The Stewardship Collection | Fix your Posture | Pastor Mike Saathoff

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.

Awesome.

Hey church, how are we doing this morning?

Yeah.

Wow, that was so good.

I didn't even have to do the whole church thing and be like, let me hear you say it again.

No, y'all were on it this morning.

Y'all got some extra sleep last night.

Uh awesome, awesome.

Hey church, we're in a we're gonna continue in a series, and it's it's always so good to see everybody online.

And if you're uh here in person, but if you're watching online, um we just are so happy that you are joining us this morning.

Um and we just pray that that uh as you are watching service that you can also begin to feel what we feel in this room, um, the very tangible presence of God right wherever you may be.

And and hopefully you all in this room um don't take these moments for granted where we get to come in here and worship God and be able to feel him in a tangible way.

We don't serve a uh a God who is in a stat who's a statue.

We don't serve a God in a far-off land, we serve a very real and living Savior uh who is always present with us, and to feel him in this room is special and powerful.

Um, you know, before I go further into the word, I do want to give it up for it, give some honor to our pastors, Pastors Keith and Pastor Megan Pittman, and I know they're not in the room, but they're probably watching, so if you all want to just give it up for them, they're amazing pastors.

Yeah, and I don't say that they're amazing pastors because they're my boss or anything.

I say they're amazing pastors because they are.

They have uh, you know, when when God gives you pastors after his own heart, you have to celebrate and honor that.

And the truth of the matter is they truly um are after God's heart.

They truly are after um the very thing that that what breaks his heart breaks their heart.

They are they are for that.

They are genuine, uh caring, loving, and kind people, and it's an honor for them to pastor this house.

And I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I've known them for so long, and uh they Pastor Megan is tried and true.

So if you ever see her in a grocery store, she's not one of those people that's gonna hide behind a shelf and hope that you don't see her.

Uh, she's probably going to like tap on you, turn you around, and give you a hug because they love everybody that much, and we love and appreciate them and uh be praying as they're traveling.

They um they're actually doing a wedding, and so um, because you know that's what it is, the pastor.

You gotta do all the things.

Um, and so uh they are on their way back uh to be with us, and so we will see them shortly.

So just be praying for that.

Now, all the dads in the room, last week we celebrated Father's Day.

Did everybody have a good Father's Day?

I just need to gauge the room.

Did everybody have a good Father's Day?

Hopefully, dads, y'all had a good one.

Um, what about those dad packs that we had outside?

Did anybody get one?

Did you get them?

Did you utilize everything in it?

Maybe got your car smelling all good.

Um, I just want to give a shout out to Pastor Lindsay, who was up here singing phenomenally.

I mean, just an amazing job with uh those dad packs.

It was so special to see, you know, dads didn't just get a pat on the back and say good job this year.

Uh we went ahead and uh got something special.

So maybe if you didn't think of something, then maybe you just went ahead and gave them one of those packs.

But hopefully that was special.

But we're continuing right now in our series, the stewardship collection.

And today we're gonna unpack um how we steward our relationship with God.

Now, I I don't want to, you know, maybe some of y'all are like, uh-oh, it's just gonna be one of those, like, hey, you gotta read your Bible in the morning.

Get up, do this, it's gonna be routine.

We're gonna try and do that.

That's not at all how we're gonna look at stewarding our relationship with God.

Much like our own personal relationships with one another, we steward our relationship with God in the same manner.

God is, like I said earlier, not a far-off, distant being.

No, God is ever present with us, and he wants that for us.

He wants to be near us, he wants us to be with him and engaging him every step of the way.

Um, there's a lot that I'm gonna unpack today.

There's a lot that I want to dive into, and so I'm gonna jump right into praying um for us this morning.

Um, if you just pray with me, God, we love and we praise you, God.

We thank you, God, for this morning.

We thank you for for being present, God.

We don't ever want to take these moments for granted.

We don't ever want to take your presence for granted, God.

We thank you for being close to us.

In fact, your word says that as we draw near, you will draw near.

So, God, I thank you for being present.

I thank you for being right next to us every step of the way, every high, every low.

So, God, today speak clearly to us, God, as we can deepen or maybe even kind of fix and make some tweaks into to having a deeper relationship with you.

You are our heart's desire, God.

We want to be uh we want to be present with you, God.

We want to pour out all of our love on you.

And we want a genuine relationship with you, not just the Sunday one, but a genuine one.

So, God, move me completely out of the way, God, and have your way in this service.

God, we love you and we praise you.

And Faithville Church said, Amen.

Awesome, awesome.

So there's something I really want to jump into right now as we talk about stewarding the very relationship with God, stewarding our relationship with God.

You know, a relationship with God oftentimes deals with our heart, our the posturing, if you will, of our heart.

So I want to take a look at one scripture really quick and how we can steward it's just to show us the importance of the heart.

Proverbs 423 says this.

It says, keep your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.

Essentially, the heart is much more important than sometimes we even make it out to be.

The very issues of life, the very things of life flow from our heart.

Even in whatever is in our heart, from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

It is so important that our heart is in line with the things and ways of God, and it's so important because, man, all you have to do is just sometimes just hear what somebody is saying to know what they're full of.

Because whatever is in you is bound to come out of you.

Like Taco Bell.

Whatever is in you is bound to come out.

So just make sure your heart is pure and right.

Listen, uh, when it comes down to the heart and the experience of all that, we not only have to be mindful of what gets in it, but we've got to be mindful of what comes out.

And it's it's it works hand in hand.

We've got to steward our relationship, and the way that we steward that will come down to our heart.

It's the posturing of the heart.

In fact, sometimes um, you know, it's funny, I have a little puppy, so maybe some of y'all have seen this little puppy.

My dog's name is Ollie.

He's the cutest thing you ever have.

He's way cuter than your dog if you have one, I promise you.

Um, all you gotta do is look at him.

He's this cute little golden doodle, cost me half a fortune, but that's okay.

Um, we'll pay him off when I'm 60.

Uh, but it's uh he's a gorgeous dog, and the one thing about it is I love taking him places and I try and take him wherever I can.

Me and my wife, we take him, restaurants, all that kind of stuff.

But one thing that is so fun is the meanest person that is walking up to you becomes just a slop of puddle on the ground because they see this little puppy.

It is amazing that wow, this person got this hard exterior, and all of a sudden this little fluff ball comes up and they are just gooey.

Isn't that so true with some of us?

Like, man, if if we can just get a little bit closer and looking right past what is on the surface, and we can look right past the sharp edges, man, we can find that there is tenderness in there.

Some people even will look at me and go, oh my gosh, I know Mike's tough.

I mean, look at me.

I'm tough.

I got muscles, I'm strapping, whatever.

And they'll go, oh my gosh, but he's just a teddy bear.

He's just so kind.

Don't look at his demeanor.

No, he's whatever.

And that is so true with our hearts.

Is that oftentimes life has a way of concealing it, and and life has a way of coming and giving us this hard exterior, but the heart is still tender.

This is why it's so important that the posture of our heart is pure, the posture of our heart is is always being checked and always in an upright status.

Now, how can we do that?

It's going to take some examination for us to be able to have a correct posturing of the heart.

Now, why am I talking about the posture of the heart as it relates to our relationship with God?

It's simple because from that is the beginning.

That is where it starts.

Our heart is where it is.

God wants our heart, not some of it, not a portion of it, but all of it.

Not some facade that we show, no, all of it.

So it is critical that we have a heart that is hungry for him, a heart that is after him.

In fact, we even see this within the context of King David.

We some of us may already know that he was a king who had a heart after God.

And we want to, and I actually want to unpack some of that, you know, to a degree, but it's just one of those things that in your heart, if you're not careful, that's also where motive rests.

Many people do amazing things, but the truth is the why behind the what sometimes will tell you everything.

And oftentimes we ask that selves, I mean, how many of us on our jobs and the boss comes in and tells us to do something, and you're like, wait, but what?

I need to know the why behind it.

That will help me be able to execute a lot better.

Give me the why behind the what.

Well, motive is truly the why behind the what.

Here's what motive actually means as it is defined.

It's defined as a reason for doing something that is hidden or not obvious.

Hidden or not obvious.

It is not a mystery that sometimes our very greatest secrets and stuff we hide deep down in our heart, the very passions that we have, we place deep down inside of our heart.

Why?

Because that is where motive begins, that is where our baseline is, that is what forms our why behind the what.

And so true is that when it comes to our relationship with God, it first begins in the heart.

In fact, that is how, for those of us who've been with part of the faith for any amount of time, that is how we became part of the faith.

It was first done in our heart.

The Bible says that if we believe in our heart and we confess with our mouth that we're saved, we're saved.

So it is a heart thing.

We we place it in our heart, but sometimes we ignite that relationship with God in our heart and then we leave it on autopilot.

And my friends, we cannot have a relationship on autopilot.

Any relationship on autopilot will always lead into destruction.

Every single time.

Now, why does it lead into destruction?

Well, I can tell you why.

It is science, it's called entropy.

For those of you who don't may not necessarily know what entropy is.

Entropy is the gradual decline towards disorder.

For those of you all who are big on physics, which I am not, um, clearly, um, but one of the things with entropy is that everything is going towards entropy.

Everything wants to naturally drift towards disorder, to chaos.

So too does all of our relationships, so too does anything that we put our hands to is that it needs tending.

This is why Jesus is often referred to as a gardener, because we need tending to.

This is also why we call him the good shepherd, because as sheep, sheep are prone to wonder.

It's not some cool tattoo, it's an actual thing.

They're prone to wonder.

It's it is it is a real thing.

And so are we.

We are prone to wonder.

We can get off track.

You know, some of us like me, you know, probably have ADD and squirrel, and you know, you're just off track.

And so I do it all the time.

I can be there and not there.

It's amazing.

It's a gift, I think.

My wife doesn't think so.

I think it's a gift.

It's it's from the Lord that I can be present and be somewhere else at the same time.

It's amazing.

She hates it.

She absolutely hates it.

But it is so true when it comes to our heart, it's so true that if we're not careful, if we don't align ourselves up properly, that we can begin to drift.

All of our relationships, not just the vertical one that I'm talking about today, but also some of our horizontal ones, can also go into complete disorder.

It is entropy.

Absolute entropy.

Now, we can't just think that our relationship with God is going to be great because we're in this room on a Sunday, one Sunday after the next, and think that that is going to keep our relationship going.

No, that helps us.

It helps us when we come into a room with fellow believers after we've had a whole week of chaos, and maybe it was a high week, maybe things were great.

We shouldn't always just assume that things aren't great, but they could be a great week.

But how great is it to celebrate a great week next to somebody and worship God with your hands lifted and and all of those wonderful things?

And yes, this is this is not the main thing.

This is this is y'all the truth.

What we do on Sunday is supplemental to what we should be doing every single day.

Our relationship with God is an everyday kind of thing.

Every single day.

You wake up, he's there.

You go to bed, he's there.

Right when I got married, my wife was like, You're still there.

You're always there, snoring.

And I didn't know you snored until we said I do.

And now I'm like, why?

Sorry, babe.

I snore.

It is what it is.

Can't help it.

She literally, side note, she literally asked, she asked one of her nurse friends.

She goes, he's doing all this snoring.

She goes, and then I got a video from her nurse friend that says, Mike, hey, when you wake up, if it's like abrupt, here's what's gonna happen.

Ash is gonna gently lift your head and then pop it back, and that will stop you from snoring.

She was like sending me all these different videos.

I'm like, okay, well, what do you want me to do?

Just die?

Like, I don't understand.

Like, this is so weird.

Like, this is like, aren't we supposed to be blissful and you're hating the fact that I'm snoring?

I'm breathing, I'm alive.

It's a sign that I'm alive.

I'm living.

That's all that this is.

I'm living.

But it's one of those things that we need to wake up with God.

We go to bed with God.

He's active in our life, he wants to be there for us every step of the way.

But oftentimes we can put him on autopilot if we're honest.

Now, 2020 caused some of us to go on autopilot.

And can I be the first one to say that was me?

Can I be the first one to say that I started off 2020?

Like a lot of you, hey, 2020, vision.

You know, this is it.

It's 2020, your perfect vision.

Only if we knew what perfect vision actually meant in 2020.

Like only if we really, really knew.

We're like, I just I'd rather be blind.

Um, it was just one of those one of those years.

But here's what was so funny.

I started off 2020 going, you know what?

I'm I got this, I'm gonna do the Bible in a year.

I've got, I bought the Bible and everything.

Like I wanted it in paper because I was like, I'm on it, I'm gonna highlight it, I'm gonna take notes, I'm gonna do all this stuff.

Man, like January 15th came, I got behind.

I'm like, good Lord, it was only like 15 days.

Then the pandemic happened, and I really got behind.

It was so ridiculous that I had almost nothing to do but literally so much time to waste.

Like, literally, it was like, wait, what is Netflix putting out now?

No, no, no, no.

God, I got you.

Hold up, I'm just trying to let me find you in this show.

Like, that's what it became.

Let me figure out how I can figure out if I can find, like, oh, wait a minute.

I think this movie has like, oh yeah, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

I got it.

That's what this is.

This is what God's trying to show me.

It was so ridiculous that how quickly my relationship with God became something that I put on a back burner in 2020.

And maybe some of us were like that.

We had goals for 2020, scripture engagement, all that kind of stuff, and somehow life found a way because it ended up being on autopilot.

And for me, I for sure put it on autopilot and had to do some deep searching and deep thinking and realizing, oh my gosh, I need to take a mirror and look at my heart to see the posturing of my heart.

So I do want to kind of go a little bit into how we can see this playing out in the life of David.

Now, only for the, I'm only using David for the sake of just kind of seeing where we can see his initial view and his initial posturing of his heart, and even the way that he has to investigate his heart to kind of see what is that that is in me that is causing me to be distant from God?

What is that in me that is causing me to put my relationship with God on odds?

What is that?

And then also to see what takes place by keeping all of that in check.

And my hope is that as we unpack that, we can begin to extrapolate some things and use it for our life today.

So if you can come with me to, we're gonna actually jump around, but the first verse of scripture that I want to look at is coming from 1 Samuel 16 and 7.

And because we're gonna jump around, you will see it on the screen behind me or um on the screen at home.

It says this, 1 Samuel 16, 7.

But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.

For the Lord sees not as man sees, man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

Now, at this time, you have David, he's just in the field.

Samuel is looking to anoint the very next king of Israel because Saul went cuckoo and he's just completely distancing himself from God, and God's like, You're fired, I'm gonna find another.

And then we see in this moment that Samuel goes to Jesse's house, which is David's father, and says, Hey, the Lord wants to anoint the next king of Israel, and he's here in your home.

He's part, he's one of your sons, he will be part of your lineage.

And as he gets there, he's like, All right, here we go.

The first person that was obvious to everybody was the eldest son.

But Samuel looked and said, Nope, that's not him.

His stature was great, his height was wonderful, all those types of things, but that was not him.

He went on and on and on to every single son to the point that he looks at Jesse and he goes, but surely you have to have one more.

And it wasn't that because it was like the obvious Cinderella story where maybe David wasn't good looking.

No, scripture tells us that he was good looking, but he didn't necessarily have all of the obvious things that would make him this great king to follow Saul.

Now, many of us in our own lives we can see some of that too, where we may not be the obvious candidate.

And here's the truth of the matter: we were not the obvious ones in this room for Jesus to come into rescue.

We were not the obvious ones.

In fact, we were more the Gentiles, we were the ones at which we weren't, we weren't necessarily for many of us in this room the cho what would be dubbed over as the chosen ones.

We weren't part of that lineage, if you will.

But thank God for grace, thank God that Jesus came for not just a few, but for all of us.

Amen.

Now, if we read on further to see what else is going on, now that we've looked and investigated at the heart of David, and that his posturing of his heart was right because God wasn't looking at his accruiments, he wasn't looking at his pedigree, he wasn't looking at how many degrees he had, where he went to school, and what his occupation was and what his his upbringing was and whether or not his parents were still together, and whether or not all of these different things.

He didn't wasn't looking at that, he was looking at the posturing of his heart.

Now if we skip down and we see where David is now having to investigate his heart, we can see this take place in Psalms 51 at verse 7.

It says, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Hide your face firm from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence and take not take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore me, restore to me the joy of your salvation.

He's investigating his heart, he's investigating it himself and realizing there's something that's in me that is not right.

And when he does that later on, going into 2 Samuel, here are some of what the promises of God become because of his part posture.

Here's the result from God.

It says this in 2 Samuel 7 and 12, it says, When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you.

You shall come, you who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

He shall build a house from my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.

When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men.

But my steadfast love, my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.

And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.

Your throne shall be established forever.

All of that came out of the posturing of David's heart.

The very promises, the fact that God says, Listen, I know that you're gonna mess up.

I know your offspring are gonna mess up, but let me tell you what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna discipline you because I love you that much, but I love you so much that I'm not going to cast you away.

I love you so much, and the way you love me is true that I am going to continue to raise you up.

I'm gonna continue to raise up generations.

Oftentimes we hear about generational curses.

But this right here is a generational blessing.

This right here all stems from the very posturing of David's heart.

So, what is it about our heart that if we posture our heart correctly and accurately, how much will God do for us?

What does that look like for us?

I am confident that the posturing of my grandmother's heart has allowed me to be who I am today.

The posturing of our heart towards God and her relationship with God and all of those prayers.

Some of us in this room are beneficiaries of a praying grandmother or a praying grandfather, someone whose heart's posture was right before the Lord.

And it doesn't always say there.

Remember, entropy is a real thing.

We have to investigate it.

This is what I love about reading in David as he has his Psalms and he's singing about it to the Lord, he's saying, Create in me a clean heart.

How many of us in this room need to just look and say, God, I need a I need a clean heart.

There's some stuff that's in there that I need you to uproot.

Especially with maybe the year that we've had, and maybe for some of us, more than just a year.

Maybe more than a year for some of us.

Some of us, that's all we've ever known is hardship, struggle, or whatnot, and that can begin to take a toll on anyone.

But the posturing of our heart, so that way nothing gets in the way of our relationship with God.

Nothing can get in that way.

So what I want to look at right now when it comes to the posturing of our heart is really five things.

And I'm gonna go through them, so don't worry.

We won't be here till three o'clock.

It'll be more about like 2.30, 2.45.

But I've got five points for us.

Yeah, five.

Five points for us when it comes down to the posturing of our heart.

So if you want, you can write it down or you can rewatch this, but five things because I want to look at some natural things really quick, if you can, with me, about fixing our posture.

Now, I don't know how many of us in this room have what we would call good posture or bad posture.

You know, I'm always investigating and looking at my posture.

I'm not looking in the mirror trying to figure out if my outfit is good, although I do.

But there are times that I'm looking to make sure, like, am I actually standing upright?

Am I sitting straight?

Some of us work at a desk all day long, especially now that many of us are still working from home.

And can you just, I mean, oh my gosh, it's like you just, as soon as you get up and you just do one of those things, you just crack your back, and it feels nice, but then you realize I was slouching, I was doing whatever.

So the same holds true with our heart.

We have to adjust the posturing of our heart.

Now, the world has some very natural ways of how we can fix the posture naturally, and let's explore that.

And maybe we have some takeaways, just maybe, some takeaways that we can apply to our heart.

The first thing that I want to look at is that the world would tell us in all kinds of ways about the posture, is that we first need to stand up straight and tall.

That's step one is stand up straight and tall.

Now, this journey that we're on with God, it is one that is not passive, as Pastor Nate had said earlier about serve day.

This is this relationship with God is not passive, it is active.

It is something that requires action from every single one of us in this room.

We don't just receive God and then just sit there and hope that everything will happen just right.

Doesn't work that way.

You can't just sit in church and feel and think that your relationship with God is going to take off through osmosis.

It will not happen.

You must be active in it.

Ephesians 6.13 says this therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.

And having done all to stand firm, we must take a stand.

We must first get up from where we are and realize that nope, I'm not gonna lie down anymore.

Nope, my relationship with God, my heart posturing is not just gonna be defeated and deflated.

There is some action that needs to take place.

Now you may say, how do we begin to take action while we stand?

We stand on what we stand firm on the word of God.

So, what does that look like?

That looks like, hey, we've got to get scripture engagement back in our lives.

Now that can look different for you.

I'm not saying that you need to read a chapter a day to make the devil go away.

That's not that's not what I'm saying.

That's not like, you know, like my pastoral, like here's your here's a here's a prescription for you.

Just read a chapter, you'll be great.

No, no, no, no.

What I'm saying is that you should have developed this hunger, get that hunger back, stand up, know that what we have and what the Bible says about us is how we can be able to overcome what is in the world, inevitably in the world.

It doesn't take long for us to just turn on the TV and see a scrolling uh anything on any channel, something scrolling on the bottom, and and just realize that we live in a world that is broken, that is hurting, that is lost, and we must take a stand.

Now, I don't mean that we're taking a stand to be to just go on on social media and just kind of tell everybody how wrong they are.

That's not the stand I mean.

I'm talking about within our relationship with God.

To say, God, I stand for you and no other.

That means that if something is coming up that is set, that is the opposite of who God is, that is pulling me away, I will not stand for that.

I will only stand for what is going to keep me closer to Him.

1 Corinthians 15, 58 says this.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

So no matter what we do, no matter where we are, we cannot sit here and think, oh my gosh, I'm doing all this for nothing.

All of this praying I'm doing is for nothing.

All of this reading scripture is for nothing.

It is not for nothing.

It is not in vain.

What we are doing is we are correcting the posturing of our heart.

Because naturally we want to slouch, naturally, we want to be lazy.

Naturally, we want to do that.

Why?

Entropy is why.

Because naturally we want to move closer to disorder, closer to whatever that is that looks chaotic because that does not require work.

Order requires work.

The second thing that we have to do, the second thing that we see with fixing our posture in the natural is that we must have our shoulders back and have a level head.

So now that we're standing upright, we have our shoulders back and have a level head.

Why is that so important?

We adjust our heads because we need to also see spiritually and in our hearts where we're looking at.

What is it that we're paying attention to?

What has captured our eyes?

Spiritually, in our heart, what captures our eye?

Is it God or is it everything else?

Is it money?

Is it wealth?

Is it greed?

Is it whatever it is?

Is it other relationships, whatever it may be, whatever begins to capture our gaze, we need to course-correct that, to fix in our gaze purely on Jesus.

Hebrews 12 and 1 says this, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

We have to fix our gaze purely on Jesus.

When it comes to the posturing of our heart, we take our stand on the word and we begin to level our shoulders and adjust our head so that way we are fixing our gaze completely on Jesus.

Not fixing our gaze on everything else, because that one thing that is sure is wherever we're looking, we're probably gonna go.

If we're looking down, we're probably gonna fall down.

We're looking sideways, we're probably gonna go that way.

Just try it if you want to prove me wrong.

Try to not, and I don't mean using your peripheral, I just mean just completely focusing on where you're going at some point, wherever you're looking, if I'm going this way, I'm going to pivot.

That is just natural.

So whatever we're looking at from our heart, wherever our gaze is fixed to, that is where we're going to tend to drip.

The third thing that we need to do is we need to pull our stomach in.

Now, this is part of fixing a posture.

And what I mean by pulling your stomach in is we're standing shoulders back, head level, and we're pulling our stomach in to get us some good posturing.

But what is so critical is hey, when I read scripture, John 7.38 says, believe in me, so that rivers of living water will burst out from within you, flowing from your innermost being, like the scripture says.

So if we have this river of living water flowing out, you know, a lot of good might be coming out, and a lot might be pouring out from our heart.

But if we're not careful about how much outpouring is going and nothing is coming in, then we will begin to have what?

A deficit.

So a lot of us at times we wonder why we, the posturing of our heart, we wonder why we feel the way we do, and and how sad we may be sometimes, and and what this is, is because the question would be have we poured out more than we've actually put in.

So oftentimes we the thing about just protecting our heart and guarding it.

Here's the thing about it.

If we guard ourselves so much so and too much and not investigate what's coming in, we may shut everything out, all the good, all the bad, everything.

This is what happens when you have a hardened heart is that you not only block bad stuff out, but you block the good too.

You can sit and you can hear words from God that are edifying, words from God that mean so much that will lift you up, but you're so your heart is so hardened that it will not receive it.

So now you have nothing going in that is going to help you, nothing going in that is going to lift you, nothing going in, and instead you're just there.

Some of us have poured out so much so that we weren't even investigating what we were pouring out, and we've we've poured out the very thing that was meant for God, the very thing that was pure that was for God.

We poured it on a bad relationship, we poured it out on a bad career, we've we've made some bad decisions, but here's the great thing: all is not lost because all we have to do is make some adjustments to fix our posture.

Fix our posture.

The fourth thing that we have to do is we have to keep our weight on the balls of our feet.

So once we're standing, once our shoulders are back and our head is level and our gaze is fixed, and and we've we understand that we we've we're keeping our stomach in, and now we just gotta make sure that we have balance.

And that is key, y'all.

Having balance.

Balance is so difficult to figure out and define, but we must have balance.

And I'm guilty myself of beginning to take things and put them in my own hands and not release it to God.

I'm so guilty of any other type A's like me that you just you're like, I got it, I can do it.

I struggle with asking for help and not just from people, but sometimes even from God.

Like, no, no, no, God, you you entrusted me with this, I can do it, I got it.

But the reality of the situation is we have to have a balance.

Second Kings 6, uh actually Proverbs 11 and 1 says this.

It says, a false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.

We have to establish a balance when it comes to the posturing of our heart.

It is a balance.

It's a balance what we lend time to.

It's a balance uh all around.

And many of you all with families, you get that, you understand.

Maybe you have kids who are going from one practice to another practice, or maybe it's just you're just trying to time things just in general about what is it that I need to do.

Maybe you're just trying to figure out a balance even here today, with man, how how often can I come to church?

And how all of these different types of things, or even you know, just group things during the week.

You're trying to find a balance.

The reality is to make that thing right, to line up just right, to have a just weight in that is always going to be the baseline of Jesus.

Every single time.

Am I making time for Jesus?

Is my heart looking and centered and focused on Jesus?

And if it is, this is how we steward that relationship with God.

We balance it out.

And the fifth and final point, and the band can begin to come back up, is that we have to let our arms hang to the side.

Now, this seems a little bit easy.

We take a stand, we adjust our shoulders back, we we fixed our head a little bit, we pulled in our gut, we're on the balls of our feet, and then now we just we rest, we rest our arms to the side.

We rest our arms to the side.

The point of that, in our context, for our heart, is that after we figure out the balances, we've got to also incorporate rest.

And I don't mean sleep, I don't mean go night.

I just mean that we've got to have a genuine, restful balance.

What does that mean?

It means that we rest in Jesus, but that is easier said than done.

Because what that means is it means that I have to let go of some things, it means that I can't wrestle and toil with what is in my hands, and that is a very challenging and difficult thing for any of us.

Because a lot of us we know what responsibility is.

But can I tell you something?

Just to put your arms down and rest, and Jesus is everything that we need.

2 Kings 6:15 says this when the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out.

2 Kings 6:15

Behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city.

And the servant said, Alas, my master, what shall we do?

He said, Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

What am I saying right here?

I'm saying that it's okay to rest in Jesus because he's got our back.

There are more for us.

If we could only see with our spiritual eyes, we would realize that the very things that we think are so important naturally, man, we would begin to see, oh, God's got that.

He's got more than just that.

He's got our back.

We can do it, we can get through it.

Now, I'm not saying to just not care about anything.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

This isn't a hall pass to not do anything.

But what I'm saying is when it comes to our relationship with God and how we steward it, we must be willing to allow him to drive.

We must be willing for him to lead us.

We must be willing to trust him.

That is what it means when we put our shoulders aside and rest.

It's just trusting in him, knowing that he's got it.

If you ever really want some peace in mind and some comfort, man, you got to get to a point where you can just sit there and go, he's got it.

And here's the deal if he's God, he's got it.

If he's not God, well, you'll know.

But the reality is, he is all God and he's got it.

And you will never be disappointed by resting in him.

Ever.

It is critical for us to find rest in him.

This is this is not just a request from him, it is it is a command, it is it is an actionable thing that we must do.

Who would have thought that rest is action?

It is.

We have to actively pursue it.

We have to make sure that we incorporate it in our routine, we incorporate it in our schedules.

It is the balance of it all.

So, yes, we take a stand, and yes, we want to engage scripture.

This is how we steward our relationship with him, and yes, we completely trust him, and and we make sure that our heart is exposed to him so he can put things in us, but also we're available to pour out as well, because we're not meant to just live a life of being spiritual hoarders.

We are also meant to share it freely with everyone.

That is the gospel, after all, right?

That we share it, that we expose others who do not know the God that we serve, that they know him like we know him.

That that is the gospel, that is the good news that he is here and available for all of us.

But we also need to rest in him.

We need to rest in him.

We we need to truly do what he asks us to do, which is to cast our care on him because he cares for us.

So part of us stewarding that relationship with God is being able to go to him with every single thing.

Knowing that he's not judging us because he's not.

What he wants is he wants to make sure that our heart posture is right.

So if you feel like you've been chastised, if you feel like you've been dis uh disciplined by God, maybe that you also can understand a little bit that that's what David was that he was telling David.

Yeah, I'm gonna discipline him, yeah, I'm gonna do all that.

But at the end of the day, trust me, my love is forever with them.

How easy is it to give yourself completely to someone who loves you through and through, that loves you to your core, your heart.

So, church, today, this is what we need to do.

We need to investigate the very posture of our heart so that way we can be made available to him in order to steward our relationship with him.

Is to adjust and tweak the posture of our heart.

David did a whole lot of things, but one thing was for sure was that he had a posture that of his heart was right.

The posturing of his heart was towards God.

So maybe that's what we need to do today.

Maybe we need to, maybe we all in this room might need to look to see what is it in me that I need to tweak.

And then we do it.

There's action to take place, there's action here, and only you know where you are in that, only you know how I need to do that.

Maybe you just need to investigate and just go, man, what is this that I feel?

What is this that that is there?

And maybe you just need to help somebody to inform them.

Hey, check your heart.

A lot has happened to you.

Check your heart.

And even for those of us who are on the mountain, guess what?

If we're up on top of the mountain and every Everything's going good, guess what?

We still have to check our heart.

We still have to check it.

Because we still need to make sure that as we steward our relationship with God, that He is the primary focus.

Always the primary focus.

I'm gonna ask everybody in a moment begin to open up the altar for anybody who wants to receive Jesus.

And I'll ask that in a moment, but right now, if you feel like you need to inspect your heart and you really need God to do some things, if you really need some purging, if you really need some cleaning, if you really need to just kind of look and see, well, what is that in me?

If I I don't know if I can do that, yeah, you're right.

I do need to rest.

I am trying to control, I am trying to do all these other different types of things.

I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand because I just want to pray for you right now.

If you really feel, and so you know what?

I need to investigate the posturing of my heart.

And you can begin to raise your hand right now because I do want to pray for you.

I do want to be there for you, I see you, I see you.

Because really want to get the posture right.

This doesn't mean that we're in the wrong, it doesn't mean any of that.

It just means we need to maybe even a reset.

But just to investigate that, I'm gonna pray for us right now.

God, we love you and we praise you, God.

God, we thank you right now, God, for meeting us in this place, God.

And as we investigate, as we think and ponder upon what it is that you shared with us today, God, we just ask right now, God, that that you search our hearts, God.

Even as David was praying through, God, to even begin to purge us, God, begin to get down in the deepest crevices of our heart, God, whatever might be in there, anything that is not like you, God, remove it, God.

God, we just ask right now, God, in the name of Jesus, God, that you will have your way in and through our lives, God.

Why?

Because we want a relationship with you that's stronger now than it ever has been.

That is our cry, that is our prayer, God.

That is that is coming down from the very depths of our heart, God, that we want to be one with you like never before.

We want a true relationship with you, one that is pure, one that is upright, one that will stand the test of time.

No other relationship matters unless we get this vertical one right.

So, God, we are praying right now, God, that this vertical relationship with you is right.

And so that way all the horizontal relationships will get in line.

But God, if we cannot demonstrate, if we can't display you on every level, God, then what is the meaning of it?

God, don't allow the work that we began today, God, to be in vain, God.

Do what only you can do in Jesus' name.

And a faithful church said, Amen.

The second thing that I want to pray for, and even if you're at home, is just praying to receive Jesus.

Maybe somebody in this room, you're like, Man, yeah, I do need to have the right heart, but can I tell you that that's where it begins?

A relationship with God begins in the heart, and he's the only one who can call us to it, and he's doing it now.

He's the only one who can establish that relationship and he's doing it now.

All that he requires from us is for us to believe in and on him and to receive him completely in our heart, to open our heart to him, to begin that process, to begin the journey with him anew.

And maybe some of us in this room, we've been there before, but we just want to we just need a fresh start with it.

We just need a quick little reset.

We need a fresh start with him.

I'm gonna pray all heads can be bowed, eyes can be closed.

I'm gonna just ask in a moment that you lift your hands.

In fact, I'm gonna ask in three seconds if you lift your hands in three, two, one.

You can lift them.

If you want to receive Jesus, I see you, I see you.

I see you.

Your life will forever be changed.

Forever be changed.

This is literally the best decision that you could ever make.

No other decision on the face of this earth will ever be better than that of receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Let me pray for you right now.

God, I pray for each and every hand and even those who are watching right now, God.

I pray, God, that they as they receive you in their heart, God, God, that you begin to do a work in them that only you can do.

Your word says that if we believe in our heart, confess with our mouth that we are saved, and we are truly saved.

So, God, I pray for them right now, God, that as they begin this journey, God, that you begin to put people around them, even us here at Celebration, that we will even be beside them as they begin this journey, God.

But God, I pray right now, God, that you do an amazing work in each and every last one of them.

And God, that they know that this is truly the best decision that they made.

So from this day forward, God, I pray your grace, your mercy over their life, God, and I pray that you will continue to build them and lift them and allow them, God, to be influencers in their community, to be able to take you every single place they go, that they can reflect you to the nation.

So, God, I pray in Jesus' name, God, that you keep them, that you guide them, that you protect them.

And God, all of heaven gets happy when one comes to you.

And so, God, we have a room with many.

And so, God, we thank you for that.

We thank you for their lives, we thank you for the devotion, and we thank you for your presence.

So, God, we love you and we praise you.

Come on, church, we all can stand and give God some praise for what he did today in the lives of these people who decided to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Well, church, let's go back into worship one more time before we head on out.

And I'll pray for us real quick.

God, we love you and we praise you.

God, thank you for what you did in this place, God.

Thank you for how you move.

Thank you for how you continuously move.

And so, God, we love you and we praise you in Jesus' name.

Let's worship, church.

Thanks again for listening.

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