To Be Continued | 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.

Um today.

I'm so glad that every single one of you are here with us today.

In fact, would you mind helping me join our online family?

Those who are joining us online, let's welcome them out to Celebration Church.

Thank you so much for being with us.

For those that are with us here today, I'm grateful that you're here, but I want to remind you that there is also a nine o'clock service.

So you are certainly able to make a choice as to how much elbow room that you have, but nonetheless, we're glad that you're in the household of faith with us today.

I'm excited to be continuing in our series today.

We're going to be continuing in our make room series.

And if you've been watching online or maybe you've been um just joining us, we want to let you know, like we've been in this series about making room, believing that it's important for us to make room for what it is that God wants to do.

It's it's built off of the words of John the Baptist where he says that I must decrease so that he can increase.

And the idea that if I want to see more of God, then there's gotta be less of me.

That's the premise of what we've been talking about over the past couple of weeks.

And so we've entered into this season with prayer and and fasting.

And man, I have loved my time with God, but I am grateful that this fast is coming to an end because your boy is ready to eat.

I I am, I am, I am ready to put back on every single pound that I lost over the past 21 days.

It'll take me about two days.

Um, I got I got some brisket that I'm planning on cooking on my smoker.

I got I got some Thai chili wings I plan on cooking on my smoker.

I got some I got some smoke queso that I plan, like I got some plans, y'all.

Like, I need y'all to understand I've been counting down since day one.

Um, but God's been been moving in all of that.

But last week we talked about shifting gears, and it's really about shifting our mindset and preparation for what it is that God wants to do, and I believe that today is going to fit right into it.

Um, if you have your Bibles, I want you to join me in Genesis chapter number six.

Genesis chapter number six.

Um, if you don't have your Bibles, it's quite okay.

It'll come on in the Bible in the sky.

Um, but I do want you to like make note of this because one of the best things that I ever did for my spiritual journey, when I didn't know where to turn, didn't know what books of the Bible to read, I will simply just go back and reread every passage that the pastor read.

And that was just the beginning and the building block of me just beginning to understand context and engage the word of God and the spark of hunger in me that then allowed me to really have a better understanding of God's word.

The passage that we're about to spend some time in today is one that is fairly familiar, even in the context of um culture, because it's we're talking about Noah's Ark, Noah and his Ark.

Um, what I believe that this narrative is, is it's the it's a vivid picture of Paul's statement where he says, the wages of sin is death.

Because ultimately, what we find in the generation of Noah, that there was ultimately two groups of people, the people that served God and the people that didn't.

It was that simple.

People who follow God and those that didn't.

And as the people who didn't serve God began to began to grow in influence, began to to occupy every position of power, they began to outnumber those who did indeed serve God.

And now, next thing we know, it got down to a point where only one family could be found that continued to serve God.

The Bible says that the world had grown so wicked, that it had grown so corrupt, that when God looked at his creation, that he had such beautiful vision for, that he was grieved at his core when he saw it, that he saw so much sin in the world that he almost like he regretted even making mankind.

But he said that I'm going to do a new thing.

It's beautiful to know that we serve a loving God, that he can look at brokenness and decay, and we don't have to live here always.

He said that I'm going to do a new thing, and so his idea was I'm gonna hit the reset button.

Because anybody understands technology or any other thing, sometimes the next best thing we can do is just hit reset.

Let me just reset it and start from scratch, and that'll can hopefully purify all the corruption and and all the brokenness.

But God's intention was not to start from scratch, he wanted to start with the building blocks of one family that had been done a great job at serving him, even in the midst of the chaos and the corruption.

Starting at verse number 11, it says this, and God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence.

God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt.

So God said to Noah, I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they had filled the earth with violence.

Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth.

Build a large boat from cypress wood and waterproof it with tar inside and out.

Um, then construct decks stalls throughout its interior.

Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high.

Leave an 18-inch open window on the roof all the way around the boat, put a door on the side, and build three decks inside the boat lower, middle, and upper.

Look, I'm about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes, everything on earth will die.

But I will confirm my covenant with you.

So enter the boat, you, your wife, and your sons and their wives.

Skipping down to verse number 22.

It says this it says, So Noah did everything exactly as God commanded him.

Noah did everything as God had commanded him.

Today I want to conclude our season of prayer and fasting while continuing in our make room series to talk about something that I think is very vital in regards to momentum and continuing to get traction on what it is that God is calling us to do.

And if you're taking notes, and of course it's celebration Orlando, we take notes because people who take notes um are saved, and those who don't, we'll see.

Um, I want you to write, I want you to write this message title down to be continued.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

I thank you for um your community, I thank you for your church.

Um, though it's messy and though there's mistakes and there's nothing perfect, but Father, we love that we serve a perfect God.

So, Father, I pray um that you um inspire us, that you challenge us, that you convict us, but you encourage us to move forward, Lord.

I pray for open eyes that we can see you, open ears to hear you, and open hearts to receive everything that you have for us.

It's in your name that we pray.

Amen.

And amen.

You know, I've I've I've come to um this conclusion.

I've entered into uh 2022 and and and I've said this before that 2022 and going into a new year can often create a lot of pressure, pressure to have everything figured out for the new year.

So I typically don't like to make any decisions without coming through the season of prayer and fasting.

And so one of the things that I think that God has kind of birthed in me in this time of prayer and fasting is I want this to be a year that I want to say yes to more things.

I want to be able to be a person that says, okay, an opportunity presents itself.

I want to say yes to things because I I love when I go on to social media and I see that people are eating at these cool restaurants and things.

And I'm like, man, like that's that's 15 minutes from our house.

Man, I would love to go to that.

But every opportunity that I go, I'm like, no, I'm good.

Because I'm such a homebody, that's the conflict.

I love to be at home.

I just love to be at home.

In fact, I I spend a decent amount of money for my home, so why would I spend money out of it?

Like I just love to be inside of my home, but I also understand that there's a lot of things out there.

So this is the year that I'm gonna say yes to more.

But but here's here's the tension point.

It's it's it's got a lot to compete with because when I'm at home, man, I'm I'm chilling.

I got on, I got on my eagle slippers, I got on my hoodie, man, I'm I'm living, I'm living my best life, and I'm there with my absolute best friend, my lovely bride of 26 years, girl.

You like let me tell y'all something.

Let me tell y'all something.

Man, I I never I never grow tired.

Well, it never is a strong word, but I don't often.

I mean, we work together, we drive in the world, I mean it's a lot, but I mean, but but you know, but our ratio is strong for sure.

Um, but I but I rarely um draw tired of her.

In fact, whenever I travel and if she's not with me, I got her like two days, and after that, I'm like, man, like I'm over it.

I need to get back home to my rib.

That's like my other half, my better half.

Like it's it's a part of our the way that we function.

And our favorite thing that we love to do, I'm gonna confess it, man.

Like, we love to binge watch some shows.

We will crush some shows like it ain't nobody's business.

I know that y'all are thinking, like, Pastor, I thought that you sat home and sackcloth and ashes and prayed and fasted.

There's a time for that, but there's also a time to watch through a whole season of shows and and like 15 hours.

Like, well, it ain't nothing for us to do that.

So that's one of our pastimes.

Like, we it's like an excitement, like, okay, what's the next show?

What are we gonna watch?

What do you got?

Here's my list, what's your list?

Okay, what kind of add what kind of mood are you in right now?

Are you in an action mood?

Are you in a violent mood?

Are you in a romantic mood?

Like what we gonna watch?

Like, we got a whole list of things.

There's a great app, I'll talk to you about it later, that you can use to help you consolidate the shows that match with your personality and the atmosphere.

Like, I'm committed to this thing.

But here's the thing: whenever you do binge watch something, you like watching it and you're watching it and you're watching it, and then like the the network judges you, like, hey, are you still there?

Like, yeah, I'm still here, man.

Quit judging me.

So what if I'm eight episodes in, man?

Keep it pushing.

Like you're you're you're you're you're watching and you're keeping going forward.

But then there's that moment when you finally get finished and you get all caught up, and then the show is over.

That empty feeling of what am I going to do with my life?

What is next for me?

We've we've accomplished it.

We wanted to watch this entire thing, we finished it, we've accomplished it, and now I don't know what next to do.

As ridiculous as that is, I really do believe that there are moments in our lives that we've set goals, we we identify some things that we want to do, and and when we accomplish it, we don't know what's next to do.

Like there's people that that make decisions and goals and coming into the new year, and maybe your goal is to get out of debt.

Maybe, maybe your goal is to strengthen your marriage, maybe your goal is to draw closer to God.

But the thing is, once we get there, what do I do next?

It can leave us at that place of emptiness, not knowing quite next what our next steps are going to be, and it's a place that I think that we all can relate to.

The truth of the matter is we have to continue.

We have to keep going forward.

You know, when you finish a show, they often will recommend, well, if you like this, then you may also like something similar to it.

The idea of knowing that even though I finished this season, there's still something else that I can continue to engage in.

And I believe the biggest mistakes that we can make as followers of Christians is that we can we can find ourselves getting to a point where we've been successful and we can stop using the same energy that got us there.

We can we can put a lot of energy into getting married, but then stop putting that energy into our marriage.

We can put a lot of energy into having our children, but stop investing in our children.

We can even put a lot of energy into coming to church and getting saved, but once we get saved, we can take it for granted and take our foot off of the gas.

The children of Israel, who God had issued these promises to, they went from being in bondage in Egypt, walking for 40 years in the wilderness, when they finally make it to the promised land, this environment that God had promised to them, it doesn't take too many page turns to find out that they eventually lose it.

You know why?

Because they stopped pursuing God.

The very thing that you needed to get you from Egypt, the very thing that you needed to get you through the through the through the wilderness, the very thing that you needed to get you into the promised land, you stop getting it, you stop pursuing it when you get into it.

And my challenge for every single one of us that as you check the list of your goals, don't stop having that hustle.

Make sure you continue.

That no matter what you accomplish, that you keep moving forward, that you find other things that you can continue to do.

Because if you are still standing, it's not because you're supposed to be standing still.

You're supposed to keep moving things forward.

The idea of continuing is really this idea of moving without stopping.

That's that's the most pure definition.

Just moving without stopping.

This idea that we're gonna keep moving no matter what, we're gonna keep walking no matter what, we're gonna keep moving without stopping.

Enter in Noah.

Because now when we think about Noah living in this broken, godless environment full of destruction and chaos and pain and suffering, that the God sees something unique in Noah that instead of wiping out all of humanity, he says, I'm gonna pick you and your family to kind of be the building blocks for this new humanity that's gonna pursue after me.

And the Bible says this in verse number eight.

It says, And Noah found favor in the eyes of God.

He found favor.

Now, now favor is ultimately the intersection where grace and mercy meet.

That's favor.

But there was something unique about Noah's character that allowed him to invite this favor into his life.

There's a couple of statements that's made about him.

It says that Noah was a righteous man.

Righteous.

That's a statement that maybe we've heard, and maybe when we think about it, we think of righteous, we may think of perfect.

We may think of someone who is sinless, but but that's actually not the definition of righteous.

The biblical definition of righteous is a person who pursues the holiness of God.

And if they make a mistake, they repent and keep moving forward.

Let me say that again.

To be righteous is a person that is not perfect, but it's a person that pursues a perfect God, and when they fall short, they repent and keep moving forward.

That word repentance is important because what grace isn't is grace isn't a license to sin.

Grace is the power to overcome it.

And when we are truly walking in righteousness, we're not walking in perfection, we're just living our lives in such a way that I'm pursuing God no matter what.

And when I fall short, I repent.

Repent means I turn from.

That means that there's a shifting.

It doesn't mean that I keep doing what I was doing and I repent and I keep doing what I was doing and I repent.

No, repentance is I shift my direction and I keep moving forward.

That is a description that is given for Noah.

It says that Noah was a man who was righteous, that he pursued God, and when he fell short, he offered sacrifices to atone for his mistakes.

But there's another statement that's made about Noah as well.

It says that he was also blameless.

Now again, we think that those things are synonymous, but there's a little bit of a difference because blameless is also not speaking about sinless.

What blameless is speaking to is his interaction with man.

Righteous is his interaction with God, blameless is his interaction with man.

That means that when man saw him, they saw it, they didn't notice any flaws or defects in his character.

It's almost like when we look at someone and we're talking about someone like, oh, you were really like John, man, he's a family man.

How do I know that?

Because it's evident in his life that he prioritizes and cares about his family.

You can see on social media that he presences the thing that's important.

So when I see it, I can see that in him.

We have other people that have hobbies.

We have people that love cars, and man, like that person really loves cars.

How do I know?

I can see it in their life.

I can see the way that they talk about it, I can see the way that they post about it, I see the evidence of what their passion is.

When it says that that Noah was blameless, it was saying, I can see the evidence that he's a person who pursues after God.

This is what the Bible says, by their fruit they will know you.

That means that there's evidence in your life that you're actually pursuing God.

Here's something that I want all of us to walk away with.

If you were to announce to every single person in your life that you are a follower of Jesus, no one should be surprised.

Because they can see it in you.

If you say I'm a follower of Christ, and they're like, What?

You?

Huh?

We got some work to do.

You're in the right place today.

But but no one should be surprised when you say that I'm a follower of Christ because they should see it in your character.

They should see it the way that you interact with people at work, they should see it in the patience that you have.

This is where the fruit of the Spirit comes forward.

It's having this evidence, and what it says about Noah is that he was blameless.

That means that when people look at him, they can see a godly character on the inside of him.

But then there's another thing that is said about Noah that I love.

It says that Noah walked with God.

He walked with God.

Such a simple statement, but such a powerful statement.

Because you have to understand Noah's context.

He's in a world that didn't walk with God.

He's in an environment that was filled with paganism and every debauchery you can imagine.

But Noah had this distinction that he walked with God.

That means that when things were uncomfortable, he walked with God.

When he didn't fit in with the crowd, he walked with God.

When when people talked about him, he walked with God.

When he's dealing with issues in his family, he he walked with God.

I want you to understand it's this idea that no matter what was going on in Noah's life, he made a decision.

I'm going to walk with God through all of it.

See, we we live in a world where we like to walk with a lot of things.

We we walk with opinions, we walk with feelings, we walk what the news says, we walk off of what social media says.

We walk with everything, and then God is kind of like option D.

The Hail Mary when all other things fail.

But what if what if we began to be people that began to say, no matter what I'm walking through, I'm not walking through it on my own, I'm walking with God.

That even when things are uncomfortable, I'm walking with God.

That even if the marriage doesn't work out, I'm walking with God.

That even when the marriage walks out, I'm walking with God.

That if I get the job, I'm walking with God.

If I don't get the job, I'm walking with God.

If I get hired, I'm walking with John.

If I get fired, I'm walking with God.

That when my kids are great, I'm walking with God.

When things aren't great, I'm walking with God.

It's living with this conviction that no matter what I am going through, I'm going to walk with God through all of them.

Because I know that if God before me, then what can be against me?

Walking with God, when you look at that word with, it literally means to put weight on.

That means that I can wait on the Lord.

I can put my weight on him.

That means that sometimes I may walk with a limp, but I don't have to do it in my own strength.

I'm walking with God.

That God takes the weight for me, living a life of walking with God.

And so what we understand is that because Noah walked with God, that because Noah was blameless amongst his contemporaries, that because Noah was a man that understood what it looked like to pursue a perfect and holy God, that God says, I see you with favor.

What if I were to tell you that the life you live is an invitation for God's favor?

Please hear me.

That God's love is universal, but his blessing is contingent on how we walk with him.

That the way that we operate and function with him, that becomes the invitation of how God functions and moves in our life.

And Noah lived his life in such a way that he was looking at a broken world.

He saw someone who had a good rapport with the people around him.

That God saw him and said, You're the person that I'm going to use because I know that you can handle the weight of the responsibility.

I believe that God has an assignment on every single one of us, but I believe we have to build up our character to handle the assignment that he has for us.

And it's all built on godliness.

There's a statement that is made as it relates to Noah that I think is important for us to understand.

When you read this text in its entirety, it's mentioned to us twice.

It says, And Noah did everything that God commanded him to do.

Noah did everything.

He didn't take shortcuts, he did everything that God had commanded him to do.

Man, we we love to audit and edit and do things on our own terms.

We love to create our own way, but it says that Noah did everything that God had commanded him to do.

And ultimately, there's three things that I want us to walk away with today that I believe are the supporting pillars on how Noah was able to do everything that God had assigned him to do.

Here's the first thing that I want you to write down make a decision.

Noah he made a decision.

It is very difficult to accomplish anything unless we made a decision to do it.

It is very difficult to accomplish anything with meaning, with substance if we didn't make the decision to do it.

As a sports fan, I I love to hear the stories of athletes and the varying things that they do to get to a platform of greatness.

While we may celebrate them getting whatever accolades, I love getting a little bit into the background.

Like, how did you get here?

What what happened?

What decisions did you make that allows you to be great?

What decisions did you make to put you on that platform for you to have that level of influence?

I love getting into that because I know we can celebrate what we see on platform, but we're not seeing what's happening in the shadows.

We don't see the commitment in the decisions.

Michael Jordan famously is known for not making it onto his his um freshman team.

But he made a decision.

This is not going to happen to me again.

He made a decision, and that decision is connected to a commitment.

I'm willing to do whatever it takes for me to accomplish the goal that I have in my mind.

Make the decision.

There's so much power and influence in a made-up mind.

There's so much power and influence when we simply have the ability to make the decision.

A decision speaks to commitment and dedication.

I want you to hear me, man.

Like it took Noah 75 years to build this boat.

Like 75 years.

I mean Noah's righteous.

He's blameless.

But Noah's a man.

75 years?

Like, man, I'll give you a year, God, but like for sure, you're gonna have to give me some help or give me at least a cloud to let me know that this thing is really real.

Like, you gotta give me something.

Noah waited 75 years before he's seen a single drop of rain, but he was committed to building the boat.

Here's what you understand when you read the text it's not like he built it and it was done.

That means he was building it for 75 years, and the moment it was done, God said, Okay, now get on a boat.

So so Noah is building for 75 years without any evidence, without knowing whether it's really going to come to pass, but yet he made a decision that I'm gonna do what God told me to do.

That that God is not that God is not compelled to move based on my timeline.

I've made a decision and I'm committed to it.

He made a decision to do it.

It's amazing what we can accomplish when we simply make up our minds to do it.

It reminds me of moments like Jacob, where the Bible talks about how Jacob, this man who would end up being the champion of God, but the Bible said that he he had some conniving ways, some deceitful ways, and he got to the end of himself and he was exhausted.

And in that exhaustion, he has this encounter with God and he ends up wrestling with God.

And then what the Bible says is that God literally dislocates his hip.

But Jacob makes this statement I will not let you go until you bless me.

That Jacob made up in his mind, no matter how uncomfortable, no matter if I'm walking with a limp, I will not move on until I get the result that I'm looking forward to.

What if we begin to take that posture and say, I'm not gonna let go of my marriage until I come on the other side of it?

I'm not gonna let go of this commitment to be more generous until I see the breakthrough that God has for me.

I'm not gonna give up on praying for my child until I see it come on the other side.

It's a power that is found in the made-up mind that Noah made a decision, and that was the thing that led him to accomplish the vision that God had given him.

What do you need to decide today?

Make the decision because you will never get to the place you're supposed to go to if you haven't decided where you're supposed to go.

Make the decision.

Here's the second thing that Noah absolutely had to do.

Noah had to set a direction.

He had to set the direction, he had to make a decision, and then he had to set the direction.

Because it's very hard to make it to a destination if you haven't determined the direction that you're going to go.

Direction speaks to strategy.

How am I going to get there?

What is the direction that I'm going to go?

Because why intention is important?

Attention doesn't determine your destination, your direction does.

Intention is a decision.

But now I have to have the strategy that allows me to actually get to where I'm supposed to be.

What is the direction?

What is the strategy?

The Bible says that God was very specific on what he wanted Noah to do.

Build this boat, 450 feet.

I want it to be 75 feet wide, 45 feet high.

Now it's hard for us to wrap our minds around the size of it, so let me just give you a comparison.

It's about the size of an NFL stadium.

That's massive.

God was very specific on how he wanted it to be developed.

He said, I want you to get this specific type of wood.

But God, there's a lot of other wood that's here.

Like this is such a rare wood that even scholars now debate about where Noah could have found that amount of lumber.

So Noah would have had to like go out, find it, continuously try to harvest it.

Like it wouldn't have been easy at all.

But God was very specific about the type of wood that he wanted to use because God understood that it's about to rain.

And if you use one of these other types of wood, it's not going to absorb the rain the right way and it's actually going to cause you to capsize and go under.

So God had given him some instructions that could endure the weather that was coming in.

I believe that for some of us, we have gotten God's assignment, but we're not using the material that God wants us to use.

And then when the storms come, we're surprised how we're not balanced because we're not using the ingredients that God wants us to use.

God is very specific on the way that He wants us to do things, the strategy and how He wants us to do it so that we can have the impact that God is calling us to have.

Man, in the past five years, for me and my family, and I'm pretty sure the same could be said about you, but man, it's been a doozy.

We've walked through some things.

All of us have.

Man, we've we've lived in different cities.

We've we've gone through a global pandemic, we've we've walked through political strife, we've walked through racial tension, we've we've dealt with churches being imploded and damage and pain and suffering.

And when people ask me, man, how have you endured?

How have you survived running two churches at the same time, leading people, dealing with all these different things?

How have you done it?

Because we've used the ingredients that God has told us to use.

And the ingredients of prayer, fasting, seeking Him, allowing His Holy Spirit to be the very thing that we build our lives on because everything else is going to burn up, everything else will be absorbed.

But God had given Noah some very specific instructions on how to build this thing.

God has given us some instructions on how to build our lives.

You have to set the direction, you have to build the strategy, you have to be committed to the way that God wants you to do it.

Noah was able to have such impact because he set the direction that he was supposed to go in.

Here's the third and final point that I want to share with us.

Create a defense.

Create a defense, make a decision, make up your mind on what you want to do.

Set the direction.

How are you going to accomplish it?

What is your strategy?

But then you have to make a defense.

Defense draws boundaries around your vision because there will constantly be distractions that will make an effort to take you off course.

Let's remember that Noah is living in a godless environment.

Let's also remember that up to this point, it has never rained before.

God beautifully had created an ecosystem where the springs under the ground would come up, and that would be the thing that would serve as irrigation.

So it never rained before.

So imagine Noah, this guy, building a boat in preparation for something that never has happened before.

You can only imagine that at this point, there's gonna be a lot of opinions about Noah.

Neighbors coming in and saying, Noah, what are you working on?

What are you doing?

Um building a boat.

Um talk to God and he told me that he's um it's gonna rain.

And so he wants me to build this boat to try to preserve mankind.

It's it's it's it's gonna be amazing.

Um yeah, Noah.

What's what's rain?

Something like you know what happens under the ground, it's gonna happen from the sky.

What are you talking about, Noah?

That makes no sense.

It's never been seen before.

You're wasting your time, you're wasting your energy, you're wasting your money.

Why are you investing in something that has never been seen?

Why are you investing in something that we don't even know if it's gonna come to pass?

It seems like such a waste of energy and effort.

You best believe that Noah had to deal with the ridicule and the opposition that was around him from all the people that were looking at him, investing 75 years of his life into something that he truly didn't know when it was gonna come to pass.

But Noah had to draw a boundary around his decision.

He had to defend it.

Whenever you make a decision, you're gonna have to find a way to defend it because the enemy will always send in opposition to try to snatch away the vision that God has given you.

Every one of us.

One of the things that I went into this year saying is that this is a year that I want to be more intentional in a lot of areas of my life.

This is inclusive of my community with my friends.

So I want to I want to lead more men's groups and marriage groups is something that Meg and I love to do.

That's a decision.

Now we have a strategy, and now we have to defend it.

I I've also decided that I want to spend more time and investing in in our staff.

So I made a decision.

Now I have a strategy, and now I have to be prepared to defend it.

I also said that I want to spend more time intentionally with my wife.

Again, we're always together, but you know what can happen when you have a lot of proximity with someone?

Quantity time can be confused for quality time.

So I want to be more intentional.

I'm trying to help some husbands out there.

So I want to be more intentional with making sure that we do date nights and do things that's separate from the family.

Again, we're good, but I want to be more intentional.

So I made a decision, I created a strategy, and I'm prepared to defend it.

Here's what that means.

With everything that I just said, I know that is inevitable that if my wife and I decide that we're gonna have date nights every other Friday, you know what's gonna happen?

Hey man, you can come to this on Friday.

Uh an option, an opportunity will present itself that will then begin to chip away at a decision that I made.

Here's what defending it looks like.

Oh man, I wish I could go, but I go out on dates with my wife on Friday nights.

Oh, I I wish I could go, but actually I got my men's group on on Monday nights.

I can't, I can't come to that, man.

But I'd love to come to the the next one if you have it on another night.

Oh, I I wish I wish I could do that, but but that's when I typically do my time of prayer and and fasting.

So I'll catch you when I come on the back set of that.

Oh, I would love to go to that on Sunday, but but man, that's that's when I go to church.

That's when I get connected to my community.

Did I step on your toes yet?

How do I need to keep going?

Okay, I would, I would, I would love, I would, I would love to I would love to spend my money on that, but man, that's gonna cut into my tithe.

And I've said that I was gonna put God first.

Who else does can I step on in here?

What I'm saying, what I'm saying is you have to be prepared to defend it.

Because if not, the enemy is gonna always send in opportunities, and some of them will be good to get you to compromise on the thing that God has called you to do.

You know that Nehemiah had a vision to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

And what the Bible says about Nehemiah when he built the wall, that the moment that he made it up in his mind to do it, that the enemy began to send in opposition.

And it got to a point where he needed to have a brick in one hand and a sword in another.

I'm gonna build and I'm prepared to fight.

I'm gonna build, but I'm prepared to fight.

I'm gonna build, but I'm gonna prepare to fight.

Who in here is willing to build your marriage and fight off anything that the enemy's gonna come after with?

I'm gonna build my finances, but I'm gonna fight off anything.

You cannot have my family, and I'm willing to build and invest in my kids, but I'm gonna fight off every attack from the adversary.

No, you can't come into my home.

No, you can't come into my marriage.

No, you can't come into my finances because I've made up in my mind that I am gonna do things God's way.

I'm gonna set boundaries around it, and I'm prepared to fight.

Put on the whole armor of God and fight.

I'm gonna put on the helmet of salvation, I'm gonna put on the sword of the spirit, I'm gonna have the shield of faith.

I'm gonna plant my feet down and say that I'm gonna do things God's way, and I'm gonna take rhythm according to the word and the will of God.

I'm trying to get you to understand that you cannot accomplish what God has called you to do if you're not prepared to defend it, if you're not prepared to fight for it.

I'm gonna get what God has for me.

I will not fall short, I will not fall down, I will not fall back.

I'm getting everything that God has for me and my family because my mind's made up, my strategy is strong, and I have put a boundary around it.

I'm gonna stand and allow God to stand with me.

My mind is made up.

I set the strategy and I'm gonna defend it.

Anything that's contrary to what God has spoken, what God has shared, what God has given me a vision of, I'm gonna fight it off.

You know what another definition for the word continue is this word or the series of words that says to resume after interruption.

Which is quite interesting because you have one word that has two conflicting definitions.

To continue means to go without ceasing or to resume after stopping.

But nonetheless, it still holds true.

You know, for for Megan and I this one show that we were binge watching, we got through the entire season, but praise be to God they dropped a new season just this past Friday.

The Lord is real and he has risen.

But but here's the problem when you're used to binge watching things, you just power through it.

This show, watch this, it only drops one episode per week.

Who does that?

So so now I went from being able to power through it to having to wait for it, and now that it's on again, I gotta watch it on this Friday.

Then I gotta wait till next Friday to watch it again, then I gotta wait till next Friday to watch it again.

I'm sitting all week dealing with cliffhangers, all in emotional rut.

But every week I gotta keep showing up, I gotta keep continuing.

What I once wants to power through, but I gotta keep showing up now.

Every week I gotta continue.

The Bible says that Noah, after he built his ark, it says that when it flooded and it rained for 40 days and 40 nights.

Watch this, that Noah was on that boat for 370 days.

Just floating and waiting.

Many believe there's over 120,000 different animals on this vessel.

I can't imagine the aroma.

I can't imagine how uncomfortable it was.

We've been sitting on here for an entire year.

It finally gets to a point where uh the dry ground begins to emerge.

And what the Bible says is that as soon as the doors open up, that Noah walks out and he literally does the very thing that he did before he got onto the boat.

He worshiped God.

As soon as he got off the boat, he didn't take a survey of the land, as soon as he got off the boat, he didn't figure out where he was going to build his house, he didn't do any of that.

As soon as he got off the boat, the first thing he did is I want to build an altar to God.

But that Noah continued where he left off at.

He resumed after a slight interruption.

What I want you to know is maybe for you, continuing is to go without stopping.

But maybe for some of us, continuing can be resuming after an interruption.

No matter where you are, to be continued.

Keep doing the work, keep moving forward.

If you stop by putting God first, it's time to continue.

If you've been putting God first, it's time to continue.

None of us are exempt from needing to continue to put God first.

None of us are exempt from needing to do the very thing that allowed us to be looked on with favor to be continued.

With every head bowed and every eye closed, I want to pray for us.

If you're with us right now and and and you fit into one of those categories, maybe you're in that category of of maybe you started some things, but you stopped.

This season hasn't been easy for our schedules as we've gone from being shut into our homes to now coming out of our homes to being told we may need to stay in our homes, all these nuances.

And so what it does is it interrupts our rhythms, things that we said we're going to do, we can't do it, engaging with community, connecting with church, all these things that we used to do on a regular basis that were so easy, it now takes a lot of effort.

But I believe it's time for us to continue.

It's time for us to resume, to begin after an interruption, or simply just continue to move forward.

If you're in a place with us right now, and this is also for our online family, and you know that Keith, I need to resume some things in my life.

There are some areas in my life.

I just need to, I just need to get some traction.

I need to get some momentum.

I need to get some traction and some momentum in my relationships with with family, with with friends.

I need to get some traction and some momentum in my resources, our finding.

I need to get some traction and some momentum, even as it relates to my to my marriage.

I need to get some traction and momentum with my community, connecting to my local church.

Whatever that is, I just need to do it without stopping.

And I need the hand and the power of God to do it.

I would love to pray for you.

If that's you, would you be bold enough to lift your hands up on the count of three?

One, two, three.

I just want to continue.

I want to continue to serve God.

I want to continue to put Him first.

I want to continue to be a person that worships.

I want to be continued that invests in my family.

Amen.

You can put those hands down.

Here's my my second question.

If you're in here with us right now and you know that you're away from God.

Maybe you had a relationship with God in the past, but right now you know that you're away from God.

I don't, I'm not walking with God the way that Noah did.

I'm not walking with Him, I'm walking on my own, I'm walking away from community, I'm not connected, I'm not walking with God, but you're not here by mistake, you're here because God wants to resume walking with you.

God wants to start walking with you.

If you're in here with us today and you want to commit or recommit your life to Christ, that simply means I'm not perfect.

I don't have it all figured out, but it does mean I'm walking with God.

I'm going to repent, I'm going to change, I'm going to do my effort, I'm going to invest in my development spiritually, and I'm going to walk it out with God.

If you want to make that decision, it starts with a decision because it's very difficult to have kingdom results if we don't first have a relationship with the king.

On account of three, I want you to boldly lift your hands up to say yes to Jesus.

One, two, three.

Hands up, hands up, hands up, hands up.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

I'm proud of every single one of you.

Church, can we put our hands together?

We can do a little bit better now.

We're celebration, church.

We're celebrating with you.

God bless you.

We're so, so proud of every single one of you.

I want to lead us in a moment of prayer, and then Megan's going to come up and give us some instructions.

But let me let me pray for you.

Heavenly Father, I thank you so much, Lord, that you are with us.

That we can continue no matter where we are because your grace and your mercy is sufficient.

So, Father, I pray for every area where we've experienced interruption that you allow us to have the momentum to show up every week and to be continued.

Father, I pray that we can continue to put you first.

I pray that we can continue to trust you.

I pray that we can continue to invest in things according to your word and your will.

I pray that we can invest in our families.

We can invest in our calling.

We can invest in generosity, God.

We can invest in your community, God, that we can be people that when people look at us, they can see the evidence of godliness in our lives, they can see it on our social media, they can see it in our conversations, that they can see it in our lives.

God, allow us to resume, allow us to be the people that people can see the evidence of God.

And Father, I pray right now, if you're one of the ones who said yes to Jesus, I want you to receive it in your heart right now.

We believe that the moment that you've confessed Christ, that the Bible said that there's a celebration that's taking place in heaven.

So, Father, I pray for every one of our family members.

We welcome them home.

God, I pray in the name of Jesus that you fill them with your spirit, that they connect with a God-fearing, Bible-based community that can equip them and walk alongside them so they can understand and be instructed in the ways of the Lord.

So, Father, we surrender this time to you.

We ask that you bless your people, and it's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen, amen, and amen.

God bless you guys.

Thanks again for listening.

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