Hidden | Pastor Maegan Pittman

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you so much for listening today.

We hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Here's today's message.

Oh, stop it, stop it.

Don't make me cry.

I just put my makeup on.

This is this won't end well.

Have a seat, you guys.

I'm so, so glad you guys are here.

Um I'm honored that God will see fit for me to speak a message to his people.

So I thank you for each and every person that is here today.

Um, if it's your first time here, we're so glad you're here.

I have my friend Erica who came all the way from DC, so it's her first time here.

Um, but I am blessed to be in this house.

So if you have your Bibles, please turn to Genesis 3.

We're gonna go Old Testament today.

All right, and while you're turning air, I'm gonna give you a uh a background about what's going on.

God has created his like finished work.

Um, Adam and Eve have been given their assignments to be fruitful and to multiply.

And in Genesis 22, 24, it says that you know, it reveals that God, um, that Adam and Eve were naked and ashamed.

They were naked and ashamed.

Naked means that you're exposed, you're vulnerable, you're unhidden.

And so when the serpent arrives, he tricks Adam and Eve into doing the very thing that God told them not to do.

And so in Genesis 33, in Genesis 3, 7 through 11, it says, At the moment their eyes were opened, and suddenly they felt shame at their nakedness.

So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

And when the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord and he was walking in the garden.

So they hid from the Lord, God among the trees.

And the Lord called unto the man and said, Where are you?

And he replied, I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid.

I was afraid because I was naked.

Who told you you were naked?

The Lord God asked, Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?

Man, isn't that something?

When our Father comes to us to correct us from something that he tells us not to do.

And so I just wanted to emphasize some of the words that were in that passage.

Their eyes were opened, they felt shame, they covered themselves, and they hid from God.

I want to spend some time today talking about the things in our lives that we hide from.

And I messaged, I titled this message Hidden.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for today.

I thank you for your word that you are gonna pour into our hearts.

Help us to have eyes to see you, ears to hear you, Lord God, and help us to transform our lives from this day forward.

It's in your name that we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

So I have to tell you, we're always telling stories about ourselves because our life is a comedy.

And so for Keith and I, we love love binge watching TV.

Anyone else, we love binge watching TV shows on Netflix and that stuff.

And so sometimes we'll get like a show that's like really well written.

And um one day, one particular day, we just had an accidental, I call it accidental TV Marathon Day.

And let me tell you, it started from like 10 a.m.

to like 1 a.m.

And I was like, oh my gosh, how did we get here?

But it was like they it kept left leaving us with like clip hangers and stuff like that.

And you're like, oh my gosh, I just need to know what happens on the next part.

And before you know it, we realized it was like 4 a.m., y'all.

Like 4 a.m.

I was like, what is happening with our life?

We just threw our life away.

Jesus, we're so sorry.

And um, and so, you know, only to realize later after that, it was like 4 a.m.

So, you know, you go to sleep, and I was like, okay, yeah, I'm getting up.

It's like two to the alarm goes off, it's like two to three hours later.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, can I just be great and keep my eyelids closed?

I just want to be great today in my bed.

And um, and so once we realized that, we're like, oh my gosh, we have to go to church.

I'm like, oh my gosh, we have to go to church in a couple of minutes.

And and so I looked in the mirror and I saw these dark circles around my eyes, y'all.

It looked like I was either in a boxing match or I had an eye competition with some raccoons.

And so I was like, what is the first thing that I can do?

Well, one of the things that I can do is like grab some concealer.

Because we, you know, women, for us, we know that concealer, you know, hides the lines, it um it covers up the blemishes that we have, it also, you know, just covers up those dark circles, like those raccoon circles I had around my eyes.

And so a lot of times we're in um when we have these concealers, we're trying to hide our true selves from what is actually being seen.

And so with my daughter and I, we watch a lot of videos and stuff like that on makeup and how to make up our appearance.

But in society, we have conditioned, we have been conditioned to hide what we don't like.

We want to hide what we want people not to see.

The mask is what makes us vulnerable, exposing our fault flaws that we do have and all of us that we sometimes can feel.

And so our flaws serve as a highlighter to our insecurities.

We hide our blemishes, maybe it's not concealer, maybe it's eyeshadow, maybe it's all these other things that we try to hide from, and we use these tools and these meth methods to conceal what is actually underneath.

So we hide on social media, we hide our struggles, we hide our sins, we hide our insecurities, we hide even in our own relationships.

We hide when we get busy.

And I wonder if this season of quarantine was meant to get us to slow down so we can get comfortable in our sweats and take the makeup off, take off the concealer, and stop hiding which actually is going on.

And so we all have these hidden tendencies, myself included.

Um, we all had them, but I knew I was called to ministry.

I knew that God wanted me to share my experiences.

I knew he wanted me to use my voice for the kingdom, but guess what I did?

I hid.

So when my husband would ask me to do announcements, you can ask our staff.

I would I'd straight up and say, No, I'm not doing that.

And when he would ask me to preach, I said, absolutely not, and I'm not doing it today.

And then God, slowly but surely on my heart said, Are you gonna do what I'm calling you to do, or are you gonna do something that's opposite of that?

I tried to hide my gifts, I tried to hide my calling, I tried to hide everything.

I even tried to hide in plain sight, but the people around me could see the gifts in me and knew I was meant for more.

You know, and so when we do these things, we hide.

You know, that's our natural instinct, as Adam and Eve did, you know, even when they sit sinned or whatever, and they hid.

That is our natural instinct.

And so when I looked and evaluated my life, I said I can either choose to go God's way or choose to do it my own way.

And so a lot of times we don't feel confident when we have these insecurities and we have these fears and all that stuff.

And so when you're married, you you may um feel like you're not gonna be confident as a spouse.

When you're a parent, you feel like you may not be confident as a parent.

When you get a new job, you may feel like you don't have the skills, all the skills to be able to fulfill that new job.

But when God puts something in you, you have all that you need and he will work in and through you.

Amen.

You can clap for that.

So when we lack confidence, we often compare ourselves to others.

I hate social media sometimes.

I thank God that I have like a little ghost poster, somebody in this room, but I won't talk about it.

Um, because sometimes I get on there and it's it can pull you into comparing yourselves to others.

Um, it can say, oh, I don't do that with my family, or that person is so pretty, so much prettier than me.

And and we do those things, and then it gives us a lack of confidence.

So then what we what do we do?

We hide.

Um, the closest to me were showing me uh, you know, who I was, but I wasn't believing that in myself because I was comparing myself to my husband, who, man, he doesn't have to be married to his notes.

I'm gonna read my thing, but he can memorize it, and I would often compare myself to him or these wonderful, awesome pastors that speak that are women, and I'm like, they're so good.

But God doesn't call us to be perfect, he calls us to speak what he has given to us and what he has placed on the inside of us.

We all have a voice, we all have a testimony to share when it comes to God, so we don't have to have it all.

And so what we hide in our heart will manifest itself in our actions and our words.

What we hide in ourselves will manifest themselves in our actions and our words.

And so when I even when I was happy, I was hiding.

Even when I was praying, I was hiding.

I knew I was anointed, but I was hiding.

And I remembered what I hide in my heart will manifest itself in my actions and my words.

The words were no.

No, God, I don't want to do what you're calling me to do.

No, God, I don't feel comfortable doing those things.

And I had to build up confidence and saying, God, okay, I'm just gonna do it afraid.

I'm gonna do it afraid.

I'm not gonna hide anymore.

I'm just gonna come out here and do this and do what you're calling to um calling me to do because if I can share what you have done in my life, it is gonna be an encouragement to someone else.

Amen.

All right, so when I started looking up um what hiding means, I had you know multiple definitions that came up, and I heard and what it says was to prevent something, including oneself, from being seen or discovered, to conceal, to bury.

Hiding isn't anything new because in the ball in the Bible, even in the old and the New Testament, it's mentioned multiple times.

In scripture, it means seclusion, secrecy, undercover, under protection, and out of view.

It is while we're in this hidden place that we can be susceptible to attacks.

I read an article that said, when we isolate ourselves from others, we become more vulnerable to Satan's lies, keeping us in bondage to the very things we long to be free of.

I'm like, what?

You're speaking to me, Lord?

I just, you know, I thought that was something.

I'm gonna read it again because it was something that pierced my heart when I read it.

It was when we isolate ourselves from others, we become more vulnerable to Satan's lies, keeping us in bondage to the very things we long to be free of.

He is the father of lies and speaks to us when we're alone.

He's like a lion seeking who he may devour.

Um, Keith would always say this to me.

He would say, Um, you know that the aunt and the enemy is talking when he tries to talk the loudest.

And I'm like, you know what?

Let me make sure that I'm elevating God's voice over the voice of the enemy.

You know, the lions come in, they they come to stalk their prey.

And typically the ones that are most vulnerable, the ones that are by themselves, that's who he he he attacks first.

And so that's why community is so important, because people that know you and care for you and know your true potential will speak encouragement and in love even in your hidden seasons.

And what are the things that you are longing to be free from?

We all have something that we want to be free from uh when we're afraid, when we have fear, when we have shame.

Evaluate yourselves and ask God, search my heart and see what I what I need to be free from in this moment.

Perhaps your community is the key to open the door for deliverance in your life.

More often than not, we held hide because of the guilt, the shame, the insecurity, and the fears.

Genesis 38, 14 through 15 tells us the story of Tamar and how she hid her identity from Judah and she was fearful of being alone.

Elijah, a powerful um prophet that single-handedly defeated over 400 false prophets.

You know, he even had an incredible anointing and influence.

And he even tried to hide.

What I'm saying is, we all, even in the Bible, have taken moments to hide from certain things.

When we're tired and exhausted, we hide.

I believe sometimes we get tired and afraid to only want to escape the very thing that we're hiding from.

We can become numb in order to survive.

So sometimes we we just we won't deal with the issue and then we're dying slowly on the inside.

But God wants us to be whole, He does not want us to be in bondage, He doesn't want us to feel like we're we have joy because we have the joy of the Lord on the inside of us.

So when the enemy tries to come in, like a roaring lion seeking to devour you, you step up and you said, No, I know whose child I am.

My father has everything, he owns everything, he strengthens me.

He said he is for me, he's not against me like you are.

We need to trust in our heavenly father to get us through those moments where we want to hide those things.

King David is another one from the scripture who had his vow with hiding or being hidden.

Remember when he was anointed to become king?

His father thought so little of him that he didn't invite him to the party.

Can you imagine how that feels?

You know, some of those parties are the those weddings that you didn't get invited to.

You're like, okay, I didn't get invited, but I am family.

Are we really family though?

Um, so you know, I I can't imagine how he felt being out tending to everything else while everybody was at the table joining the party.

It is possible to be hidden in your own family and in proximity, not present.

He goes on to fight the giant Goliath and gains popularity, causing Saul to become jealous and trying to kill him.

So David ran and hid.

He was a man after God's own heart, but he hid.

He was a warrior, but he hid.

David is one of the most courageous men who have ever lived.

Yet he seems to spent a great deal of his time hiding from somebody.

And so we hide for self-preservation, we hide for survival, but even in hiding, God knows how to reach us.

David was hidden in his family, but God knew where to find him so that he could become king.

When David was hiding from Saul, God used those moments to produce powerful moments that gave birth to some of the most encouraging passages in the book of Psalms, such as Psalms 31, where he talks about God's faithfulness, and Psalms 34, where he talks about God's goodness, and Psalms 32 and 7, it says, You are a hiding place for me.

You preserve me from my trouble, you surround me with shouts of deliverance.

And even in this hiding place, David had a revelation of how good God is.

So even in those moments when you want to hide, think about all God's goodness.

Think about the times he delivered you from certain things.

Think about the things when he tried to come through in your life and he came out of nowhere, you needed a miracle, and he showed up.

Those are the things that we need to think of.

It says, think on these things, whatever is just, whatsoever is true, think on these things, all the positive things, because if we focus on the hard things, that's where the enemy wants to talk to us in that hidden place.

And so he wants to protect you, he wants to give you provision in the hidden places.

I want to encourage you, God is faithful, he knows how to protect you.

You may be hidden, but he'll provide you with hope and strength.

No matter where you are, God sees you, he hears you, and he is there with you.

And I love how God showed his reckless love by going to where they were, right in the moments of hiding, Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve enjoyed intimacy with God and one another without fear or shame.

And so then Satan enters the picture and he presents a scenario that would imply that God was hiding something from them.

And the enemy's biggest temptation for us is to convince us that God is holding back from us, and that's not God's best for us.

And so I want to give you two points.

When you are in the hidden place, the first point that I want to mention is to look to Jesus.

The text says that their eyes were open and they knew they were naked.

Again, we talked about naked means feeling exposed, feeling vulnerable.

But it's interesting that nothing really changed.

Nothing really changed.

They were created naked and without shame.

However, when they disobeyed, the vulnerability that was always there became clear.

You ever go somewhere and you're you're you're not prepared or you're underprepared?

Welcome to my husband's life.

If I could take a picture of his face in that moment, he was shocked.

I am the one that's overly prepared for trips.

I have everything, everything that he didn't think about, like toiletries and all that kind of stuff.

But Keith is always missing a belt, a coat, uh, some socks, extra.

I have the microphone now.

You've talked about me a plenty of times.

This is my time.

This is my time to shine.

Let me be great and sit down.

And so um one day he went to DC about a week ago, and um he didn't bring a coat and it was supposed to be warm, but as the day started coming down, he uh the temperature got cold.

And so now he was exposed and vulnerable and cold.

And in that moment, he had to either tap into how cold he was or the resources that were available to him, whether it was at a store or something like that, to be able to cover him up.

And so naturally, the covering did make him, not being covered, made him vulnerable to the cold in DC, which you know that 27-degree life, I don't know what Jesus was thinking about that, but um, I believe we're all vulnerable and have moments where we're completely exposed.

Moments when the elements of this world close in on us, moments when our eyes are opened, and in these moments we may make a choice what to focus on.

We can focus on the code or the coat that's available, um, or we can focus on other things instead of Jesus.

Adam and Eve's eyes were open, and they looked to their mistakes and their vulnerability and felt shame.

They felt shame.

However, the scripture tells us we are to look to Jesus.

I have been in moments where I can focus on it, on the situation, or I can focus on him.

I believe when we look to him even in our mistakes, we see his grace is sufficient.

Thank goodness for his grace, because we all need it sometimes.

I believe that when we look to him even in our mistakes, we can see that God is for us.

We can see that God has us covered.

He has us covered with joy for sorrow, covered with peace for chaos, covered with strength for weakness, covered with grace and mercy, covered with truth, covered with purpose.

Adam and Eve disobeyed, and now there was a separation from them and God, and they were vulnerable.

We fall short.

When we fall short, we take our eyes off of it, the situation, and we need to put it on him, our heavenly father.

And so our second point that we'll go into, you know, the first one was look to Jesus, and then next, don't try to fix it on your own.

How many of us try to fix our own problems without seeking God first?

No one no one put their hands up.

Like we we are alive, we do.

Trying to fix our own mistakes.

And that's one of the things that I had to learn was like, hey, let me just make sure, like, when I get to that point where I feel like I'm trying to cover up my mistakes, not to not admit it.

Like, let God know, like, I'm sorry, I'm trying to fix my own thing.

You're not going fast enough.

Like, God, God can handle what we're giving to him.

Um, we're not going fast enough.

But you know, we we want to leave it to God to be able to fix the things on our own.

So, for instance, Keith and I, um, I one day we had like one of our houses, and Keith and I are not handy, nor do we paint, we don't do any of those things.

And um, but we decided to get creative one day.

Do you remember that?

Um, you don't know yet, but I'm about to tell you.

So um, this was many years ago when accent walls started coming out and it started to be the it thing.

So we decided, oh, we're gonna paint this wall with Burgundy, and we're gonna do it by ourselves.

The non-handy ones around here.

And so, um, if y'all could have seen that wall, it was a mess.

It was a total mess.

It was uneven, blotchy, all this stuff.

But we tried to fix it on our own instead of leaving it to the experts, knowing that that was not a gift or a talent that God had given us.

And so I think that's what happens when we try to fix things outside of the experts or outside of God, is that we create more of a mess instead of going to the source first.

And so, even though they felt the show, the shame and the guilt, can you imagine the fear that they had to look their father in the eye and tell them what they had done?

Can you imagine having to admit something or to confess something to your heavenly father and have to tell him that knowing it's gonna break his heart?

And so the Bible says they get they try to get their fig leaves and cover their nakedness.

Does that sound familiar to us?

Whenever something is wrong, we try to fix it ourselves.

We come we become the patients and the doctors, don't we?

We diagnose and self-medicate.

Hello, that Google is not your friend when you have a symptom going on because you're like, do I have cancer?

I have this, I have that, oh my gosh, my life is falling apart.

But we try those things.

Fig leaves represent man trying to redeem himself.

We know that we're in a broken world, but we try to redeem it ourselves.

We lack peace, but we try to experience peace on our own.

Scripture says there's a way that seems right, but it falls short.

But is that God's way or is that your way?

Whatever we can't fix, we pack it up and hide it away.

So you know that drunk drawer you have in your house that you throw everything in?

Who has a drunk drawer?

I know everyone in here has a drunk drawer.

It's not it's not organized or anything like that.

But a lot of times we don't realize the value that's in that drunk drawer, right?

Even when there's a mess, there's value.

There's value underneath.

God still values us when we have, when we make a mistake, when we fall short.

So when you look to Jesus and you don't try to fix it on your own, it's now safe to come out of hiding.

We can't, you can't stay there.

You can't stay hidden.

God doesn't want you hidden.

So guess what?

He's gonna come to you.

So in Genesis 3, 8 through 10, it says they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees.

But the Lord called out to the man and said to him, Where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.

God was typically taking his normal stroll, you know, and he notices that Adam and Eve are not, he doesn't see them anywhere.

Um he's all knowing, so I'm sure he knew where they were hiding.

Um, but they were exposed and they were afraid, so they hid from God.

And it's interesting how we run from the very place we should run to.

We should run to God, but guess what they did?

Hid in the bushes.

Struggles at home, we run from home.

Issues at work, we run from work.

We're always looking for a way to escape.

We want to escape the discomfort.

No one wants to go through have pain.

We want to bypass that.

So, the beautiful thing is that our God loves us enough not to leave us where we are.

He pursues us.

By his grace, he calls to them.

He says, Where are you?

God doesn't ask a question for information, it's to bring us to revelation.

Where are you?

I've discovered a destination is hard to reach if you don't know where you are.

We have those map features.

The direction starts with, where you are.

God is calling us now and he's asking, where are you?

And once you can be real with where you are, then you can get clarity on how to get where you're called to go.

It's safe to come out of hiding.

And once they came out of hiding, he challenged them, he encouraged them, he put the enemy in his place, he pointed to Jesus.

It's safe to come out of hiding.

God is not done with you.

It's safe to come out of hiding.

He wants to replace the fig leaves with garments of righteousness.

It's safe to come out of hiding.

He wants to order your steps.

He has plans to prosper you, he has plans for your well-being to give you a future and a hope.

It is safe to come out of hiding.

He invites us to take off our masks so we can look into our faces and delight in us and learn from him and grow.

And when we're tempted to go back into hiding behind the masks of fear, hurt, and shame, he reminds us that he is our true hiding place.

And in him is the safest place.

We don't have to hide from it when we are hidden in him.

We can bring everything to him.

We don't have to hide from it that situation, that fear, that struggle when we are hidden in him.

I believe we all have areas that we can conceal for a variety of reasons.

Fame, excuse me, fear, shame, and insecurity.

But I believe God is calling us into the moment and asking, where are we?

Will we come out of hiding and allow him to bring us to a place of wholeness?

We don't have to hide from it that situation if we're hidden in him.

What are you hiding from today?

I want to pray for you guys.

Bow your heads.

So for the person who has been hiding from God, who doesn't know him, who has never known him, or you've been hiding, someone brought you to church and said, hey, come to my church.

I love my church.

We have fun at church, and you don't know God as your personal savior, can you lift up a hand?

Amen.

I'm speaking to a next group of people.

If you've been dealing with shame, fear, guilt, insecurities, hiding from God, hiding from what He's calling you to do.

And you need prayer today, please lift up a hand.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, let's pray.

Lord, I thank you for today.

I thank you for the people in this room who are hiding from you, whether it's shame, guilt, fear, whatever they're dealing with, and they're in their hidden place.

I pray that you break that off of them today.

I pray that you extend your grace and mercy, that you relieve those shackles off of them.

Your grace is sufficient.

I pray that you move them forward in what you've called them to do.

I pray that you lift them up and encourage them where they are, but you bring them out of the place where they cannot stay any longer.

Those hidden places close those doors right now in the name of Jesus.

Give them your love, touch their hearts, and from this day forward, we declare that they are free in your name.

For this salvation call for you who don't know Jesus, repeat these words and everyone else, repeat these words alongside them to help them walk this journey.

Lord, I give you my life.

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

Fill me with your spirit and order my steps.

It's in Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you decided to give your life to Christ, please make sure you let someone know.

We are so excited and we are celebrating alongside of you.

Heaven is rejoicing at the one.

And so we just want to honor you, let us know.

Um, but we are so thankful to each and every one of you.

I pray this word encouraged you.

It's in Jesus' name, amen.

Thanks again for listening.

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