Trauma, Triggers, and the Cross | 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.

My name is Keith, and alongside my wife Megan, we have the privilege of serving as the lead pastors here at Celebration Orlando.

And if we had an opportunity to meet you or shake your hand, um please stop at the Connect 10 at the end of service.

If you're joining us online, we would love for you to come and worship with us in person.

We're thankful for technology, but there's nothing like being in the presence of God and the community of people.

Can I get a good amen to that?

Amen.

I I am really excited about um about today, about this entire month, in fact.

Um reason being it's because this is mental health awareness month.

Somebody's excited about it.

So so here's here's the thing about about mental health awareness or any of the the months that have themes attached to them.

Every month there's a theme of something.

Um so it seems, and and a lot of times they can just seem like just cultural reactions to things, and and and we all can have our different um perspectives on these things.

But but I have found that even in spite uh of the growing information that that continues to be presented to us in the sense that we're in the midst of a mental height, a mental health crisis, how how it still can seem to be this area that is uncomfortable, it still can be this thing that that makes us unsure of how to engage it.

And I truly believe it's because we we don't know quite how to wrap our arms around it.

The fact of the matter is that we all have experiences, um, and different experiences and different contexts produce different results.

And so, because of that, that that uniqueness of what people can go through, it's hard to kind of put it into a one plus one equals two scenario.

So when you have mental health, it's so hard for us to wrap our minds around it.

But even in spite of that, we we see that suicide rates are through the roof.

We see that depression and anxiety, even amongst people of faith, is is skyrocketing.

And and and the sad thing is we still are even divided as a people group on how we choose to engage it.

Sadly, I I just was uh exposed to people of faith that are saying, hey, anxiety is not a thing.

Depression's not a thing, they don't exist, it's just it's just things that people make up, and and they kind of went on to their tire about it.

And it's like, when when did the people of faith just become folks that just said, we're gonna deny science, we're gonna deny facts, we're gonna divide all the things that are very real, and we're just gonna stand on this principle that quite honestly we're taking it out of context.

I realize that for some of us when we begin to talk about the nuances of a mental health and emotional well-being, that there can be a stigma attached to it.

Different people groups, different cultures struggle with being able to talk about it.

So sadly, people often suffer in silence.

So, what we are aiming to do in this series over the next four weeks, inclusive of this week, is we want to do our best to demystify some of it.

We we want to do our best to give context to to most of it, but we also want to show you how we integrate God into all of it.

This topic is robust, and in four weeks with 30 minutes won't do it justice.

So I realize that there may be some that are sitting amongst us and like, hey, what about this?

What about that?

Well, I get it.

We're we're gonna get there after the message.

We're gonna talk about it.

But what I'm asking you to do is be with us on this journey as we unpack these varying truths that I believe God wants to reveal to us.

Can I get a good amen on that?

The name of this series is called Renew, and it's meant to equip our community with tools about mental health, emotional health, but ultimately bringing us to a place of spiritual renewal.

I believe that by addressing these things with a kingdom perspective that we're able to redeem the past and to have a vision for the future.

Our theme scripture for this series is found in the book of Romans, chapter number 12.

If you have your Bibles, you can turn there, it'll come on on the screen above me.

But we're just gonna look at one verse.

It says, Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

This text insinuates that that God's will is perfect.

This this text communicates to us that what God has for us is good and pleasing, but it also communicates that we won't be able to discern it unless we renew our mindset.

That means that there could be things that are in our lives that are good and they're from God, but we can't see it and can't receive it, we can't discern it because our mindsets have been trapped into a cycle that the Bible refers to as the world.

So Paul says, But if you can renew your mind, you can see some of the very same things through the lens of faith, and you can recognize that God's perfect will is at work in your life.

So today we're gonna lay a foundation on this series and we're gonna go on this journey together.

And if you're taking notes, and I hope that you are, the message title today is called Trauma Triggers and the Cross.

Let's pray and let's get into it.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you for your people.

Um we thank you for the gospel, the good news that Jesus came, that he lived, that he died, that he rose, he ascended, we have the Holy Spirit, we have community, we have you.

We have perfect, unbroken fellowship with you because we're covered by the blood of the Lamb.

So because of that, we can say that we are healed, but also acknowledge that healing is still a process.

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

I pray that you can allow us to enlarge our borders on how we understand the things that we've experienced and how we can invite you into it to redeem it.

So, Lord, I just ask for open eyes that we can see you.

I ask for open ears to hear your truth above all else.

And Lord, I pray for open hearts to receive everything that you want to deposit into us today.

Holy Spirit, have your way.

Transform us, encourage us, challenge us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen and amen.

You know, church, I I recognize that that all of us have probably different rhythms and routines and things that we engage in.

I'm I'm really a rhythms person.

I I like to have certain rhythms in my life, and and and it's not so much like rigid traditions, but there's certain rhythms that work well for me.

And so one of my Sunday routines or or rhythms is I get up early, I pray, I process, I come here, we we have two services, and then there's a moment at about now, typically about 11:15-ish, I recognize, man, I didn't eat yet.

Um so then my mind begins to think about hey, I gotta get through the 10:30 service and be focused on the things of God, but also asking myself, where are we gonna eat at?

So that's just the I'm just letting you guys know that the journey that I'm on right now.

That's the rhythm that I'm on.

And so so last week was one of just like my regular routine at the end of service.

Um my wife and I, we go out and we get brunch with some great friends of ours from the church.

Now, the location that we choose to go to is about 40 minutes away from our house.

The food was good enough, so it was worth the journey.

But what you need to understand is that my typical rhythm is even if we do get something to eat after church, it's typically in a place that's close to here, which means that I'm still home by around 1.30 at the latest, which means that the Lord's hour for me to take a nap is around 1.45, and I never miss it.

I never miss it.

Like maybe two o'clock, and that's like I'm late, but like I'm typically out by two.

That's that's a fact.

But because of the distance that we were and the time that we were having, I I knew that I was gonna be late for my appointment, and I was okay with that.

But when I got in the car and we were heading home, my mindset began to shift to okay, I'm I got about 40, 45 minutes, and and then I'm gonna meet the Lord in the divine land of Snoozeville, and he's gonna speak to me.

It's how he restores my soul.

And so we're driving, and and we're about we're about 10 minutes away from home.

We've navigated through traffic, and now we're about 10 minutes from home.

And I'm not sure about you, but whenever I've had a long day, and I find myself, you know, when you get to like that last exit before you get to your house, like the the adrenaline begins to build up, you're excited, you see the end in sight, you're so excited, you can you begin to kind of like wind down, like, man, I'm I'm almost home.

Ten minutes outside of us getting home, I get off at the last exit and I can see my pathway.

It's like autopilot mode.

But as I'm driving to get to this last road before I hit the stretch before I get to my house, I see a guy standing in the middle of the road waving people to make a turn.

And so when I see this initially, you have to understand, I watch a lot of movies.

And so I've seen enough movies where it's like, oh yo, this road is detour, you get over there and you get robbed or something.

So I'm wondering to myself, it's just like something, is this one of those scenarios I'm looking all around to make sure, like, is this like a setup thing?

Because I'll run this dude over and I'll repent later.

Like, because you're not gonna catch me out here like that, man.

You're gonna catch me lacking.

So so I'm I'm trying to figure it out, but I see a lot of other cars are going, and it seems to be pretty legit.

Just this random dude standing in the street, just telling people that you have to go a different way.

So we cut through this back parking lot and we loop back around.

And so I'm like, okay, fine, like we we have to go a different direction.

This takes us about five minutes.

And as we're driving, and I'm like, okay, I'm I'm five minutes delayed, but but we're we're gonna get there.

I find myself coming back around the same loop, and I see the same dude standing in the same spot, like deja vu.

He wasn't following me, but what was going on is when I missed my turn, my map rerouted me right back to the same path that I was on before.

And now I'm about to lose my mind because now I'm 10 minutes late and I hate to be late.

So I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, like, okay, I I I gotta get out of this cycle because this is the second time.

And then when I go around the loop this time, my map reroutes me, and I'm like, okay, great, I'm I'm going a different route.

And then I come back around and see this guy a third time.

I'm literally about to lose my mind at this point.

Like, I'm losing all composure.

I shouldn't have been as angry as I am, but I'm about to lose my mind because watch this.

I'm I'm trying to get rerouted.

I I know where I want to go, I know where I need to be, but I keep finding myself going in cycles and seeing the same things over and over again.

I know where I want to go.

I know where I want to be.

I know that where I just came from isn't the best way for me to get to where I want to go.

But my map wasn't updating to the reality that this road was closed, so it kept bringing me back to what was old and familiar, and I felt like I was stuck in an endless cycle.

What I think can happen for some of us is that in life, we can kind of get into autopilot mode.

We we live enough life, we have enough experiences, we we know which ways to go with so many things in our life that we begin to just kind of go through the motions.

And watch this even when we recognize that this is bringing me right back to the exact same spot that I was trying to get away from, there's still something inside of us that doesn't want to break away from the norm, and we find ourselves going right back into the same cycle over and over again.

What is it about us that we can find ourselves at a place where we can recognize that I'm not making progress but not feel as if I have the momentum to actually break the cycle?

What is it about the human condition that we can stay in these ruts over and over again and honestly think that we're gonna get different results, but yet we find ourselves in the same spot over and over again.

It's all in our mindset, it's all in our perspective.

But but the beautiful thing, there is hope.

Somebody say there is hope.

Because I truly believe this that if you change your mind, you can change your life.

I really believe that if we have the ability to change our minds, it can absolutely be the thing that can unlock changing our lives, but it takes work.

Because when we're talking about changing our mind, we're actually talking about changing our mindsets.

And our mindsets are an accumulation of things that we've experienced, things we've been exposed to, and things that are familiar to us, and after a while we find rhythms and routine, and then we can get to a place where we're comfortable in our dysfunction.

We can get to a place where we function in our dysfunction.

This is why when we look at the biblical account and we see stories of people that Jesus healed, you'll often see that they had a whole rhythm of how to function in their dysfunction.

One of the narratives that comes to mind is Jesus when he encounters the man at the pool of Bethesda, as it's often referred to in scripture.

The Bible talks about how he had been in this afflicted condition for many years.

And when the Bible says that Jesus looks at this man and this man was sitting here, he wasn't thinking about getting healed, he was thinking about getting a handout.

So Jesus says to him, Do you want to be made well?

There was something about the man's posture that communicated, I'm not interested in getting well, I'm just interested in having my need met in the moment.

I think so many of us can sometimes, even though we know that we're not progressing, even though we know that we're not moving forward, we can still create systems and rhythms that allow us to function within our dysfunction.

But if we can change our minds, we can change our lives.

See, a mindset, particularly a fixed mindset, it belongs to a person who has become so entangled with their reality that it becomes their identity.

That what I'm currently going through, this is who I am now.

And we become stuck in this.

And these people are the ones that will often say, This person is very close-minded.

They're set in their ways, or maybe you've heard it this way.

You know, you can't teach an old dog new.

Come on.

We're talking about people who have been so routinely intertwined with their current season that it's become a reality that they can't even make a distinction between what they're going through and who they are anymore.

That's a fixed mindset.

But a growth mindset is the complete opposite.

This is people that will have the mindset of saying that my experience doesn't define me, and that I'm always looking for opportunities to expand my perspective.

I'm always willing to listen to other points of views so that it can help me to grow.

Even if it doesn't change my mind, it can help me to understand yours a little bit more.

We're talking about a growth mindset.

What I want you to understand is that in the kingdom of God context, we have to have a growth mindset.

We have to be willing to come to the conclusion that if I change my mind, it will change my life, but I gotta be willing to have a desire to grow.

See, the way that we're wired as human beings is God has so intricately created us that He's given us all these things.

We're like a superhighway, the way that God's designed us.

Our neurons are the cells that transmit and from information that helps our bodies to function.

My neurons are telling me how to pick this cup up and how to put it back down.

And after years of doing that, I don't even have to think about it anymore.

It's something I can do fairly regularly.

It creates neural pathways, it's not anything new, it's just a part of my regular routine.

This is why with infants, when they're learning how to touch things, their mobility is not good.

But as they do it more and more, what ends up happening is it becomes something that it becomes automatic for them.

That's exactly what happens with us.

We just we just do things, we go through the motions.

But what if we're doing something the wrong way?

We can learn it the wrong way, and we can end up getting the wrong results.

Let me give us uh let me give us an example.

Let's say hypothetically, let me let me come back here for a minute.

These keys are not on, and it's a good thing because you don't want them to be on because I can't play a lick.

But but but stick with me for a moment.

Hypothetically, let's say I was raised in a household where my mom had a piano in the living room, which my mom actually did.

I never was allowed to go in there, it was a white room.

I'm not sure if you guys have homes where your parents have rooms that you couldn't go into and furniture you couldn't sit in.

Like, I'm like, why do we have it here then?

But anyway, I love you, mom.

Anyway, so we have we had a piano.

And so let's say from the time that you were small, you watched your parents play the piano.

You learned it by watching them play the piano.

You learned how to pick up their mannerisms, you learn how to press the keys the way that your mom does it, and that is how you understand music.

But then one day you go to college and you want to pursue music at a more, at a higher level.

And so now you're at Juilliard and they're like, man, like you know how to put together great melodies.

Let me see you play the scales.

And as you begin to play the scales, you're relying on the way that you were taught from your mother.

You're relying on the behaviors that you had developed all through the years.

And now the instructor is looking at you and saying, Hey, the way that you're currently playing it is ineffective.

I know that you've been making some sounds out of it, and it may have gotten you to a certain point, but playing that way is going to limit the sheet music I can give you.

There's so much more that I want to expose you to, but it's going to require you to learn how to play it differently.

That process is very difficult because our minds have created a memory of how we know how to play the notes.

And as we're going through the motions of learning how to do the basic things over and over again, we can stumble, we can hit bad notes, we can make mistakes, but if we stick to it, then we'll be able to grow and learn it the right way and expose us to so many things that we didn't think was available to us.

Let me put it all together for us.

So many of the ways that we function and live is by the byproduct of the way that we saw our parents function and live.

Just things that have been passed on.

I can't be the only one that's ever said, like, I don't even know why I do it, but that's how I did it in my household.

That's that's how my mom did it.

Megan and I, when we got together, we we are amazingly connected together, but we found that there's just different ways that our moms prepared meals.

There was different ways that we function.

And so when it would be like, hey, like, why'd you do the rice this way?

Well, this is how I've always done it, or this is how I saw my mom do it.

Well, this is how I saw my mom do it.

So are we having a battle of moms now?

Like, what are like whose mom wins?

Which method approach wins?

Like, how how do we figure it out?

I I was raised in a household where as you're cooking and you're putting your food out, you're also cleaning up as you go.

I don't need the seasoning anymore, I'm gonna put it in the refrigerator.

I don't I don't need this anymore, I'm gonna put it in the cupboard.

Megan was raised in a household where you bring out every ingredient that you need, you leave it out there, you eat, and then maybe you'll put it up the next day.

Maybe, maybe.

Now, now here's the thing.

Guess what?

There's nothing wrong with either of them.

But our burdens get attached to the way that we were raised doing it.

And then conflict gets birthed because someone's doing it a different way.

This is a simple example, but what I'm helping you to understand is that we all have mindsets or filters that are birthed off of our experiences that begin to challenge our current reality.

We're talking about music, we're talking about cooking, but what if we're talking about lifestyle?

What if we're talking about behavior?

What if we're talking about things that that are in your life that you just accumulated because they were passed down to you, but it's not beneficial to you, and now you're at a place where you're at a fork in the road, and I have to begin to do things differently.

It may seem like there's no hope, but the Bible is clear to us that if we change our mind, it can change our lives.

The Bible tells us, and Paul, and and Paul tells the church in Rome, he says to us that if you renew your mind, the word that Paul uses is a word that suggests a thorough ongoing process of making something new.

In other words, what Paul is communicating is that this is not going to happen through a transaction.

This happens through a journey.

And we're gonna have to do this over and over again, the same way that I had to relearn how to play the piano according to the standards of the experts.

I have to do it over and over again, and if I do it enough, then I will create new neuropathways, and then what would once used to be hard will become a rhythm of success.

So Paul is saying, you guys were born in a world with paganism, with all types of idolatry, with sexual immorality.

That was the model of the world, and you've gotten so used to it that it's become your identity.

But what I want you to do is that before I could talk about changing your behavior, I gotta first help you to change your mind.

I gotta help you to look at this a little bit differently.

Because if not, it's gonna be called behavior modification, but there's no conviction next to it and it doesn't work.

But let me help you to think about this differently.

Paul begins to introduce this idea to us of beginning to immerse ourselves in the Word of God, the people of God, the culture of God, and as we do it more and more, that rhythm will create new neural pathways that creates new behavior that will then eventually produce new fruit.

Can I get a good amen to that?

But if we change our minds, we can change our lives, but there is absolutely a process.

So I want to share three thoughts with us that I'm hoping I can get to fairly quickly.

But I think these are going to be things that are gonna really, really help us.

Here's the first thing that I think is necessary for us to truly begin to be the process of renewing our minds.

We have to recognize our trauma.

We have To recognize our trauma.

Trauma is ultimately defined as a distressing or disturbing experience.

It's often thought of as a wound that's as the result of an event or a series of events.

Trauma can be something that happens after a one-time occurrence or after multiple repeated occurrence, but the outcome is the same.

It may express itself differently, but the outcome is the same.

There's something that has happened to me that has impacted me and is changing the way that I move forward.

Now, I was born in 1975.

So I would venture to say that I'm a little bit old school in the way I was brought up.

I would say that I'm very progressive in the sense of the way that I recognize the world has changed, but I'm old school at my core because when I would see my family go through hardships, they didn't talk about trauma.

They didn't talk about the emotions.

When my biological father left when I was young, my mom never talked about that being a traumatizing experience for her.

My first experience that I remember at four years old is my dad walking out.

I never thought of that as trauma.

It's just something that happens and you got to keep moving forward.

So you know what I'm wired with?

I'm wired in such a way that, hey, I know something's happened, but we got to keep moving forward because that's what I saw my mom do.

My dad left, my mom said we got to keep moving forward.

But the truth of the matter is, those things do impact us.

The truth of the matter is they can affect us.

That if you have seen someone that you love, someone that you thought that you could consider to be safe, someone that's supposed to care for you, leave you, it will impact you.

You will have abandonment issues.

You're gonna have attachment issues because you're gonna be wondering where can I find a safe place, someone that I can truly connect to, someone I can depend on, someone that I can know that's gonna be there, someone I can rely on, and it begins to affect us.

And then what ends up happening is we create relationship after relationship, jump to one thing to the next, hoping to fill something that was never satisfied when I was a child.

This is the reality of what it is.

So because I'm a person that's old school, I also recognize that we live in a world where our words should matter, but somehow they don't anymore.

That people throw everything out there, and now trauma is such a catchphrase.

And so I used to wrestle with the concept of trauma because I had seen it weaponized as a way to justify the lack of accountability.

Oh, I couldn't do that.

You know I was traumatized, right?

Oh, you you know, I'm sorry I cuss you out, but my dad used to cuss me out, so I'm cussing you out.

Like, so I'm just being real with you.

So I used to struggle when people would say I've had trauma because people began to use it as an excuse to say that I can't move forward.

So, how do we presence both of these things?

Let me tell you what trauma isn't.

Trauma isn't every disappointment.

Let me say to this again.

Just because your parents said no to ice cream at 10 o'clock, that was not traumatic.

I'm joking, but I'm not.

Because if we're not careful, we'll rewrite every negative experience and then try to redefine it as something that was soul shaping when the truth of the matter is you just can't go out and play in the middle of the street because you're gonna get hit by cars.

That's not traumatic.

Getting hit by the car will be traumatic.

I'm just trying to help you to have boundaries to keep you safe.

But if we don't recognize the distinction, we can begin to use the word in such a way that it loses its true impact.

Trauma also isn't holding you hostage to the past.

It's happened to you.

And we need to navigate through it, we need to process through it, we need to invite God into it, we need to get therapy.

But what trauma isn't is an excuse to stay in the past.

Trauma also isn't the lack of accountability.

So now that we've talked about what trauma isn't, let me tell you what it actually is, though.

It's not just an event, but it's how an event in the past continues to be with you and disrupt you in the present.

Recent studies have shown that trauma can even be passed down in the DNA.

The most recent results have shown that the kids of Holocaust survivors have higher stress levels than the kids who didn't have to go through the Holocaust.

It was passed down.

The Bible refers to these things as generational curses sometimes.

I have I'm I'm not sure if anybody else in here, but I know in my culture that when we would often talk about people, we would often say things like, oh, that that runs in our family.

Oh, so diabetes, that that runs in our family.

Oh, cancer cancer that runs in our that runs in our family.

Oh, you know, divorce, that runs in our family.

Alcoholism, that runs in our family.

It's like it's something that's getting passed down from one generation to the next.

The Bible talks about this, but it also tells us that we can break this by bringing this into the presence of God.

So I'm here to give you good news.

What if faith began to run in your presence in your family?

What if healing began to run in your family?

What if breakthrough began to run in your family?

What if wholeness began to run in your family?

Just because something has happened in the past, it doesn't mean that God doesn't have a bright future for us, but we got to make sure that we change our mindset.

There's the Bible is filled with biblical perspectives on traumatic experiences.

But sadly, we allow our faith to ignore the human experience, causing us to miss the true implications of the traumatic experience that person had.

We can allow our faith to skip the facts, but I'm here to let you know that faith and facts are not opponents.

But when we look at scripture through the lens of trauma and how they affected the person as a human being, maybe we can have more empathy for other people.

Let me give you a couple of quick examples.

You know, every time I've read the story of Job, it's always been in the book that we read that helps us to understand suffering.

How do we suffer well?

How do we make sure we have the right people around us?

And if we do it good enough, guess what happens?

You get double for your trouble.

I was raised in the church where that was the message I was preached.

Double for your trouble.

I still remember the message.

We got up, we danced, we shouted, it was an amazing message.

Every time I've heard it, it was Job went through some terrible things.

It was awful.

He had some terrible friends, but guess what?

God blessed him on the other side.

But let's look at this through the lens as if Job was a real human being.

Job lost his entire family.

So watch this.

Yes, God blessed him with another family.

But here's my question: Do you think Job's new kids made him forget his old ones?

Do we think that because God gives us something to move forward, that there still aren't things that we can still be processing through because we're human beings?

I believe if we can look at scripture through the true trauma of what people went through, we can have empathy for people that are going through it, even as people of faith.

We can't put Bible band-aids on things.

Sometimes we have to learn to let people be human beings.

David, David was rejected by his family.

Saul tried to kill him multiple times.

His wife hated the way that he worshiped, his son died, his other son tried to take the throne.

David was aware of his trauma, and he constantly talked about it in the Psalms.

He would talk about it.

David wasn't someone who was stuffing his feelings.

He was like, God, I want you to break my enemy's teeth.

What I'm going through right now is terrible, and I don't know why I'm going through it.

David didn't ignore his trauma.

He was a man after God's own heart, but he also understood that he had a broken heart.

And those two things can coexist.

Let's talk about Paul.

Paul persecuted the church, literally was responsible for people going to jail and being killed.

Church leaders didn't trust him.

He was persecuted and imprisoned.

He was beaten.

He was stoned, went through a shipwreck.

After the shipwreck, and he thought he survived it, was bitten by a snake.

He had to deal with constant pressure, conspiracies for his life.

The book of Acts records it and he writes about it in 1 Corinthians.

Do you think he didn't consider all of these things when all of the stuff he went through?

He literally says, like, listen, and and I like the way that Paul writes, because Paul has a tendency to flex a little bit.

So when he's writing to the Corinth church, which is questioning his authority, he's writing like, hey, you guys don't know what I've been through.

Y'all think y'all know how to serve the Lord?

Let me tell you what I've been through.

I survived a shipwreck and then I got bitten by a snake afterwards.

What have you done?

Like Paul was very aware of his trauma.

He was very aware of his suffering.

He was very aware of his disappointment, but he also knew how to present it into the presence of God.

What I want you guys to hear is that acknowledging the traumatic events in your life is not a lack of faith, it's actually an evidence of wholeness because you're choosing to bring God into it.

Don't ignore what you've been through.

So I think knowing our trauma is incredibly important.

Here's the next thing: know your triggers.

Know the things that can trigger you.

Triggers refers to the things that set off memories that remind you of the event that occurred, the thing that happened to you.

It could be tragic, it could be a good memory, it could be a bad memory, but nonetheless, what triggers are is they are something that remind you of something that has impacted you.

Let me say it this way.

Last week, Megan and I we went for a walk around our neighborhood.

And so Megan is definitely one of the ones that that, if you've ever seen these memes when it's like you're walking next to your spouse and they keep walking closer to you and they keep knocking you over, like that is 1000% my wife.

Like as we're walking, she's just constantly edging me out.

So I kind of got used to it.

I've learned to expect it.

So one we were walking last week, and as we're walking, she begins to kind of drift over.

She's drifting over into my lane, and I kind of like step over to give her some space.

But when I step over, I step off of the sidewalk like onto the grass for a moment.

No big deal.

We keep going.

We come home, everything is good.

The next day when I wake up, my right ankle is killing me.

It's swollen.

I'm in so much pain.

And I'm thinking to myself, where did this come from?

Like I literally just stepped off of the sidewalk and kept going.

Like, and I and I couldn't understand it.

But then it occurred to me that my right ankle is the ankle that I broke seven years ago.

I have a steel plate in my ankle.

I have seven screws in my ankle.

I want you to hear this.

I I went through surgery, I went through physical therapy, and today I am healed.

I am whole.

I walk fine.

Let me show you.

Let me show you my walk.

I'm not sure if you've seen it, because I have a couple different versions, but here's my main walk like this.

I call it my Denzel.

Like, I walk fine.

I move great.

I can run.

I can do most things.

But guess what?

I'm healed, but this area is still a little sensitive.

If I twist it just the wrong way, my body will react because it remembers the traumatic event that happened to it and it will overreact because it's like, oh, I remember when that same injury was instigated before, so my body tends to swell up a little bit quicker.

If things aren't in the perfect condition, that's a trigger for me.

If I step the wrong way, that's a trigger for me.

If I if I move too quickly, that's a trigger for me.

The same thing that happens in our body absolutely happens in our minds.

For some people, you can be healed, you could have forgiven, you could have moved forward, but certain things can trigger what you came from.

And if we are not aware of it, then we're not going to know how to put boundaries around it and know how to put protection for ourselves.

Next week is Mother's Day.

It's a day of an amazing celebration.

But watch this.

For a person who's lost their mom, that could be a trigger for them.

That could be sensitive for them.

When birthdays come up, that could be a trigger for somebody.

Because maybe that reminds them of a bad event that took place to them when they were the a wedding anniversary for someone who's lost their spouse who was going through a divorce, even though they've moved forward.

They're not even thinking about that person, but it's still a reminder of what they went through, and that can still be with us.

I I know people that that whenever someone yells at them, they shut down.

It's not because they feel like they're in danger, but they were being yelled at from the time that they were a child, they were being yelled at by their siblings, they were being yelled at at school, they were yelled at by their boyfriend, they were yelled at by their spouse.

So guess what?

Even though they are healed, they know they're in a safe space, that if someone raises their voice to them, sometimes it triggers them.

So when we're aware of those things in other people, you know what we do?

We extend empathy.

Man, I understand that that's a sensitive area for you.

And I know that you're not hostage to it.

I know that that doesn't mean that you can't move forward, but I understand that that's a traumatic event, and I respect your process of healing.

The apostle Peter, the Bible tells us that he made this promise to Jesus Man, I will never deny you.

Are you kidding me?

Ride or die, I'm coming with you.

Jesus said, Man, let me tell you something, Peter.

You're gonna deny me three times before the rooster crows.

He's like, Jesus, listen, I know that your prophecies are typically pretty accurate.

You missed a mark today.

Fast forward a little bit.

Do you know Jesus?

Nah, I don't know him.

Man, you look like those people that were with Jesus, man.

Are you nah?

I don't I don't know him.

No, I'm promised.

I you look just like, bro, stop asking me.

I don't know him.

As he says those words, the rooster crows, he sees the cruiser, the rooster, he sees Jesus, and he's riddled with guilt.

Jesus saw this coming.

But let's look at this from a human perspective for a moment.

How do we think that Peter would have responded to roosters going forward?

Just walking down the street, minding his business, and the sound of the rooster is a reminder of the words of Jesus, is saying, That sound is an indication that you just denied me.

But Jesus helped redeem him from it.

But he has to put boundaries around it.

And I believe the same thing is true of us.

Jesus said to Peter, listen, the devil wants to sift you out like wheat.

He wants to use this traumatic event so that you become a person who's so disconnected and disassociated that you don't know how to heal and move forward.

But I've prayed for you, and now I want you to use this to be able to edify others, but you're gonna have to learn to forgive yourself.

But I promise you, when you look at Peter's writings, when you look at his interactions in the book of Acts, you see a man who had to be intentional because when you know your triggers, you can establish healthy boundaries.

You can establish healthy boundaries.

You can say, like, hey, this is an area that's sensitive for me.

It doesn't mean that you're hostage to it.

It doesn't mean that people have to walk on eggshells, but when you establish healthy boundaries, it allows you to know the areas that can sometimes trip you up and how to invite God into the process.

Can we get a good amen on that?

Here, here's a third and final point.

We're gonna wrap up right now.

The third thing we need to do is embrace the cross.

We we recognize that we have trauma.

We absolutely want to know our triggers, the things that can remind us and set us back.

But in all of that, we have to make sure that we bring it to the cross.

Embracing the cross is not a theological concept, but it's it symbolizes a profound journey of suffering to redemption, from isolation to connectedness.

The cross is the place where trauma meets divine compassion.

Embracing the cross means acknowledging the wounds, knowing that we've fallen short, but also recognizing that Jesus indeed does heal.

The Bible gives an account of when Jesus was resurrected.

And and there was a man named Thomas who was like, hey man, I don't I don't know if I don't know if that's him.

You don't know what I saw.

I saw Jesus beaten brutally, unrecognizably.

There's no way.

There's no way that he's back.

So Thomas created a stipulation.

So the only way I will believe that that's Jesus is if I can put my hands in the wounds that he had.

He's like, listen, because all I know, he could have had a twin brother this entire time, and and we wouldn't even know.

It could have been a bait and switch and we wouldn't even know.

So I need to make sure that if that's Jesus, I need to be able to touch it.

So when Jesus appears before the disciples, he walks over to Thomas and he says, Hey, you were talking, right?

Here I am.

Let me put my hands out.

Touch me, see that it is I myself.

A spirit doesn't have flesh and bones as I do.

And Thomas began to touch the wounds of Jesus.

It used to perplex me so much as to the concept of glorification, which is our resurrected bodies, and wondering, are our wounds going to still be there?

Well, we have memories of the past, but but what we see in the person of Jesus is that Jesus presents him and says, Hey, I have these wounds, but I'm no longer bleeding.

What I believe when we embrace the cross, it allows us not to ignore what we went through, but it's who went through it on our behalf, and we can then begin to walk in true healing.

I'm wounded.

I have a wound, but I'm no longer bleeding.

I'm not bleeding on the situation anymore.

I've been healed, but I still remember what I went through.

Wounded, but I'm no longer bleeding.

Embracing the cross is simply the way of saying that by his stripes I am healed.

The wound smill may be there.

There may be some things that aggravate it sometimes, but I'm not bleeding the way that I used to do because the blood of Jesus has healed me, he has redeemed me, he has restored me, and I'm able to walk in victory from it, but I still got some wounds that are still there.

Somehow we've allowed ourselves to believe that because we become people of faith, that it erases every ounce of our pain of the past.

And we live lives that are compartmentalized instead of lives that are integrated and whole.

You know the word shalom, peace, it means wholeness.

We often live lives where we're fragmented and separated.

Here's my faith side, here's my childhood, here's my work side.

But what wholeness is, is all of these things are integrated together.

I don't have to compartmentalize my faith, I don't have to compartmentalize my trauma.

They all can coexist together and I can presence God in all of it, and that is how I can walk in true healing.

You know, when I think about that time when Megan and I were stuck in this endless loop and not able to get home, after the third time, something occurred to me like my map is not rerouting me.

I'm going to have to make the choice to go a different direction.

So I broke free from what was already predetermined.

And as I drove away, the map kept trying to bring me back to the same cycle.

But I refused to go.

And it kept saying, rerouting, rerouting, Keith, you're going the wrong way.

I'm like, I am not, man.

Shut up.

You need to listen to me, Siri.

Like, but it it wouldn't, it wouldn't, it just kept saying, You're going the wrong way, you're going the wrong way, you're going the wrong way.

I'm like, no, I'm not.

I know it feels uncomfortable, I know it feels a little unknown.

And from your perspective, it may even seem like it's the long way, but I keep going in circles and I can't go in circles any longer.

So I'm choosing to go a different direction.

That sounds like the definition of repentance.

I'm choosing to go in a different direction.

And as I went in another direction for long enough, it finally was able to reroute itself and allow me to see the more scenic route.

It took me a little bit longer to get there, but I arrived at my destination and God knows it and I took my nap.

So I want you guys to understand.

I want you to recognize that there are some things in our lives that when we begin to break away from the path, it will feel uncomfortable.

Our natural instincts will tell us to keep going back the way that we know it's familiar, it's going to want to reroute us.

But sometimes we got to be so committed to saying, I'm not going to be stuck in this cycle anymore.

I'm going to go in the direction of God is leading me to, and it's not going to be comfortable.

My map, there might not even be a clear pathway forward, but I know where that's going to bring me.

I know where that brought me, and I'm going in a different direction.

And I'm going to trust that God and the spirit of the living God is going to get me to my destination, but I'm not going to go that way anymore.

It's understanding, it's understanding that I have to change directions.

With every head bowed and with every eye closed.

I think that every one of us in here, that there's moments where we have to recognize that, man, I've been through some things, I've got some trauma.

Man, I got some triggers, and I didn't even recognize that I had them.

And I need to bring them to the cross.

If that's you, if you're in here with us today and you want to simply say, Yeah, I got some things that I know I need to bring to the cross, I would love to pray for you right where you are.

On account of three.

Just acknowledging some things that you know that you need to bring to Christ.

One, two, three.

Amen.

Hands up everywhere, inclusive of mine.

Amen.

God bless you.

You can go ahead and put those hands down.

I I want to pose uh a secondary question for us.

Maybe you're in here with us today and you've lived a life of disciples, and you recognize that I've lived my life away from Jesus, and I'm recognizing I need to now go and find myself at the foot of the cross, surrendering my very life so that he can redeem my past, give me vision and my present, and lead me into a much better future.

So if that's you and you want to surrender, to commit your life to Christ, you want to embrace the cross, recognizing that through the cross, that's when I'll experience healing.

These coping mechanisms, these ever behaviors, these things that I've attached myself to, they're never going to be able to prompt to solidify and come through on the promise.

If that's you, you want to commit or recommit your life to Christ, I would I would love to pray for you.

On account of three, would you boldly lift your hand?

One, two, three.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Hands up everywhere.

God bless you guys.

Amen.

Church, can we put our hands together and celebrate with everybody in here that has just said yes to Jesus?

Here's what I want us to do.

Let's stand on our feet and we're going to go into a quick, quick moment of worship.

We're going to get out of here in just a moment, but I do want to go into a quick moment of worship.

I want to lead us in a prayer.

But I don't want to pray on my own, and I certainly don't want to worship on my own.

What I want this to be for all of us is a moment where we're we're just fully engaging in the presence of God, thinking about those things that you know that you need to bring to the foot of the cross.

I want to lead us in a prayer, but but this is a moment for you to surrender it.

For those that are saying yes to Jesus, we're going to give you some instructions on next steps.

But in this moment, let's lift our hands, let's receive what God wants to speak to us and let's see where we go from here.

Lord, we thank you.

We thank you, God, for your goodness.

Your word tells us that it's your goodness that leads us to repentance.

So, Father, I just pray that as we are surrendering our traumas, we're recognizing and surrendering our triggers so that we don't have to walk on eggshells and be uncertain of how things are going to impact us.

That we're able to be people that can recognize the biblical truth of how you see the things we've gone through, of how you walk with us through them.

That God, we're able to establish healthy boundaries but not be hostage.

And God, we can recognize how to walk and how to step and how to navigate through certain seasons.

But Lord, we ultimately know how to bring it to the foot of the cross and allow you to redeem it all and use it for your purpose and glory.

So, Lord, as we go into this time of worship, I pray that even now that you begin to chart out new pathways, helping us to renew our minds.

Because if we change our minds, we can absolutely change our lives.

So, Father, do a work on the inside of us.

Let us create a pathway of worship.

Let us create a pathway of faith.

Let us create a pathway of reading your word.

Let us create a pathway of surrender.

And as we do it enough, our minds will be renewed, our faith will be built, our spirit will be strengthened, and we can experience revival in our lives and then beyond.

So, Lord, I pray that you begin the work in us and you will complete it in us in the name of Jesus.

Let's worship together as a family.

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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