WHAT DOES GOD WANT? - Week 03

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.

God bless you guys.

You can all take your seats.

Thank you so much for worshiping with us today.

I am truly excited for what I truly believe is going to be a powerful moment of us gathering together in the name of Jesus.

If you've been with us for the past couple of weeks, we've been in this series called What Does God Want?

And over the past couple of weeks, as we've been unpacking this simple question, but I think it's one that will lead us on a lifetime of pursuing answers, we've come to the revelation that God ultimately wants family.

At the end of the day, God he wants family.

We see instances in scripture where he's referred to as our Father.

We see that we're his children, and God just wants us to take our rightful place and be effective imagers of him, modeling him and representing him everywhere that we go.

But in addition to God wanting us to be whole and all those beautiful things, we know that God wants us to experience freedom.

He doesn't want us to be bound.

He doesn't want us to find ourselves in conditions of bondage and to be fragmented.

So last week we talked with our global senior pastor about the importance of freedom and wholeness.

And it was such a powerful conversation.

If you didn't catch it, I want to encourage you to go back and check it out.

But today, as we prepare to conclude this series, I'm excited to talk about this last thing that I think is incredibly important for all of us.

And this is the answer.

God wants his family to participate.

You see, one of our values here at Celebration is that we don't spectate, we participate.

We are a culture of participators.

We recognize that we don't come into any environment where we're talking about Jesus and we sit back and just receive it.

We actually participate.

We say amen when a preacher's talking.

Come on, somebody.

We're saying amen in the chat when the preacher's talking.

We're engaging.

We believe that God is calling us to participate.

As a father, I gotta tell you, like, I love when I get my family together, but they participate in family discussions.

It means the world to me when we're all sitting together, whether it's a road trip or or playing a game of Uno, in which I dominate every time.

I love when they participate, even if they're heartbroken.

And I love those moments when we participate.

So imagine our Heavenly Father, when you consider the fact that He saves us from our brokenness.

We just got to finish singing about it.

When we think about our Heavenly Father and how He invites us to be a part of this family, when we often can sit back and just keep our arms folded.

Not participating.

God wants his family to participate.

And I have a passage of scripture that I that I think can be encouraging for us.

So if you have your Bibles, I want to invite you to join me in the book of Judges, chapter six.

If you've been around church for any period of time, you may be familiar with this passage, but my hope is that today we're gonna approach it a little bit differently.

While we're turning there, I want to give us just a little bit of context so we can understand what we find ourselves discussing today.

Ultimately, it's a it's a powerful narrative where we find that the children of Israel are having a tough go again.

Are you guys noticing the pattern here where it seems like every time something happens with the children of Israel where they move forward, chaos seems to find them, and that's exactly what they find themselves in.

As a result of their own rebellion, God's kind of backed away and kind of let them live with the consequences of their choices.

So they're being they're being attacked by the Midianites.

And the Midianites are a raw group of people.

Like every time the children of Israel would like plant their harvest and they were ready for them to actually reap from the harvest, the Midianites would just kind of ride in like a bunch of raiders, take away everything they had, and just kind of leave them with the scraps.

Just leave them with just enough to survive.

And so they're in this really broken, desolate place just trying to survive.

They were being bullied by the Midianites, or like I'd like to put it this way: they were being bullied by the aftermath of their own decisions.

These are decisions that we made, but now those decisions came to keep coming back and haunting us over and over again.

And it's with that understanding we find ourselves looking here at Judges chapter 6, verse number 11.

Judges 6 · chapter mention

The Bible says this.

It says, Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terabith tree at Ophrah, not Oprah, Ophrah, at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abizarite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to hide from the Midianites.

He was in a different place, doing something that he shouldn't be doing there, but he was just hiding, which means that there is a lot of fear.

Keep that as a bookmark as we talk through this a little bit more.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.

Consider for a moment that you are, that you are hiding out, trying to stay away from the enemy because you're filled with fear.

And then God shows up and says, The Lord is with you, mighty man of valor.

What do you do when God shows up and his word is completely contrary to the reality you find yourself in?

Joah, I mean, um, Gideon is in this space where he's like, Man, you got the wrong dude.

So what it says here at verse number 13, and Gideon said to him, Please, my Lord, almost like this, come on, dude, like you're missing it.

He said, Please, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all of this happened to us?

And where are all his wonderful deeds from our fathers?

I don't know why.

I just kind of imagined Gideon kind of like moving his neck back and forth.

I don't I don't know why, but just in my mind, in my translation of the Bible, I just see Gideon like, and where is all the stuff that God said he was gonna do?

I don't know.

I just turned it to Mike Sathall for a moment.

Anyway, it says that he recounted um to us, saying, Did not the Lord bring us out of Egypt?

But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.

And the Lord turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian.

Do I not send you?

In other words, he's saying, I'm sending you, so you're gonna be okay.

And he said to him, Please, Lord, how shall I save Israel?

Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least of my father's house.

And the Lord said to him, I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midians as one man.

I believe that there are moments where God gives us such an overwhelming assignment that it transcends our abilities.

We see here that Gideon is at this spot where God steps into his world and is inviting him to participate in advancing the kingdom of God.

And Gideon is saying, Listen, I am the smallest person in the smallest clan.

Of all the people you could have chosen, you've got the wrong person.

In other words, my contribution or my participation will be so small it will not significantly move the needle.

I think sometimes we can find ourselves looking at our scenario and think about things that God is inviting us to participate in and say to ourselves, man, you you got the wrong person.

We can recognize that the size of the thing that we're asked to step into and compare it to our shoe size and conclude, I can't fit this.

This this is something that is way bigger than me, it's way beyond me.

But but I want to encourage us today.

The Bible says this in Psalm 37, 23, it says that the steps of a good person is ordered by the Lord.

Be encouraged in this that if God is asking you to step into it, he's gonna definitely lead you through it.

And what we see in this passage, and as we're gonna see in the subsequent scriptures to come, that God is gonna use Midian to do some incredible things.

But let's let's talk for a second.

Because maybe you've been at a place like I have where you've ever asked yourself, How did I get here?

Like, honestly asking, how did we get here?

Now, for the most part, we tend to ask that question when something bad happens.

You find yourself in a bad situation, you're like, man, how did how do we get here?

How did that work out?

And I understand that.

We want to kind of reverse engineer it and make sure that we don't make the same mistakes.

But in other instances, it's good to also say, When things go good, man, how did I get here?

What are some things that I've done and where I've seen God show up?

So it's good to do it on both ends of the spectrum.

You know, when I when I think about my own life, I remember when I moved to Florida um about 15 years ago.

Many of you guys know that I'm from um the Northeast.

Fly Eagles Five, baby, it's gonna definitely be a strong season, but we will win victoriously because eagles are in the Bible.

Anyway, many of you guys know that I'm from um the Northeast.

And so when I moved to Florida, um I moved from a small church, just a small, powerful church.

But if I can be honest, when I left that church, my wife and I, our family was deeply involved in it.

I mean heavily involved in it.

So when we left there, we we left a little bit wounded.

We we left with a little bit of church hurt, as we call it.

We left with like just just feeling some type of way.

Not about God, not about the kingdom, but just about church a little bit.

So when we left, we kind of wanted to get to a place where we could just kind of relax, come to church, and not have to overly get involved.

Some of y'all probably know what I'm talking about, where it's like, man, I just want to show up, sit in the back row, and dip out.

I don't want to worry about if I don't show up somebody calling me, because that's kind of how it was in my old church.

Like at my old church, you miss one week, you've lost your salvation.

Like it was serious.

So I remember the weight of that.

So I just wanted to go to a church where I could just show up and chill.

And so I was invited to come to Celebration Church from a coworker.

And I remember when I first showed up, showed up, I showed up and I had on a pair of like pleated slacks, like a tucked-in shirt.

I think I might have even had a tie on.

Perhaps I had a top hat on.

I don't know.

I can't remember.

But I remember showing up and looking around, and I'm seeing people with cut-off shorts and flip-flops and all types of stuff.

And I'm like, this is a cult.

But but I didn't I didn't understand it, but I saw how comfortable everybody was.

As I my family and I began to sit back and watch the services, we really found ourselves loving this incredible environment where it seemed as if you were welcome no matter what your background was, and and coming from a peep a bunch of people that had come from a legalistic environment, it was just great to be in an environment where you just felt loved and appreciated just for where you are.

Well, we probably rode that wave for maybe about a year or so.

That sounds about right, right, Daniel?

About a year or so.

About a year or so, we rode that wave of just showing up, going home, and living our best life.

But then there was this moment where our our global senior pastor, Pastor Stovall, he's he's preaching about the importance of getting involved in church.

You know, and as a pastor, I understand that.

So he has like these three points, and he talks about the importance of giving.

God help us.

As a pastor, I get it.

It's such an uncomfortable topic.

So I'm sitting there filled with my church hurt.

The pastor gets up and he begins to talk about the importance of giving.

I'm like, of course you are.

And so I'm listening to the message, and it's actually really good.

It's not even about the money, it's about prioritizing things and really putting God first in every area of your life.

So he's talking about giving, he's talking about the importance of getting involved in community, and then he begins to talk about the importance of serving.

Actually serving, showing up and knowing that you can make a difference.

Now you have to understand that that the church that I was attending, it was thousands of people there.

So I'm thinking to myself, how can I make a difference in an environment that's filled with thousands of people?

And from what I can see, they got enough people already.

So I sat there with my arms folded.

Kind of like run DMC a little bit.

Just a little bit.

Might have even rocked with it.

But but but watch this.

But my family, they grabbed a hold of it.

Megan grabbed a hold of it.

She started serving in kids, took De Niro with her.

De Niro was probably like seven or eight.

I don't know why anyone would give her a baby, but she was serving in kids with her.

My son, Keith Jr., he was working out in the parking lot.

He's probably like 14 years old.

And I was sitting in the back seats with my arms folded because I was thinking, I don't, I don't have anything to give.

I was still dealing with the wounds that I experienced from my previous church.

I don't want to get involved.

The next week, Pastor continued to talk about the importance of getting involved or participating.

And once again, I'm like, man, I just, I'm not ready for that.

So I made this promise to God.

I said, God, if you really want me to get involved, you are going to allow someone to personally come up and ask me to serve.

As if hearing Pastor Stovall and his hoarse voice with that big vein coming out of his neck.

If that wasn't good enough, I said, I needed a personal invite.

You know, creating a situation where I believed that God would never show up.

And lo and behold, literally sitting in the very back row, somebody walked by me, stopped, and turned around and said, Hey man, I feel like God's telling me that it's time for you to get off the bench and start serving.

I ran out of excuses, guys.

I told God that I would get involved if someone gave me a personal invitation and God met me exactly where I was.

I began to serve as an usher.

And as I began to serve as an usher, I got connected to the community and friends, and it led to so many dynamic relationships that I could spend the rest of this sermon talking about how it transformed my life, and I can't help but to think that I was sitting back thinking, what my small contribution will do for a church like this, but somehow God sought me out.

He found me and invited me to participate in the work that He was doing.

You know, I I think that through the years of me serving and being involved in ministry, I've concluded this one thing that small acts of obedience leads to large kingdom impact.

That small acts of obedience leads to large kingdom impact.

See, often we find ourselves wanting to jump to the end of a movie, but we forget all the scenes that led up to why that last scene is so powerful.

Let me give you an example here, because it's it's it's fitting here.

I'm I'm a big fan of The Matrix.

Come on, somebody.

I see somebody give me a thumbs up in the back.

You're now officially my favorite person.

If you're if you're down with the matrix, put it in the chat.

If not, log off.

Um but but I'm a big fan of The Matrix.

And so I remember when I watched The Matrix and just seeing it.

Now, spoiler alert, I'm about to give you guys some information about the first Matrix.

It came out in 1999.

If you hadn't seen it, you might not be saved, but you've been warned.

Okay, so there's a scene at the very end where Neo, the main character, he dies, but he rises back up to life.

It's such a poetically powerful moment.

It's so epic.

Now, I could show up at any given moment and see that scene and be moved by it.

He he kind of like gets up.

Like the way that he gets up is just oh, he just kind of gets up and he just breathes real deep.

Like it's just it's just a powerful moment.

But what makes the moment more powerful is when you rewind the movie and understand the context that he had doubt the entire way.

When he was at this place where he didn't believe in himself, he didn't think that he actually could make a difference.

But then somehow, when he gave up his life, he was risen up in the newness of life.

Come on, the matrix preaches itself.

I'm just trying to tell you that he actually had to die in order for him to be raised up in the fullness of his purpose.

Now do you guys understand why I love the matrix so much?

But here's the thing: I think that we are so in love with the scenes of resurrection, but we hate the part where we have to give up our lives in order to get it.

Say it again.

Amen.

We love the end result.

We love the idea of the glorification from resurrection, but we lose sight of the contribution that we have to have with our lives by laying our lives down in order for that to be possible.

Paul tells us this way I die daily.

And every time we contribute to the kingdom, that's a part of us that's dying for the benefit of others.

Every time that we participate in advancing the gospel in any way whatsoever, it's a part of ourselves that are that are dying to ourselves so that someone else can benefit from it.

Small acts of obedience leads to large kingdom impact.

See, when we look at the life of Gideon, his his assignment was something that was massive.

He said that I belong to the smallest tribe and I'm the smallest in that tribe.

He felt that his contribution was so small that there was no way that he could actually make a difference.

Interestingly enough, God kind of recognizes it, God observes the facts, but he does, he also understands that it's not the truth.

Let me say that again.

You God may acknowledge the facts, but that doesn't mean that it's a representation of the truth.

So when Gideon said that I am the smallest dude in the smallest clam, God said, Yeah, that's the facts.

But the truth is you have a big God that is with you.

I wonder if we could begin to shift our posture from looking at how small we are and start actually acknowledging how big our God is.

The fact of the matter is you may be facing some obstacles, but the truth is the Bible declares that God will never leave you nor forsake you.

And if we could be a group of people that began to orient our lives in such a way that I'm not obsessed about how small I am, but I'm keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus because I see how big He is, it'll allow us to have the courage to participate.

I have I have three points.

Three super simple points that I think can help us to grab a hold of this idea of how we can participate in advancing the kingdom of God.

Here's the first way that we can participate.

We can give.

And when I say give, this is what I mean by give.

We can give our time, we can give our talents, we can give our treasure.

You guys have heard that.

We can give of what God has given us, this time.

We can surrender some time, we can give our talents, the gift sets that God has given us.

As I look around this room and I see people who are gifted at audio and visuals and all the cameras in here, people are giving of their time and their talents, but it also knows that we can give of our treasures.

See, what the Bible tells us is that after Gideon has this exchange with the angel of the Lord, with Yahweh, he says this in verse number 18 Please do not depart from here until I come and bring my present and set it before you.

And he said, I will stay until you return.

See, Gideon wanted a little bit of proof.

He wanted to be able to go and prepare something and present it to kind of see how God was going to receive it.

See, Gideon was filled with doubts.

And it's important for me to help us to understand this.

God can handle our doubts as long as we're putting our doubts in the hands of God.

God can handle our doubts as long as we're putting our doubts into the hands of God.

So often we find ourselves wrestling with things and experiencing doubt, but we end up talking about it with people who are doubting as well.

How can I wrestle forward?

How can I move forward if I'm talking to a person who is just angry and frustrated and bitter as I am?

The Bible says that the blind follows the blind, he falls himself into a ditch, right?

If we find ourselves following people who have the exact same brokenness and struggles that we are, how are we ever going to get out of this redundant cycle?

What he did is he took his doubts and he put it into the hands of God.

And I want to encourage somebody right now that maybe you're experiencing doubt, maybe you're experiencing frustration.

Take it and put it into the hands of God because God can help you to move forward instead of something that's going to hold you back.

Gideon takes it and he puts it into the hands of God.

But what I love is that when Gideon comes in and presents it, he is told to put it on the rock, to take this offering that required time, his talent, and it was a representation of his treasure.

He was told to take it and put it and place it on the rock.

See, there's a theme that begins to emerge in scriptures when we talk about the importance of placing things on the rock.

Jesus Christ is the rock of our salvation.

He's the chief cornerstone, the one that the builders rejected.

We see this theme emerge in scripture of how we know that Jesus is indeed the rock.

See, what you what you place, what you build your life on is what you're going to be able to stand on.

What you build on is what you're going to be able to stand on.

And I love what it says here in Matthew chapter 7, verse 24, and it says that, and when everyone hears these words of mine and does them, he will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Matthew 7:24

And when the rain fell and the floods came and the winds beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it was founded on the rock.

My question for us today is are we participating?

What are we giving to?

What are we giving our time to?

Is it founded on the rock?

What are we giving our energy to?

Is it founded on the rock?

What are we giving our resources to?

Is it founded on the rock?

Because what the Bible says is any place that we give it, if it's not founded on the rock or the foundation of Jesus, that when the wind comes and they will come, that when a storm comes and it will come, that when the rain comes, because it will come, that if it's not founded on the rock, it's gonna actually sink.

The importance of the way that we participate is beginning to invest in the places that invest in us.

Invest in the things that we know that invest in us.

And what Gideon did in this moment, he took the very little resources that he had and he decided to place it in front of God and placed it on the rock.

I believe that God is challenging some of us right now to begin to place our trust on the rock, begin to place our time on the rock, begin to place our talents on the rock and begin to participate in advancing the kingdom of God.

What you build on will be what you stand on.

The second thought that I want to share with us is go.

Two-letter word, but I think it is so powerful.

Go.

See, Gideon issued a test.

So God issued one.

Gideon said, Hey God, if you're really, if you're really in all of this, then I'm gonna present an offering to you and I'm gonna see how you receive it.

In other words, I want to be blessed as a result of what I give you.

God showed up and did it.

But now on the other side, God said, now that we have this whole thing down, I have a test for you.

I want you to go and do something for me now.

You see, I think a lot of times we forget that trust is a two-way street.

We find ourselves saying, I'm struggling to trust God, but we haven't asked the question, can God trust me?

I'm struggling to trust God with my resources, but can God trust you with more resources?

I'm struggling to trust God in certain areas of my life, and God's saying, How can I enhance your life if you haven't been a faithful steward of what you already have?

God wants to know, are you willing to lay it down and present it to me?

He tells him, I want you to go to your father's house and tear down the altars.

They had a lot of pagan worship back then, and so he said, I want you to go to your father's house as a test and tear down these altars.

Now, this is a little bit scary for Gideon because like he was raised in a household where these false idols were the things that the people in the community worship.

But God was testing him and saying, I want you to go and tear it down.

Isn't it interesting how sometimes our biggest tests are the ones that are right in our home?

That sometimes the biggest obstacles and barriers that we got to deal with are right in our homes.

That Gideon had to go into his home and begin to tear down the strongholds that were a representation of being anti God.

What are the things in the strongholds and the barriers that maybe you were raised with that God is saying it's time for you to tear it down?

See, when you tear down something that is dedicated to A false God or to an idol, it becomes an opportunity for us to worship.

He was instructed to tear down that stronghold and replace it with honoring God with it.

I believe that when God comes into our households, he's saying, I want to make sure that this house is a place that my presence can rest.

What are the strongholds?

What are the things that are keeping God from really flowing freely in our homes?

This is why we talk about the importance of the priesthood of the believer here at Celebration Church, us taking our rightful place and knowing that our homes are supposed to be houses of prayer.

We're not supposed to exclusively just do it in the church building, but we're called to be people that represent God in our homes.

And I believe that for many of us that are struggling in our households right now, what would happen if we truly began to pray inside of our homes?

What would happen if we began to really praise God inside of our homes?

I can tell you what happens.

The strongholds that have been set up there will begin to get torn down.

God will begin to move and do some powerful things, so he's told to go and tear down these strongholds.

So at this point, this trust thing is really beginning to be established.

See, that's my that's my third point, is that not only is he is he sent out to do these incredible things, but he is now in a place where he can trust God.

I can trust you, God.

I can trust you because of what I've seen you do.

And what I think that we need to do is begin to posture ourselves in such a way where we can begin to trust God with the results.

Far too often we're given an assignment and we're trying to manufacture the results as we go, but but Paul says that one plant another waters, but God's the one who adds the increase.

I wonder what our life would look like if we began to just be obedient and trust God with the results.

See, Gideon had trusted God because of what he had seen, and now he was in a place where he was gonna have to trust him with the unseen.

So Gideon gathers an army of 32,000 men.

And God's like, nah, man, that's too many.

Technically it wasn't enough.

But God said, nah, that's too many.

If you if you do it with that and you guys are victorious, you're gonna think it was your strategy, you're gonna think it was your skill.

So I need you to I need you to knock that number down.

So Gideon says, okay, if you're afraid, go home.

Man, all these guys dip out, and now we're left with 10,000.

And so now we're left with these 10,000, and Gideon's like, okay, I could work with this, and God says, nah, man, that's still too many.

Now, I'm not sure what your relationship with God is like, but I'm like, man, I didn't hear you.

We're gonna go ahead and move with this 10,000.

That's just that's how I'm set up.

But he's in this spot where God says, nah, that 10,000 is too many.

So what I want you to do is I want you just to watch their posture, and that'll determine the ones who are with you.

Somebody didn't catch that.

Watch their posture, and that will determine the ones who are truly with you.

Just because somebody's behind you doesn't mean they got your back.

Just because somebody is in a position where they can cheer you on doesn't mean that they're ready to help push you over that hurdle.

See, I'd much rather have 300 people that truly have my back than 10,000 who were in a perfect position to stab me in it.

So, what the Bible tells us is that God was teaching Gideon this powerful lesson that I need you to depend on me more than anything else and watch the posture of the people around you.

I think that some of us can find ourselves at a place where we're so busy counting what we don't have and we lose sight of what we do have.

Because what I can tell you that 300 with God is more powerful than 32,000 without him.

And what I could tell you is right now you may be thinking to yourself, I wish I had more friends, I wish I had more people in my circle, but maybe God is saying that we need to limit your circle a little bit because you can go so much further for people that really do love you than people who are trying to hold you back.

I don't know who I'm talking to right now, but I feel like some of us are grieving the loss of some people, and I understand that that's a real thing.

But I think it's time for us to get up and recognize those who still are.

I believe that God is beginning to position people around us that can help us to begin to move forward.

Their posture is the very thing that disqualified them.

And the Bible says that Gideon trusted God because of what he had seen, but now he had to trust him with something that was unseen.

See, the book of Judges tells us that Gideon has these 300 men, and he separates them into a group of threes.

100 over here, 100 over there, and 100 over there.

And they position themselves around the Midian camp.

And the only thing that was presented to these men was a trumpet, an empty vessel with a torch on the inside of it.

That's not the type of thing that you typically would use when you're about to go to war, not to mention with only 300 people.

A trumpet, not a saxophone, not a flute, a trumpet, a vessel with a torch on the inside of it.

I wish I had the time to unpack it all, but let me let me give you the accelerated version.

See, the trumpet was going to be a sound that they would blow to let the enemy know that we are about to attack.

Now, the the the vessel was basically used to hide the flame that was on the inside.

So if they had the flames out, then it would be recognized from the distance.

So as they were creeping up on the enemy, they had the fire on the inside, but the enemy couldn't see it.

You know what I'm saying?

I'll preach this thing if y'all let me.

I'll go.

I'm already two minutes in the red.

But there was a fire on the inside, but the enemy couldn't see it.

Jeremiah says it's like fire shut up in my bones.

It's talking about how we have this passion on the inside of us, and we're wondering when am I gonna begin to step into the things that God has shown me in my dreams?

When am I gonna be able to walk this thing out?

But how about God is keeping that thing smoldering on the inside so that at the right moment, that when you let out a proper shout, that you're able to put the enemy in such a confused condition that he literally begins to make war with himself.

What if the intent is never for you to lift a single finger, but the enemy is gonna be defeated because God's gonna do all the work?

The Bible says that when Gideon and his men yelled out and they cracked the vessels and the fire came out, that the enemy was so confused that they literally began to fight against themselves.

I know that we may not have the ingredients right now, but I believe we have the symbols of it where it says that we have trumpets, which means praise.

That means we have vessels, which is who we are, and there's a fire on the inside of us.

And if we can yield ourselves into the mighty hand of God, I'm a firm believer that when that fire ignites, it confuses the enemy when we worship God in the midst of a pandemic.

It confuses the enemy when we give God praise when it doesn't know when our next meal is coming from.

It confuses the enemy when we're giving God praise when our marriage is in a tough spot.

I want to help encourage you right now.

You have exactly what you need to defeat the enemy.

You may feel like you only have the 300.

You may feel like you've lost a lot, but you still got your praise, you still got a willing vessel, and you still got the fire of God on the inside of you.

And if you can surrender it all to God right now, I truly believe that you can ignite a flame that can sit the enemy aflight.

That is what God has instructed us to do, is to be vessels who are completely yielded to God.

See, when we when we allow ourselves to be surrendered into the hands of God, it's amazing what he can do.

I'm gonna ask the worship team to come back up here and and join us as um we prepare to wrap up.

You know, um, just a few months ago, we moved here to Orlando and we had some friends come and visit us.

And when they came over to hang out with us, this is all pre-pandemic, so I guess it's probably about a year ago now.

They they came over and when they were we were all hanging out, and and he began to tell me a story.

He said, Hey man, do you know that um man, I I used to be in a bad way.

I I was really in a bad way.

I'm like, okay.

So he begins to tell me his testimony.

I was completely unfamiliar with it.

He tells me how, man, like I you know, I was I was in Iraq, man, I went to war, I saw some things, man, and it it really it really messed with me.

So when I came back, like my my life was in shambles.

My marriage was in shambles, and I I was at a place where I just wanted to end it.

And I said, end what?

My marriage, my life.

I was just at a place of complete desperation.

And I said, man, what what turned it around?

Like, what happened?

You would never guess that this guy was even remotely struggling with anything, the joy that he has.

But what he said to me is like, man, like my wife, she, as a as a last ditch effort, she said, like, like, hey, this isn't working out, but I don't know, like, let's just let's just go to church one last time.

Let's just go to church one last time, and after that, you go your separate way, I go my separate way, and and it is what it is.

So he reluctantly agreed.

He sat in the very back row with his arms folded, similar to how I was.

He began to talk about how this fast-speaking preacher was on platform and how he was trying to keep up, but he really related to it.

He responded to the altar call and he and he felt like God ignited something on the inside of him.

He began to surround himself with a community.

His marriage was strong and it began to thrive, and so he equated all two when he came yes, when he said yes and came to church, and when he heard a message that it seemed as if it was geared straight for him, he still remembered the message title and it says stalled but not stranded.

That sounded very familiar because that was a message that I had spoken before.

And he said, Yes, Keith, I am here.

Because of the message that you spoke, I planned on taking my life.

I I have enough discernment to know that it wasn't about me.

I began to think back to the moment when I preached that message and I didn't even feel like it was my best.

It was a moment when I when I was exhausted, it was a moment when I felt like what I had didn't make a difference.

But I can't help but to think how God can use surrendered vessels to truly make a difference.

But for me, it's so much deeper than that.

Because I remember that just saying yes to the right things leads you to Kingdom Impact.

I said yes back to serving at our church as an usher, and I began to find community.

I said yes to go to my first community group, Financial Peace University.

Shout out Dave Ramsey.

I went, found community, and learned the power of being around other people.

I began to participate.

I said yes when someone invited me to come to an outreach one day, and I and I met a pastor at the church who had invited me to come and serve with him and students.

I said yes.

I said yes to making a difference in the lives of people.

I don't even know how I got here, but I just I just said yes.

After that, I found myself saying yes to other things, saying yes to coming on staff and serving as a group's pastor.

I said yes to being a next gen pastor.

I said yes to a preaching assignment that I didn't want to do, but it was when I was in that room and I preached that message that a person who was about to say no said yes.

Please don't tell me that you don't have something to contribute.

You'd be amazed at when you say yes to something that seems so small, how it can have significant kingdom impact.

You'd be amazed at how when the little that you do have and you contributed to the kingdom, how it can have kingdom impact.

When you show up at the community group and begin to find yourself participating in community, the impact that it can have.

When I look at the life of Gideon, he's a man that had very little, but he had massive kingdom impact.

And I believe that all of our lives are situated with little small moments where we said yes, but God was able to use it to do some incredibly powerful things.

But the yes that maybe you need to make is simply saying yes to God.

I believe that right now the Holy Spirit is stirring some of us, and and for some of us, he's nudging us to get involved in and community.

Guess what?

I think today is groups launched.

Come on, Nate.

Don't resist it anymore.

Say yes, you never know what God will do with it.

I believe that God is leading us to participate.

For some of us, that yes might be to truly trust God and with our resources and putting them on the rock.

It's it's scary, it's uncomfortable, but do it afraid, and you'll be amazed what God will do with it.

But for some of us, we just need to say yes with our lives.

Right now, you may be away from God.

And if that's you, I want to talk to you for just a moment.

You may feel like you don't have a lot to offer, you may feel like your life doesn't make a difference, but we have a God who will pursue you no matter where you are.

And I believe that today is the day of salvation.

So if that's you, and you know that your next step is simply to say yes to Jesus, I want you to posture your heart.

I want you to pray this prayer with me, and then we're gonna go back into a song of worship.

But I want you to lean into this moment and to repeat after me, Lord, I give you my life.

I believe that you died on the cross and that you rose from the dead, and it's because of that belief I am saved.

Fill me with your spirit and order my steps.

I say yes to you in Jesus' name.

If that's you, I want you to I want to celebrate with you first and foremost.

We have a great team that wants to connect with you.

Pastor Mike's gonna come up and share some next steps with you.

But before we go, I want to seal this out with a time of worship.

So can we all stand on our feet, prepare to go back just into a time of worship and really sealing in what we believe that God has done?

Holy Spirit, we thank you.

We thank you, God, that in moments where we can come together and gather, God, that you are that you are with us.

So, Father, I pray for the Gideons amongst us, God, who feel the smallest and we have the least, but yet you're asking us to say yes.

You're asking us to participate.

So, Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray that you order our steps.

You give us the boldness, you give us the strength.

We will trust you with the results in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let's worship together, church.

Church.

If you're not excited about participating and what God is doing next, I don't know how else to get you excited about it.

Pastor Keep totally wrecked the house with that one.

And so there's so many nuggets.

I'm gonna have to probably watch it about a good five times just to make sure I can jot down all the notes.

Hey, see, see, look, and hey, I just got erased, y'all didn't know that yet.

Hey, listen, we're so excited for you, especially if you decided to receive Christ and if you made that decision, make sure you text the word decide to 25101.

Pastor Keith is right.

We want to celebrate with you, but we also want to make sure that you have the proper tools in the community around you that can grow your faith stronger.

So, again, we've got groups launching, and so that was a great plug.

We got groups launching, so participate in what the church is doing, participate in what our community is doing right here in Orlando.

So make sure you join a group and not only join a group, but if you have decided today that you want to follow Jesus, then foundations is just for you.

And maybe you've never done the foundations or even know what that is.

We have four distinct classes that can that will come alongside you.

We'll be able to give you all the tools, all the resources that you will need in order for you to follow uh this journey that God has you on, in order for you to understand what that is to be in God's family.

So, hey church, we love you so much, and we can't wait to see you next week.

Thanks again for listening.

We hope you enjoyed today's message.

We'd love for you to subscribe to our podcast and review and share what you heard today.

If you'd like more content like this, or you'd like to connect with us, go to celebrationorl.org.

We hope you join us next time.