueprint that all of us should indeed follow.

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

While you're turning there, I want to frame up why I put so much emphasis on the Sermon on the Mount this year, this season for us as a church.

I want to invite you and challenge you, and and here's the invitation, but also the challenge.

I believe that if we can collectively as a community be fully engaged in this series, and I know it's a big commitment, we're talking like 10 to 12 weeks of us just unpacking varying statements from Jesus, but if we can really immerse ourselves in this, I literally believe that this will change your life.

And and and I know that sounds a little bit like a sales pitch.

I know it sounds a little bit salzy, like, hey, if you do this, then this is gonna happen.

But but I genuinely believe that if we can begin to orient our lives around the words and ministry of Jesus, it absolutely will produce fruit in our lives.

I I believe that.

And if it doesn't, I'll give you your money back.

Like it's like I'm kidding, I got nothing to give you.

I got nothing to give you.

But but but but here's why this is so significant.

I want to, I wanna I want to do this with us.

I did this at the 9 o'clock, I want to try with us.

But but when we think about words that that may have captured moments but also were catalysts for movements, all of us may have different speeches and things that we've heard that may have served as a source of motivation for us.

That depending on your background, your country of origin, the things that have influenced you, we all can probably pull from different moments that have been so so seismic that they transcended the moment that they were in.

For for some, some may think about President Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address, where after a pivotal battle during the Civil War, he he states four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

This concept is the American idea that, quite honestly, America has struggled with at times, but nonetheless, it's the words that we try to cling to to hold us accountability.

Some of us may think about President Kennedy when he said these words Ask not what you can do for your country, but what?

Come on, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

We think about these words that that have this power connected to it.

Some of us may remember President Obama's yes we can speech.

I don't remember anything else except he would make a statement and we would say, Yes we can.

And my kids try that at home one time, like, Dad, can we go get something to eat?

No, we can't.

Okay.

So we all have these different things that that that kind of rise to this level of remembering the momentum attached to it.

For me, it's it's the words of Dr.

Martin Luther King.

Every year around this time, as we prepare to celebrate um his birthday, I always do a couple of things.

One of the things I'd love to do is I love to read um his letters from the Birmingham prison.

If you're not familiar with them, I want to encourage you and challenge you to read them because when you read these letters, this is him while he's sitting in jail, and he's writing these letters to the church.

And he's talking and he's he's confronting them about how they've been complicit in racism.

And the faith and the and the boldness that it took for him to do that is something that's incredibly inspirational.

It was counter-cultural at a time when it was so readily accepted, and there were laws in place that perpetuated it, but yet he was moved by something that allowed him to confront such a significant evil.

But for me, it's certainly his I have a dream speech, where he says words like, I have a dream that there will come a time when we won't be judged by the color of our skin but the content of our character.

But I think it all comes together when he says, free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.

Those are words that shape me.

But maybe there's other words that you have read that you've experienced that have shaped you.

These words that capture moment but serve as a catalyst for movement.

And as inspirational as these words that we just shared were, as motivational, as encouraging as they were, some of them were inspired by, but yet are not even a fraction of the significance of the Sermon on the Mount for the follower of Christ.

If you were to condense what it means to have the life of a believer, the Sermon on the Mount would absolutely be it.

Because in it, Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God and he shows us a kingdom framework, a framework that is counter-cultural, that that challenges us to embrace a new way of life, a way that redefines what it means to be successful.

What does it mean to be righteous?

How do we steward our relationships?

And how do we have a heart of generosity and forgiveness and looking what it means to not seek revenge but look for reconciliation?

Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount are things that inspire us and challenge us 2,000 years later.

And if I believe if we could put these things into practice today, it will cultivate a culture that would absolutely be the thing that does indeed produce revival.

These words are found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter number five, all the way through chapter number seven.

And with Matthew's gospel specifically, the way that he presents Jesus is he he presents Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament story.

This month we're going to be reading through the Gospel of Matthew as a part of our Bible reading plan in conjunction with our time of prayer and fasting.

And what you're going to find in this is that is that Matthew consistently talks about how Jesus is fulfilling a prophecy, how these things are linked to things that are found.

If you have a study Bible, you'll find more references to the Old Testament in Matthew's gospel than in any other because he's trying to speak to a Jewish audience and let them know that Jesus is the Messiah.

He's the one that we've been waiting for.

And when we look at the Sermon on the Mount, he starts off with something that it would be so easy for us to overlook, but has significant meaning for us.

And what he does is he says these words, starting at Matthew number 5, verse number 1.

When he saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him and he began to teach them saying.

Let me pause there.

What he's doing with his audience is he's communicating to them and letting them know that, hey, I know that we revere Moses.

And there was a time when Moses went up to the mountain for 40 days and he got alone with God and he came back down and he had these ten commandments.

He consulted with God and he spoke these words.

So Matthew was very intentionally giving us a glimpse of Jesus being the new Moses, going up the mountain.

But what he says that's so unique about Jesus is that Jesus didn't have to sequester himself away and to parrot words that God has told him.

That's what we'll find is that Jesus spoke as one who has authority himself.

Matthew was inviting the followers of Christ to recognize that Jesus is Lord.

Skipping over to Matthew number seven, verses 13 and 14, I want us all to read this together as a community as we declare God's word.

So on the count of three, let's read verses 13 and 14 of Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

It'll come up on the screen.

One, two, three.

Enter through the narrow gate.

For the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction.

And there are many who go through it.

But narrow is the gate, and difficult is the road that leads to life, and few find it.

Today we're going to start our 10 to 12 week series on the Sermon on the Mount by jumping to the end.

Because I think it gives us context and perspective.

Maybe you've watched a movie before.

Megan and I recently started watching this show that the very first scene of the first episode, you kind of are jumped into the action and then it kind of stops and then it backs up and leads you up to that moment again.

So you're like, man, how do we end up here?

That's what we're going to do today.

So, spoiler alert, the first message of this series and the last message of this series are going to be virtually identical with some different nuances when we understand the things that God speaks to us in between.

That's not an excuse not to come for the last day of the series.

That's why I'm not going to tell you when it is.

But they're going to be very similar because it's going to bring us right back to the place that we find ourselves.

So if you're taking notes, and I hope that you are, I want you to write this message title down, The Narrow Path.

Let's pray and let's see what God has for us.

Lord, we thank you so much for making us in your image, one, and then two, that you give us dignity by giving us choice.

What we see throughout Scripture is that you never rob us of the ability to choose you.

So, God, I just ask that we decrease so that you can increase.

I pray, Father, that you give us open eyes to see you above all the distractions.

Lord, I pray for open ears to hear you above all the noise that's in the world.

And Lord, I pray for open hearts to receive you even in areas where there's bitterness and pain and caluses, that God, you soften our hearts so that we can receive what you have for us, which is a transformational, incorruptible seed of the Word of God.

Allow it to take root in our hearts.

In Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen.

And amen.

I I recently read a study that said that the average person makes 35,000 decisions per day.

When I first saw that, I said, there's no way that's accurate.

There's no way that a person in a single day is making 35,000 decisions.

But as I began to unpack the article a little bit more and began to understand what it was communicating, I began to understand how we could arrive there.

And when it's talking about decisions, it's talking about the little decisions and the big decisions.

Little decisions such as when the alarm clock goes off, do I get up or do I hit snooze?

I had to make that decision this morning.

And I failed because I hit snooze.

Decisions such as, what am I going to eat this morning?

Where what am I going to wear this morning?

As you begin to kind of think about it, every little decision we make, it leads us to a place.

So as I began to look at it from that lens, I began to recognize that yes, it is possible that on any given day that everything is a decision that we make.

Do I ride on I-4?

Or do I just suck it up and pay the toll money?

So that's two decisions.

I'm choosing to not ride on I-4, and I'm choosing to also pay the toll.

But the third option, which we don't get, but I'm also choosing peace.

You see what I mean?

Like choice after choice after choice, there's a domino effect that's connected to all of it.

And what can often happen is whether they're big decisions or small decisions, they begin to compound and they build up, which can lead us to something that psychologists call decision fatigue.

We find this happens a lot with people who carry a lot of responsibilities and people who are in leadership, that they get to a point where they're so used to making so many decisions all the time that they get to a place where they're just exhausted with making decisions.

Like I literally had to reorient my life and my schedule around when am I in the best decision-making mode, which is typically on Tuesday mornings.

For me, that's just being honest.

If you ask me something outside of Tuesday morning, if you get me on a Friday, I can say yes to things I shouldn't have said yes to, and no to things I should have said no to.

And for some people, they take advantage of that.

Looking at my kids now, like that dad's tired, go ask them now.

Like it that that's that's that's kind of how it works.

But because when you live in a world where you're making so many decisions, you get to a place where you just get exhausted and it's hard to.

Let me show you what it looks like in your life.

We literally have millions of options of things that we can watch on TV through our streaming devices, and every one of us have been sat with that moment where you sit down and you begin to scroll and you're like, what do I watch?

Tons of options.

Things that you're even interested in, things that are on your my list, and you can't even choose with the reduced list that you made.

We all get to a place where we get exhausted from making so many decisions.

What are we what are we going to eat?

The the the the biggest decision making that I have to make on a daily basis when I look at my loving wife in the eyes is what's for dinner?

And and and ultimately, what here's what I know it comes down to.

If I cooked, then it's whatever I cooked.

If I didn't cook, then it's Uber Eats.

That's that's that's that's how it works.

And here's the and here's the challenge with that.

Because even in those moments where we kick off into a new year, 25, 2025, it's the year that I thrive, new year, new me.

I'm not eating from that specific place anymore.

It's not good for me.

But let there be a lack of preparation in your rhythms.

I'm confessing to y'all, because when it struck midnight on January 1st of 2025, I made some commitments of places that I wasn't gonna eat anymore.

It doesn't make me feel good.

I hate the I hate the money that I spend, I don't have any leftovers, there's no value in it whatsoever.

Four days in.

Four days in.

Megan's not home, I don't feel like cooking.

What am I gonna eat?

Well, I got this coupon for Uber Eats, but somehow I'm still paying quadruple what it would have cost me if I just would have drove a mile down the street and picked it up myself.

I'm I'm just confessing to y'all.

Don't y'all leave me up here by myself, 10:30 service.

Don't y'all, y'all came to the late service for a reason.

I know why y'all got here late.

Decisions.

And and and those decisions have an impact on us, and then often what happens is when we get exhausted, we just default to whatever's the easiest thing to do.

I'll just I'll just order Uber Eats.

I I said I'll start next week.

I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll start going to the gym next week.

I'll just let me just find the path that leads to the least amount of resistance.

And sometimes these small decisions don't have seismic impact, but the truth of the matter is life is so much more complex than what movie am I going to watch and what am I going to eat for dinner.

Some of our decisions are much more significant.

In fact, I would go as far as saying that some of the decisions that we make are the things that make us.

And Jesus brings us to this point in this sermon.

Over the next couple of weeks, we're going to unpack some very challenging things that he says, but he he brings us to this point where he compels us to make a decision.

The sermon that he presents to us is very simple, but somehow very complex.

It's very gracious, but somehow still very demanding.

It's very encouraging, but still very convicting.

And he brings us down to this point where he says these words, and you have to make a choice.

He doesn't mention his words.

He says, I'm bringing you to a point where at some point you're going to have to make a choice.

This this is not an opportunity for you to say both and.

But when I got radically saved, I was introduced to a very rigid Jesus.

A Jesus that my behavior was the thing that allowed me to be considered righteous.

A behavior that said that I had to, that I had to pray a certain amount, that I had to, that I had to worship a certain amount of time.

Like it was very, very meticulous.

And if I could be honest with you, it did instill discipline in me.

But it also allowed me to experience a lot of shame when, man, instead of me praying for two hours and 40 minutes, dang it, I prayed for two hours and 20 minutes, and now I wonder if that 20-minute gap meant that I choose something other than God and my life is in jeopardy.

That's the fruit that that can produce.

But then years later, I was introduced to a different Jesus.

And this Jesus that I was introduced to was cool.

This was the wear your shorts to church, Jesus.

This was the sandal Jesus.

This was the hippie Jesus.

This Jesus that it didn't matter what you do because God's love is infinite, all mistakes are under the blood, and there's nothing that's required of you.

But when I look at the life and ministry of Jesus, when I examine the Sermon on the Mount, I find that the legalistic Jesus isn't the Jesus of the Bible, but neither is the Jesus that doesn't require anything of us.

That when we examine God's word, we will find that he is very demanding of us.

But there's grace.

So when he talks about these two paths, he says, listen, there's two paths that you can take.

There's a wide path, and I want to let you know that there's a consequence for this path.

It's very well traveled, it's it's very popular.

Most people will choose this path because it's the easiest path.

But let me tell you what will happen when you take that path.

You ever watch a game show and they're like, hey, behind door number one is take a guess and see, or behind door number two, like, and you don't know, and it's like a gamble.

Jesus said, I want to remove all of that from the equation.

I'm gonna tell you exactly what it's gonna be.

Behind door number one, this door that is beautiful, it is outlined great, it has room for everybody, but let me tell you where it's gonna lead to.

He uses the word destruction.

He doesn't mince his words.

He says, This path right here is going to lead to destruction, relationships destroyed, your mental health destroyed, your identity destroyed.

He he doesn't mince words, and when you look at the translation of the word that he's using, he literally is using a word that says wasted.

What that literally breaks down to meaning is that we will live lives that were wasted, lives that will result in us being separated from God, lives that will result in us living life without any purpose, or as N.

T.

Wright would say, a life on the Y path is a life that we settle for a counterfeit version of ourselves.

Wasted.

And as we continue to make decisions to continue down this wide path, it slowly unravels our soul and our wholeness until we get to a point that the Bible refers to as being reprobate.

A reprobate mind is a person who is incapable of even recognizing that what they're doing is wrong.

Paul refers to it as having our conscience seared off with a hot iron.

I don't even recognize I need to repent from this anymore because I've been given over to my own devices for so long.

That's so weighty.

To think that the Jesus who said, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest, is the same one that says, But if you don't come to me, your life was wasted.

He speaks to us in this way and he says, This world that we're living in, the culture that we're so consumed and enamored with, it's a world that's that's bent on individualism, consumerism, and instant gratification.

The Sermon on the Mount challenges us, and then the Gospel of Luke tells a story about a man that I think is indicative of a lot of things that we see in culture.

He's referred to as the rich fool.

And this rich fool was a man who accumulated a lot of wealth.

He he had all these resources, and and God's not anti-wealth.

But when it came time for him to be generous, his greed consumed him, and the Bible says that his life was wasted.

What good is it to accumulate all of these things, but you lose your very soul?

What good is it to have a 10-car garage in your home, but you don't have a family that will ride in a single car with you?

What good is it to have a bank account that has all of these zeros behind it, but you have no one that wants to go on vacation with you?

Is it worth it?

Jesus is confronting all of us, confronting all of our ambitions, confronting all of our greed, even.

And he's saying, This road will lead to destruction where you're willing to sacrifice integrity for achievement.

You define your success by likes and dollars instead of by character, and you avoid accountability at every turn.

You're looking for the likes of men and you're missing the well done from God.

He's saying that this path is uncomfortable.

It's filled with hurry, it's filled with busyness, and it can cause us to drift.

And it's not something that happens overnight.

That time will pass and we just begin to drift.

It reminds me of a few years back, Megan and I, we went to Cancun for the first time, and um, when we got there, I said, babe, we made it.

I don't know what made it means, but we're here.

This is a dream vacation, we've made it.

We're here to live it up.

You can live your best life, just stay within budget.

I remember when we got there and they gave us a tour of the facility, they said, Hey, this is a lazy river.

And this lazy river, it circles the entire resort.

You can just get on this thing and get lost for the entire day.

And I felt like the Holy Spirit welled up on the inside of me, and he was like, This is where I'm leading you to go to, my son.

After years of service.

I'm calling you to this.

But Meg is not a real like lazy river type.

So the first couple of days, I was trying to like encourage her, like, hey, we should go get on a lazy river.

She's like, oh no, it's it's cool, you can go.

And you know, it's like it's like you know, when your wife slash girlfriend's like, oh no, you can go without me.

Okay.

But I'm like, man, I paid too much for this trip, so I'm gonna do it.

So I say, hey babe, here's what we're gonna do.

I booked us, this men listen to me.

I booked us a couple massage at 12 o'clock.

So here's what I want you to do.

I want you to go ahead and sleep in.

I'm gonna go out and check out some things on a resort, aka get in the lazy river, and I'm gonna meet you.

I'm gonna meet you where we can get our couples massage.

It's like, oh, you're so kind.

I'm like, I know.

So I get in the lazy river, I've never been on one before, but I I had to learn the mechanics of it.

And the mechanics of it is there's like this current that you just gotta like trust the current.

So I get inside of the inner tube, and and initially I'm a little uncomfortable, but I don't want to act like I've never done it before.

So I'm looking at other people, they seem more comfortable, so I'm trying to relax, and and and my core's engaged, I lost a lot of weight on this trip.

Like everything is everything is good.

And then I finally hit my rhythm.

Like, okay, like this is working for me.

So I'm looking around and we're just coasting, and you're just going and you're seeing people out there, the DJs playing, people waving high five in you and all that type of stuff.

It was during COVID, so I had to keep sanitizer in my head, like like so doing the best we can.

And so I get there and I'm telling you guys, probably within 15 minutes, I was knocked out.

I was asleep, I was KO'd, I was gone.

And and and I don't know how long I was asleep, but legend has it that I circled the resort like four times.

This is a true story.

I I woke up and I was surrounded by other rejected inner tubes all around me.

I somehow got off into this current that like pushes you behind the machine, and and now I'm back there where all the defunct um broken down inner tubes are, where the employees are coming in and taking their smoke break.

There's nothing illustrious about being in an all-inclusive resort, like, hey man, what are you doing here?

Like, I mean, so I'm in the back of this resort and and and I'm I'm completely disoriented, and to make matters worse, and this is where we all have to say, uh, I got sunburned.

Some of y'all didn't say uh because y'all didn't think black people can get sunburned.

Yes, we can.

I see what you're thinking right now.

Yes, we can.

Google it, look it up.

Y'all didn't know y'all coming here to learn about these things, anatomy.

You get everything with me.

So, so here I am.

I I'm I'm on this lazy river that just followed the current.

There was no real direction of where I was gonna go.

I was just floating down the river.

I got so comfortable that I went to sleep, but I ended up in a place I didn't want to end up at, and I ended up experiencing a lot more discomfort than I expected to have.

This is what happens when we live our lives just going with the flow.

I'm just gonna float through life.

And and I'll go to church when it works for me, and and I'll and I'll serve when it works for me, and and I'll give when it works for me.

In other words, a life without intentionality or a life without purpose.

And what that will result in is us ending up in a place that we don't want to be and having experiences that we know are not God's best for us.

What I want us to recognize is that when Jesus is bringing us on this journey, he's saying, I didn't condition you and build you to be a person who lives your entire life with a lazy river mentality.

I've called you to be a person that is intentional.

Because here's what I know about this wide path.

It's seductive, but it's false in its promises and it leads us to a place of utter despair.

But Jesus says, But there's hope.

Because while I've just described to you this wide path and the consequence of it, there's also this narrow path.

The door doesn't look as attractive, the line is really long because there's not a lot of entry points, it's literally only one way in.

It's gonna cost you something, but when you get on the other side of it, it's beyond anything you can ask or think.

Jesus contrasts a life of destruction, and then he says, But those who go through the narrow path, they will experience life or Zoe.

That word Zoe translates to abundance in life, a fruitful life, a life of joy, a life of freedom, a life of peace.

When we read the Gospel of John 10, 10, when it says that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you may have life and life to the fullest, that's where that word Zoe comes in.

Abundance in God.

And it's not talking about a material wealth, but it's talking about an inner peace that the world can't take away.

It's a path that we don't earn, but it's a path that we absolutely have to choose.

This narrow path is one that flies in the face of culture, and it challenges us to love our enemies when they don't deserve it, but neither did we.

It challenges us to walk in humility instead of being so consumed with pride.

It challenges us to resist the pull of materialism by being generous and seeking first the kingdom of God.

This path is one that calls us to eliminate distractions so that we can live on mission.

It's a path of forgiveness, it's a it's a path of resisting temptation, it's a it's a path of accountability, it's a path where we walk out kingdom values, it's a path that that leads us to God's vision for our lives.

Sticking with the theme of vacations that Meg and I have gone on, I'm gonna have a I'll give you guys access to my my photo log at soon.

Um Meg and I, we went um a couple years ago, we went on a trip to the mountains.

A friend of mine had invited me to go to the mountains with him.

And and I'm not really like a mountains dude, I don't have mountain shoes, that's not really my vibe.

If you haven't picked up on that as of yet, but it was an invitation, and I said, I won, I said yes to new experiences, so I'm going to choose yes.

So we go to this spot and and we're in North Carolina, and and I was confused because my my friend said to me, Hey, we're gonna spend some time relaxing and hiking.

Those two things shouldn't be in the same sentence as far as I'm concerned.

In fact, we can leave hiking back in Orlando and we can just focus on the relaxation part.

But nonetheless, I said, when in Rome, we're gonna do what they do.

And so we did a couple of walks around a neighborhood, and I looked at Megan and I'm like, this hiking thing is easy.

This is what hiking is, what's all the big complaints about?

But but then he took us to these other mountains, and they were called the the Grandfather Mountains.

And the thing about the Grandfather Mountains is that first the line was long to get in because you have to pay to get into it.

I didn't have to pay, somebody had to pay in order for us to get into it.

We're driving up the road and we would stop at different points and take pictures and look out at the views, and it was beautiful, and and we would continue to go up this mountain on this trail.

But but eventually it led us to a place where we had to get out of our vehicles, and then there was this rope bridge that we had to walk across, the mile high bridge.

And and and like and you would see the distance, and only 40 people could be on this bridge at the same time.

And with the wind blowing, you could feel it shaking a little bit.

And so I said, My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?

Why have you led me to this point?

But but the goal was if I can just make it across this this very narrow bridge, it would lead me to the peak, to the summit, so to speak.

And so as everybody's going through, and I see little kids going, and little kids look back at me and laugh.

I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna go out like that.

So I I walk by faith.

And as I'm taking these steps, I'm praying in the spirit.

And I tell Megan, don't come across on the other side, because if I don't make it, somebody's gotta live to tell my story.

Tell them I went out calling on the name of Jesus, which I probably wouldn't have.

I'd be like, what the okay, let's keep stick with me, stick with me.

We we we we cross on the other side, and when I get to the other side, I get finally to the top of the mountain, and I can see from miles.

Literally, I can see all around me, and and and it literally brought me to tears because something that was uncomfortable, something that was costly, but it brought me to a vision that I never would have seen if I would have stayed in my comfort zone.

What I want you to recognize is that God has a vision for our lives that will literally blow our minds.

He has a vision for your family that will blow your mind, He has a vision for your finances that will blow your mind, He has a vision for your health that will blow your mind.

But are you willing to take the narrow path to see it?

Because the broad way is amazing, but it's very surface level and it leads to destruction.

But this narrow path is gonna take you to an altitude, it's gonna take you to a high place in the things of God that will transform the way that you see everything else.

This is the journey that God brings us on, and it brings us back to my main thought, my singular point that I want to share with us.

Here's my singular point for us today.

The choice is yours.

That's it.

Jesus brings us to this place where he understands the decision fatigue, the marketing, all the things that are being pumped into our ears, into our eyes nonstop, and he says, Hey, to make this easier for you, how about if you make one decision that becomes the filter for every decision you make after that?

Or you can choose the wide path.

I know it seems so simple, and I know it seems so binary, but Jesus ultimately tells us you have to make a choice.

This isn't unique to Jesus.

Adam and Eve, they had to make a choice while they were in the garden.

Moses, when talking to the people of God, he tells them, choose life so that your children may live.

Joshua says to everyone, Listen, y'all can do what you want, but as for me in my house, we're choosing the Lord.

And now Jesus brings us to a place where he says, Make your choice.

When Jesus is telling us to make a choice, he's not being cruel, but he is being clear.

Because if you can make the right choice, it will produce life.

And Christianity isn't even unique in this.

Other faith disciplines have the same idea, but even culture tells us that we have to make a choice.

Star Wars, hello, there's a light side and a dark side, there is no in-between.

Either you do it or you don't.

Master Yoda, aka me.

Okay.

But but but I think my my my favorite film that ever brought us to a place of the conundrum of choice is The Matrix.

Every time I say The Matrix, Megan twitches a little bit.

I I've watched that movie so much I have it completely memorized.

If you haven't seen it, let me bring you into it.

Okay, so now we're in the matrix.

This world where people are plugged into the machine and system and they they support the economy of the system and the function of the system, but there are people who live outside of the system.

And so Morpheus, he comes to Neo, aka John Wick, aka Keanu Reeves, and he says to him, you have a choice to make.

You have a red pill and a blue pill.

The one pill, you will wake up in La La Land and you will continue on living the lie, or you can you can take this pill and see just how deep the rabbit hole, you can see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

But remember, all I'm offering you is the truth.

That's oh my gosh.

Literal chills right now.

I'm watching when I get home.

Morpheus says, man, I'm it's not gonna be pretty.

I can't even explain it to you, but what I'm offering you is the truth.

Family and friends, allow me to be your Morpheus for a moment.

And I want to present before us the pills that Jesus has commissioned me to present before us.

There's a wide path, and we can continue to live in this mundane existence that leads to a wasted life, or we can go just how deep down a rabbit hole it can take us, and we can see the life of abundance that God has for us.

When Neo came out of the Matrix, there's so many nuances that were there, but one of the things that he says is, Why do my eyes hurt?

And Morpheus said to him, Because you never used them before.

Some of us, mm.

Wait a minute.

I've been quoting God's word and I don't even get a hand clap.

I quote Morpheus and I'm done.

All right.

We're wrapping up.

We don't have a time.

Okay.

I think it's still relevant.

Some of us have been living life and we have not had the vision that God has for us.

And I believe it's time for us to open our eyes and to make the decision of saying, Lord, I know that the narrow path is costly.

But Jesus does not hide that from us.

He said, if anyone wants to follow me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me daily.

It's a daily decision.

But it's an open invitation.

Because Jesus starts it off by saying, Enter.

I'm inviting you to enter.

It's free.

I've already paid for it for you, but it will cost you some comfort.

It will cost you some relationships.

It will cost you some understanding.

But the fruit in your life will transform everything.

With every head bowed and every eye closed, I want to pose a question to us.

A very simple question, but possibly the most important question you will ever answer.

Which path are you on?

The choice is yours.

The wide path, keep doing you living on your own terms, and there will be fruit from that.

Or there's the narrow path, which is the path of Jesus.

Where you get a chance to see exactly what he sees in you.

If you're in here with us right now and you're you're ready to get on the narrow path, maybe you have narrow path tendencies, but at your core you're still on a wide path.

Today, I want to lead us to a place where we can make a choice to choose life.

If that's you, and you're ready to make Jesus your Lord, and we'll walk this out together on account of three.

I want you to boldly lift your hands up so we can celebrate with you and pray with you.

One, two, three.

I'm on the narrow path.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Hands up everywhere.

Amen.

Amen.

My God, church, let's put our hands together and celebrate with everyone that is choosing life.

We honor you and we celebrate you, and we recognize it's in this moment the lifting of a hand isn't necessarily the thing that crosses the threshold of salvation, but it's the commitment in the heart.

And so the Bible says that there's a prayer, a declaration that we can do together as a community that solidifies this moment.

So I want to ask everybody to pray this prayer with me in conjunction with those who may be praying it for the very first time.

These are the people that are coming home.

These are the people that are saying yes.

These are the people that are choosing the narrow path.

So let's all pray this prayer together.

Lord Jesus, I choose you.

Thank you for choosing me.

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

And today I am saved.

Fill me with your spirit and order my steps.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you prayed that prayer and it was from the depths of your heart, then we believe that you're a part of the family of faith, and now we get to walk this out together.

One of the best ways that we can celebrate this moment is by going through communion.

So we're going to take communion together as a church.

When you came in, you should have been given the communion elements.

If you did not get them, would you mind slipping a hand up so that we can give them to you?

Is that for me?

Thank you.

While you're getting the elements in your hand, keep that hand lifted up if you didn't get it.

I'm going to go ahead and get us started for the sake of time.

But Jesus tells his disciples that the bread is symbolic of his body.

And the theology behind it is ultimately saying that, hey, like my body is broken for you, which then means that healing is available to you.

We have some hands over here as well, Aaron.

You see them over here, right here, like in front of me.

Okay, we got some more coming.

Keep those hands up and they stay there.

I'm talking about worship.

I don't know what y'all are talking about right now.

Alright, we have some coming to you.

I'm gonna I don't want I don't want to leave without somebody getting the elements that they need.

Okay.

We have some right here in the back, too.

Right here in front of me.

Couple rows back.

I feel like I'm staring into the sun.

We have one more coming, Aaron.

We got one more right here.

We have two.

We have two over here.

Okay.

We have three.

Can I get a four?

Can I get a four?

We got five, we got five, we got five.

Do I get six?

Do we have six?

Do we have six?

Okay.

For for the sake of time, are we are we out?

We out.

That's good and amazing and terrible.

Okay, so for those who have your hands lifted up.

Like I Someone share with them.

Yeah, like I was gonna say share, but I also realized that we're kind of like, hey, do I?

But listen, if you're with somebody, the Bible literally says they broke the bread.

They broke the bread.

So if you're with somebody, let's break the bread and give them a portion of it so that we can make sure that none of us miss out on this uh this kingdom moment.

Um but the Bible says that Jesus said, My body is broken for you.

My brokenness means that you can be made whole and and and he makes it available to every single one of us.

What I recognize is that all of us are born into a broken world and we experiencing brokenness, and it's possible that we have patterns that we've been perpetuating, whether it's generational things or just decisions that we make or places we find ourselves, but but according to God's word, that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross means that wholeness is available to us.

And so what he says is do this in remembrance of me.

Every time you gather, when you have these moments that are sacred and you're honoring the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, recognize that healing is available to you and choose it.

Live a life that embodies it.

And so today as a family, maybe there's something that you're believing God for in an area of healing, mentally, physically, spiritually.

As we take this bread, let's choose healing and let's walk by faith until we see it.

Let us take and eat.

Also, he speaks about the juice, which is symbolic of his shed blood.

And what he says with this is he says, like, hey, like this this shed blood is for the forgiveness of sins.

This is so significant because what he's saying is that before the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, there was a significant barrier between us and God.

We inherited that from Adam and Eve.

But because of the shed blood of Jesus, when God sees you, he no longer sees your sins, he sees your righteousness because you're clothed in the finished work of Christ on the cross, which then means that we can go boldly before the throne of grace.

That means that I can walk into the presence of God without fear of judgment of the mistakes that I made even before I got to church today, because I am now the righteousness of Christ, because I chose the blood.

So today, maybe there's some among us who struggle with shame of the past, guilt, things you can't forgive yourself for, things that maybe people won't let you forget or move on from.

I want to encourage somebody in here.

Someone's time-stamped version of you, you don't have to be faithful to it.

You can move forward because the blood of Jesus says that you've been reconciled to the Father.

So as a family and community, let us take and drink, knowing that we are made whole.

We're running a little bit behind, but it's okay.

But I want us to go into a moment of worship just to kind of solidify this.

So I'm going to ask everyone to stand on their feet.

And I want to lead us in a simple prayer.

But in this time, I want to invite us to engage.

I want to invite us to choose to worship.

I want to invite us to choose to lift our hands.

I want to invite us to choose to declare the goodness of God because worship is on the narrow path.

Surrender is on the narrow path, but it will produce life.

With every hand lifted up, Lord, we thank you.

We thank you for the finished work of Christ on the cross.

We thank you for the shed blood.

We thank you for the healing and wholeness that you make available to us.

And we thank you that you give us the dignity to choose you, and we are chosen in you.

So today, God, as a church family, we choose the narrow path.

And God, we we invite your grace, we invite your peace, we invite your accountability, we invite your love, and we receive every bit of it.

So in the name of Jesus, as we worship, I pray for an outpouring of your spirit that empowers and enables and animates our faith.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Come on, church family.

Let's worship together.

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

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