Order Restored | Ps. Keith and Maegan Pittman

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you so much for listening today.

We hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Here's today's message.

Wait, let's hold up.

Because for the first service, I think we just rushed into our seats.

But I want I want to before we have a seat, I want to have a fashion show right now.

Yeah, right now.

Um that's that's what this is.

Megan um Megan kind of styled me a little bit this morning.

If you know anything about me, I'm I'm not really a big fan of that, but she she she asked the question that most husbands have heard from their wives at some point, and that is, are you wearing that?

And I'm like, oh, the outfit that I ironed and laid out two days ago?

Yes, I did plan on wearing it.

I have to say, are you dressing down?

Well, what is that?

Yeah, because she doesn't have anything.

Like literally, she just has this.

Anyway, we're gonna go ahead and have um a seat now.

But this is this is uh I'm working on it, y'all.

I'm working on dressing.

This is stalled by Megan.

So um man, we're so glad uh to be here with you guys, man.

We're week two into being back from sabbatical.

Megan, how you feeling?

Oh, I'm so excited, y'all.

I'm so happy to be with y'all.

I missed y'all.

Those two months, they seem fast for us, long for you guys, but I truly missed each and every one of you.

Seeing your smiling faces, being involved in your lives is just a pleasure and an honor that we get to do each and every week.

So I'm glad to be back in the house.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And if you weren't with us last week, I gotta do like this this quick plug, man.

We had Vision Sunday uh last Sunday, and I realize a lot of us are getting our rhythms back and back to schools back in session.

So there may be some of you guys who are with us who weren't here with us last week.

Make sure you stop out at the foyer in the courtyard and and grab our our our all-hands pamphlet.

And what this really does serve is it's just a breakdown of who we are as a church, what God is really calling us to do in this upcoming season.

You also will hear more about that at our Welcome to Church social, where you get a chance again, just kind of hear about who we are and the the trajectory that God has given us.

So we would love to see you participate with us.

Yeah, and we had t-shirts, we sold out of every uh all of the t-shirts that said all hands on it.

We are working on getting another batch.

So if you missed it the first week, I think it's probably gonna be another two or three weeks because we have to order it, um, that you'll have an opportunity to buy another shirt.

Yes, indeed, indeed.

So, Megan, man, we're we're we're in it.

We're about to we're kicking off a new series today.

We're in a new series called Whole Life, and we're really excited about that because how many of us we want a whole life that is experienced with freedom?

Absolutely.

Um, we're we're about building this off of a foundational scripture in uh the third of John verse 2 where it says, Dear friend, I pray that you're prospering in every way, uh, in good health, just as your whole life is going well.

And I don't know about you, but for me, I want to prosper, I want to be in good health, and I definitely want a life that is going well.

Indeed, and and what's important for us to make a distinction of is when is when John is writing these words, this is this is the Apostle John, the follower of Jesus, one of the original 12.

And what I love about John, the distinction I like to make about him is when you read his writings, he's the one who refers to himself as the one that Jesus loves.

I love his self-awareness or his confidence, boldness, or some would say arrogance that he's like, I don't know about the rest of these apostles, but I'm the one that Jesus loves.

So he's one who really did have a really unique perspective on this whole life perspective and how we really implement this into our lives.

And so as he's writing these words to his friend Gaius, this man that he's raised up as one of his disciples, he uses this word that I want you to prosper and be in good health as your whole life or that you prosper in every area of your life.

So here, let me give you a little bit of a breakdown of what that word prosper means.

It's not prosperity gospel, it's not name it and claim it.

But what he's doing is he's saying, I want you to be whole.

Here's what here's what here's what that means.

It means I want every area of your life to move forward.

Yeah, I want your I want you spiritually to move forward.

I I want I want your mind to move forward.

That's our our our soul, our heart, our will, our emotions.

I I want your body to be able to move forward.

That that John is encouraging this disciple.

Hey, I want every area of your life to move forward.

That's why we get that word shalom, that word peace that you often will hear us communicate.

What that word is meant to communicate is wholeness.

Nothing lost, nothing missing, nothing lack.

Everything is complete, and that's in every area of our lives.

That's God's vision and view for our life is for us to experience peace, wholeness, shalom.

Yes.

And so these next couple of weeks, we are going to be unpacking that uh with you guys to see how you can live a life of wholeness practically, and and we'll give you the spiritual uh component to that as well.

And so uh the scripture that we um we talk about, you know, Keith when he just talked about uh having the peace and all that kind of stuff, it just reinforces the words of Christ, like in the scripture in John 10 and 10, where it says, Um, the thief comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy, but I've come that you may have life and life more in abundance.

And uh, you know, the the devil is always working, the enemy is always lurking, there's always chaos, but God has come that you may have life and life to the fullest.

It's also reinforced in Jeremiah 29, 11, where it says, For I know the plans that I have for you, the plans for your well-being, uh, not for disaster.

Sometimes the translation says, not for harm, uh, to give you a future and a hope.

And and it's so encouraging, especially with everything that's going on in the world, that God still wants to make sure that you are prospering and that you're full of hope and that you have the brightest future ahead of you.

Amen.

And so what we're gonna be doing is we're just gonna unpack what that looks like.

And so today, I believe that there's a passage that I think kind of sets the tone for what wholeness looks like because I think there's some certain things that we need to do so we can see this progressive move of God in our lives.

And so we're gonna look at 2 Kings chapter 20, verse number one, just one verse for you guys that we're gonna be really zeroing in on and then kind of back out uh to look at it.

2 Kings 20 · chapter mention

But it's it's to give you context.

This is this is King Hezekiah, he's a king, and by definition, he's considered to be one of the good kings.

And if you study anything about Israel history, like they've had good ones, but they've had a lot of bad ones.

So Hezekiah is like one of the ones that's kind of good.

So we see in this passage that his time's coming up.

So, Meg, will you read it to us?

About that time, Hezekiah became deathly ill, and the prophet Isaiah, son of Amos, went to visit him.

He gave the king this message this is what the Lord says.

Set your affairs in order, for you are going to die.

You will not recover from this illness.

Man, you can feel the tension in the room.

They're like, Man, I thought I thought this was celebration church.

This does not sound like we're celebrating Christmas.

We're gonna get there.

We're gonna get there.

Here's here's spoiler alert.

Read the rest of the chapter.

He prays, his life gets extended.

So it all works out, but that's not what we're gonna talk about today.

What I want us to do is I want to back up and look at this statement that when the prophet comes to him, he says, I want you to get your affairs in order.

Yeah.

That that ultimately what God is communicating is that, man, like your time, you're not gonna be here for eternity.

So because you're not gonna be here for eternity, make sure you're living a life where you have things in order.

And that's what I really want to speak to us about today is talking to us about the importance of making sure that things are in order.

So here's what we're gonna do.

If you're taking notes, I want you to write this down.

And of course, celebration Orlando, we take notes.

We take notes.

This is what we do.

This is what we do.

I want you to write this message title down Order Restored.

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

Heavenly Father, um, we thank you for opportunities to gather in your name.

Um, Lord, I decrease and ask that you increase, Father.

Lord, we pray for open eyes to see you, open ears to hear you, and open hearts to receive everything that you want to deposit into us today.

Holy Spirit, you're welcome.

We invite you to challenge us, to inspire us, and to change us.

We commission this to you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, guys, um Keith and I, we've shared um some of this story before, but I'm gonna give you the bullet point version so we're not here for another two or three hours.

Um, but for the last five years, um I guess back is it started back in 2016.

2016, we built our dream house in um Jacksonville, Florida.

Duval.

Duval?

Any Duval people?

Um, I don't know.

Just no.

We got three.

Any Jaguar fans?

Uh we got a combo.

You said no before.

No, what I'm saying is it doesn't matter because we're Eagles Church.

I thought we've established that.

I thought we've already established that.

Well, that's my second team.

Okay.

Um but we built our dream house in 2016, 2017, we answered the call to uh go to DC.

And even when we moved there, we didn't even have time to process.

Man, our two of our our oldest kids uh were in different states.

One was in Georgia, one was still in Jacksonville, and now we were in DC and we had our youngest with us.

So it was the first time we we didn't even have that much time to process that.

And then moving forward in 2019, we answered the call to come to Orlando.

And coming into Orlando six months, I guess I guess it was like six months into arriving, uh, the pandemic hit.

And it's like, this is a time where you're trying to build a relationship, you're trying to build trust with your community here in Orlando, and it's just like, man, we didn't even have time to do that.

Now I'm inside and I can't come out of my doors because I'm afraid, you know, and then um, if that wasn't challenging enough, then uh we were uh asked to take over our DC location, and we were doing both and traveling back and forth frequently at that at that point during the pandemic.

Yeah, so um and our heart's desire the entire time was really to bring um stability and and to help to kind of create a strong foundation.

So what we recognize is that church as a whole had begun to change.

Yeah, everything about church changed.

Like, what do you do when you can't gather?

So you had to figure that out.

What do you do when you start gathering, but only 20% are allowed to be in the building, only 30% even when it comes back?

Like, so there was a lot of nuances that that we had to figure out.

And and for the life of me, I I didn't understand when God showed us this vision of what we were called to do.

It's it's interesting how you have these moments that you hear from God and it's super clear, but then the details are left out.

So when you're in it, you're like, God, I feel like you left this out.

Like, was this like part of the fine print?

Because I feel like if you would have disclosed this from the beginning, I would have made some different decisions.

Um but but here's but here's what I've I've learned about myself.

Uh, a lot of times when you begin to recognize the way that you're wired, the gifts that God has given you, the varying things that God has blessed you with, what you begin to recognize is that you're finding yourself in environments that are in need of those gifts.

Yeah, and and and often when you're in an environment that may lack peace, maybe God brought you there so that you can be the person that is a bridge that provides peace.

Yeah.

So I never would have thought that like our gift set was to be these people that help to bring stability.

Yeah.

If if God were like giving out gifts, that's not the one I wanted.

I wanted to be the one where I can encourage people, I can pray, I can preach, I can wrap it up and go home.

But I never thought that God had given us the gift to do like just kind of like just continue to walk with God.

Everything's falling apart, but keep walking with God.

And so, interestingly enough, he puts us in environments that need that.

Um, and so we found ourselves in an environment that just needed steady, consistent faith.

So when we finally began to establish stability, we began to look around and we recognized that the dust was settling.

We kind of got a sense of what does it mean to be a part of our church, what does it mean to be in the church and what is God calling us to do to move forward?

And so we began that process of rebuilding.

And in that rebuilding process, we even established new leaders at our DC location, and we were able to install them and transition to church and then make Orlando our singular focus.

But the interesting thing happened, I was confident that on that February, that February up in DC, we were there, we laid hands on that new pastor, and I felt in my every ounce of my being, the moment that we pray over him, I'm gonna feel this massive weight off my shoulder, I'm gonna lose 10 pounds instantly.

Like I just literally thought that life was just gonna begin to get into an alignment and we were gonna find a rhythm and we're gonna be excited.

But but interestingly enough, it was almost like the opposite.

What I felt after we had kind of released that responsibility is I felt exhausted.

And and I didn't anticipate that.

And what I began to recognize, and I guess the best parallel I could give you, is similar to like a person that's running marathons or a person that goes to the gym, you work hard and you have the adrenaline to get through it, but the moments that it's over, oh my god, like you just feel like you're about to collapse.

And so I began to feel that even after we had transitioned to serve the church, and I thought we would feel this massive relief, that was the grace lifting, and now the evidence of what we have been carrying, I recognize was now on us, and we were just tired.

Yeah, I think with when whenever God graces you to do something in a season, um you don't often feel how the weight of it, you don't often feel how tiring it feels while you're in it.

It's when the grace has lifted, is where you feel, oh man, I don't have the strength to maintain what was.

God is moving me forward to not carry that anymore.

But when you're in it, if he's calling you to something, he's gonna give you the grace and the strength to walk through it.

Indeed.

And so what we recognize is when we kind of like transition DC and we're beginning to move things forward here, that God was calling us into a season of rest.

So I want y'all to lean in because this is gonna be my one and only NASCAR reference ever.

I mean, look at me.

Speaks for itself.

Okay, here's my one.

Here's what you know about about that world.

Like you you got the fuel, you got the technology, you hit some laps, but at some point you have to stop.

They refuel, they they check out everything, they change the tires, and then you get back out on it.

And so what we recognize is with that moments like Sabbath and sabbatical were so important for us so that we could pause, we can get refueled, we can have the tires changed, but we continue to stay on the race.

So we understood that we had to do things in a certain order in order for us to function well.

Yeah, and order matters.

Um, a lot of times we have these lofty goals, um, but we don't even know where to start.

And so for us, if you don't have order, um, we notice that you don't have peace.

You gotta have order, um, and in that will follow peace.

Order is the pipeline that God's blessings flow through.

Say that again, girl, because that sounds like you should put some stink on it.

I can put stink on oh no, I was gonna rap.

That would be very bad.

It would be very bad.

I'm at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to rapping in our house.

My raps are not good.

You're not I was thinking about trading you in, but I've decided we got too many years and we're gonna go ahead.

I can sing though.

Um, pipelines, um, what they're used for, they're used underground and they're often unseen, and they're used to transport things from one place to another.

But here's what we know about pipelines.

Pipelines can get clogged or they can leak.

I mean, think about your your faucet at home, sometimes or your toilet.

Sometimes they can become clogged, and so then you have to take the time to fix it.

And so, what we know is the same truth that's true about us that chaos and disorder can clog the pipeline that keeps the blessings of God from flowing in our lives as he intends it to.

And so we have to evaluate ourselves to make sure that there is nothing clogging us up from receiving God's blessings in our lives.

And so when we put those things in order, we get our flow back.

Say get our flow back, we get our flow back.

So order matters, it matters when you're on the airplane.

They say when the oxygen mask falls down, take care of yourself first.

You're only as helpful as you are healthy.

So if you're not healthy enough to put your a mask on someone else, you're definitely not gonna make it.

So make sure you're healthy first.

Order matters.

Indeed, that's good.

And so what we recognize is not that just applies with us, but God models that for us.

God is a God of order.

When we look at creation in the beginning, God was very orderful or orderly when he put things in order.

I can't imagine if he would have like created man first.

Yeah, there would have been no environment for man to thrive in, there would have been no land for him to stand on, there would have been no oxygen for him to breathe.

God put things in order to establish an environment for man to thrive.

Looking at Noah's Ark, there was an order to the way that God wanted things to be built.

It had to look at the cubits.

Yeah, we had the cubits.

We had the cubits.

Um I had to look it up.

Yeah, we have we have we have Noah's Ark.

We also have um the tabernacle.

The tabernacle was built in a very specific order.

The that the temple was built in a very specific order.

We begin to recognize that God flows through order.

Order is the pipeline that God's blessings flow through.

And I would say too, like if you think about the fish and five loaves, a lot of people, there was a lot, thousands that needed to be fed.

Remember, remember, it was not a lot of resources, and they had to group them in groups.

You know, each of the people had to be set in groups, otherwise, people would be missed and they would miss the resources that were coming to them because how can you see if everyone is getting uh a piece of the resources that were provided for them at the time?

But that could only be done with them being set in groups.

Was it 50?

50s and hundreds, yeah.

Fifties and hundreds.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You got any more Bible questions for me?

I'm a I'm a fountain of wisdom.

Yeah, Keith.

Um the father that's why yeah.

So so so we see this consistently through scripture that God flows when things are in order.

We even see in the early church that when the Holy Spirit comes and people now are beginning to recognize that they have gifts, gifts of prophecy, gifts of speaking in tongues, gifts of interpretation.

All these gifts were alive in the church.

So when they would have gatherings like this, everybody would just be trying to use their gifts all at the same time.

And you know what was happening?

Pure chaos.

Yeah, there was no order to it.

So Paul begins to write and says, Listen, man, I'm glad you guys have gifts.

I'm I'm thankful God has given us these gifts, but he didn't cause, he's not the author of confusion.

He says, we have to use these gifts in an orderly fashion.

We're beginning to lose the message because we're so consumed with the method.

So he said we have to make sure that things are in order, that we see that order is the pipeline that God's power flows through.

Here's something I want us to remember because I know coming up, specifically in the in the church environment that I was originally brought up in, I would hear things like, Man, you can't stifle the spirit.

Like being spirit-led meant not having any organization or any order whatsoever.

Like you just gotta you just gotta let the spirit of God flow.

And and what we begin to believe is we believe that if we have order, that we're somehow controlling the power and presence of God.

Yeah, nothing can be further from the truth.

Order is not about controlling God, it's about being a conduit for him to flow through.

This is why when we look in Genesis that we see that there was all this structure, but as long as the breath of God wasn't in Adam, there wasn't the ability to reconstruct it.

Now, watch this.

The breath and presence of God was always present on the earth.

The breath and presence of God was present even as man was being created.

But it wasn't until he was able to allow man to be a conduit that man become a living soul.

You have to have things in order.

The power and presence of God was always there, but he breathes on order.

He breathes on things when we have the appropriate structure.

And so when we look at this text here, Megan, with Hezekiah, he comes to him and he tells him, I need you to get your affairs in order.

He's not speaking about one specific thing.

He's talking about, I need you to look at yourself personally, I need you to look at your household, I need you to look at your resources, I need you to get things in order.

Yeah, and by getting things in order, I think one of the things that we learned in the sabbatical is getting things in order in our home.

Uh when we moved, we just packed everything up.

We didn't have a lot of time to think about, hey, should we bring this or not bring this?

We brought everything.

I mean, we filled up a whole truck.

Like, I mean, one of the bigger moving trucks, we filled up the whole thing.

And um, once we brought those items back to our house, um, we got out the things that we needed and the rest we put in the boxes.

Do you know during a sabbatical, we just unpacked boxes that were in our closets, they were in other closets.

Um, it made our closets look cluttered.

During a sabbatical, which was just in June, three years later, we were unpacking things.

And in the boxes, we found things that uh we needed.

Uh, we found things that were needed in another season, like nice coats and sweaters, very thick sweaters to handle up north weather.

Keith is upset about that.

Don't worry about it.

He'll wear it in the summer if it's if you let him.

Um we had those things, but there were things that did not fit.

So we had to actually do the purging.

And what we realized is the boxes in our closet were were leaving us disorganized.

Essentially, we were hoarding, um, and it was making a clutter in our closet.

And so for us, when we unpacked those things and realized the things that we didn't want, we then made the step to go to uh a neighborhood Goodwill down the street.

And we went there, the man was so flustered because people kept dropping off stuff and they didn't have enough room.

We had so many bags, y'all.

He was trying to send us home back with those bags, and I was like, absolutely not.

So kid, keep like he said, like, hey, can you come back tomorrow?

I was like, No, sir, I can't.

Um, I'm I'm leaving all this for you, and and you'll figure out what you need to do with it.

Because you don't know what I've been through.

You don't know what it took for me to get to here.

If I take this back home, it's gonna be another three years before I get it out of my house.

And that's true.

Uh that's so true.

But it was but it was a necessary thing for us to do.

And and and here's what I want us to catch here is that we had some things that were cluttered up in our closet.

Now, if you came to our home, you would like our home was very well organized and structured, but in the closet, in the Hidden places you didn't see the clutter and the stuff that was there.

That's why when guests would be like, Hey, where's the bathroom at?

I'm like, go down the hall, make a right.

Don't make a left because you fall, you hit that door, man.

Something may fall out on you.

Be very clear, make that right.

Right.

But because we have some things hidden away.

And how easy is it for us to have order on the surface?

Yeah, but we have some hidden things that we're hoping that someone doesn't open the door and allow this thing to fall in and collapse and bring burdens to us.

We have to have things in order.

Yeah, and those hidden scene things uh represent old seasons.

Yes.

You know, and a lot of times when we're moving to a new season, we're trying to bring those old things with us, and those things are not meant to go with us.

And there are many times that we lack peace because um we're hoarding the past.

Yes.

We lack it because we're hoarding the past, and for us, we have to remove those clutter in our lives.

What is the clutter in your life that you need to remove so that God's blessings can continue to flow through you?

We have those old seasons and we try to hold on to them.

Let it go.

What we hold on to holds on to you.

And I think I got that from a great philosopher.

Uh I don't if you're gonna reference me, make sure you give it the quote.

Um but it's but it's but it's true.

What we hold on to holds on to you.

Come on, but but let's but let's let's get that clear.

I want you to walk away and hold on to this in your heart.

What I hold on to holds on to me.

Watch this.

If I hold on to unforgiveness, unforgiveness is gonna hold on to me.

Yeah.

If I hold on to bitterness, bitterness is gonna hold on to me.

But if I hold on to peace, peace is gonna hold on to me.

If I hold on to Jesus, Jesus is gonna hold on to me.

If I hold on to my faith, my faith is gonna hold on to me.

You have to make a decision on what you were gonna hold on to.

I'm trying not to stand up, Megan, but I'm gonna wait till we get to the end.

Oh, okay.

Um, praise the Lord.

So, some practical ways that you can learn how to um clean the clutter in your lives, and that's to stop and take a Sabbath or a sabbatical.

You may not be able to take the time that we were able to take off due to our staff and our wonderful serving teams who allowed us to be able to take that space and be able to have that.

But you may have a Sabbath, you may have a Friday that you can take out, or a Saturday that you can take out to evaluate your life and figure out okay, man, is there some things I need to get rid of?

What are the things inside my life spiritually and practically in my home that I need to get rid of?

Unpack what you have, keep what you need, and remove the things that don't bring you value.

There's so many things that were in our boxes.

I'm like, what is this?

This is old.

And sometimes we can hold on to old things that represent either past pains or anything like that, and we don't release it or we don't remove it for our lives.

So we're constantly reminded by that thing.

What is that thing for you?

Amen.

I mean, I don't even know what to say to that, but amen.

Come on.

I feel like that's a good place to put our hands again.

We clap hands for the goodness of God and helping us to create some distance between carrying the things that are representative of old seasons and God's leading us into a new season.

I believe another area that we have to get order is we need to get order in our resources.

It's so important to have order in our resources, recognizing that God has given us resources.

But if we don't have order in our resources, we'll begin to experience like leaks.

Where there's a where there's a lack of order in our resources, there's an abundance of waste.

So you know this.

So one of the things that we really wanted to to zero in on during sabbatical was like to have more home cooked meals.

Now, I I I love I love going out to restaurants.

We love all that stuff, and and we're creating continued space to do that.

Yeah, I was like on a five-year hiatus, y'all.

Yes, we're on a strike.

But Megan's been on like a cooking hiatus.

Um, Megan's been on a cooking sabbatical before the sabbatical started.

So so I kind of took on uh the cooking responsibility specifically for for dinner um about two years ago when I got my my grill and my smoker.

So, and I've been enjoying it, I've been loving it.

Um but but I've noticed that now that you've been on TikTok and you're downloading and sending me all these recipes and stuff, I'm like, okay, great.

Shout out to TikTok.

I'm like, man, like if you're gonna if you're gonna send them to me, then you gotta cook them.

So like it's on you.

So she's really she's really stepping up.

But listen, he's taking a backseat, you guys.

So let me just say this.

He's taking a backseat.

He's like, hey, do you want to cook a TikTok recipe tonight?

Like, making it seem like he's like really taking up this grilling thing.

He's been taking a backseat, you guys.

No, we're all hands church.

I want to get your hands involved in some of the cooking.

So that's what that's about.

Um, but but let me let me okay, I'm sorry.

Like, we're we're gonna get back to the spiritual stuff in a minute.

Because this is like I'm inviting y'all to pray for me.

Pray for your pastor because Megan and I are wired so so so differently.

Just this past week, she sends me to the store to get ingredients for one of her TikTok recipes.

But my my wife, um I I let me see, the best way to say, she's like a um, she's like a store hippie.

Meaning this, when she walks into the store, there's no order, there's no strategy.

She's going to get the ice cream first, and then she's going over to the produce section, and then she's going to the cereal section.

I mean, this is like going to the Bible and just looking at the things that you're aware of instead of scouting around and see if uh and learn about the things that you don't know about so that God can give you revelation in that area.

That that ain't nothing but sisterhood clever for you.

There's not a single man that's not for that.

True story.

We went to the store, she's like, Hey, you want me to come with you?

I said, No, don't come with me.

I'm trying to protect my marriage.

It's not gonna go good.

Anyway, anyway, here's here's here's what I recognize.

While when Megan would send me to the store to pick up these random ingredients, I would look at the list, I would go get the items, and then I would bring them back home.

So on this one day, I came back with these ingredients and she said to me, like, why did you get this?

I'm like, because it was on the list.

Um, I got it because it was on the list.

She's like, but we already we already have a bunch of oregano.

I'm like, no, we don't.

She's like, yes, we do.

I'm like, no, we don't.

So we did that for about five minutes.

And then we went to walk into the kitchen and we opened up the cabinet, and she moves some stuff out of the way and says, Look, so literally, we had like five like containers that were filled with oregano.

I didn't realize it.

Side note, Keith does not like looking for anything.

So if he just even attempts to just, oh, I looked in the cabinet like this and doesn't see it.

Yeah, that's him.

I don't know why this became an attack on me.

Um, Keith always had the microphone and he's always talking about me while I'm sitting on the front row.

I'm thankful for this microphone today.

Okay.

You finished the rest of this message.

I'm not okay.

Anyway, anyway, so so so watch this.

I want you guys to hear this.

We're gonna we're gonna move past this.

But I didn't realize what we already had.

So I'm buying the same ingredients over and over again.

I'm buying stuff that we don't need because there were old expired things that were blocking my view.

So I'm still spending, I'm still wasting in buying things that we already had, but I didn't recognize them because there were things that were blocking my view.

Here, here's the point.

I think when it comes to our resources, if we really were to take inventory, we end up investing and spending money on things that we don't need or that we already have because we have some expired viewpoints that are blocking our view.

Yeah, when we get take the time to begin to put things in their proper order, we can actually begin to identify and recognize where where am I wasting things at?

Yeah, where where where are the redundancies in my life?

What are some things that that I'm doing that I don't need to be doing?

I downloaded this app that put all of our spending into um categories and then like it literally monitors my account.

I didn't realize, like, I was paying for like two Netflix accounts at the same time.

Like, I think what I did is I probably tried to like, you know, when you ride the wave of like a free trial, but you still put your card in, I forgot to cancel it, but then I had another one.

So, like, I'm running, I'm giving Netflix tons of money right now.

I didn't even realize it.

But if I didn't pause and take the time to actually look at where every dollar was going, like there's a lot of there's a lot of missing things that are going there.

And what I recognize is is when we don't have our resources in order, then we don't have the margin to be generous.

Yeah, we end up spending money and we end up doing things that we shouldn't be doing because we feel like we have to, but we don't recognize that you actually have more margin than you think you do, but you have to begin to put things in order.

So we've always run with a a pretty good budget, but now that we've streamlined things a lot more offloaded things that we don't need to have, now I'm recognizing that we have more margin to be generous.

Here's what scripture says about being generous.

It says in Proverbs chapter 11, it says that the world of the generous gets larger and larger, while the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.

Proverbs 11 · chapter mention

The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed, and those who help others are also themselves helped.

That's Proverbs 11, 24.

I began to think about how what it says is that when you're generous, that God pours a blessing through it.

But a lot of times our generosity is clogged up because we don't have order in our finances.

And so we don't even have the margin to be generous because we don't recognize the leak in the opportunities that God is presenting to us, because our pipeline is clogged up with so many things that don't need to be there.

So for us, we began to really recognize and understand not only do we want to make sure that we have the margin to be generous, but it starts with putting God first in our resources, yeah.

Evaluating where all of our spending is going, making sure that we have things in order.

Honestly, looking at our estate planning, these things, and making sure that things are in the right place because we want the blessings of God to flow through it.

That was God's heart when he came to Hezekiah.

I want to bless your family, I want to bless the people of Israel, I want to send blessings through you, but you've got to get things in order.

Order is the pipeline that God's blessings flow through.

Yeah, and and also getting our um home in order, getting our resources in order, we also need to get our relationships in order.

Because where there's a lack of order in our relationships, there's an abundance of excuses.

And I know for us, like during the pandemic, what we realize is um traveling within the five years that we were going back and forth with ministry, um our kids, like our house is I I like that our kids can still have their space while still being in the same house.

But Daniel is at the front of the house, we're at the back of the house, and Caleb is upstairs.

During the first week of the pandemic, we're like, why are the kids in the room?

You know?

But they're used to us traveling, they're used to being in their own spaces because we're not there.

And so we realized, man, we're good with our kids, but we didn't realize the distance that it had created during that time of not being as close as we thought we were as a family.

And so we had to be very intentional during that sabbatical time of having creating spaces in the other main areas to make sure that we had time for conversations because they had to solicit um during those times like friendships.

Their friendships when they processed through things in real times, they had to process it through with other adults, and so uh now we were like, oh man, I thought we were closer than that.

And and it built, we were able to reestablish uh the the relationships with our kids, like that we didn't think that was an issue.

Yeah, and I can here's something I want everyone in here to to write down put it in your heart, put it in your spirit.

But proximity can be an illusion.

That there's times that we think that because we're in proximity, that that also equates to being close.

Or intimate.

But I believe that there's nothing could be further than the truth.

You can have proximity, but it doesn't mean you have chemistry.

And so what I began to recognize is that even though our family is tight-knit, we laugh and joke, but the conversations went from deep levels to kind of surface level because we're always gone, and so when we come in, everything is kind of like, hey, how you doing?

What's going on?

We have a couple of jokes, and then the the depth began to get shallow.

I recognize that we began to move with a different rhythm.

You remember when um we went on vacation and we went to the silent party?

Anybody's familiar with the silent party?

You go to a party, you have on headphones, and there's a DJ that's playing different types of music depending on the type of headphones you have on.

I had on blue ones, you had on green ones.

So that means that there is we're listening to two different types of music.

So I'm moving to one pace, you're moving to another pace.

We're in proximity.

We're dancing, but we're not dancing to the same rhythm.

Yeah.

And what can happen a lot of times in our relationships is that we can be around one another, but it doesn't mean that we're in sync with one another because maybe we're being influenced and inspired by a rhythm that's not incongruent with our community and with our family.

Yeah, and I would say that you have to be intentional with your relationships.

Put stuff on the calendar.

Like uh try not to utilize your day, have your day filled up with so much stuff that you cannot be intentional with your relationships because your relationships will suffer if you're not intentional about how do you go about doing that.

And maybe you don't have all day, but do you have an hour?

Do you have two hours?

Figure out what that looks like for you to squeeze that in so that you're making um being intentional about that because that small amount of time or that large amount of time will make a significant impact in the lives of your relationships.

Absolutely.

And and I'll say this in as it relates to like friendships specifically, um, is that a lot of times we we are looking to a single source to be everything for us.

We're looking to a single source to be everything for us.

I've I've talked with uh many of us in our community and even beyond our community that when we're specifically in transient cities and we're trying to find our people, we're looking for that one person that can be the person.

That person is my person that I talk to about Jesus, that's the person I talk to about life, that's the person that I talk to about my family.

And what can end up happening is a lot of times we're so focused looking for that one person that we don't recognize that God has given us an entire community that serves that purpose.

We don't we don't recognize that God has surrounded me with people, and I may not be able to talk to everybody about everything, but I have somebody I could talk to about everything.

I could talk to this person about my children, I could talk to this person about my marriage, I could talk to this person about what's going on in ministry, I could talk to this person about how to get my finances in order.

Instead of us being so focused on trying to find that one person that we often see in the movies, that person is the everything to me.

God often sends us a community.

And if we begin to be take time to recognize the community that God gives us, you will find that you have everything that you need.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Um, looking around to see what God has given you, because a lot of times, if you're there to evaluate the friendships that you have, maybe this friendship is not good for you in this season.

Uh, maybe you're at different pages, and it doesn't mean that you have to have beef and cut someone off.

You just need to know like what is your circle?

Evaluate that.

See where you're giving 110% and where you're getting that back.

Because a lot of times you'll spend so much energy getting back, being hurt in the process when that relate you're forcing a relationship that is not meant for you.

So take the time out to evaluate through your relationships and then be intentional about those relationships.

Don't wait until there's a funeral to say, man, I wish I would have called her more, I wish I would have done this more.

You need order.

The order is, hey, I'm gonna call this person on this certain day, I'm gonna do this, we're gonna go out once a month.

Whatever that looks like for you, don't wait until it's too late to have regrets, to be intentional about your relationships, and to evaluate the ones that you want to invest in.

Amen.

Amen.

I think we should invest in those who invest in us.

And and with that being said, I believe that there is no relationship that's more important than our relationship with God.

I believe that that is the first and primary thing.

In fact, everything flows from that specific relationship.

Here's what Matthew 633 says says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be provided for you.

That these things were basically the concerns of life.

I want you guys to hear me from the depths of my being.

It doesn't matter what your bank account says if you don't have Jesus, it doesn't matter what else is going on in your life if you don't have Jesus.

We have to put Jesus first, and everything flows from that.

Here's what I want you guys to recognize is that when we say yes to Jesus, something spiritually inside of us begins to awaken.

And when that begins to happen, what happens is our soul then begins to be influenced by the things of God instead of by the world.

Our soul is our mind, our will, our emotions.

That's kind of like our identity.

But when we say yes to Jesus, the spiritual part of us comes alive.

And now as we engage God's word, engage God's community, those things begin to change.

That's what we call the renewing of our mind.

And then people begin to see it.

That's what we call the fruit.

This is the body, the soul, and the spirit process.

That's sanctification that takes place.

But if you recognize the order, I say yes to Jesus first, and then I begin to recognize how he renews my mind, and then I begin to see the fruit of it.

If I can be honest with you, the place where religion and churches can often miss it is we're expecting to see fruit in people who aren't rooted in Jesus.

But if we can say yes to Jesus first, then everything begins to flow from that, and then we begin to see the fruit of it.

There is nothing more important than our relationship with Jesus.

And so, even for us that's in this room, maybe, maybe as you evaluate your life, and there's parts of this conversation that we've had together that you are beginning to kind of process through.

Maybe you're looking at some areas of your life where you don't have order, maybe you are carrying some things that still need to be unpacked, maybe there's some things in your resources that you need to get in order, maybe there's some relational things that you need to get in order.

I I want to take a moment to pray for us first for that, but I also want to take a moment to recognize those who need to put Jesus first in your life.

It doesn't matter what order we have in anything else if we haven't put God first.

So I want us to do this.

Let's let's bow our heads.

The team is going to join us in just a second.

And and I want to pose this question to us.

As you sit there and just reflect on the goodness of God, if you sit there and reflect on the fact that He's He's invited you in here for such a time as this, maybe, maybe you're in here with us right now.

And as Megan and I were up here sharing, you recognize that there's some areas of your life that you want to see more order.

I want to see more order in my home.

That could be literal or in me, being the house of God.

I want to see order just inside of me.

There's some things that I'm carrying that represent a previous season.

There's some things that are inside of me that I need to unpack.

I need to go to counseling.

I need to offload some of these things that I've been carrying.

Maybe there's some areas in ourselves that we recognize we need to get our our finances in order.

Maybe, maybe I need to just get my finances in order.

I need to either put God first in my finances or I just need to establish the discipline of getting my finances and my resources in order.

God is glorified through the order that we establish in our lives.

Maybe that's you.

Maybe you just want to get order in your relationships.

Maybe you're spending energy chasing down people and not recognize the ones that God has placed around you to strengthen you and to help to move you forward.

But if you're in here with us and you recognize there's areas of your life that you want to experience more order and more peace, I want to pray for you.

So if sitting where you are on the count of three, just lift your hands up, acknowledge, and yes, there's areas in my life that I want to experience more order in my life.

One, two, three.

Amen.

Hands up literally everywhere.

Hands up everywhere.

God bless you.

Amen.

Amen.

You can go ahead and put those hands down.

Before we go into a time of prayer and worship, um, I also want to ask this question.

I want to ask this question for those of us that are in here who hasn't put Jesus first in your life, that Jesus is not your Lord, Jesus not your savior, and that you've been trying to get fruit of peace by working and doing everything you can, whether it be the bank accounts, the varying things that you've done that you strive to try to accomplish peace, but you recognize that, man, today is the day of salvation.

If I don't have Jesus, then nothing else makes sense.

This moment is for you.

We've prayed for you for this moment.

We've been thinking of you for this moment, and we don't want you to miss this moment.

If you're in here with us today and you know that you're away from God and that your next step is to simply put Jesus first, we'll walk with you, we'll pray with you, but we don't want you to miss this moment.

On account of three, I want you to boldly lift your hands up saying, Yes, it's time for me to put Jesus first and watch everything flow from that.

One, two, three.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.

Amen.

Yes, church, we can celebrate that.

We can celebrate that.

Amen.

What I want us to do, let's stand to our feet.

We're gonna go back into a moment of brief worship, um, and then Pastor Nate's gonna come and dismiss us.

But as we're preparing to go into worship, Megan and I, we just simply want to pray over you, and then we're gonna worship to seal it all in.

But but Megan, would you mind starting praying for those who were saying yes to Jesus, possibly for the first time?

Yes, repeat these words after me, church.

Lord Jesus, I give you my life.

I give you my life.

And it's because of that belief I am saved.

I am saved.

I believe you died, I believe you died on the cross and rose again.

On the cross and rose again.

And Lord, order my steps.

Lord, order my steps, and let my characteristics exhibit you.

And let my characteristics exhibit you in Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Heavenly Father, with every hand lifted up to heaven, let's receive this.

Heavenly Father, God, you see every hand that's lifted up.

You see every one of us, Lord God, that has a desire to see your blessings flow through our lives, Father.

Lord, not only do I ask you for your spirit to reveal where we need order, but God, reveal the areas where we have clogs, things that are preventing your flow from getting through.

So, God, I pray in the name of Jesus that God, this is not just a lifted hand, but this is an invitation for your spirit to begin to unclog the things, to help us unpack the things, showing us the unforgiveness that are keeping the peace from flowing in our lives, God, the clogs and the leaks in our resources, the clogs and the leaks in our relationships, God.

Father, I'm asking, Father, for you to unclog it so your presence and your blessings can flow through it.

So, Father, I pray that every lie of the adversary that tries to convince us to do things a different way, we bind that spirit in the name of Jesus and we stand on the truth of your word with an expectation that we're not going to leave here the same that we arrived, God.

So, Father, I pray a blessing, I pray peace, and I pray order over every one of our lives.

In the name of Jesus, we declare it.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen and amen.

Church, let's put our hands together and let's worship one more time before we head out.

Thanks again for listening.

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