Enriched | 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.

So good to see all of your smiling faces, and thank you for coming to our 1030 service here.

This is our second service today.

We kicked off our 9 o'clock service earlier.

Somebody's excited about it.

But our family is growing.

Our family is expanding, and we wanted to make sure that we made room.

So thank you guys so much for worshiping and being with us.

And if you're new to celebration, just letting you know we have another service option available at 9 o'clock as well that you can attend.

So please invite your family and friends.

We would love to serve you.

Would you mind helping me welcome our online audience church?

Let's put our hands together for those who are joining us online.

Thank you for joining us as well.

We're so, so glad you're here.

I pray that if you're ever in the Orlando area, you would consider coming to looking us up and worshiping with us in person.

If you have your Bibles, let me get you to turn with me to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

The Gospel of Mark, chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

We're gonna get there in just a moment.

We're in week two of our series, Make Room.

It's it's not only just a series, but it's kind of a theme that I'm believing in my life, but in our family's life, but also for the life of our church, this series, um, make room.

And our foundational scripture um has been founded in the Gospel of John, chapter 3, verse 30, and it's where John the Baptist makes this statement.

John 3:30

He says that I must decrease so that he can increase.

This is John talking about Jesus and him understanding that if I want to experience God's best, I need to decrease so that there is more of him.

I think that is a prophetic statement for every single one of us as we're going into a new year, a new season, that if we want to see an increase of God, if we want to see an increase of what God has for us, it's gonna have to come at an expense of us decreasing ourselves just a little bit.

If you follow Megan and I on um social media, you may have noticed that a couple of weeks ago um we announced that my oldest son, Keith Jr., who lives in Jacksonville, that him and his wife they're expecting their third child.

We're so pumped about that.

We really are.

And so, and so with that, we're really evaluating what does it mean?

How do we how do we make accommodations?

Because they have two beautiful daughters, and it's really been able to function, Megan and I, with man-to-man defense.

Like it's been one-on-one.

We've been able to function in that way.

But when you add a third one in the mix, you gotta kind of go into zone now, and you cover this area, I cover that area.

But but some of the things we're thinking about now is okay, like how do we make accommodations when they come?

What kind of vehicle do we need to have?

Because now there may be another car seat in the mix.

Like, we're genuinely thinking about what does it look like as we invite another family member into our home?

What rooms are they gonna sleep in?

Beginning the idea of making room.

I believe the same can be said of us that that when God shows up and he wants to do something new in our life, that it's a blessing, but it requires us to adjust and to make room.

I believe that's the same thing.

My my question for every single one of us is if God were to answer every single one of your prayers, would you have room for it?

That it that if the thing you've been praying for, the thing you've been hoping for, if it showed up tomorrow, would you be have the room for it to adequately steward it?

This series is meant to challenge us, to inspire us, to take inventory and ask ourselves, Lord, what do I need to decrease so that I can experience an increase of your presence and everything that it is that you have for me and my family?

Jumping into the text now that we're going to read today, we're we're entering into a moment where Jesus has been doing a series of teaching.

If you lead, if you read the Gospel of Mark in its entirety, um at chapter 10.

Jesus is doing some really heavy teaching on some really um profound topics because one of the things you'll recognize with Jesus is that Jesus was counter-cultural.

Um that Jesus' teachings were were always counter-cultural, and not only just the culture in a sense of the region and the world they lived in, but it was also counter to the religion, the patterns and the thinking and the ways that they did things.

So you would see that that Jesus had this unique ability of always ruffling people's feathers, not in a rude way, not in a way to draw attention to himself, but just simply saying that the kingdom of God operates differently than the kingdom of the world.

Don't try to fit who I am into your political ideology.

Don't try to fit who I am into your preferences.

You can't do it, it can't contain it.

It's impossible.

The kingdom of God is beyond the boundaries of the world system.

So he's constantly showing that he's counter-cultural.

The conversation comes up about what does it mean to be great.

And so the disciples have an idea about what happens when you're great.

When you're great, everybody tends to you.

When you're great, you have certain seats at certain tables that you're esteemed a certain way.

But Jesus once again begins to interrupt their regularly scheduled program with a teaching that is meant to open our eyes to what does it really mean to be great in the kingdom of God.

Starting here at verse number 42, Jesus called them together and said, You know, the rulers in this world lord it over the people, and the officials, they they flaunt their authority over those under them.

But among you, it will be different.

Whoever wants to be a leader among you must first be a servant.

And whoever wants to be first among you must be a slave to everyone else.

So even the Son of Man, this is Jesus' statement about himself, even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus is confronting culture with saying, This is what greatness is.

Greatness isn't everybody waiting on you, greatness isn't your title, greatness isn't how much influence you have at work.

That's not it.

Greatness is found in your ability to serve others.

I believe that this is beautifully illustrated in Proverbs chapter 11, um verse number 25.

Proverbs 11 · chapter mention

It says that a generous person will be enriched, and one who gives a drink of water will receive water.

Once again, we see scripture giving us this idea of what it looks like to be citizens in the kingdom of God, that that somehow when I give, I receive, that that when I do these things, that my life is enriched, that it's enhanced, that it's made better.

Today I want to talk briefly about the currency of the kingdom and that currency of generosity.

And I've entitled today's message, Enriched.

Let's pray and let's see what it is that God wants to speak to us today.

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

We thank you for your church, and we thank you for moments like this where we can gather in your name.

Lord, I pray whether you're in this room or whether they're watching online, Father, that you meet us where we are.

God, I pray in the name of Jesus, Lord, that you give us open eyes that we can see you, open ears to hear you, and open hearts to receive everything that you have for us.

Holy Spirit, we invite you um to challenge us, to encourage us, to inspire us.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen and amen.

You know, I want to um give you guys a quick update as to what's been going on in the Pittman household for probably about the last month or so.

Um, I remember a couple of weeks ago I sat down um to watch TV, and then my TV started doing this weird thing where the colors were all blurred together, which was a strong indication that the TV was ultimately shot.

So now it was time for me to upgrade our television and our house.

And I couldn't be more excited about it.

I've been looking for reasons to justify going out and upgrading some televisions in our house because then it's like, okay, well, I don't want to upgrade this TV.

I need to upgrade the other TV, and then I can rotate the other TVs around the room.

Anybody ever do like the TV roulette where you just move one TV to the next?

And so I began on this endeavor.

And so I didn't realize, it's probably been about five years since I bought our last TV.

So I didn't understand all the technological advances that have since come out in the past four to five years.

I was blown away.

So as I began to research, like, okay, what am I looking for?

Because whatever I get, I want to have this for at least the next five years.

So I don't want to get something that's like super cheap, but I want to get something that's gonna that's gonna last, that's gonna be around for a while.

And I was immersed into a world and culture that I didn't even know exist.

I got into 4K and all these extra language that sounds like algebra, and I hated algebra.

But nonetheless, I dug down deep, I found the TV that I thought would be the best for us, and I went and got it.

I went and got it, I posted it up, I was so proud of myself, and I began to watch television.

And so for about a good two weeks, man, I'm living my best life, I'm enjoying myself, everything is going amazingly well.

But then I get an email from the company that I bought the TV from, and they said, Click here to enrich your TV experience.

I love the idea of enriching my TV experience.

It just feels good to me to know that there's something that I can do that can enrich my life experience.

So I go into this link and I enter into a world that completely blew me away.

See, all this time I've been watching my TV and I've been just looking at it straight out of the box, and there were all these presets that were already there.

Like there were presets such as when I want to watch something on Netflix, boom, it optimizes the ability to watch TV with Netflix streaming capabilities.

It's amazing.

It actually has its own sports setting that when I put it on the sports setting, it optimizes the the the technology in the TV so I can take advantage of it and really celebrate that my Eagles are gonna be in the playoffs this year.

Nobody cares about the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Nobody cares about the Cowboys.

Eagles are in the Bibles, I'm letting y'all know that.

So so so I'm I'm I'm just trying to help Pastor y'all.

The Eagles are God's team.

I mount up wings like eagles.

You hit under the wings of eagles.

I see nothing about Steelers, I see nothing about cowboys and that, and giants, they were demonic.

So, what I'm saying to you is the Eagles are God's team.

But anyway, here we are.

I'm I'm I've been looking at the TV through all of these built-in presets, but then I clicked this link and I realized that it goes a little bit deeper.

That there is actually another area that was literally called enhancing your television set, and now I'm able to dial in how blue I want the blues to look.

I could dial in with crystal clear accuracy if I want to see the flies on a football field.

Like I was blown away.

I spent the next month just exhaustively jumping from one expert's page to another expert's page to setting this thing up that I have all these perfect settings.

I can't watch a full movie with my family without pausing it and saying, You see how blue that is?

You see, those that blue is really popping right there.

My granddaughters were with us during Christmas and they wanted to watch one movie on Disney Plus.

I'm like, nah, but the blues don't look as good on that, so we're gonna watch Raya because the colors on that are amazing.

They're like, we don't care about that, grandpa, but I do.

So it what I'm saying is it was so amazing that it really did enrich our experience when I began to tap into this technology that was in the TV that I didn't even know existed.

All this time I've been watching it with these presets and didn't realize that I had the ability to enrich my TV experience if I just went into this area that I didn't even know I had access to.

See, what I what I think about with every single one of us, every single one of us have dreams and aspirations that have been presets in our lives.

And some of those things could simply be this man, the preset for me is I can't wait until I get married and everything is going to be clear in my life.

I can't wait until I have children.

I can't wait until I get this job.

I can't wait until I'm making this amount of money.

I can't wait until I'm at this place that society has defined as a place of success.

And none of those things are bad.

None of those things are bad in and of themselves, but what I believe we're missing out on is we're missing out on the enhanced view that the Bible talks about.

The Bible says that we've been living in a world with presets where we've allowed the world to dictate the terms of what does it mean to be successful and what it means to be happy.

But I want to be just like that email that was sent to me.

Click here if you want to enrich your life.

The Bible says that truly, that while we may have these presets, that when we click into our kingdom setting, that is the thing that brings us enrichment.

That is the thing that allows the picture to become that much clearer.

That is what allows the very thing that we've been looking at to have a higher definition.

See, the Bible says that when we begin to live lives of generosity and servanthood, that that brings enhancements to our lives that we could never imagine.

Many of us know what it feels like when you talk to an individual and they found something that they're passionate about.

It could be something like homelessness.

It could be dealing with someone who feels a desire to get involved with food insecurity.

It could be somebody who's passionate about foster care.

And when you talk with them, you will kind of see the way that their eyes lighten up.

You see the way that they get excited about it because they know that they're contributing to something that's actually making a difference.

That is what the Bible defines as having a life where you truly feel enriched.

My life is now at a place where I have this clarity and this perspective and this understanding that the precepts are fine, but I want to get into that kingdom setting where my life is enriched and I can see things and I can live my wife, my life the way that God had intended me to live.

See, when we talk about this idea of living a life that is enriched, the definitions are is really quite simple.

The Bible defines it as this to enrich something means to improve, enhance the quality or value of something.

Some of the synonyms for enrichment simply means this to make richer, to complement, to boost, to upgrade.

Who doesn't love a good upgrade?

I mean, I know I do.

I'm always looking for opportunities to upgrade.

The Bible is literally saying that when we serve others, it upgrades our lives and others.

They said that it's impossible to genuinely live a life where you feel that you're getting access to everything you have access to, the upgrade of the kingdom when you don't live a life of generosity.

Here's what I want us to understand: a kingdom life is a generous life.

A generous life is a servant life, and a servant life is an enriched life.

It's when we're living our lives to the fullest.

Jesus is having these conversations with his disciples, and the interesting thing about the conversation is he is talking with them about this idea of him going to Jerusalem.

And here's what I want you to capture with this.

Jesus is talking with his disciples.

Up to this point, it's been a little bit of a mystery as to where they're going and what they're going to do when they get there.

Jesus finally tells them, Hey, listen, guys, um, I'm about to go to Jerusalem.

And when I get there, I'm going to be betrayed, I'm going to be handed over by the chief priest to the pagans, I'm going to die, and in three days I'm going to rise from the dead.

This is literally the clearest that Jesus has been about his message since he came and did his earthly ministry.

Everything's been a little bit vague, but he was very clear.

We're going to Jerusalem, I'm going to be betrayed, I'm going to die, I'm going to rise again, all in one message.

It doesn't get any better than a gospel message of that.

And James and John, his disciples, they pull him aside and say, Um, yeah, Jesus, I heard about the whole sacrifice thing, you're gonna die and everything.

Um, but where am I gonna be sitting at?

Jesus just unfolds and unpacks.

He's about to die for all of humanity, and the only thing they could think about is what does that mean for me?

Isn't it interesting how the nature of humanity, no matter what it is, we have the ability to hijack anything and make it all about us?

And and initially, when I read that, I thought that man, that is so, so selfish of them.

But then I had to upgrade, and it's actually self-centered because selfish means this inability or struggles with sharing.

Self-centered means that you just have to insert yourself in the center of every single thing.

The disciples heard Jesus talk about suffering, they heard Jesus talk about pain, they heard Jesus talk about being betrayed, and they had to insert themselves in the middle of it and ask this question, what about me?

We all can slip into that space where we're having a conversation and it quickly becomes, but what about me?

And it doesn't always have to be from a martyr standpoint, it could just be us, and it's just us drawing attention to ourselves in some way.

Someone can say, like, oh man, I just got a promotion.

You know what?

I remember that time when I got a promotion.

Look at me.

Oh man, I was sick.

You know what?

I coughed yesterday.

What it's what about me?

If everything becomes this narrative where no matter what is said, you have to find your way to jump in the center of it.

And it's a condition of humanity where we are just begging to make everything about us.

So James and John and we laugh at them, but so many times we find ourselves doing the exact same thing.

We hear about things and we say, Well, what does that mean for me?

Is that going to be inconvenient for me?

Is that gonna require something of me?

So Jesus uses this as a profound teaching opportunity to unpack what does it really mean to live a great life, a life that is full of enrichment and profound impact.

Jesus tells them, You've allowed your pain, your politics, and your preferences to pollute your faith.

And I need to upgrade it and give you a better understanding.

He said, That's how the world looks at things.

The world looks at things about where they're gonna be placed and what does it mean for them.

But not so with you.

Not so with people that are citizens of the kingdom of God.

When it comes to you, here's my expectation for you is that you're gonna learn how to serve other people.

Is that you're gonna learn how to put others first, that you're gonna stop inserting yourself into everything and making it all about you.

Jesus gives them these principles, and I think there's three who we can extract that could be an encouragement for us that I want to share with us today.

Here's the first thing I want you to write down serving keeps us humble.

Serving others, it keeps us humble.

Jesus states that greatness is found in being a servant, and we know that it takes humility in order to truly serve someone else.

To serve simply means to perform duties or services for another person or for an organization.

Jesus uses this word servant, which is diokonysis, which is where we get the word deacon.

So that word deacon literally means to serve.

I know some of y'all are thinking about the old guy at the church that used to yell at you when you were younger, but that's not the image that Jesus is painting.

He's actually talking about a servant.

In fact, other places in scripture, when they're talking about what does it mean to be a servant, they use a word that's transliterat transliterated to say under rower.

Let me let me tell you what that means.

An under rower.

If you can think back to like maybe some some some old time movies you've seen, you can even Google and see images of it, where it's typically a a group of guys that are underneath a ship and they're just rowing the ship.

They're just rowing the ship.

You don't see them, there's a floor above them.

And here's the thing about an under rower: they're not seen a lot of times.

They have to listen to the voice of the captain, they have to trust his direction, and they have to work as a team.

An under rower, we're all not seen, but we're working together in unity.

Ultimately, the assignment of the under rower was to move the vessel forward.

We're all in this together and we're all gonna play our part.

We're committed to where we're going and we're trusting what the captain is saying.

We're gonna do our part and we're gonna make it to our destination.

Jesus in the Bible says when we serve others, we're ultimately underrowers.

We may not always be seen.

It may not always be about us, but we're committed and we're listening and trusting the voice of the captain that we're gonna get us to where God is calling us to be, to get us to our destination.

That is the image of what it means to be a servant.

Ultimately, to simplify it, it simply means that I am committed to helping to move people forward.

That's what servanthood means.

That's the image that Jesus presents.

And he says that in order to do that, it requires us to understand that we're gonna have to be humble.

Understanding that everything isn't about us, that doesn't mean that we get to a place where I graduate beyond the point of serving.

No matter what your title is, you still need to be a servant.

I've heard a great person once say that if you're too big to serve, then you're too small to lead.

That if you get to a point where you feel like you've graduated beyond serving and helping to move people forward, then you're too small to actually be in that position that you believe is going to lead you to a place of success.

What it means to be an underrower is to mean that I understand how to serve my family.

I know I understand what it means to serve in my church.

I understand what it means to serve my community.

How do I move us forward?

And it may not be me getting all the credit and the honor from it.

When we serve, we're making room for others.

That is the image that Jesus says.

That is what brings greatness when we're talking about the context of the kingdom of God.

The next principle that I want you guys to walk away with is that serving helps us to steward our gifts.

Serving helps us to steward our gifts.

Every single one of us has been given a gift.

I know some of us may be trying to figure out what that is, some of us may disagree with that, but our gifts are a combination of the things that we've been exposed, the things that we've experienced, and the things that we make effort in.

And that ultimately culminates into our gifts.

That means that you may have gone to school to cultivate it.

That means that it may be a natural thing that's just in you, or you've been exposed to something, and now you have a capability in it.

And the Bible will refer to that as a gift.

That's what that's what scripture says.

We've all been given something that we can help advance the kingdom and move people forward.

Now, some of us may not recognize our gift or may not understand that, but it's amazing how God has the ability to use what's in our hand in order to illustrate what's in his heart.

He uses what we have to illustrate what's in his heart.

Here's here's a perfect example of that.

You know, some of us are familiar with the story of Moses.

Moses was born of a slave, he was raised in a palace, and then he ended up being um killing somebody and running off into the wilderness.

Spent 40 years out there where he worked as a shepherd, just just out there as a shepherd, just taking care of sheep.

And then a moment comes where God approaches him and says, Hey man, I got a I got an assignment for you to do.

There's some gifts that are in you that I need to activate in order to move the people of God forward.

There's a bunch of people back in Egypt who are in bondage, and I need you to go back and serve and move them out of a place of bondage to a place of freedom.

Thought of every excuse on why God had the wrong man.

Man, I got a stutter, he said.

Man, I don't have the experience.

Lord, I I don't know if I can I don't know if I can do this.

And God said to him, What's in your hand?

He was holding a shepherd's rod.

And God said, This is the evidence that I've been leading you and preparing you this entire time.

It turns out that while Moses was shepherding the flock, that it was the exact training ground that God was going to use for him to shepherd his people.

I think it's amazing how God has the ability to use what's in our hand to illustrate what's in his heart.

My question for some of you is, What's in your hand?

What is the thing that you know that God has graced you to do?

What is the thing that you're gifted at?

What is the thing that you would consider yourself strong at?

What I see in scripture is that God has an ability to use that.

What if what you're good at is not just to make dollars, but it's to make a difference?

What if it's what if it's not just to make what if it's not just to make a living, but it's actually to help transform lives?

That God has this ability of using our strengths and our gifts in a way that helps to advance the kingdom of God.

And I'm asking you right now, what is it that God has given you the capacity and strength to do?

Because maybe that's the very thing he wants to breathe on that's going to help to serve and advance and help people to move forward.

Jesus is helping his disciples to understand that his experiences that they've lived up to this point has led them to a point that true servanthood is taking what is in your hand and allowing that to be a representation of what's in God's heart.

That as Moses went back and began to serve God's people with the experiences that he had, he was able to speak the language of a slave because that's where he was born.

He was able to negotiate with Pharaoh because he understood Egyptian language, but he was also able to lead them into the wilderness, which ironically is where he had been for the past 40 years because he was familiar with the terrain.

Don't ever despise where you are.

Maybe God is using that very thing to help to advance and move people forward.

Maybe right now you feel like you're in the wilderness in the desert and that it's useless, but I promise you God can use it if you're willing to allow it to be a representation of what's in his heart.

God has such a love for his people that while Moses was wandering, it was allowing him to get familiar with the very place that he was going to lead them to go.

That's the love of God, and that's what it means to be a servant, is when I'm willing to lay down my life and use what's in my hand to be a representation of what's in God's heart.

Here's the third and final thing I want to share with us is that when we serve others, it gives them dignity.

That when we serve others, it gives them dignity.

You see, that the interesting thing is that we are all made in the image of God.

But when sin entered the picture, it complicated things a little bit.

The world had got fractured.

And then we began to see these designations that we place on people, these labels that we place on people, because it's so easy to dehumanize folks when I can just place a label on them to summarize them.

I remember there was a time period when I was serving um as a mentor at a school, and I would spend time with this young man who had experienced heartbreaking losses.

His father, he didn't know who he was, his mother had just died, he was trying to live with his grandmother, so he was experiencing homelessness.

He was 16 years old, but in the seventh grade.

So if he could do math on that, he should be in high school.

He should actually be a junior at this point.

But life has dealt him such a hand that his life seemed stagnated.

He was at a standstill.

So after spending some time with him, he finally said to me, Why are you doing this?

Like, what's the point behind all of this?

And I simply said to him, Man, I want you to understand that you are seen, that you are loved, and that you matter.

That you're seen, that you're loved, and that you matter.

He broke down in the library because those are words that he had never heard before.

Because the words that he heard was homeless.

The words that he heard was hungry.

The words that he heard was doesn't know who his father is.

There's all these labels that the world has placed on him that he actually began to behave like what he was told he should behave like.

But I'm here to help somebody understand that you are seen, that you are line, that you are valued.

Daughter, you are seen, you are loved, and you are valued.

Son, you are seen, you are loved, and you are valued.

And I'm here to serve you to let you know that you matter in the kingdom of God, that God sees you, that he loves you, and that he values you.

And we're going to get to a place where we stop allowing the labels to dehumanize people.

Because it's easy to dehumanize somebody when we put a label on them.

Let me let me show you how that works in real time.

Anyway.

Trump supporters.

We're laughing.

But you know what happens when you hear those labels?

Depending on what your position is, I can dehumanize them.

This is why it's impossible for me to sit through the news on any outlet because it's so easy to place a label on people and to dehumanize them and devalue them.

But we are made in the image of God.

You are not your voting preference.

You are a son of God.

You are not your view on vaccines.

You are a daughter of God.

We've got to stop allowing the world to put its systems on us to dehumanize people.

You matter, you are valuable.

And I don't know what you posted on social media before you walked in these doors.

I don't know what you're gonna post when you get out of there.

But what I do want you to know is that you are loved.

You're made in the image of God, that you have a place at this place in this church.

That is the message of the kingdom of God.

Not getting consumed what the world is telling us we're supposed to do.

That's what it means when you talk about serving other people and giving them basic dignity.

It's not allowing the labels to be created a barrier where we're unable to serve one another because we don't have the same opinion.

That's not so with us.

This is what Jesus said.

That's not the case with us.

That's not the way that we function, that's not the way the kingdom of God operates.

It's allowing us to see each other, understand each other, and helping us to communicate that you matter, that there's value.

I remember I was at a store a couple of years ago with my son.

We were actually at um uh McDonald's.

And while we're sitting there, um a gentleman came in.

You could tell that he was experiencing homelessness.

You could tell that he hadn't been in a safe environment for quite some time.

So as Caleb and I are sitting there, um, this gentleman comes in and he sits down, and you can see that everybody immediately felt uncomfortable.

There was an aroma there, there was an atmosphere shift.

And so I looked at Caleb, I said, Man, I think we should get him something to eat.

So I walk up to him, I said, Hey, uh, sir, can I get you something to eat?

He said, Yeah, I would love a Diet Coke.

I'm like, okay, cool, I got you.

But what else would you like?

So he began to give me his order and he gave me some more stuff.

I'm like, hey, man, listen, dollar menu only.

Um I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

I said, man, go ahead and supersizing, brother.

Go ahead.

Y'all, y'all gotta stick with me.

Y'all know how I am.

So, so he he tells me what he wants, and I'm like, okay, cool.

And I said, hey man, before I go, what's what's your name?

And he looked at me, he's like, name's John.

I was like, all right, John, it's good to meet you, man.

I'm Keith, man.

I'm gonna go get this stuff for you.

So I go up to the cash register, and um the people are looking at me and they say to me, they're like, Okay, I wish, I wish you guys wouldn't do that.

I said, Do what?

Feed those people.

I said, Who's those people?

He said, homeless.

I said, You mean John?

You mean you mean John?

The human being that you're no better than, John?

The human being that you don't know his story, John?

Stop allowing the labels of the world to place the way that we see people.

What Jesus says is that when we serve people, we're stripping away the label and we're allowing them to be seen in the way that he sees them.

You're seen, you're loved, you're valued, your life matters.

That's what it means to be a servant in the kingdom of God.

That's what it means to be an underrower.

I'm gonna do everything I can do to move you forward.

And me placing a label on you doesn't move you forward.

Me having these preconceived notions about you doesn't move you forward.

But when I can recognize that you are a child of God and I could come alongside you to serve you, to speak words of life and encourage you, and if giving you a meal is gonna help to move you forward, then I believe that we need to be a church and a group of people that can simply do that.

You matter, you're valued, I see you.

God loves you, and let me do my part to help you move forward.

That is what it means to be a servant in the context of the kingdom of God.

Jesus has this profound conversation with his disciples and helps them to understand what true servanthood is.

It's moving people forward.

You know, Jesus, when he's in his final moments, he says to his disciples that I am going to make a place for you.

This idea, this image of Jesus saying that I'm going to leave here, but when I leave, I'm going to go and make a place for you.

This is the this is the summary of that statement when he says that I've come to give my life as a ransom for the many.

I'm going to make a place for you.

That Jesus literally gave up his seat at the throne so that we can have a seat at his table.

This is what it means to serve someone else, to lay someone's life down, and Jesus was a perfect example of that.

Jesus says, I'm going to make room for you.

Several years ago, Megan and I went to a conference, and while we were there, we had an opportunity to hang out with some of our pastoral friends, and there was an extra night that Megan and I decided to stay.

So we had honestly thought that everyone was gone.

We went to this little restaurant that didn't have a lot of space, but we managed to squeeze and get in.

We're sitting in the back, and we were there probably about 15, 20 minutes.

We had just placed our order, and while we're sitting there talking, we noticed one of our friends had walked by and they were like, Oh my gosh, like I didn't know that you guys were still here.

I'm like, I didn't know you guys were here.

And they said, Hey man, it's a whole group of us out here.

Like, you you should come out.

And I kind of looked off to the side and I saw that they were sitting at a table that was completely full.

I was like, nah, no, it's okay.

They were like, no, no, no.

We we can make room.

We insist.

So they like she did all the work.

She went and found, she went and found the the waiter.

Hey, hey, take their food out here.

So we go outside, and when we get outside to the balcony, everyone looks at us, they're happy to see us, and everyone immediately starts scooting over.

Okay, I I can sit here, you can sit there.

Like, we're gonna, hey, grab that chair over there.

Hey, you need that chair?

Like, they they immediately began to make room for us.

And I don't know why that felt so good.

It's not that I already had a seat, but there was something about them getting up, them making adjustments and making room for us made us feel so valued.

It made us feel like we were seen, it made it feel like there was a place for us at this table.

Do we realize that when we serve people, that's the equivalent of when someone shows up and there's been labels, they've been beat down all week at work, and someone looks them in the eye and smiles and says, I am so glad that you're here.

That makes room for someone to know that God loves them.

That whenever we do anything that serves people, that is allowing them to experience the love of God.

But the beautiful thing, that is exactly what Jesus did for us.

He simply got over and made room and said, No, there's there's more room.

Imagine if we lived our lives where we were looking for opportunities to make room for others.

That's what we're called to do.

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

Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

I thank you so much for your presence.

I thank you for you being with us in this place.

And God, I I pause for this moment to simply say, God, thank you for making room for us.

Lord, we thank you that that you left the throne room of heaven and that you made room for us.

You said you go and make a place for us.

And as you came and you gave your life as a ransom, giving us the perfect example of what does it mean to make room for others, that sacrifice was an invitation for us to simply say yes to the reservation and knowing that there is a place for us.

So, Father, we thank you for that.

There's some in this room right now, and you know that your next step is to say yes to Jesus, that that you've been living your life, sitting in seats that God has not called you to sit in, but he wants you to sit at his table.

I just want you to prepare and receive this in your heart.

Pastor Nate's gonna come up in a moment and lead you into prayer.

But God, I pray for the rest of us that Lord, you begin to stir our hearts and ask us what is in our hand.

How can we serve?

How can we advance your kingdom?

How can we do our part to move people forward?

God, I pray that you challenge us.

I pray that you reveal it to us.

I pray that you allow us to see so we can live the enhanced life.

That we may have some precepts that are okay, but we want to live a life of enrichment, a life where we know that there's a clarity that you have for us because we've chose to be obedient and serve your people and move them forward.

I pray a blessing over your church.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks again for listening.

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