WILD STANDARD: No Stone Unturned

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

We are so glad you've joined us and we hope you are encouraged by today's message.

Alright, alright, alright.

How you guys doing?

You guys doing good?

You guys are gonna have to work with it.

I'm still working on my like timing when I come out because what I want to do is like as the lights fade on, you just kind of see me just kind of just appear.

Kind of like with Christ when he was in the room with the okay, let me move on.

How you guys doing?

You guys doing good?

Alright, alright, alright.

I'm so excited to be with you guys.

I'm excited to continue in our in our series that we've been into.

Like, I'm I'm I'm excited about the atmosphere that's been set up here.

Just being able to be in worship with you guys and just kind of hearing you guys just just pour your hearts out.

It's something that really does fuel my faith.

I I love being able to be a part of that with you guys.

I want to continue in this series because there's a there's a lot of things I want to share today.

So um we're gonna we're gonna just jump right into it.

So if you have your Bibles, I want to um ask you to join me in the Gospel of Matthew chapter seven.

We're gonna look at verses 24 and 25.

These are the foundational texts that we looked at last week to kind of set the tone for this wild standard series.

We're gonna do a quick recap and then we'll we'll jump into what I believe God has for us today.

But looking here at Matthew chapter 7, um, 24 and 25, it says this everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who has built his house on the rock.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

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

This is what Jesus is teaching his his followers at this time.

It's at the end of the Sermon of the Mount.

We're unpacking the Sermon of the Mount on this next couple of weeks with the series that we're in, this wild standard.

But I wanted to look at the last thing that Jesus says as it relates to this teaching topic, because what he's saying is everything that I have said to you, everything that you've heard, the way that you're gonna move forward is if you put it into practice.

That is that is the standard.

That's the standard that's inside of the kingdom.

So last week here's a couple of things that that we that we had identified.

One of the things we identified was this that standards provide direction for growth.

That whenever there's a standard, it actually gives us direction for growth.

It helps us to know the lane that God has called us to drive in.

Where there is no standard, there is confusion.

Imagine, if there's no standard, if there's no standardization of anything, it just brings confusion.

We see that even in our society.

So what we walked away with is owing that Jesus is the standard.

That Jesus is the standard.

If we can look at the words of Christ, if we can look at his life, that that is the standard, not my feelings, not my opinion, not anything else, that that that is the appropriate filter.

From there, Jesus began to move us forward and unpack some things that deals with our identity.

And the thing that he wanted to make sure that we understood is what does it really mean to be blessed?

Many of us may come from different church cultures or backgrounds, and we've heard that term so much.

So we spent some time last week helping us to understand what it really means to be blessed.

And here's what we walked away with.

We understood that the presence of problems is not the absence of blessings.

Understanding that, like just because I have problems, it doesn't mean that I'm not blessed.

And because Jesus is the standard, here was our prevailing thought from last week.

You are not blessed because of what you have, you're blessed because of who you have.

That was the main thing for us to understand.

Like, my blessing is found in Christ, not in the season that I'm in.

As we continue in this series, I want to take a quick moment to provide some context.

When Jesus was preaching this message to his followers, we're looking at Matthew 5, 6, and 7.

It was one stream of thought.

So for him, it wasn't broken up into chapters like we have the advantage of now.

It wasn't broken up into headers like we have now.

That when Jesus is sharing this, it's just one long message, which means this: that every thought is connected to the next thought, and that thought is connected to the previous thought.

There is no isolated thoughts because it's all one message for him.

Here's why that's important.

Because as we go into these things week by week, we may hear some things that may challenge us, we may hear some things that may convict us, but if we don't look at that in isolation, there's hope in that.

But if we look at it in isolation, we'll feel like I'll never measure up.

But if we understand that even when we look at matters of the heart, that according to God's word, but I'm still blessed, and Jesus is a standard, if we can take that revelation with us through the rest of this series, it will encourage us and give us the hope to move forward.

So as Jesus continues to deal with identity in Matthew chapter 5 and helping us to understand that we're blessed, the next thing connected to our identity that He wanted to share is understand what it means when it says that we're the salt of the earth.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

What does it mean that we're called to be the light?

Now we preached an amazing message here about a year ago on this very topic.

So I'll just sum it up with this.

We know that light reveals decay and salt heals decay.

God has called us to be conduits that do that.

He's called us to stand out, he's called us not to blend in, he's called us to be different.

After he deals with the identity and saying you're blessed and you're called to be different, he now transitions into matters of the heart.

This is where sometimes it gets a little uncomfortable, and this is where we're going to spend some time today because it's gonna compel us and challenge us to understand what God's wild standard is.

Here's something that I've had to learn in my early walk with God that the wild standard is not something that I live up to, it's something that I'm invited to live in.

I don't have to live up to a checklist of what God wants me to do, but if I can just live, if I can change my residency and live in the kingdom of God, that standard will become the overflow of the way that I live my life anyway.

So when Jesus begins to deal with matters at a heart, he first begins to talk about anger.

How are we processing our emotions with our anger?

He begins to talk a lot about lust and our emotions and the way that we may dehumanize people and just look at them as objects.

And so he deals with that.

But then he gets into Matthew 5.

Looking at verses 29 and 30, he says this if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.

For it is better that you lose one of your members, then your whole body be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

For it is better that you lose one of your members, then your whole body go into hell.

I want to I want to pause here for just a second and give you this public service announcement.

I don't want anyone to walk out of this church today and believe that your next step in your walk with God is to take out your eye or to cut off your arm.

Hear me.

If you walk away and that's what you got from this, you're not listening.

That is not what God is saying.

Here's what he's saying.

He wants us to be sensitive to our limits.

When he says that, hey, if there's something that's causing you to miss the mark, if there's something that's calling you to get tripped up, it's better for you to detach from it.

So let me give you a quick reference point so that can translate into a way that we understand it.

I'll pick on social media because that's an easy one.

If you know that when you look at social media and you're seeing your friends and the vacations they're on, or you're looking at your colleagues and how great their life is, and it makes you get filled with anxiety, or it makes you get consumed with comparison, or it makes you feel as if your life isn't going forward because you're not doing what someone else is doing.

What Jesus is saying is it's better for you to not engage it at all.

It may be good for somebody else, but it's not good for you.

So he's not talking exclusively about sin issues, he's talking about barriers that keep us from moving forward.

So that's what he's saying.

He's saying, I don't want you to, I just need you to free yourself up.

So freedom for somebody else can be bondage for another person, and we got to know our own limits.

This is what he's helping us to understand.

As he continues to talk more about anger and revenge and retaliation, he says that these are all things that are poisonous to your heart.

It's it's hurtful for you, it's not helping you to move forward.

But he then provides the antidote, and that's found here in our last text for today.

It's found in Matthew 5, 43 through 48.

And this is what he says.

He says, You have heard that it is said, You should love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.

For he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

Let me pause there.

Let me help you to understand.

What he's saying is, even when you have people that get on your last nerve, Jesus died for them as well.

Even when you have people that live a life contrary to the kingdom of God, just remember when Jesus went to the cross, their name was on his mind as well.

He's making sure that we don't get so frustrated with people that we lose sight of the fact that they are called to be children of God as well.

That's what he's saying.

It rains on the just and unjust, like we're all in this thing together.

None of us are better than anybody else.

We're all in this together.

So after he says that, he says, now, now 46, he says, For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?

He's like, What difference does it make?

What makes you so special?

Everybody does that.

Do not even the tax collectors do the same, and if you only greet your brothers, what good are you doing?

Don't even the Gentiles do the same.

What he's saying is that the world is filled with people who has love for one another, but not love for somebody else.

What he's saying is, I'm asking you to love everyone.

This is what he says in the last verse.

He says, Therefore, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

That's that's a harsh statement.

Because on one hand, I understand that I'm that I'm flawed and that I have issues, but the standard that Jesus is asking me to live up to is to be perfect.

Today I want to talk a little bit about unpacking.

What does it mean to be perfect in the kingdom of God when you have imperfect people that are in the kingdom of God?

If you're taking notes, I encourage you to do that.

I want you to write this message title down, No Stone Unturned.

Let's pray.

God, I thank you for your word.

I thank you for your people, God.

I thank you for this amazing church, and I thank you for this incredible series, Lord.

Father, I pray over the next few moments that you give us open eyes that we can see you.

I pray for open ears that we can hear your truth, God, and I pray for open hearts that we can receive what it is that you want to do in us and through us today.

We pray and believe and declare all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, so I want to I want to give you guys a little bit of insight into my mind as of as of lately.

I was scrolling through some books that I had read in the past, and I came across this one book that has just had me captivated.

I've been finding myself rereading it, and I actually went back and rewatched the movie of it because it's a book that a movie was then later made of.

And it's called A Rock in the Hard Place.

Now, the movie is called 127 Hours.

It's absolutely captivating.

So let me go ahead and let me go ahead and give you this statement.

The movie came out about 10 years ago.

Today we're gonna talk about that movie a little bit.

So I'm assuming if you haven't seen it in 10 years, it's because you chose not to.

This is not spoilers, but I'm giving you a spoiler alert.

I don't want you to walk out here mad at me because I talked to you about this movie.

You had your windows, so if you need to leave, you can lock the doors.

Okay, let's jump.

Let's jump into it.

But let me tell you a little bit about this book.

It's so it's so fascinating.

So the so the bookslash movie is about this guy.

He's an outdoorsman, an avid, avid outdoorsman.

Loves to go out and camp, loves to go out and hunt, loves to go out and do hiking, you know, stuff like me, stuff that just kind of beats in my heart.

You guys can see that in me, right?

Um, he loves to be out in the wilderness.

That's just the kind of lifestyle that he that he has.

But for this particular guy, like he was a little disconnected from his family.

He didn't he didn't engage them as much, and so he found a lot of peace in doing these things that were a little bit isolated.

He loved kind of being disconnected.

It was a place for him to go to his quiet place to relax and to just kind of get along with his thoughts.

So because he's an avid outdoorsman and he loves to go hunting and doing all these other wonderful things, one day he decided I want to go and climb this one canyon that he had not conquered yet.

He had this vision of climbing all these canyons.

So he goes off.

He gets up early in the morning while it's still dark, and he rides his bike, and he finally gets to this location.

So he's out way away from civilization.

There's no cell phone reception, of course.

But here's the thing no one knew where he was.

He didn't communicate with his family, not even with his friends to let them know that he's going on this journey and where he was going.

He was isolated and disconnected.

So as he's out there, he finds himself in this dilemma.

While he's climbing down this one particular canyon, the boulder gets loosened.

He falls to the bottom of the canyon and the boulder lands on his arm.

It's 800 pounds.

800 pounds.

He can't he can't budge it, he can't move it, he can't chip away at it.

He's just stuck in the middle of this canyon with this 800-pound boulder on his arm.

And here's the problem: he's stuck there, and no one knows where he's at.

Because he lives a life that's isolated, no one knows how to get to him, so there's no possibility of him ever facing recovery, at least not in the context in which he understands it.

Because he was isolated, he was trapped under a boulder, and no one knew how to help him.

I'm gonna preach this thing, if y'all let me.

There's times in our lives that we live isolated lives.

We live our lives disconnected from other people, we live our lives disconnected emotionally, mentally, and we find ourselves trapped under a boulder.

And a boulder that that may be a boulder of unforgiveness, maybe it's a boulder of regret, maybe it's a boulder of sin.

But unfortunately, because we may not be in a healthy community, no one knows where we are and they don't know how to help us, and we're just stuck there, trapped.

See, for my man Aaron, that was trapped under this boulder, when he first fell, his mentality was, I'm gonna yell loud enough, and then maybe someone that's in the area is going to hear me.

If I can, if I can just lift my voice loud enough, then somebody will hear me in the area.

So maybe he goes the first hour, one hour turns to three hours, three hours turns to five hours, five hours turns to twelve, and he realizes that he's so far out that most common hikers don't go that far out, so he knows that he's in complete isolation, trapped under this boulder.

His mentality shifts from that mindset, and he says, I just need to survive.

If I can, if I can just survive long enough, eventually somebody will come and find me.

So he opens up his book bag, he takes out his bottle of water, he has a couple of fruit items, he has his camcorder, he has a couple of things that he then lays on top of the boulder, and his idea is I just need to survive.

If I can, if I can just survive long enough, someone's gonna come and rescue me.

If I if I can just if I can just survive long enough, well, those 12 hours turn to 24 hours, and he's rationing how much he drinks.

He's trying to, he's trying to come up with an algorithm of, okay, how much can I drink?

How much can I, how much can I eat that's gonna allow me to survive?

If I if I'm gonna be here maybe for three days, like I'm trying my best to ration the resources that I have because at the back of his mind he's thinking to himself, I just I just need to survive.

He goes from one desperate measure to the next.

As his resources begin to run low, he finds himself eating insects.

Because in his mind, I'm just trying to survive.

I would never I would never do this on a regular day.

I'm not gonna just go to the store and buy ants, but because I'm in a season where I'm stuck, because I'm in a place where I can't move forward, the desperate acts are causing me to do desperate measures and I'm consuming things I wouldn't normally not consume, but my thought process is if I can just if I can just survive.

He even got to a place where he had to drink his own bodily fluid.

No one is ever going to do that on their own.

But when you're just trying to survive, you'll digest things that you would never normally do because your mindset is I'm just I just want to survive.

He's stuck under this rock and he just wants to survive, and he finds himself at this place where, but I'm not able to move forward.

Here's the unfortunate parallel for us we often find ourselves trapped under some things and we end up having one desperate act act or another just to survive.

I've I've been offended.

So because I've been offended, I'm gonna build some walls up and I'm going to begin to project some emotions so that I never have to go through this again because after all, I just I just want to survive.

I want to not have to ever go through this again.

We often find ourselves in places where I'm trapped under this rock and and I just I'm doing some things that I that I ordinarily wouldn't do, but it's what I gotta do.

It's it's my survival mechanism, so I can lash out in anger because I'm offended, and I'm not gonna let anybody talk to me like that.

But all of this behavior is connected to the pain that I'm trapped and connected to, but I'm just doing it just to survive.

Some some things I've been through in my life, I just don't ever want to go through them again.

So I'm gonna continue to, I'm gonna, I'm gonna live a life and I'm gonna project emotions and I'm gonna do some things, but at the end of the day, I'm just I'm just trying to survive.

But unfortunately, just like for Aaron, no matter what extreme measures he took, at the end of the day, he was still trapped.

And what I believe happens with us is no matter what desperate measures we may engage in, no matter what justification we allow ourselves to come up with, at the end of the day, we're still trapped.

We're still stuck under that boulder that's keeping us from moving forward.

You see, for God's people that are hearing Jesus preach this message, they're very familiar with what it looks like to be trapped under a boulder of oppression.

It seems like for God's people, in one form or another, they've dealt with some level of slavery or oppression.

Whether it be when they were in Egypt and having to deal with Pharaoh, once they got a little bit of freedom, they found themselves distant from God again, and now right back again, they're they're dealing with the Babylonians.

They get caught off into captivity.

After the Babylonians, it's the it's the Persians, the Medes, the Greeks, they come in and they begin to exert their dominance.

Before now, now they find themselves under the oppression of the Roman Empire.

And all they want to do is they just want to survive.

Now, granted, much of their disconnect is self-inflicted.

But here's a lesson that I've learned.

We very rarely take a personal responsibility when we just want relief.

And we perpetuate the same problems over and over again because I'm just trying, I'm just trying to survive.

So for them, so for them, they're thinking to themselves, okay, so when when this messiah comes on the scene, they're thinking that Messiah is the guy that's gonna come and lift this boulder off of us.

Because when the messiah comes, he's gonna fix all of it.

I'm trapped, I'm trapped under the Roman rule right now.

I'm trapped under not having a nationality that's being constantly being pulled away at.

I'm trapped under all these restrictions, but but when a messiah comes, he's gonna fix all of it.

So when Jesus comes on the scene, they're like, okay, man, he's he's saying some of the right things.

I mean, I heard that he turned water into wine.

Who doesn't want a God that does that?

I mean, they're like, okay, I'm a I'm about this.

Like, this is a dude that I want to spend some time with because he's he's doing some miracles that I like I could I could use that in my life.

So he's he's they're they're hearing about these incredible miracles that Jesus is able to perform.

But they're at this place where they're a little bit suspicious because even though Jesus has shown up, even though Jesus has performed miracles and he's literally checking off the box and fulfilling these prophecies about him, the reality is they still felt trapped.

They still, their arm was still limited in their movement, and so even though they knew that Jesus was the answer, they were like, but I still feel restricted.

So before I can fully commit my faith, I need to make sure that he's the real deal.

I need I need to make sure that he's gonna actually accomplish what I see that he's accomplished.

In other words, let me put it this way they ended up going into a place where their relationship with God became an if-then proposition.

If he's the Messiah, then my life is going to be made better.

If if God is who he says he is, then I'm not gonna have the problems that I'm having.

If if if Jesus really is a healer, then by all means I'm going to be healed.

The problem is when we enter into this if-then proposition with God, we're not looking for a relationship, we're just looking for a cosmic genie.

Because we reduce the creator of the universe down to my feelings and the outcomes that I'm hoping to get.

I want you guys to write this down.

And again, we're talking about matters of the heart.

We're talking about heart issues, and it's gonna it's gonna help us.

This is the medicine part of the message.

The Lordship of Jesus isn't dependent on my comfort.

No one ever collapses that part.

No one tweets that part, no one, no one stands up, no one gets excited about that part.

But if you can, if you can resolve that, I promise you it will be the best thing that you can do for your faith.

If you can move from this if-then proposition, this this transactional belief system that says that if God does this, then I will praise him.

If God moves in the direction I want him to move in, then he is worthy of my response.

Jesus is saying, like, I I'm for you, I'm with you, but I need you to resolve that.

Even John the Baptist went through an if-then transition season.

See, John the Baptist, like, he was Jesus' like literal cousin.

Scriptures told John what what his calling was.

So when he was even in the same room with Jesus, when he was in his mother's womb, he was filled with the Holy Spirit, he knew who Jesus was.

From there, we hear about John the Baptist, he's doing baptisms, he sees Jesus in the distance.

Man, behold, the Lamb of God who's coming to take away the sins of the world, he knew who Jesus was.

John was very aware of who Jesus was, but then there's this moment when John finds himself in prison, he he he sends a bunch of people to go and ask Jesus this question Are you the one, or should I find another?

What happened that John, who made declarations about who Jesus was, was now questioning whether Jesus was the one that he thought he was.

Jesus was still performing miracles, blind eyes were still being opened, he was still walking on water, he was still doing these incredible things.

What changed?

Jesus didn't change.

John did.

John was the one who was in prison, and because his expectations weren't being met, he was at a place where, because if you really were the Messiah, then I wouldn't be in this place.

And what God wants to make sure that we understand is that he wants to move us from this place where we're saying if then to saying Even if even if I don't get the outcome that I'm looking for, I know that God is still good.

See Shakrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they also were a group of people that found themselves in a restricted position.

They were literally thrown into a fiery furnace.

We sing the song, there's another in a fire.

But what the whole purpose of that was that because they refused to bend into culture, because they refused to be molded into culture.

So the Bible says that when they were about to be cast into the fire, that Nebuchadnezzar says, Don't you know that I have the ability to give you life or to give you death?

And they said to him, they said, Listen, the God that we serve is able to rescue us.

But even if he doesn't, we will not bow to you, we will not surrender.

God is still good.

And I wonder what would happen to a group of people that move from being a place that if then to saying that even if, even if I don't get the results that I'm looking forward to, God is still good.

Even if, even if I don't get the job that I've been believing and praying for, God is still a provider.

He is still good.

Even if, even if the loved one that I've been praying for, the one I've been anointing with oil, that I've been reading scriptures over, even if they don't heal, even if they don't recover, even if they die, I know that I'm going to see them on the other side and God is still a resurrector, and then he will comfort me.

What I'm saying to you is when we can get to a place that even if I don't get the results that I'm looking forward to, my faith will not be shaken.

I will not waver because my faith is rooted not in my comfort, but in the calling that God has for me.

It's understanding that God is calling us to go to something a little bit deeper.

And what I believe God really wants to make sure that we understand is that He wants to make sure that our faith isn't one that's a transactional belief.

He wants to make sure that it's a faith-filled relationship.

He wants to make sure that our understanding and our walk with him is not based off of transactions.

Here's another thought that I think God wants us to walk away with today.

How you feel may be valid, but it doesn't always bring value.

I know, I know, guys.

This is the medicine.

This is the medicine.

We're gonna celebrate it again.

I promise you, we're gonna get there.

Just stick with me.

How you feel, it may be valid, but it just doesn't always bring value.

Here's what I mean by it may not bring value, it may not move you forward.

I get it.

Maybe you've dealt with heartbreak, maybe you've dealt with offensive, maybe you've really legitimately dealt with some things that have that have that have set you back that are detrimental, and you feel like you aren't able to move forward.

But here's a problem.

They may they very well may be valid, but it's not valuable.

It's not adding to your life to continue to hold on to that.

What was happening to God's people because of all the oppression that they had had to deal with over the years, the culture and the toxicity that was around them became a part of who they were.

So now they were looking at people and they were no longer representing the kingdom of God, they were no longer representing the standards of God, they were just reacting and responding the same way that the world does.

So that means that whenever they were offended, they responded in anger.

Because at the end of the day, the offense was valid, but it's not it's not valuable.

They began to respond out of their emotion, out of their flesh, out of their heart, instead of recognizing and saying that, but my reaction to this actually isn't freeing me from it.

I'm still stuck to it.

So even though I'm angry and I'm lashing out, at the end of the day, I'm still angry and I don't have peace.

Jesus is saying, like, you what you may feel, it may, it may be valid.

I understand you've dealt with some betrayal.

It may be valued, but it's not it's not helping you to move forward.

And unfortunately, what ends up happening, the longer we stay stuck under that rock of offense, the longer we stay stuck under that rock of unforgiveness, we begin to slowly lose circulation and we become numb.

And when we begin to lose circulation and become numb, our responses are ones that not only damage us, but they also damage other people.

I lose my sensitivity to the moment.

I lose the ability to discern where people are.

So when Jesus begins to talk about the idea of lust and being mindful of that, I want you to I want you to hear this.

He wasn't talking exclusively about sexuality.

That's a part of it.

He was also just talking about whenever you reduce an entire human being to an object that can benefit you, what you have done is you've dehumanized somebody.

That's why we have things like slavery.

We we have these oppressive things that happen, and it's like, how how do how does that even happen?

Like when you look at the stats on on all the oppression that's happened in mankind, when you look at the stats on on all the human trafficking that happens even now, how do we how do we get to the point where someone is okay with that because you dehumanize somebody and you look at them only as an object?

And we can do that with other cultures of people.

I dehumanize you and I look at you as an object.

In other words, I don't see you as a person who is reflecting the image of God.

And what God is saying, man, that is that is unhealthy.

These are people that are made in my image.

I understand that maybe you've dealt with some setbacks and it may be valid, but it's not valuable, it's not helping you to move your life forward.

And as you continue to allow that rock to cut off circulation, that means that the blood is not flowing in areas of life that are meant to give you freedom.

The blood of Jesus is available and it's meant to set us all free.

But we can have boulders that are preventing the blood from flowing appropriately, and you could be a Christian who is not whole because you're holding on to things that God has told you to let go of.

This is what God is instructing us to do.

He's saying, I'm asking you to move forward.

Now here's the thing it is healthy for us to process through our feelings.

It is it is healthy for us to kind of process through the disappointment.

But here's the question that I want you to ask yourself when you're going through this are my feelings leading me to a place of hope, or am I a prisoner of pain?

Am I just stuck with living with this over and over again?

Or when I process it, is there a hope that is allowing me to move forward in my life?

What you are feeling it very well may be valid, but it's not valuable, it may not be moving you forward.

God is asking us to not allow ourselves to continue to stay stuck in this space that perpetuates the pain in our life, but allows us to move forward.

Because unfortunately, what happens is when we don't, we end up creating these inner vowels and oaths.

Let's just say hypothetically, let's just say that some loving person here walks up to me at the end of service and they accidentally step on my Jordan.

I know no one would ever think of doing such a thing.

But just stay with me for a moment.

So for me, okay, I get it.

Oh, I'm so sorry, cool, man.

It's all good.

It's not, but I'll work it out later.

But it's all good.

I'll clean it up, it's all good.

I got the stain on my shoe, I'll clean it off.

But here's what ends up happening when I see that same person come again, I'm gonna be a little bit more careful because I may forgive, but I didn't forget.

We hear that all the time, but we see it on bumper stickers.

The problem is it's just not biblical and it doesn't move us forward.

Because what does it mean to forgive, but I don't forget?

To not forget means that I am literally changing the way that I interact with people based off of a past offense.

So I create these walls of inner vowels saying things like, I'm never gonna let that person step on my shoes again, so it changes the way that I walk around them.

I'm never gonna let that person stab me in the back like that again, so it changes the walls that I begin to construct.

What I'm saying to us is that there's times in our lives when we don't resolve the issues in our heart, we build these walls with inner vows and making statements of things you'll never allow to happen.

But the reality is the only thing you're never allowing to happen is for you to experience freedom.

We're still we're still stuck under this rock.

We're still stuck.

Here's my last and final point to be whole, you have to let go.

To be whole, you you have to let go.

What Jesus knows is this.

What you hold on to holds on to you.

What you hold on to holds on to you.

If I hold on to unforgiveness, if I hold on to anger, if I hold on to the bitterness, then those things are holding on to me.

But maybe for me to experience the freedom that God really wants me to have, there's some things I gotta cut off and let go.

You see, when I think about my man Aaron who was trapped under that rock, he got to about day five.

And at day five, he he kind of resolved in himself, like, man, I I I think I may die here.

He takes out his little pocket knife and he begins to carve in the wall.

He writes his name, he writes his birthday, and he writes his projected death today.

I'm gonna I'm gonna die today.

As he begins to lose consciousness, he drifts off.

And when he drifts off, he actually has this vision.

And in the vision, he saw the craziest thing.

He saw a vision of this little boy, this this beautiful small child.

And the kid was in the backyard playing and and moving on the playground.

And as he was looking at him, he was like, Man, this this child seems so familiar, but I've literally never seen him before.

But his heart was just filled with so much love, like just filled with so much compassion.

He saw himself walk into the scene, and when he saw himself, he saw that he didn't have his right hand, his right hand was gone.

It occurred to him that this vision was a glimpse into the future, that as long as he was willing to cut some things off, he could move forward and still be able to produce life.

So, what he did is the love that he had for this child that was not born yet, the love that he had for this vision, he had to make the most difficult decision in the world.

He he literally broke his arm in half.

He then took that same little small pocket knife and began to cut around the muscles in his arm.

He began to cut through the skin.

Because in his mind, when it got uncomfortable, when it got messy, he just kept saying to himself, but I saw a glimpse of my son and the love that I have for my son.

And if I and if I die here, then then I won't be able to have my son.

So I'm willing to, I'm willing to go through the pain, I'm willing to go through the messiness, I'm willing to go through the discomfort because there's a love that is compelling me, that's letting me know that I'm called to be set free.

I'm I'm I'm not I'm not gonna stay here because I have a vision for my next steps and and my best days are are not behind me, but I know that there's a I know there's a next step for me.

So he allowed the vision of his son to compel him to cut through the bone, to cut through the bone marrow, to cut through the nerves.

But he said, But there's love that's allowing me to do this.

In other words, love is the instrument that sets us free.

What he was saying is if I can just allow that love to be the thing that allows me to be set free, I know I can move forward because God is not done with me yet.

I'm not sure who I'm talking to, but let me encourage you with the words of the prophet Arya Starks, you have to look at death sometime and say, Not today.

I am not dying today because God is not done with me yet.

I am not giving up just yet because God has given me a vision for my future and I'm not dying here today.

God has given me a vision for my family, and I'm not dying here today.

So I will leave no stone unturned.

I will make sure that I will investigate every area of my life to make sure that I experience the freedom that God has for me.

So I'm turning over the stone of unforgiveness with love.

It's not comfortable.

Sometimes it gets messy, but God has a vision for me, and I'm not dying here in unforgiveness.

I'm gonna move forward with my life.

I'm gonna move forward from bitterness.

It's not comfortable, but I'm gonna allow love to be the instrument that sets me free because I'm not gonna die bitter, I'm not gonna die angry, I'm not gonna die stuck under this rock.

God is not done with me yet.

Today is not the day that I die.

I have a vision for my future.

Church, what God is trying to instruct us to do, the wild standard is this saying that I'm willing to cut and get rid of anything that's not allowing me to move forward in my life.

That's the that's the challenge.

That's the wild standard.

When we're dealing with matters of our hearts, just simply saying, even if I don't get a chance to to keep both of my arms, God is still good.

I'm I'm willing to cut loose all these barriers that may be holding us back.

Here's the thing sometimes when we make that that surgical decision to cut some things off.

What many will call it, they'll call it the phantom limb syndrome.

What that means is this that means that there are gonna be moments where my nerves are believing that the the limb is still there.

I want you to hear this.

You've been set free, but there may be moments where it may seem as if you're still connected, it may seem as if you're still trapped under that rock, but you gotta sometimes just look and recognize I have been set free, I have been healed, I have been delivered, and there may be remnants of my past that still wants to show up into the surface, but that is not who I am.

I left that pain point in the past, I've left that brokenness in the past.

I'm moving forward in the direction that God has called me into because I've been set free.

Love is the instrument that sets us free.

I want to draw our attention back to what the Bible says at Matthew 7.

Because Jesus said, if we can just do this, we can we can build our lives on the rock, knowing that no matter what storms may come, no matter what oppositions we may face, we will be able to stand because we've built our life on the rock.

Here's what I want you to walk away with.

We are called to build our lives on the rock, not live under one.

We're not called to live under the rock of unforgiveness, we're not called to live under the rock of regret, we're not called to love live under the rock of shame.

God has called us to be whole.

And sometimes to be whole when it requires us to let go of the things that are keeping us from moving forward.

With every head bowed and every eye closed, I want to ask you this question.

Maybe, maybe you're in here today.

And and if you were to do inventory of your soul, maybe if you were to evaluate your personal life situation right now, you would say, Keith, there's some areas in my life where I I don't feel like I have I have been able to move forward.

There's some areas in my life where I still feel like there may be this proverbial boulder that's that's keeping me, and I know there's some things I may need to let go of.

I don't know what my next steps are, but I just know that there's an area of my life that I want Christ to move me forward.

I want to I want to pray for you before we leave here today.

If that's you, simply prayer to move forward in an area of your life.

I want to pray for you on the count of three.

I want you to boldly lift your hands up.

One, two, three, lift them up boldly.

Amen.

Amen.

Hands up everywhere.

God bless you.

Amen.

I appreciate your boldness.

You can go ahead and put those those hands down.

Here's my second question.

My second question is for another group of people.

And maybe for you, you feel like you're under the the rock of sin or just being away from God.

You know that the circulation of blood has not flown into your soul, and right now you know that you're away from God.

If that's you, I simply want to pray for you.

I want to create this space for you to say yes, to commit or recommit your life to Christ.

So on a count of three, I want us to boldly say yes.

Keith, I I wanna I want to just change sides.

I want to go from a if-then to an even-if place in my walk with God.

If that's you, I want you to boldly lift your hands up on a count of three.

One, two, three.

Hands up.

Amen.

God bless you.

Amen.

God bless you, amen, God bless you, amen.

God bless you, amen, God bless you.

I see those hands.

God bless you, church.

We can dig a little bit deeper than that.

We have people that have made a decision to move forward in our faith.

So can we give it up for everyone that is making that decision to move forward?

Here's what I want us to do.

I want us all to stand on our feet.

We're gonna go back into we're gonna go back into worship in just a moment to seal in what God is doing.

But I want everybody in here, especially those who are making that next step, saying yes to Jesus.

I want you to hear me.

If you're in here, and that was you, you're one of the ones that lifted your hands up.

We have some resources we want to put in your hand.

We want to equip you so that you can do this thing well and not be in isolation or alone.

Here's what that means: there's a number that we're gonna put on the screen.

We just want you to text that number.

We're gonna give you some resources.

We're not gonna hound you, we're not gonna do any of that.

We just want to be able to put a resource in your hand and let you know that we're with you and we want to walk this walk with you.

In addition to that, you can go out into the lobby.

There's a great team out there that would love to connect with you.

The worst thing you can do is make such a huge decision and walk out of here and not let somebody know.

Allow us to come alongside you and help you.

But for the rest of us, as we pray, I want us all to kind of lift our hands up if you feel comfortable with it.

I'm gonna pray a blessing over us.

We're gonna go back into worship and we're gonna walk out of here knowing that we have been set free and the blood is circulating in the areas that the enemy has tried to keep us restricted.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for what you're doing in this place, God, and we thank you for what you've already done.

In the name of Jesus, I command for every stone, for every barrier to be removed, God.

So if there's any area of our lives, God, that is not allowing us to experience the best that you have for us.

I command it to be removed, I'm forgiven for the barriers of unforgiveness to be removed, the bitterness to be removed, a header to be removed, of lust to be removed, of inner battles to be removed.

God, we will not live with the scars of the past, we're gonna move forward into the future because love is the instrument that sets us free.

So in the name of Jesus, I command freedom for your people in Jesus' name.

Let's work together.

Thank you for tuning in to today's podcast.

For more information about Celebration Orlando or to get in touch with us, please visit celebrationorlando.org.