After the Message | Grace to You Conclusion

Thank you for joining us for After the Message.

To learn more about Celebration Church here in Orlando, you can follow us on social media under the handle at Celebration ORL or visit our website at celebrationorl.org.

What's up everybody and welcome to After the Message.

We're laughing because this got a great story coming up.

It's actually going to be before the message.

Yes.

So Patrick Heath, just tell the story again.

Go for it.

Because you know, as they say, you have to laugh to keep from crying.

So as our typical um rhythm, I come in and we're talking and we're getting caught up, you and I, and you said, Man, how are you doing?

And I just kind of chuckled and I said, Man, you know, I'm I'm good.

I deleted my message last night.

And and I think that your response to that was, oh, I must have had like this Holy Spirit moment of like, hey man, the God gave me a fresh Rhema word.

I got rid of what I was gonna preach, and now he gave me a fresh word.

That is not what this was.

What this was um was um after a full day of incredibly productive meetings, um, coming home, spending some time with the family, I was editing my message.

Um, and then somehow, some way, and uh the best way for me to describe it is for anyone who's ever gotten surgery, you know they give you the anesthesia, they tell you to count down from 10, and the next thing you know, you wake up and the surgery is over, and you're like, oh my gosh, like I didn't even know I fell asleep.

Well, I'm editing my message and I'm hitting the backspace button, and either anesthesia hit in or I just got narcolepsy.

Um, because while I'm hitting the backspace button, all I remember is opening my eyes back up, but apparently I had fallen asleep for like 45 minutes.

So I had deleted the entire, the entire page, and it didn't register in my brain because when I woke up, I'm like, okay, yeah, I just need to put the computer down and go to sleep.

So as I'm closing the screen, my brain is slowly recognizing, like, hey, the page is completely white, but it's too late.

I closed it.

So when I opened it back up, if anybody under knows how software works, like you can undo stuff, but once you close it, you can't undo it because it's now secured.

So what my my last save point was all the deletions that I made.

So um, so um so it's so funny because like I as I like at this point, it's probably like 1215, and um, and I just have this gasp.

It's like and so Megan's like, what?

And I was like, I just deleted my message, and she was like, Okay, just undo it.

And I'm like, it doesn't work that way.

And so like she's trying to be helpful.

Like, oh, have you tried to undo?

I'm like, yes, Megan, I understand how undo works, but you just have to hit Command Z.

I'm like, I Megan, I promise you, I understand how operating system works.

It's gone, and and that was it.

So um well, here's the good thing.

Here's the positive news.

There's probably a sermon illustration in there somewhere.

Oh it is finished.

Once you close the computer, the slate is wiped clean, you can't control Z.

You know, there's something in there, man.

Bro, you just did it.

So you're I didn't I wasn't gonna go that direction with it, but that's actually really good.

So you can use that.

That that's from a negative, like if you have negative stuff on your record that Grace wipes it all clean, you close it and he and the enemy can't undo it.

Yeah, that's it.

I would have gone the other way.

There's no Apple Z Command Z on that one.

So for sure.

I like I like that approach.

So yes, you'll hear it later in the message to come.

2023 is coming towards you.

And with that, we welcome you to After the Message.

If you're stumbling on this podcast, you just heard an incredible story, an intro that we don't usually do.

Um, but there's an inside look.

So uh this is the Celebration Church Orlando podcast, and this is a segment we normally like to call After the Message, but uh now it's deleted message or before the message.

It's like the message never existed.

It's um I hope we have a message for Sunday.

Yeah, that's this message.

Which, yes, hopefully we do.

We are man coming to the close of our Grace to You series.

Can you believe it?

It's it's hard to believe how quickly it's going.

Yeah, we have been looking at the book of Romans, um, this beautiful uh letter by the Apostle Paul, and just all the the rich theological foundations of our faith that are in there.

And uh I hope everybody's kind of uh by this point heard us several times, but we'll say it one more.

Uh read Romans and uh study Romans and do it several times throughout your life because uh it is uh foundational to who we are as as Christians and believers, and it ties the whole story together, I think, in a beautiful way.

So indeed.

I agree with that 100%.

Has there been a favorite moment for you during these past several weeks or something that kind of jumps out at you right now?

Man, um the weeks I didn't preach, um, you preached and and Vinny preached, and and there's a couple of things that I I loved about that.

One is um, you know, when Megan and I went on our sabbatical and and you guys did such a phenomenal job at preaching, we weren't we weren't there.

We're we're we're resting, we're we're we're getting refilled.

Um but I genuinely love to sit and to listen and to receive, which of course, just because of the calling and the role, I don't get a chance to do as often.

So genuinely just being able to come and to listen one and just receive for myself, but then two, uh quite candidly, to see what God is speaking to you and to Vinny and others, like that is so refreshing and encouraging for me.

So it's not like it was like a massive theological light bulb went off, but it's just seeing the community of faith rally all together around different voices has probably been my favorite thing.

Yeah.

That was that was gonna be another question of mine is uh A, has there been any new perspective through this study for Romans for you personally?

And then B, what is that like in the calling that you're in?

How do you differentiate hearing from God for your own life versus uh your study time?

I know you and I have kind of talked a little bit about that and th how difficult that can be when you're expected to write a new message every single week.

So um maybe help us understand that a little bit.

Yeah, I would see your first question.

I think insight, it's it's ever evolving.

So for me, it's um I'm really big on context.

Yeah.

That's like really big thing for me because I feel like context it really informs understanding and and healthy definition.

So yes, there have been moments that there's certain passages that I read, but now I have a I have a deeper understanding of the context in which it was written, because you know, I I don't know how you qualify these things, so I'm gonna say something that I'm gonna use the word that sometimes frustrates me, like, hey, they say, I don't know who they is, but they say um that Romans is one of the most quoted um books of the Bible, and then like when people just randomly are quoting different things, and there's tons of like Bible nuggets and just devotional gems that are in there, like you know, you just you can't miss um, but context is everything.

So I think through the years of being a follower of Christ and and leaning heavily on Romans with um God is for you, who can be against you, there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, these other passages that are so powerful.

Um, the insight that I got this go-round is that in this season of my life, I am really, really immersing myself in understanding the cultural context in which they were written.

And so I'm rereading things I've already read, and it doesn't necessarily change the definition, right, but it just gives you a deeper understanding of what sometimes inspired those words to be written.

So I would say just in general, I have a deeper understanding of Paul, where Paul literally was at, the culture, the what was going on in that community that I didn't have before with doing that.

And as as it relates to my my my personal study, you know, I I I go through seasons where and and there was a a pastor um much further down the road than me, had pastored for 30 years, and now is mentoring pastors, and he had told me, because I'd shared with him this very same thing, like, man, I want my time with God to be my time, and then I also want to have my time that I'm studying in preparation for um for God's people.

And he simply said to me, He said, You'll have seasons where that'll be easy, and you'll have seasons where that's more challenging.

Just give yourself grace for both.

And and while that was such a simple thing, I find that in the life that I'm living right now, those simple things are the most profound transformational things for me.

Like I used to look for like the the most deep existential phrase that would just unlock all of it.

But sometimes just a simple thing of like, yeah, man, sometimes you're gonna be able to do that, sometimes you're not, man.

Just give yourself grace.

And like that simple phrase was like But bro, like it's been it's been game changing for me.

So yes, I still I still fight my best to have separate space, but I've learned that what that often looks like now is instead of it being like this regimented, um, I've read through this book all on my own and I've highlighted and I've journaled separately all about it.

It it now has become something a little bit more rich where it's like I'm processing this thought and now I'm meditating on this thought or on this phrase or on this idea, and that's where I'm spending time with God.

So my time with God has evolved more from a devotional checklist.

I did it, look at my journal, to I'm spending time with my Lord.

And sometimes that time looks like a lot of prayer, sometimes that time looks like reading a word and just processing what that means for my life.

So it's just evolving, and so now that I'm recognizing that um my walk with God personally is not dependent on how much scripture I read, it's more about how much scripture I'm applying.

Yeah.

So and then two, one on the other side in regards to just the message prep side, I'm getting my fair dosage of um of reading scripture just because of by the nature of of of writing messages.

But I think the thing that's that allows all this to get tied together is that I don't and you know this about me, like, because we've been around church long enough that we recognize that there's times and seasons and themes and things that you preach about.

It's no mystery that in February every church is doing some version of a relationship series.

Like, you know, we just kind of see these patterns that kind of emerge.

Um, but as as you know for us, it's not that we don't do that.

I I certainly want to lean heavily on seasons that allow certain truths to be communicated.

But I think more than anything else is that I really try to make sure that whatever I share or whatever we share as a community is something that our church needs to hear.

That God has spoken to us and we know that our church needs to hear it.

So I think by nature of understanding that I'm also a part of this community, the things that I'm reading and the things that I'm studying in preparation to share it with our church, I'm not removed from it.

So that does often serve as devotional as well, because while I'm preparing, I'm also prep preaching for myself as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do you think there's any um there's any profit to, you know, you mentioned not just reading just to read and check the box and write a bunch just to say that you did it, right?

Do you do you think there's any gain for somebody who's new or wanting to establish a rhythm to just being disciplined in reading and then and then it eventually turns into an affection?

Like what what or does it depend on the personality?

Like, what's kind of your take on that?

And um for a daily scripture engagement.

I think daily scripture engagement is important.

Yeah.

Um I do I think it's it's absolutely important.

I think what we have to be willing to do is not be legalistic about it and not beat ourselves up with it.

So my my on-ramp with the faith, we didn't, you know, again, I I often joke about how old I am.

I'm really not that ancient, but again, considering 20 plus years ago, just certain resources weren't available to us then that's available now.

So we didn't have apps and things like that.

So there was no like there was no pressure of like, hey, are you doing your Bible reading plan?

It wasn't that.

But there was a very clear expectation that you're spending time with God and you're buying extra resources and books and all these other things to help to grow in your faith, and there's an aspect of it of I absolutely want to grow in my walk with God.

As you know, Peter says, grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Like there's a there's an active pursuit that's that's required of us that I think that's healthy, but there's also that space of condemnation where if you don't understand it or if you're not growing, or whatever that may look like.

So so for me, I think it's it's looking at the importance of I recognize that God's word informs everything else about God.

So I think that if I'm not spending time in God's word, I won't have a healthy understanding of what his spirit is communicating or what he's leading me to do.

Because God won't do anything or speak anything in contradiction to his word.

His word informs the other things.

Right.

So I think the only way that we can actually grow in understanding God to the finite ability that we can and what he's leading us to do and how we walk that out, it requires us to spend time in God's word.

So that should actually be something that inspires us and not feel like it's a a job or obligation.

So yes, I believe that um a healthy, regular reading of God's Word is the only way that we can grow in our understanding of God and our calling and all those other things.

So I do think that a healthy Bible reading plan community is crucial in that time.

So it's not just reading the Bible in isolation.

I think the thing that we often miss in our Western context, and not just us, but I'll speak for us, is that we've turned the Bible into this individualistic book.

And so even the idea of devotion, which is really, really important, it's about, hey, I read this verse, this is what it means to me.

And and I get it, but we have to stop looking at it from this is what it means to me, and start looking at I'm reading God's word, this is what God is communicating, this is how I'm applying this in my life.

And I know that may sound a little bit like semantics, but I can't say this is what it means to me because I could be changing the very definition of what God's trying to communicate.

Right.

I need to more so wrestle with how do I apply it to my life, not what it means, because God's already defined what it means.

Yeah, that's a great distinction, Pastor Keith, and uh I'd love to actually spend an entire episode talking about that because um it can be easy to interchange those phrases.

And I'm sure I've said both meaning the same thing, you know what I mean?

So we all have.

Um so yeah, that's that's really good stuff.

Let's rewind the clocks back a couple weeks.

Okay.

We didn't get a chance to talk about stay in your lane.

Yeah.

Um, so you know, and you even mentioned uh your upbringing a little bit uh a few paragraphs ago when you were speaking, and um you s you just sounded really passionate about this topic or this portion of scripture at least in this series, and um you were talking about even some of your own experiences about being baptized and the pastor whispering in your ear, you better take that earring off.

Was was the personal experience kind of an extra fuel for this, or what what what evoked the passion I think that that we saw, or or even maybe just heard on the podcast through that message?

Man, I think what it is is um I I would have I guess the best way for me to put it to try to frame this up in a way that makes sense to our listeners is that I'm I'm a very I'm I'm I'm oddly black and white, but I also am fully baptized in gray.

It's very weird.

I'm like an anomaly where like things are what they are, but I'm also very I want to be intentionally graceful with things.

So over the past five, six years, I would say, I've become more aware of how when things are black and white, that's outside of you how that can affect other people.

So, and and I don't think I've ever given it a lot of extensive thought.

So I guess that's my long way of saying I've developed a lot more empathy now, um, primarily in how the church and how leadership with this power dynamic can impose things upon people that can be harmful or that can just trip them up or cause them to just carry things that really aren't as big of a deal.

So you we all could look in the rearview mirror of our upbringing all the way from adolescence into adulthood and critique everything that our parents or anybody else has done.

And so that's not what this is.

I feel like that's not healthy for anybody to to to do that.

Sure.

Um but what I will say is if we're presently still doing it, let's let's knock it off.

Because now what I'm now that I'm a pastor and I'm sitting across from people who are the byproducts of environments that I was in, but that God has graciously allowed me to get out of, I just don't want us to continue to perpetuate it.

So I think the passion that I have is one towards to inspire people to kind of break free from some of these things that we've been carrying, but almost like in its own way to people that continue to perpetuate it, telling them, knock it off.

Because you probably don't even recognize the the effect that this is having on people.

So I tend to get passionate about things where I don't think we are really recognizing the impact that it's having.

And I genuinely believe that more often than not, people are doing what they think is the right thing.

Yeah.

Um, I I I tend to believe that for the most part, unless you're just like maniacal and manipulative, and that's a whole nother conversation.

Um but people are doing what they think they're supposed to do.

You and I've talked about this.

Like the Pharisees were doing what they thought they were supposed to do, they were genuinely thinking, like, hey, I I have to protect this.

Um but it's it's but when when Jesus shows up, you have to begin to look at his ways and not be so married to ours.

And I think that's the passion that I that I have.

It's like, man, like let's let's let's make sure we're looking at Jesus with all this stuff and and no one else.

Yeah, for sure.

Well um the week the week prior, you know, Pastor Vane talked to us about the part that we play and um recognizing that that obedience is just it comes with the territory, right?

It's it's what God's calling us to do.

And so I think you know, for people uh maybe a little bit of help on what is the difference between law and liberty?

How how do I know that something is a law and how do I know that something is a Christian liberty?

And I'm sure that you know the obvious answer is well, look at scripture, you know, look at scripture.

And I I think that we could kind of just say that and walk away, but maybe from where you sit, how would you help somebody like the person that you're sitting across from at the coffee table?

How would you help them walk through that or distinguish that?

Yeah, I think, you know, so I I a lot of times that requires a little bit deeper conversation because I think what ends up happening is um, you know, you have like disciplines.

So, you know, I'm I'm really in this space about talking and thinking about discipline and spiritual disciplines and the ways that God is calling us uh to steward our lives.

So I think what the biggest difference is is law says I have to, liberty says I'm invited to.

Now, there's obviously with the liberty side things that we may be adding to the equation that are not not even necessary.

So it's not like it's it's immediately uh an equivalency there, but into but but at its core, the law is saying if I don't, then condemnation, judgment, guilt, all these things are gonna be reap upon me.

Whereas on the other side, liberty is more so, hey, some of these disciplines that there are laws for actually do exist over here, but there's grace and there's an invitation to do this from a place of freedom instead of I'm doing this in order to earn freedom.

So I think some of it is just a uh a heart posture and a spiritual understanding.

But when we get into like basic practices, and that's where I think we get a little bit more into like, let's just talk about practices.

Hey, can I go to the movies or can I not?

It's understanding that there are certain laws that were created that were completely man-made.

There were certain things that were created that had nothing to do with um our relationship with God.

They they were they were best practices and and they turned them into laws, and sometimes principles and best practices get exalted to God's word, and now it causes a uh a weight that God never intended us to carry.

Let me give you this example that um can be a little bit um controversial, but nonetheless, I think it's it's relevant.

Okay.

So is it against God's word for um a guy and his girlfriend to live together?

No.

Nowhere in scripture does it say that you should not live together.

What the Bible does say is that you shouldn't fornicate.

So a best practice or a principle would be, hey, God's word says don't fornicate, don't put yourself in a position that's gonna cause you to get tripped up and doing something against God's word.

So, in order to avoid that, it's probably not a good practice for you to live with each other.

Right.

What ends up happening is what I just said gets turned into it's against God's word for you two to live together.

And now, even though that's a best practice, and it certainly is wisdom in that I've exalted and I've added something to God's word that God never intended.

So that's the difference between Christian liberties and law.

It's when the law says something direct, and then we begin to impose a whole bunch of other things in the middle of it to strip away people's ability to make uh Holy Spirit led decisions.

So we just have to make sure we don't exalt um best practices and principles to the level of God's word.

Yeah.

You mentioned um, you know, having the conversation with the person who had been in similar situations with you and were carrying things they shouldn't have, but also having the desire to tell people who are sitting in the same seat that you are to knock it off, right?

How how do we understand or know when the right time is because there are several passages in scripture um of bringing it bringing something before a brother or sister and letting them know or bringing it in front of a group of people even bringing in counsel and other voices to come speak to something.

I think even Jesus talks about it too like um so how do we know when to bring those things before somebody or when to stay in our lane?

Yeah that's that's healthy.

I think I think more than anything the idea of staying in our lane is one understanding the the thing that God has called us to do the unique way that He wants us to run our race.

That's not being oblivious and putting on blinders to other people.

I think the time when it's appropriate to cross over into those lanes is when there's relationship.

So one of the things that as a as a father of adult children now our phrase now that we've adopted from one of our friends is we go where we're invited.

So we have relationships with our kids but now you're trying to respect boundaries and allow them to have their individual expressions so that we don't impose or cross over boundaries we go where invited unless it's something that's harmful.

So I think that it all comes down to relationships.

So I think when it comes to like if you're in relationship with someone and they're doing something that's harmful hopefully the relationship can bear the weight of a conversation of that magnitude.

So the the heart behind staying in our lane more often than not at least the biggest part of what I was trying to communicate was bro like if if you don't have relationship if that's not your business then stop trying to impose your will on people that you don't even have relationships with because these things are nuanced and they require conversation and you just don't know someone's journey or their context or what they're walking through.

So to just jump in it's like being a theological bull in a wrecking in in in a in a china shop and you're just tearing things up and you don't know the the progress they're making you don't know the journey that they're on and it it does more harm than good.

I'll I'll give you this example so on on Saturday one of the Saturday nights my son and I we went to um a comedy show and so while we're walking um down the street there's um there's it's it's downtown Orlando.

Yeah so uh people are listening from all over just Google it's downtown Orlando you're you're literally going to see and hear everything and and and and you know that and so during the message I made this um statement I said you know what if um what if we began to look at the world as our mission field instead of our base of operation that thought literally came to me while I was walking with my son on Saturday night.

Here's why because while I was walking and I'm just literally surrounded walking through surrounded by all the things that depending on how you look at it debauchery whatever you want to call it just it's just it's just people that are away from God and and you understand that.

So as I'm walking I'm like man like man I wonder I wonder if there's a I wonder if there's a church that they would feel welcome to go to I I wonder like who's in their life like I'm thinking like that and I'm not trying to be like some existential monk.

I'm just walking but I'm honestly thinking like man like man like I I know based on what I'm seeing that some of these people may be away from God and I would love to figure out a way for us to serve people so that they know that there's a space that they're invited into that God can begin to just be God to them.

But as I'm walking back that same night there's people on the street corners with bullhorns that are yelling at them and that are rebuking them and that are speaking to their behavior and I'm like man like we we've we've somehow missed it.

I mean these are people that were were Christians and they got billboards out and they're like literally standing against people and I was like man like what what if you looked at them as your mission field and and if that's the case you never see Jesus approaching people who are away from him with that posture.

And I think that unfortunately where we don't stay in our lane and don't recognize where people's journeys are is in my mind first you don't know if the journey that some of these people are on the Holy Spirit's doing work.

The Bible says no one comes to the unless the Holy Spirit is drawing them anyway.

Right.

So you never know the work that God is doing.

So I gotta ask myself is me standing out on a street corner with a bullhorn is that helping or could that potentially be hurting with me hurling condemnation and that you're going to go to hell at people.

So that's that's the first thing I think the other thing is um is understanding that our responsibility as kingdom representatives is to use the strategies and tactics of Jesus.

It doesn't mean that we turn a blind eye to things but it does require us to have more grace and empathy because you just don't know um what journey people are on, how far they have come and I never want to be the one that undoes what God's doing in someone and I think that I'm doing the right thing.

Yeah for sure and you kind of what you were saying man somebody may not know better um you know scripture talks about that God is evident right in creation and all that stuff but again there's more to it and I think I even think about my own journey and just think about my my story and my life and you know what God did through my life and there were things that I just wasn't I wasn't listening to God in a way that I knew I should have been listening to God but I still knew that God was with me.

Does that make sense?

Yep absolutely and so I think what you're saying is and also like you said the way Jesus approaches a lot of people the people that he's the harshest with are the people that should know better.

Exactly without and so it and you've you've even mentioned it a couple times like why are we surprised that the world acts like the world when they don't have Jesus you know absolutely I think what I'll say to close this um loop yeah Nate is um if we could understand that people belong then they believe then they behave but we end up addressing behavior without letting them know that they belong and that they then begin to have belief as a result of being able to know that they belong.

If we could just understand that once you can help someone understand that you belong that God loves you that he affirms you that you are loved then that will generate belief in that God and then that belief in God will produce fruit which is when you see it in behavior we've got to stop addressing the the fruit without acknowledging the root first you guys are rooted in the wrong thing let me help you to recognize that as you are God loves you.

Yeah from there we can start a conversation.

Yeah absolutely baptism sundae yeah beautiful day man it was incredible my favorites what a what a great what a great day it it never ceases to amaze me how powerful those moments are and I've been a part of a lot of them.

You know it just it just doesn't get old.

Yep um and even with the additional work that we have to do because of our you know current setup being a mobile church it it just doesn't matter.

When we say we let's be honest we mean primarily you.

Well we we all our team helps out a lot as well and they do a great job I just want to acknowledge that you do a lot of hard work for every single baptism man and I'm thankful for it.

It's a it's a it's a great honor obviously but baptism in the Bible it kind of seems to come out of nowhere at least for me because I remember uh there was a time where I it didn't end up happening but I was going to be preaching on baptism Sunday and I was like man I I want to get some history behind this and I was searching and I just didn't find a whole lot like and maybe I just looked in the wrong places but it just seems like John the Baptist comes on and he's baptizing people and you're like wait what you know and so if you don't have years of Christian experience and you just read that at face value and you try and look back to see where to start yeah exactly yeah so my question where it start yeah that's a great question man um there's there's 400 years of what they call prophetic silence that's the end of where Malachi is in the beginning of the gospels.

So that's called an intertestamental period and that's essentially where God really um for the lack of a better words like he removed the prophetic voice from the people of Israel.

So I mean think about that 400 years of no one speaking on behalf of God.

So without going too nerdy on this but it helps with context because you know I'm all about context now.

That's right.

So what would happen is they didn't really have the benefit of having a completed Bible as we do.

They had scrolls but everything it wasn't readily available.

So you know it was it was like you just lived in community and then what would happen is a prophet would come to town and the prophet would have the the right now word from God.

They call it a rhema word because there was no other thing.

So when a prophet came to town it was like oh snap like what's God saying and so they would often start off their speeches saying thus saith the Lord I say say they say it because I'm still thinking of my King James because that's how that's just how I was brought up but I don't know maybe they say hey man here's what God's got to say who knows message translation it was definitely thus it has to be thus I feel like thus just carries a different weight to it.

But they would say this is what God is saying and then they would download the latest and there would a lot of times it would be um some form of correction like a prophet coming in would be a form of correction.

This is why um when Nathan shows up and you see some of these prophets Samuel these guys show up it's like hey man are you coming here to correct us like we're nah come in peace.

Cool all right man come on like because sometimes it's like man I'm not ready for that today.

It was a it was weighty when a prophet would show up because they are they have a fresh download from God.

So 400 years without that so they have no real Bible and they have no one coming in to redirect them.

So for 400 years they begin to create stuff.

So this is why you'll see like the Sanhedrin court was birthed Pharisees were created Sadducees were created none of those things existed when you read the Old Testament they were all created and so the Pharisees felt that their job was to protect the law.

So they create all these different rules and standards because we got to protect their law.

You have the zealots the ones who looked at the the varying occupancies whether it be Roman or anything else and trying to say man we need to be anti-government so all these little factions began to come up in those years of silence because we got to find a way to compensate for the fact that we know that God is real but we don't have a current prophetic voice telling us what we should do.

So man started creating a whole bunch of things in order to try to figure out this is how we do it.

So John the Baptist who literally is prophesied about in the book of Isaiah he is he has this mantle of leading people back to the Lord.

So now the the the Israelites are away from God there not only do you have Israelites who are just doing their own thing but now you have all these different factions and different quote unquote denominations that are causing more confusion.

So John comes in and he's like hey guys we all are off track let's get away from all that stuff and we need a fresh start we need to start going back to doing things in preparation because God's going to send his messiah so the only way that they had to physically commit to this new revelation was to go through a ritual cleansing process or what we now refer to as baptism because every time God did something and established a covenant there was a physical response.

And so of course there was circumcision there were these things that they had to do.

Well there's nothing left to circumcise so um so so so that meant baptism became the new physical demonstration of this this inner revelation and so they were being they were being baptized into repentance saying like hey I acknowledge what the life I was living was wrong and I'm making a change and I'm preparing myself for when the Messiah comes so that's where baptism comes it's taking the principle of circumcision and ritual cleansing and putting it into one physical act.

It seems like we've kind of lost that uh that art almost if you will of the spiritual and the physical being one and what's happening on the outside um representing what's happening to you spiritually and so maybe that's why it doesn't translate or hit us as much as maybe and maybe that's why there was no context needed because uh an ancient reader would look at that and go, oh here's what this this probably means, right?

Absolutely I think what You know man like there's we could do a whole series of podcasts on this and probably next year a lot of our conversations will be talking about some of these physical things that we're we're trying to do and really leading people into your faith is not this internal intellectual spiritual thing but our faith is meant to be walked out and seen and all those other things without it being legalistic.

But I I do believe that some of that has gotten lost particularly because um we've kind of seen the emergence of like um I call it just like the the Christianity of convenience.

And and what that does is it's really meant to speak to the enormity of God.

God is everywhere so because God is everywhere then do I need to be in a certain place in order to worship him like we just begin to reduce certain principles and practices to make God more accessible.

And in doing that I think we also without knowing it reduce some of those sacred things because at the end of the day and this is the scary part so much of what we do is all about the posture of the heart.

Because you can get baptized and not have a good heart and it just doesn't matter.

So a lot of times it's like well hey man God knows my heart so it's all good.

And so we begin to live this internalized approach with our walk with God that requires very little of us.

That that was gonna be my next question is you know we kind of touched on why we baptize well who do we baptize yeah and how do we know that they're ready for baptism are they the ones that decide that yeah do we baptize infant you know there's just so many and there's so much historical um weight to a lot of this stuff as well so um who knows when they're ready to get baptized how do they know and yeah so there's a there's a there's a couple of I think approaches that have shaped Christianity today.

And again there's different disciplines within our faith so I don't mean to make this like an overgeneralization.

But so our faith you know what scripture says our faith is built on the foundation of the prophets um is is built on the foundation of the law the Jewish customs and culture.

So there's a moment that that our Jewish brothers and sisters would call the the age of accountability the moment when okay I am I am seen as an adult so to speak and I can now carry the responsibilities of of what it means to to move forward.

It was never really meant to be a legalistic number but it would just meant that I am self-aware or I'm I'm cognizant of things.

And so the tradition within Judaism is bar mitzvah bot mitzvah like that's a moment where I enter into adulthood and of course for their tradition there's like this knowledge and this reciting portions of the law like it it was a very much a maturity a spiritual endeavor things like that so there's that side of it there was a there was a true understanding of it so the age of accountability now on on our side of things man there's so much I can say about this in regards to in the mind of the of the ancient writers there were no such thing as teenagers not the number but there was no I there was no concept of you are a child now you're a teenager now you're an adult.

No in between there's no in between it's either you're a child or you're an adult and so the moment that you reach the age of accountability you could get a job.

The moment that you reach the age of accountability you had responsibilities like there was this understanding that you're now entering into a place of adulthood and now you're in the maturing process but then at some point and and I actually have a book that gives a date when we began to introduce this language literal language of being a teenager where we reduced the expectation of a person who is now in that teen stage we stopped treating them like adults and what ends up happening is they end up lowering themselves to the expectations and now we create an entire world of hey we don't expect anything from you because hey you're only 15.

Where in ancient times like not even ancient times this is going back even in our country like there's moments when like you would be a 15 year old and like you you were like very well rounded in a lot of different things but we just continue to lower the bar.

I got off on a tirade to say this um you'd be amazed at what young people are capable of and what young people have a capacity of doing if we just present it to them.

So we baptize people when they have the capacity to understand that Jesus is Lord.

So I can't put a number on that because I feel like that's doing the work of God for them.

But typically what we will do is um once someone gets into the water it's it's having a conversation which is why I love the way that we're able to do baptisms now where um it's not like an assembly line.

Now again there's nothing wrong with that if you go to a mega church and they have to power through it because 300 people get baptized man I praise God for that.

But because we have a more intimate environment we're able to actually have conversations with people and that part of that conversation is talking and simply saying you know I s like literally trying to discern what's going on but then in that moment saying man I I I just have you have you confessed that Jesus is Lord talk to me a little about your walk with God and literally just allowing them to speak and say like yes like I've I've made Jesus my Lord on this date okay then it's on the confession of your faith that we're going to now baptize you.

But it's the moment where you you have to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord because your baptism is in it's almost like taking communion.

Baptism and communion they're sacraments that acknowledge Christ.

So you can't take communion if you don't acknowledge Christ just like I can't get baptized if I don't acknowledge Christ.

So for us we baptize anyone who's able to acknowledge what Jesus has done.

Yeah beautiful leave it in the water man.

Leave it in the water brother what a what an incredible uh series that we've had together any anything you want to say to cap it off?

Man um it's I wish we had more time.

And of course we could you know I mean we we decide what we where we want it how far we wanted to go but I think um in the grand scheme of all the things that we feel like God is calling us to share and communicate and lead our church through um we we knew we had a an end date for this.

And the reason why I say that is because even in the weeks that we did it there's so many other things that we just didn't even get a chance to really touch on which is why we continue to emphasize you got to read it.

You gotta spend time with this book.

Make sure you really immerse yourself in it um because it's in doing that you'll have a healthy holistic understanding of what it is that Paul is really trying to help us to get a hold of.

So for me the the book of Romans it it it introduces so many things that is helpful for us and I think that we did a fairly good job at acknowledging these big pillars not exhaustively which is where I think we can like lead people to make sure you continue to read and and and bridge some of those gaps but understanding the nuances with people wrestling with sin and wrestling with sanctification wrestling with the Holy Spirit and all of this stuff wrestling with um the the the inequality that's happening outside of the church but the equality the gospel brings in the church like all of those things were all very much present which is very much still real to us today which is why I feel like we hit on those pillars to start the conversation.

Yep for sure.

And we hope that uh it this encourages you to continue the conversation in your circles as well.

We're just getting started.

We got a lot of good things coming up at Celebration Church.

Indeed so if you are in Orlando we'd love to have you come worship with us and hang out with us on a Sunday Pastor Keith thanks so much for joining us.

Glad to do it brother and we'll see you guys sometime probably in 2023.

Let's go thank you for joining us for After the message to learn more about Celebration Church here in Orlando you can follow us on social media under the handle at Celebration ORL or visit our website at celebrationorl.org