Heart Over Hype | Ps. Keith 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.

You can go ahead and take your seats, but as you do that, would you mind turning to someone around you and welcoming to church this morning?

We are truly so glad that you are here.

If you're joining us online or on our podcast, welcome.

We're so glad that you're with us as well.

I'm excited for today's message.

So if you have your Bible, I want to go ahead and jump into it.

I want you to go in your scriptures to Matthew chapter 28, and we're going to look at verses 19 and 20.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

This is a passage of scripture that we commonly refer to as the Great Commission.

This is Jesus coming to the end of his earthly ministry, and he begins to issue uh assignments to his disciples.

He's telling them, Now that I'm about to ascend into heaven, I'm given the balls in your court.

There's there's some specific instructions that I want to give you.

Starting at verse number 19, this is what Jesus says to his disciples as a part of his parting words.

He says, Therefore, go and make disciples in all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.

And be sure of this: I am with you always, even until the end of the age.

Jesus empowers them, He He instructs them, and then He releases them to carry on what they've seen and teach them what He said.

This powerful idea of what does it mean to be the church that is prevailing in society.

Today, as we prepare to conclude our Make Room series, I'm I'm excited to be preaching what I honestly believe to be one of the most challenging, but yet one of the most important messages that I've ever preached.

And my prayer is that you can pray with me, that you can lean in with me as we make every effort to come in alignment with the words that Jesus has instructed us to operate in.

If you're taking notes and I hope that you're doing that, I want you to simply write this message title down, Heart Over Hype.

Heart Over Hype.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your word.

We're so thankful that we are a part of your church, and we're thankful for moments like this where we can come together to gather in your name because we know that you're in the midst of us.

So, Holy Spirit, speak.

We invite you to encourage us, to, to challenge us, to lead us to our next steps.

In Spirit of the Living God, we pray for open ears that we can hear you, open eyes that we can see you, and open hearts to receive everything that you have for us.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen and amen.

You know, this this year, uh Megan and I are entering into um our 23rd year of ministry.

Um, and it's it's it's really just kind of like wild to me because I still vividly remember um the day when her and I had this radical encounter with God, this moment where where we had recommitted our lives to Christ.

Many of you guys have heard my story, but but for us, we were raised in a Christian household, but but it was moments where you just kind of live on your own terms.

So it was that moment when we we came back and we we never turned back from it.

I remember it so vividly, that that moment where we were in a service like this and and feeling this draw to go to the altar, to surrender our lives to Christ.

And we didn't plan it.

We didn't walk in and say, like, hey, this is our moment, let's go.

It was like I was in one part of the church, she was another part, but we just couldn't resist it.

And from that moment, we knew that we were gonna lay our lives down to do whatever we could do to do our best to be an example of what does it mean to be a follower of Christ, to be connected to his body of believers.

And so from the moment we said yes, we were we were thrust into every aspect of the church.

Pastor John, anytime that the doors were open, brother, we were there.

I mean, it didn't matter what was going on.

And this was a small, small, small community.

It was probably like a church of about 50 people.

But man, like the the word was rich.

Like we we had services that went on for like four and five hours, six hours.

That would just be the norm.

Y'all think I preach long.

Like, and it was unapologetic.

You went in and didn't know when you were getting out.

That's like going to jail and not having a date out.

Like you're just here waiting.

When are we gonna get out?

You will leave hungry, but you will also somehow leave full.

Somebody will catch that later.

Um, but it was that that was what the experience was.

We would just be in this environment, and it was in this environment that we learned so much about discipline.

Like the discipline that they taught to us was understanding the power of God's word, like how the word of God literally does renew minds.

The word of God has the ability to transform.

So we learned how to, if the Bible says it, we're gonna believe it, we're gonna do it.

That was just uh the thing we prayed.

We literally, Pastor Nate, watch this.

We we had to tithe our time in prayer.

Um, notice I didn't say we chose to, we had to tithe our time in prayer.

If you did not pray for two hours and 40 minutes every day, what are you doing with your life?

Tithe your time in prayer.

So we were raised in this environment with this very, very great discipline, but discipline without grace gives birth to legalism.

Man, we just getting started.

A couple years into that environment where we grew in faith and in knowledge and understanding of God's word, God would have it that we ended up moving uh to Jacksonville, Florida.

So when we moved to Jacksonville, Florida, from this environment that we were in in the Northeast to now being in this massive city, we began to hunt and try to find a church.

Uh I had a hard time finding one.

The city was so massive, there were so many different options.

So a friend of mine that I work with said, Hey, I think you should come out to this men's event that my church is having.

And I was like, Okay, well, I'll go out and scout the land before I bring my kids into any environment.

I don't want anybody indoctrinating my family with false teachings.

So I go to this men's event, and this thing was epic.

I go to this men's event at Celebration Church in Jacksonville, and Pastor John, you may remember this.

I get there to this men's event.

This is all happening at one event.

They had go-karts in the back, they had a Madden tournament, and the pastor showed up in a helicopter.

I was like, what in the world is this?

So I walk into the church and I'm like, there's no way Jesus in this thing.

There's way too many people here.

This is a mega church.

Man, when you read the Bibles, these small, small groups, man.

Any church that has a thousand plus people, by all means, they must be watering down their doctrine.

So I was there and I was, I was enamored by it, but when I got in and I got into worship, I heard people declaring the same Jesus that I had learned in a small environment.

I've seen these people that are lives are being transformed.

So now I'm at this place where I'm like conflicted.

Because on one side of me I thought that you had to have this rigid routine in order to really love God, but now I'm in this other environment that it was just, it was light, it was fun.

There wasn't a suit to be found, Pastor John.

No one was dressed up in a smoke machine and moving lights and all this other type stuff.

I'm like, what is going on?

But Jesus was preached and lives are being transformed.

So I'm like, man, this is the time of church I want to go to.

I want to go to the type of church that if I don't go that following Sunday, my salvation isn't in jeopardy.

That's the church I want to go to.

So my family and I, we jump in and we're all in.

We're serving in everything from kids to parking teams to ushering to outreach to youth.

Like, we are we are all in, and I'm literally seeing my life and my family's lives transform as a result of being in this incredible environment.

It was amazing to see.

Megan and I had an opportunity to serve in our Jacksonville location, our DC locations.

We traveled all over the world to go to our different locations.

And I'm like, this is amazing.

This is what we refer to as life-giving.

I began to go to conferences on what are the best ways to build the church and began to partner with other churches and pastors.

And if you use this strategy, then the church is going to grow.

And if you you do these things and you're going to see life transformation, and all of these things were great.

So when we went into 2020 with an expectation of using all these elements that we knew that would just allow the church to just blow up.

I mean, just blow up.

Like, man, we I had a I had a vision meeting with our staff, and I'm like, man, by this time, if we are not at 2,500 people, then there's sin in the camp.

Like God's hand is on us.

We're going to do some amazing things.

And then we get into 2020 and the world shuts down.

Everything that I thought it meant to be a part of a thriving church was immediately turned upside down.

Because in one side of me, I'm thinking that, man, the hand of God is really on a church because it's big, right?

Because we've often said that healthy things grow.

Right?

But so does cancer.

So we got to be careful when we say things like that, that we have to make sure that it's growing in the right foundation.

So now I'm at this place where everything that I thought it meant to be a pastor, everything that I thought it meant to be part of this thriving church, I was wrestling with what do you do moving forward?

How do you how do you serve people if you can't touch them?

How do you pastor people if you don't even know where they are?

So now I'm at this place of having a spiritual existential crisis.

And so all of my prayers became, God, I can't wait until we get back.

I can't wait until we get back to normal.

I can't wait until we get back to the way that it was.

Lord, I just can't wait until we can get back to the place pre-pandemic.

And God wrecked me when He said this to me.

He said, Keith, if you needed what you lost, and I would have made sure that you still had it.

Why are you so fixated on getting back to the thing that I brought to a stop?

Instead of trying to get back to something, why don't you start asking, what do I want you to do from the place that you currently are?

It challenged me to begin to think of things a little bit differently.

It challenged me to think about what it means to be part of a local church a little bit differently.

Because we all could sometimes romanticize the past and we're not being faithful to the present.

I began to understand that God had an assignment on our lives to make sure that we didn't think that the good old days were the heydays, but looking at the good old days are before us if we can steward now appropriately.

It challenged me to begin to look at scripture in the standard that God had established for what does it mean?

Because I recognize that in one environment that God is thriving in these small environments with discipleship and people being challenged, but I've also seen how God has invited people to be a part of his family by allowing there to be open doors for people to grow.

But but here's the thing: when we have a lot of standards without any grace, we have a church that ends up rejecting people, and we can't be surprised when they don't show up.

But on the other side, when we create an environment that is so grace-filled and so inviting, but it doesn't actually walk through the process of discipling, we didn't turn into a church, we've turned into an amusement park.

And we can't be surprised when a congregant starts acting like tourists.

They show up when they want to show up, they engage when they want to engage because there's no standard there that requires them to feel like if I do this, then I know that I'm going to grow.

God said that in the middle of that somewhere is what his standard is for what it means to be a part of a thriving kingdom church.

He's challenging us to be a church that puts heart over height, that he wants us to be a church that responds to the pressing of the Holy Spirit and not making an effort to impress man.

I often wonder if there are times in our lives that we're so busy trying to go viral that we stop making disciples.

That in an effort to utilize the tools that God has given us to absolutely reach people, if we end up serving those tools and we actually stop discipling and developing them.

Over the past couple of years, I spent some time examining church history, and it doesn't have to go outside of the Bible to do this.

I was reading in the book of Revelation, where Jesus offers his critique of the church.

He analyzes these churches and he says this common thing like, Man, you're doing some amazing things.

Man, your church is so incredible.

But I got a couple of issues with you.

I got something to say.

Um, if if you're interested in what I gotta say about your church, um, here's something I gotta say.

You're doing a lot of incredible things, but your church is riddled with compromise.

Man, you're doing some amazing things, but you don't even teach people to repent anymore.

Man, you're doing some amazing things, but you stop, you stopped developing people.

You're you're doing some amazing things, but you don't even have morality in a pulpit anymore.

You're doing some incredible things, you're reaching the community, your name is incredibly famous.

It's just you've gotten away from the first love.

You've you've lost track of what was really, really important in the body of believers.

How how terrifying is that?

That the things that we look to as a metric of success, Jesus said, that's cool, but you still ain't get it right.

I I believe that this is meant to be an indictment and a challenge for all of us to ensure that whenever we're connected to the body of believers, that it's rooted in something that has a kingdom focus, something that has the ability to have the discipline in a small environment, but the invitation of a bigger environment.

Because here's what I've learned within church.

I've learned that you have a church that can be similar to what we see in Genesis chapter 1, where it says that the spirit of God hovered.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Y'all remember that where God hovered over the earth.

You know what that word hovered means?

That means the power of God was present.

So you can have some environments where the power of God is present.

You can walk in and almost fall out in the spirit as soon as you walk in.

The power of God is present, but here's the problem: there's no practicality.

The spirit of God doesn't land and people don't go beyond the four walls of the church.

Then you have the other side.

Well, this is what I call the dry bones church.

You have all these structures, but you created such a strategy that the spirit of God's not in it.

I believe that God is saying it's possible for the two to exist if you build it on the appropriate foundation.

Being a church that is heart of God over the hype of man.

You see, that the church isn't a building, it's a collection of people that have been called out, that's been called to be set apart, the assembly that gathers with accountability and structure and deepness and grace.

And somehow it's in this environment, it's in this ecosystem that we see people begin to thrive, or as Jesus says, the church is prevailing no matter what it faces.

So many of us are in faith crisis because I believe we presented a faith to them that is not biblical.

A faith of if you pray about it, it's going to work itself out.

A faith that says, if you're offended, then just go to the next place.

That is not the biblical instructions that God gives us.

He teaches us how to work through things.

This is why Jesus prayed and said, I want you to be in unity with one another.

Why?

Because all we got is each other.

So we work through it, we figure it out, we pray through it, we process, we we learn to disagree.

We don't go into holy huddles with everyone who thinks exactly like we do because there's nothing to challenge us to change.

What God is saying that his church is supposed to be is a diverse environment with diversity of people and perspectives, and in that, that is what set the church of Jesus Christ apart.

When we study the church of the book of Acts, the thing that allowed it to stand out so much was that it was the only environment where diversity existed and thrived.

And people didn't have to check who they were at the door in order to fit in.

You had Greeks and Jews and Africans and all these other people that were able to all gather under the banner of Jesus Christ, and they didn't have to forfeit who they were, but somehow they were able to work together, and that is when people said, Have you seen this group called Christians?

They're actually all unified, but somehow they're different.

That is how the church had its influence and impact.

I'm sorry to say, church, I believe there are times that we've got away from that.

There are times that I believe that the church has morphed into something that wasn't part of God's original idea, this idea of a prevailing church that can endure everything because we've learned how to have unity and work together.

I believe that there are cultural pillars that need to exist in every church.

And as I've examined the book of Acts in church history, I want to I want to introduce you to the pillars that undergird who we are as a church.

I want you to write these four things down because I want you to understand that this is the collection of believers that you are a part of.

Here's the first one.

At this church, a prevailing church, we celebrate the goodness of God.

We are a church that celebrates the goodness of God.

I want to make this statement.

This shouldn't be a shocker to anyone, but I'm gonna make it.

God is good.

End of message.

Bring worship up.

We can wrap up right here.

He is so good.

The goodness of God is not just an attribute, but it's at the core of everything he is and everything he does.

That means that everything that God does is good, his love is good.

The Bible said that there is nothing dark in him, that his that his that his correction is good, that everything about God is good.

The goodness of God is the very core of who he is.

There are literally hundreds of scripture that speak to this.

Scriptures such as Psalm 100, verse number 5.

For the Lord is good and he is faithful.

Love endures forever.

Psalm 34, verse number eight.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Come on, Nate.

Psalm 31.

How great is your goodness that you've stored up for those who fear you.

The goodness of God is even prominent in the very beginning of the Bible.

As God is creating things, every day he says, Man, this is good.

Everything he touches, he's like, Man, I'm doing, I'm killing it right now.

Everything that God does is good.

Everything that he touches is good.

The Bible repeatedly reminds us of the goodness of God.

Here's why this is so important because we live in a world that somehow connects the pain of the world to the mean that there's not a good God.

We we live in a world that when we deal with disappointment, we connect that to God and say, if God is good, then why am I going through something that's bad?

And that begins to be a church that can't prevail because we're wondering if God is good in all situations.

But God is telling us that He is good.

And as a church, we want to make sure that we celebrate the goodness of God.

Hear me clearly.

Celebrating the goodness of God does not mean that we ignore the suffering of man.

That's not what it means.

In fact, we we we acknowledge the suffering that we experience on a day-to-day basis.

We recognize the pain that exists in our world.

Here's the difference we acknowledge it, but we don't make an altar to it.

We understand it, but we don't exalt it above God.

We understand that in every situation, that in every season, that God is good.

He even says of himself, when he's passing before when he's passing before um Abraham, he says, I'm going to pass by you and allow my goodness for you to see it.

God is allowing us to understand that he is good.

We are a church.

Then the early church was built in such a way that even when there was suffering, they celebrated the goodness of God.

That even when there was disappointment, they celebrated the goodness of God.

What that meant is no matter what they were facing, they found a way to deal with the pain, but they always look to Jesus as the author and finisher of their faith.

What I want us to understand that as a body of believers, we're not called to come into the collection of people and live in a place of depression and stay there.

We acknowledge the pain, we understand the disappointment, but we look unto Jesus and we understand that even in the mess that God is good, that even in the pain that God is good, even in my suffering, I know that God is good.

It doesn't mean that everything is good, but only a good God can work everything together for the good.

Only a good God can do that.

There's no shortage of moments where we've experienced pains and setbacks.

Let me let me tell you how 2022 has been for your boy so far.

One day in, my wife loses her grandmother.

Four days in, she loses her uncle.

So Megan is in Fort Lauderdale right now, on the back end of a double funeral.

They decided just to hold off and have both funerals together.

That's the start.

That was just week one.

We get into week two, a little bit more personal, but I want y'all to pray for me.

Um$3,000 in car repairs.

Exactly.

Ain't nothing good about that.

Then the week after that, close friends of mine all got laid off.

Over 40 people that I know all got laid off.

This is in the middle of prayer and fasting.

Daniera, I thought when you prayed and fast, that stopped all bad things from happening.

That's that's what that's what I thought.

I thought that if I prayed enough, if I read enough, if I highlighted enough, if I journaled enough, that all suffering and pain would take place.

If I if I build my doctrine on that, then God certainly isn't good.

But I want to let you know that the goodness of God is able to take those pain points of suffering if we're looking hard enough and we can recognize his goodness even in it.

Because even in the loss of life, I'm recognizing the goodness of God as bringing family together and they're celebrating legacy.

And now I see that what was birthed in pain has been birthed unity.

I'm recognizing now that even though I had to spill out a lot of money, that God somehow provided and we were able to do it.

God is good because he's a provider.

I've even been able to recognize that of all the people that got laid off, most of them have already found jobs, making even more money.

I'm trying to understand that God is good in season, out of season, when I'm uncomfortable, that God is good.

Only a good God is able to work all things together for the good.

How else do we understand when we look at the life of Joseph, of this man who was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, put into a prison for a crime he didn't commit, but yet God used him to be in a position to connect with the Pharaoh that saved an entire world?

What I'm trying to help you to understand, he said these words was the enemy meant for evil, God is going to use it for good.

What I want you to understand is that we celebrate the goodness of God, that even when we're uncomfortable, God is good, that even when we have setbacks, God is good.

We trust God through every season because we know that.

God is good.

I want you to walk away understanding it may not be good, but God is.

God is good.

Only the goodness of God can allow a person who's been abused to now turn that platform into a place of refuge.

Only the goodness of God can allow a person who was an addict to now become an ambassador of what wholeness looks like.

God is unapologetically good.

This is why we celebrate the goodness of God.

This is why we have moments where we collect testimonies because we want to make sure that we all understand that even in the suffering, God is good.

Here's the second thing I want you to write down.

We engage the presence of God.

The early church, they celebrated God even in their suffering.

The other thing that they did that allowed them to be a prevailing church is they engaged the presence of God.

James chapter 4, verse number 8 says, Draw near to God, and he draws near to you.

James 4 · chapter mention

You know, when you read through the Bible, you'll find that God is a gentleman.

Jesus says, I stand at the door and I knock.

I respect your boundaries.

If you don't want to let me in, I will not force my way in.

When we engage God, God engages us.

We have a choice to make.

I have one of those cars that has like um a key fob.

And the key fob has this technology in it.

It's not anything new, but but when you get close enough to the car, and if you touch the handle, it automatically unlocks the door.

When I first got this, man, you couldn't have told me that I haven't arrived.

I'm like, man, I used to remember the days when I had to actually put the key in the lock, unlock it.

Remember those days for some of y'all like, yeah, I've been here for 20 years, man.

Slow down.

I haven't.

I just got here.

I I remember when I first walked up to the car, I had my hands full, and I and I reached out for the handle, and when I touched it, because I had the keys in my pocket, it unlocked it without me even having to dig into my pocket, put the stuff on the ground.

I was like, this is some Harry Potter witchcraft, but I love it.

Man, like all I gotta do is reach out and touch it, and it opens up the door, and now I can get in and I can get to where I need to go to because I chose to reach out and touch it because there was something that was on me, that was in me.

And even though it was on me and it was in me, it didn't magically open on its own.

I didn't make it to my destination on its own, but somehow when I got close enough to it and I reached out and grabbed it, then what was once closed became open because I made a choice to engage it.

What if I were to tell you that when you engage the presence of God, the power of God engages you?

This is why we are a church that unapologetically believes in engaging the power of God, the presence of God.

We are a church that believes in engagement.

We are not spectators, we are participators.

This is why when we come to church, you hear us lifting up our hands and see us calling out the name of God.

This is how we engage, this is how we invite God to move in our lives.

This is why when we talk about, hey, we have small groups showing up, and when we actually show up, that we begin to get strengthened in our faith and we find ourselves getting deeper and growing in revelation of God's word because we chose to show up and engage.

This is when you begin to see people that even in moments of suffering, but when they call on the name of the Lord, there's some freedom that begins to give birth because the Bible says that he inhabits the praises of his people.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

When I do that, that somehow it gives me peace and understanding.

This is why we come to church consistently, not because we're supposed to sit home and be Lone Rangers, but when we come together with a collection of people, we're around other folks that are walking through the same seasons and we're encouraged and strengthened and iron sharpens iron.

This is why we read the God, the word of God, because as I'm reading God's word, God's word is reading me, it's challenging me, it's directing me, it's instructing me.

This is why we engage the altar.

This is why we come up and we surrender ourselves, lay our lives down because we know that when we engage the power and presence of God, that God's presence engages us.

This is why we do what we do.

This is why we say amen.

This is why, even in church service, we clap our hands, we say amen, we stand on our feet, we do these things.

This is how we engage the presence of God.

We truly believe that when we engage God, He engages us.

Now I understand that we all have different personalities.

I understand that some of us are chill.

I know some of us are hands-in-a-pocket Christians, some of us are folded arm Christians, some of us are observant Christians, and I get it.

I understand it because I have those proclivities as well.

I have those tendencies as well.

I'm more, I'm not a demonstrative personality at all.

Some people are like liar.

I'm telling you, I'm not.

I'm more I'm more chill than anything.

But here's the thing the more and more that I read the Bible, here's the thing.

I just I'm fascinated by this.

The more and more that I read the Bible, it talks a lot about the way that we worship.

I have not found a single passage that says that we do it because we feel like it.

I haven't found it.

And if you find it, send it to me.

I haven't found a single passage that says everything that feels like it, praise the Lord.

I just I just haven't found it.

But what I have seen is that there are moments where we're waiting for our feelings to determine our action.

But when I read the Bible, I actually see that our actions bring our feelings into alignment.

We engage the word of God, we engage the people of God, we engage the environments of God because that is the way that we are able to bring our feelings into alignment.

You know what I find is so fascinating is that when I go to sporting events as much as I love them, they have a lot of things going on.

They have they have all the people out there, they have cheerleaders, they have they have things on a jumbo trine, they got a lot of things, and people are getting excited, they're booing, they're doing all these things because they're engaging, and you could tell that the people who are engaged that they're having more fun, they're more connected.

Just last week we we went out to a restaurant to close out the fast and to celebrate with some friends, and we're in there and we're watching, we're watching football.

And and I just want to take a moment.

Nate, I'm so sorry for your loss with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Um, as your brother and as your pastor, I'm with you.

I prayed, I interceded in the middle of the restaurant for you in real time.

Um, I was like, you know what?

And De Niro tells, I'm like, maybe I should give Nate the week off.

Like, I just feel like he needs some time to kind of grieve and get through it.

Um, but while I'm there, watch this.

There was not anyone that felt uncomfortable yelling at a screen.

There was not a single person that had an issue with saying, Yes, they lost, or man, I'm I'm I'm sad that they lost.

There was not a single person that said, Hey, I'm a personality that really doesn't like to do that.

Everybody was in there turning up because there was such engagement.

You mean to tell me that we can yell at a screen because Tom Brady threw a touchdown, but we cannot yell and exalt the name of Jesus, the one who knows every hair that is on our head, the one that knows the beginning from the end.

We're incapable of giving that God glory.

This is what we mean when we're talking about being a prevailing church is understanding that I'm going to engage the presence of God, understanding that when I engage God, that God engages me.

Here's a third thing I want you to write down.

We believe in the power of God.

That the early church, they absolutely believed in the power of God.

They celebrated the goodness of God, they engaged God, they showed up, they were connected to one another, and they believed in the power of God.

Jesus says that I am given all power in heaven and earth.

And I give this to you that the ministry of Jesus was a ministry of power, reconciliation.

He healed the sick, he brought redemption, he literally modeled resurrection, that Jesus was an example of what the prevailing church looks like.

And then he says, I want you to do the same thing.

I want you to go out in my name and begin to transform the world by radically inviting people to life transformation that can only happen through the person of Christ.

I want to be very clear.

We do not believe that the power of God has an expiration date on it.

We do not believe that at the death of the disciples, that somehow God's spirit stopped moving.

We unapologetically believe in the power of God.

This is why we get on this platform and we read off prayer requests.

And I love those moments when the things that we pray about become the things that we praise about.

We believe in the power of the presence of God.

We believe and understand that God is still on the move, that God is still bringing restoration.

And some of us are saying, I don't feel like I see it the same way that we did in the book of Acts.

I will tell you one, make sure you educate yourself beyond your feelings because I want you to know that there's a revival that's taking place all around the world, that there are stories of eyes being opened, there are stories of marriages being restored, that every time that a sinner comes to repentance, that's evidence of the transformation in life that happens as a result of the power of God.

We believe that God has the ability to transform your life.

We believe that God has the ability to resurrect your marriage.

We believe that God has the ability to order your steps.

He's the God that can restore your vision, that we believe in the power of God.

I have personally seen miracles take place.

I have personally been a part of watching the move of God take place.

I've seen revival, I've seen the Holy Spirit pour out on young children.

What I want you to know is that we believe in the power of God.

We don't believe that the power of God has an expiration date.

Just a couple of weeks ago, right up the street at our celebration in Jacksonville location, there was a lady who got in her wheelchair down to the altar, but she walked back to her seat.

Did you hear what I said?

She got in the wheelchair to go to the altar, had an encounter with God, and walked back to her seat.

Yes, we believe in the power of God.

We are faith-filled, we are spirit-filled, we are spirit-led.

We believe in the power of God because outside of him we can't do what he's called us to do.

We will pray for you, we will lay hands on you, we will anoint you.

We believe in the power of God.

Here's the fourth and final thought.

We demonstrate the love of God.

We demonstrate the love of God, we celebrate the goodness of God, we engage the presence of God, we believe in the power of God, and we demonstrate the love of God.

Here's how we do this.

I think it's found encapsulated in John 3.16.

So God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

Time wouldn't allow me to unpack all the nuances of the scripture, but there's a couple of things I want to highlight.

That God loved, so he gave.

He demonstrated his love to us by giving his son.

His son became a servant.

So how do we demonstrate the love of God?

We do it through generosity and we do it through serving.

That is how we demonstrate the love of God.

We are a church that is 100% others' focus.

We we love when we are able to go.

As Jesus instructs his disciples, go, don't stay where you are, go.

Reach the lost, equip the found, help the hurting.

Go get outside of your comfort zone.

Go.

We believe in demonstrating the love of God.

Showing the love of God at your workplace, showing the love of God in your community, making sure that we serve and that we issue generosity.

Again, the early church, the thing that was so profound about it is that they actually served one another.

That no one thought they were better than anyone else.

They served one another.

And then when there were needs, they all collectively contributed and they would begin to distribute it to the needs that were in the community.

The thing that marked the early church was their radical servanthood and their generosity.

The Bible says that they had all things in common.

That they lived with this mindset of like, we're all in this together.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna share what I have, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give generously, I'm gonna serve, I'm gonna make a difference.

Those pillars, celebrating the goodness of God, engaging God, showing up, no days off, believing in the power of God, believing and and understanding that God's on the move and demonstrating the love of God to a world that desperately needed, that that created the prevailing church that allowed the church to be successful then and to still be alive now.

We celebrate, we engage, we believe, we demonstrate.

If you notice, these are all verbs, these are all actions.

To be a church that's heart over hype means being a kingdom-minded church that's about the father's business, and we're doing it the father's way.

I want to ask you guys to do three things for me as we close out.

We're actually gonna go back into worship in just a moment and then we're gonna we're gonna close out.

But there's three things I want you to do.

Here's the first thing pray with us, pray for us.

Prayer prayer is so powerful.

I am grieved at my core when I look out into the church families, and I'm seeing pastors burning out, I'm seeing people who serve burning out, I'm seeing people's lives implode.

This thing is not easy.

The enemy is trying to come in.

It's the same thing from Cain and Abel.

The enemy is crouching at our door, and I'm asking you to pray with us, pray for us as we pray with you and for you.

We need your prayers.

Here's the other thing I want you to do: participate, participate.

Please know that what we do is for you, that that when we are praying and and and looking at what we can do for our church, we're thinking about you.

I I remember when I first got to celebration church in Jacksonville, and I would hear the varying speeches about getting involved in groups and doing these other things and hearing about what God does in them.

I if I could be honest, there were moments I'm like, Oh, that's not for me.

I've been in ministry for this amount of time, I know the Bible, I'm I'm good.

I'll I'll save up that space for somebody else.

And then finally, when I made the decision to truly engage, to truly participate, not only did it transform my life, my family, my children, but I actually made some of the best friendships that I've ever had because I decided to show up.

If if this is your church home, prayerfully ask yourself, God, where do you want me to participate in?

What do you want me to get involved in?

What we do is for you.

We really want you to participate.

And here's the third and final thing that I'm asking you to do partner with us.

Partner with us.

How how do you do that?

You partner with us if you recognize that this is your church.

Your financial partnership is how we're able to execute the vision that God has given us.

If this is not your church, then one of two things I want to do.

One, I want to continue to serve and help you, and then two, I want to lead you to the church that you can be planted in.

But I want you to be connected to a community that you are partnering with financially because your financial partnership, your giving, is what allows the vision to take place.

Let me be very, very practical and clear for a moment.

The way that we function as a church is that we function with what we call an operative budget.

Like I'm gonna go real with you.

And what happens is we look at our trends of giving, and that allows us to project what we think we're able to do.

It's from that we make decisions on what we're able to do, where we're able to give, where we're able to serve, who can we partner with?

It's off of that that sets the pace of the vision that God has given us.

When you faithfully give, when you faithfully partner with us, it actually allows us to move at a quicker pace and also dream beyond just what we have in front of us.

When you can be faithful to what God has placed in your hand and partner with a church that has his heart, it allows us to accomplish the mission that he's given us, which is to reach the lost, to equip the found, and to help the hurting.

In a couple of months, I'll be having a vision Sunday to unpack some very specific goals and plans that we have.

But I want to ask you to prayerfully consider partnering with us.

And here's why I say this when we celebrate what God's doing in our church, you played a part in that.

That every time you've given, you played a part in that.

That when we have great men's event, you you played a part in that, that when one sinner comes to repentance, you played a part in that, that when we moved into our new venue, you played a part in that.

When we feed over 80,000 children in Zimbabwe, you played a part in that.

You play a part in the miracles that we celebrate.

And the Bible said there's rewards in heaven as well as on earth.

Pray with us, participate with us, and partner with us.

That is how we become the prevailing church that can celebrate the goodness of God, that can engage God's presence, that absolutely believes in the power of God to transform lives, and that we absolutely can demonstrate the love of God.

That church is a church that the gates of hell will not prevail against.

With every head bowed and with every eye closed, I want to ask this question.

If you're if you're with us today and you know that your next step is to simply say yes to Jesus, we want to we want to give you the space to do that.

If that's you, with every head bowed and every eye closed, we simply want to ask this question.

Are you in relationship with Jesus?

If you're not, you can signify by lifting a hand, and I would love to lead you in a prayer.

One, two, three, saying yes to Jesus, returning to Jesus, surrendering to Jesus, those at home as well.

Church, let's celebrate with those who are making that decision.

Let's put our hands together, church, because we engage, we are participators.

I'm so proud of you.

Here's what I want to do.

I want us all to stand on our feet.

We're gonna sing build your church because we don't want to do it any other way.

Just really quick, then hope's gonna give us some instructions, and then we're gonna let you go.

Heavenly Father, God, we thank you so much for what you're doing in this place, in this atmosphere.

God, we are committed to doing it your way.

We are committed to building your church in Jesus' name.

Come on, church, let's worship one more time.

Thanks again for listening.

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