What COVID 19 Has Taught Me (July 19th, 2020) - Guest Pastor Keith Battle

macedonia church of pittsburgh i love y'all i miss y'all too man i really miss coming this year you know covert 19 just shut all that down uh but i'm excited about us being able to connect virtually i know the praise and worship is fire always it's always fine i miss praise and worship i miss being there mr energy mr love i love y'all but i love even more pastor brian and reverend deion edmonds then my folks right there love me from them so proud of them their leadership love their family love what god's using them to do there in pittsburgh and i miss you too as well miss seeing you guys uh i just want to take a moment uh to pray and then we're going to get into the word because i know y'all at home i know you're doing whatever you're doing and you don't have no long time for a bunch of prelude so let's pray father please speak to us through your word give us insight and inspiration and help and counsel in our life and i thank you for the opportunity to serve you in this way and i pray lord that you would anoint my mind and my words and my actions so that what comes out would be helpful and life-giving in jesus name amen all right i'm going to ask you all to join me in the word of god in matthew chapter one that's where i'd like to direct your attention and i have three things i want to show you out of matthew chapter one and i'll use another passage to help support this matthew chapter one beginning in verse 18. uh says this in in verse 18 new living translation this is how jesus the messiah was born his mother mary was engaged to be married to joseph but before the marriage took place while she was still a virgin she became pregnant through the power of the holy spirit verse 19 joseph her fiance was a good man and did not want to disgrace her publicly so he decided to break the engagement quietly verse 20 says as he considered this an angel of the lord appeared to him in a dream and joseph son of david said joseph son of david the angel said do not be afraid to take mary as your wife for the child within her was conceived by the holy spirit and she shall have a son and you ought to name him jesus but he will save his people from their sins all of this occurred to fulfill the lord's message through his prophet verse 23 look the virgin will conceive a child she will give birth to a son they will call him emmanuel which means god which means god is with us verse 24 when joseph woke up he did as the angel of the lord commanded and took mary as his wife but he did not have sexual relationships with her until her son was born and joseph named him jesus my subject today is going to sound a little disconnected from the passage but i'll try to make the bridge for you my subject today is is what covet 19 has taught me what i've learned through covet 19. there are a lot of lessons we've all taken from this pandemic the importance of physical distancing the importance of wearing masks the importance of washing our hands the importance of boosting our immune system the importance of getting the right data and and being medically safe and and how how we've learned how to live with things that we thought we'd never live without how to plan a date at the house and set up a romantic date i saw you pastor brian set up that romantic date that was real cool you got me in trouble for that because then i had to step anyway i had to step my stuff up but we've learned how to make adjustments in our lives you've learned how to how to who knew that you would get groceries have groceries sent to your house i would have never had somebody bring me groceries now i could never see myself going back to the grocery store who has that kind of time just have somebody bring them to you we've learned how to adjust and we've learned how to be flexible there's so much we've learned and i want to take from this passage three things that i've also learned during this pandemic that i think are very important that i think you all will be able to relate to and one of those things that i learned during this pandemic and i'm going to give you three things is that your gift will be attacked your gift will be attacked what are you saying pastor battle i'm saying that the greatest gift ever given to the world was the gift that god gave us through his son jesus christ there is no greater gift that's why i think they chose to celebrate it and call it christmas because it's a time of gift giving there's no greater gift when the bible says to us uh unto us a son is born and a child is born and a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder a son was given it was the greatest gift ever and he was given to a couple named mary and joseph to bring to be played the role of his natural parents and when they received that gift it was attacked the gift was given under attack and the gift was born amongst chaos like jesus came on the scene at a time in the fullness of time while there was chaos going on in the government at that time there was an insecure ruler in the land in which he was born named herod and herod was intimidated when he heard that somebody was born king of the jews when he had he when he was the king of the jews at that time and he faked like he wanted to worship him but he really wanted to kill him so so so jesus's life the greatest gift ever was under attack from even the the his commencement his birth was under attack just just his arrival he arrived amongst danger they had to hide him even at his birth and and then had to go on the run to protect him from this from this insecure leader that wanted to kill him your gift will be under attack and sometimes it's birthed in chaos how do i apply that to our lives sometimes god will give you a gift he'll he'll he'll call you he'll call something out of you some of you've been called into the ministry or called into another level of service or called to be ordained or called to be licensed to preach or call into service and as soon as you responded to the call and received that gift of the next level in your life all hell broke loose there was chaos everywhere family problems marriage problems financial problems health problems your gift will always be birthed in the midst of chaos you can expect it what i'm standing in right now is a gift probably the greatest gift in the 20 years of our history that god has given us as a church is a facility it's a 100 000 square foot facilities over 100 000 square feet it's cost us about 17 million dollars to buy it and to renovate it and and to build it out and to make it this beautiful space and just trying to birth this gift has come under attack from even before we bought the building the other tenants the other landlords in this mall area where we all fought us on it tried to keep a church from having the building they wanted retail in here they wanted it to be a target it used to be a k-mart and we got fought and they were threatening us when we were in the midst of acquiring acquiring the facility because your gift will always be attacked don't don't don't misinterpret it you're not going to deliver a gift or birth birth a gift without attack they threatened us they they made us think that we weren't uh officially able to buy the building so we had to offer full price so that they couldn't compete against us it was it was so much so much attack and then when we got to build we bought the building in 2017 it's taken us almost three years to get it ready to go through all the inspections and all the approvals and then when we got to build and finish when we were about to start it and launch it we had people breaking into the building and somebody had made a bowel movement in a cup in the building didn't even use one of the toilets that was available brand new toilets brand new bathrooms but then defecated in a cup in the bathroom that's the kind of attack somebody vandalized the building and painted on the building your gift will be attacked and then when we were about to launch and do a ribbon cutting ceremony and a dedication of the building and and we were having pre-planned preview services and all the things we planned got shut down by covet 19 and now we have a building that we can't even use because your gift will come under attack you have to understand that the greatest gift in the world was wrapped in came in an environment of attack and you have to see view that as normal that you're going to have to face attack when you're delivering a gift it's not going to come without attack but here's what you have to do you have to protect your gift you know what joseph did when he realized that herod wanted to kill his son he moved and fled to egypt what do you need to do to protect your gift one of the gifts that i have is my gift is my voice my my gift is my preaching my communication but even that has been under attack back in 2011 i had a a blood clot in my lung that was misdiagnosed three times almost died and to this day i don't always breathe clearly my lung collapsed the clot was so bad my lung collapsed then recently this year i was diagnosed with asthma and they gave me inhalers which made me feel even sicker and so i'm always fighting for my breath because you got to fight to exercise your gift but one of the ways one of the things god showed me during covert 19 is you got to protect your gift i got to take care of my gift i can't be anywhere and do anything i got to eat right and i got to do the right things to strengthen my voice so that my gift can operate what are you doing to protect your gift joseph and mary had were responsible for one of the greatest gifts of the world but it was under attack and they had to protect it what kind of moves do you need to make what kind of adjustments do you need to make to protect your gift here's the second thing i want to tell you about this story in this passage and what i learned in covet 19 and that is the fact that your miracle is going to be messy your miracle is going to be messy now think about this that jesus christ the son of god was born in a manger which was an animal stable where they had feces and and animal urine and hay and all this it's a terribly uh unsanitized environment where nothing like a a a ward where they where the maternity ward where babies are born where there's a high level of investment in sanitation and cleanliness his miracle this miracle came in the midst of a mess a mess by the way by the way one of the attacks that i didn't even tell you against the mess of our miracle here zion churchill the attacks against our gifts is that even this day as i'm recording this another scam went out there's somebody who's saying that they're me trying to get money from people that's happened several times people trolling me on social media you have to be you have to understand that when god is giving you a gift it will not operate without attack but let me go back to my second point this miracle showed up in a messy environment you talk about a mess here here here mary's minding her business reading brides magazines trying to have her wedding and she ends up being pregnant and is about to lose her man because joseph is really thinking about he's saying you know what i think i'm gonna divorce her i think i'm gonna break this off what a mess so there's danger uh there's threat against his life there's a manger that he's born in she's about she's almost getting divorced you talk about a mess but the miracle came wrapped up in a mess and some of us can't see the miracle in our lives because it's surrounded by mess and pain but don't you miss your miracle because you're just looking at the mess the miracle will often come wrapped up in the midst of a mess that's what mary and joseph had to face and i've seen it in other situations in the bible there's some so many miracles came in the midst of a mess for example when the children of israel were running from pharaoh's army and they came up against the red sea and they have nowhere else to go that's a mess that miracle that god opened up the red sea for the children of israel and they walked through on dry ground but then he closed the sea back up and the other the army of pharaoh got drowned that's a messy miracle but it's a miracle there's a man in mark chapter 8 that can't see and he wants his sight back and jesus gives him his sight back but he doesn't do it until he first spits on mud and puts the mud and spit in his hand and puts it on the man's eyes that's a messy miracle but the question is how bad do you want it do you want the miracle bad enough that you're willing to go through some mess to get it because a lot of the miracles in our life will require us to go through some mess to get to it but a lot of people aren't built for the messy parts of the miracle reminds me of a story in acts chapter 27 you know in acts chapter 27 there's a story of a miracle that took place in the midst of a mess in acts chapter 27 the apostle paul is on a ship called the imperial ship and is on his way to italy you could turn there in acts chapter 27 it's a pretty lengthy story but i want to highlight some things to you because paul is actually a prisoner on this ship and he's being monitored by a man named julius verse 1. and julius is the captain of the imperial regiment but he's uh but he's also responsible for transporting these criminals to italy and so paul's on this ship and as they begin traveling the bible says when they made their first port stop in verse 3 that julius was very kind paul and let him go ashore to visit with his friends so that he can provide for his needs that's what verse 3 of acts 27 says now i want to stop right there because even though julius was a officer a police officer that was responsible for taking prisoners to their court and their trial place in italy he showed favor to paul i want to ask you a quick question parenthetically who do you have favor with who who's for you in your life never never go never be unappreciative of who people are in authority that have shown you favor and and don't abuse favor don't take advantage of it be grateful for it because it was the favor that paul had with julius later on in this story in verses 43 and 44 when the other soldiers the other officers wanted to kill the criminals who were on the boat when you find out what happened julia says no don't kill any of them don't kill any of them because i want to make sure paul gets to where he's supposed to go that's favor right there that's favor right there in fact it wasn't just favor that blessed paul the favor on paul's life best bless the other criminals who were on the boat that as brings me to another question who are you riding with who you riding with is very important in your life because because that can mean the difference between death and life just who you roll with who you're hooked up with who you do life with but they're traveling on i'm gonna go back to verse four they're traveling along and the bible says in verse four that they encountered strong headwinds that made it difficult so now they're headed to italy but they had to make a detour verses four five and six says not only did they have to change direction but according to verse six they had to change ships oh this is so good i want to spend the rest of my time right here see i told you about that that what i've learned in colvin 19 is that your gift is going to be under attack and sometimes your gift is going to have to be birthed in the midst of chaos what god's going to bring through you it might be a book he's going to give through you might be a ministry an idea he bursts through you but it's going to be delivered in the midst of chaos and your miracle is going to come and it's going to be messy but the third thing i've learned and i want to spend the rest of my time here in kovalev 19 is that sometimes you're going to have to be flexible your flexibility and ingenuity is going to be critical your flexibility and ingenuity is going to be critical in times like this see see paul is now on his way somewhere and everybody on this ship the 276 people on the ship but they're in a crisis they're in a crisis because they weren't expecting this storm to happen and this storm is happening right now which is requiring that they make an adjustment and the adjustment and flexibility is now they got to get on a new ship they got to change ships and they got to go in a different direction what changes do you need to make what flexibility do you need to have what adjustments are you going to have to make in order to be successful see see what happened to the church on march 13th 2020 the body of christ was forced to be virtual it had to become virtual because of covet 19. we no longer can do what we used to do we have to do something different and if we don't do something different we're not going to survive forget about thriving we're not even going to survive we can't make it if we don't do something different and what i've learned is when see your greatest ingenuity will come at the intersection of an impasse your greatest ingenuity will come at the intersection of an impasse when you hit a spot in life where you have your back is against the wall and you can no longer do what you were doing and you can no longer do it the way you were doing it now you have to do it another way because if you don't do something different you're going to sink this ship will go down if they don't get on another ship and if they don't travel a different way they're going to go under they're not going to make it and what i found is a lot of people who face crisis is like covet 19 instead of allowing that impasse to bring about ingenuity uh so half the leaders over half the leaders in the church instead of saying how can we do what we used to do differently and more effectively over half the leaders in the body of christ are still trying to figure out when can we go back to the way we were doing it how can we go back to what we used to do safely and what i found is if that if crisis doesn't make you create if it doesn't make you creative it'll make you pause and make you stagnant and make you wish that things were the way they were so now instead of moving into a place of virtual now people want to go back to traditional watch this now now check this out because i don't care listen mcop i know you're a very contemporary church but it doesn't matter how contemporary macedonia or church of pittsburgh is or was pre-covered 19 this is the new reality this is the way we have to do church now this is the way we have to do it now and anything we did pre-covet 19 is traditional even if it was contemporary and now we got people sitting in rooms trying to figure out how can we bring back 50 people to the church how can we do a service and just have 100 people spread out instead so we're trying to figure out how we can bring people back into a building to do a traditional way of doing service to reach 50 to 100 people instead of looking at how we can do it virtually to reach thousands of people in a new way it's an opportunity for ingenuity and watch this i see it in matthew chapter one when when when the crisis and the impasse hit it was time for joseph to be ingenious oh we gotta move we gotta make some moves we can't stay here he's gonna get killed we gotta make a move and so what moves do you need to make to adjust to the crisis paul on this ship they started making moves they changed ships and they still had great difficulty in verse seven as we see in verse 8 that says we struggle along the coast we have great difficulty verse 9 says we lost a lot of time and paul steps in in verse 9 and says hey guys the reason why this is not working is because we should we should we should make sure we don't try to go the way we're going because it's going to get worse but they ignored paul they ignored his advice and and watch this the officers paul says in verse 10 he says man i believe there's trouble ahead if we go on shipwreck loss of cargo and danger to our lives as well but verse 11 says the officer in charge who is julius who actually favors paul he's over the prisoners he listened more to the ship's captain and the owner than nepal and i gotta fast forward for the sake of time but he ignored paul and it was a mess everything got worse the storm got worse in fact according to verse 14 drop down to verse 14 but the weather changed abruptly and the wind and a wind of typhoon strength called the northeaster burst across the island and blew us out to sea come all blown they're blown out to sea and they are in peril right now everything they're trying to do is perilous and so as time went on the bible says in verse 16 with great difficulty we hoisted aboard the lifeboat being towed behind us now they're taking all kinds of they're making all kinds of uh radical rash decisions because they didn't heed the man of god but look at the end of verse 20. the end of verse 20 says these seven words until at last all hope was gone all hope was gone and paul comes up in verse 21 and says guys listen let me give you some good news we ain't gonna die y'all should have listened to me that's what he says he says you shouldn't listen to me in the first place in verse 21 because we could avoid it all this if we didn't leave crete but take courage now verse 22 says none of you will lose your lies even though the ship will go down this ship is going down but we gonna make it and so he says last night an angel told me the god who i'm served sent an angel to me and he says don't be afraid paul verse 24 for you will surely stand trial before caesar that's where he's going what's more god is in his goodness has granted safety to everyone sailing with you so he says take courage i believe god it will be just as he said we will be shipwrecked but we're gonna all live watch this watch this what we were depending on is not gonna make it but we gonna make it and that's exactly what happened y'all that's exactly what happened sometimes what you were dependent on pre-covered 19 ain't gonna make it but god says i got you through this i got you i'm taking you somewhere and i'm gonna take you somewhere with less than you're used to traveling with some of y'all know what it's like to walk away from a car crash and the car didn't make it they totaled the car and you survived god said the whole ship is going to crash and this is the second ship neither one of the ships that they got on or started with made it but everybody on the ship made it to italy let me go a little deeper in the story because i think there's some things that need to be highlighted for example the sailors in verse 30 the ones who were running the ship tried to abandon the ship they tried to make it look like they were making a little move but they were going to jump into the light boats and run and paul says to the police officers he says listen he says if y'all let those sailors go all of us are going to die so now the soldiers who hadn't listened to them before now listening to paul and they said they cut the ropes to the light boats and let the light boast drift away so that the sailors couldn't leave and the storm continued to get worse the storm got worse and worse and let me drop down because i want to wrap this up verse 42. then this so let me go ahead i'm sorry verse 39 when morning dawn they didn't recognize the coastline but they saw a bay with a beach and wondered if they could get to shore by running the ship aground so they cut off the anchors verse 40 and left them in the sea then they lowered the rudders raised the foresail and headed towards shore watch this but verse 41 says but they hit a shoal and ran the ship aground too soon the bow of the ship stuck fast while the stern was repeatedly smashed by the force of the waves and began to break apart so watch what's happening they thought they saw a way to a land area and they made a move that actually grounded the ship too far away from shore too far away from the shore and the ship was stuck in the ground and the waves were beating the up beating the ship up hey hey we can't clean we're beating the ship up you heard me and the and the ship is falling apart you try to say what i just said and did not come out praise the lord uh and the ship is falling apart you can email kay southerland at zionchurch.org if you have any complaints about what i said don't email your pastor and and troll them just hit up case sutherland that's the person who's responsible for all this now so watch this y'all the ship is falling apart the thing they were dependent upon is falling apart the storm took it the pandemic took it the thing they were relying on is falling apart and watch what happens the soldiers wanted to kill the prisoners to make sure they didn't swim ashore enough escape now paul is one of those prisoners verse 42. but remember julius this is when favor matters the most the commanding officer who was julius wanted to spare paul so he didn't let them carry out their plan so nobody dies because paul's not going to die then he ordered all who could swim to jump a bull jump overboard first to make it make for land the others verse 44 said says held onto planks or debris from the broken ship planks and debris so everyone escaped safely to shore planks and debris planks and debris if that ship had crashed or that if they weren't in that situation they would have looked at those planks and debris as trash as rubbish but now on their flotation devices sometimes when you're in a crisis god will let you see something you didn't value totally different when we first went through the shutdown here in the state of maryland it was like we didn't pay 17 million for a building we can't even use this don't make no sense we would i remember before the pandemic we were thinking about how many people we could get in here comfortably what if we use overflow and all that we put chairs up on the stage and they were telling man we can get 1800 people in here comfortably with overflow and all of that and i'm and i'm like man now i'm saying man but the building is empty now it's empty but now instead of me caring about how we can put 1800 people in this building now god showed us how to use this building with nobody in it to reach over 18 000 people virtually so why are we focused on going back i don't listen when when it when in fact there may not be a safe solution to this pandemic until late 2021 we got to get used to doing things this way that's pertinent that we be flexible like that very important see what moves do you need to make do you need to change ships change directions move from being focused on traditional to virtual let me give you a quick business example when the pandemic hit it impacted the world of fitness very hard in fact 24 hour fitness a big fitness brand filed bankruptcy closed over 100 locations all around the world and at the same time during the same pandemic peloton is blowing up you know peloton while other while there are many gems and fitness centers that will never recover and never reopen peloton is going to another level let me tell you a quick peloton story because people couldn't go to the gym peloton boosted his advertisements so that now people are interested in getting their fitness equipment because you can work out in the comfort of your house without having to worry about distancing from people or catching covet 19 and the bike by itself can cost anywhere from 1600 to 2 thousand dollars so they're already selling bikes like crazy they can't they're they're having they're having to delay the the delivery of the bikes because they had they having to boost their manpower to meet all the needs but what they bring to your house is a fully assembled uh a bicycle that's used for cardio that has a screen on it and all that and they bring you the shoes that you have to have you can't ride the bike without special shoes they got certain pedals on it you got to buy the shoes then they give you the little weights you can use while you're riding the bike and all this stuff and then what they do is which is brilliant they put on the screen these these sample uh interactive workout videos they give you like three of them one for a man and two for women and you get so geeked about them but then they tell you if you like more of these or you like to go live with us you can buy a membership and for forty dollars a month you could be a member and you can get high fives from people and get live training all the time this is what they've done so they've taken over the fitness business by having a fitness center and a membership in your own house that's what you that's what you call shifting that's what you call making a move making an adjustment and i'm telling you people who use this impasse this intersection at this impasse to for ingenuity are going to be successful in this pandemic you have to be it is very important that we that we that we look at it this way because if you don't create you're going to suffocate if you don't see planks and debris as opportunities you're gonna sink because watch this as i wrap this up in verse 44 of acts chapter 27 there's only one command given and the command is anybody that can swim jump off and swim to the shore but there was never a command given to use the planks and debris as flotation devices see creativity is not commanded it must be birthed out of the crisis nobody has to tell you what to do instinctively you start looking at ways how some of you allowing your business and your your business to die because you haven't thought of a way of making your services available virtually i'm saying you got to do that what has this impasse given you the opportunity to do in a way that you wouldn't have done it before because you didn't have to so as i conclude as i wrap up there's so many things that we can learn from covet 19. we have to understand that the gifts that god give us that he gives to us will be attacked just join the club don't you nobody there's no leader there's no person there's no gifted person that doesn't have egg on their suit somebody's gonna attack you and sometimes the very thing that god wants to birth to you will be birthed in the midst of chaos all kinds of stuff gonna be popping off and yet god is still going to give you a miracle in the midst of your mess you know one of the messiest miracles that i've ever seen in life is the birth of a child that's a messy miracle for a child to be to be birthed out of a out of a sperm cell hitting a chromosome and a fertilized egg and that creating a full human being and making it through the birth canal safely that's a messy miracle your miracle will be surrounded oftentimes by mess another thing you have to do is is make sure that you're flexible and creative your flexibility and ingenuity is critical during this time that's why i want smart people around me and creative people around me and people out of the box people who are thinking of ideas and thinking of doing things in ways that other people just see obstacles they see opportunities you've got to have that kind of team around you at this time and use the young people right now like never before fortunately you have a young pastor there a young first lady follow their lead because god has raised him up for such a time as this to walk us through a crisis not just surviving it but thriving through it let's pray father thank you for your word thank you for the macedonia church of pittsburgh thank you that it's still stands and it's still a relevant powerful ministry and presence in the lives of many continue to bless their work bless the work of their hands bless their ideas bless them financially spiritually and otherwise i pray and i thank you for this opportunity to share with them today in jesus name amen hey thank you all i appreciate it i hope something was shared was helpful and i'm going to turn it back over to your leaders now god bless you praise the lord let's give a great hand for pastor keith and sharing some wonderful and powerful things that we can learn some principles as we go through this kovic 19. and i want you to know today as the pastor that already has preached for us um that you are not meant to die during this time but you are meant to live your gifts are designed to tell someone about jesus you got purpose a lot of times when we go through these things we focus so much on what's going on around us that we can't see on the inside of what god has put in us and so if you're going through an attack today i want you to know that god is with you and we have to stand with the word of god the word of god that gives us power the best time for us to shine is when we're going through a mess that's the best time jesus shined when he was going through a mess when you got christ in your life you can make it i want you today to know that if you don't have jesus in your life you can't make it but with jesus all things are possible and so the joy of the lord we have each and every day we get up is because we have a savior whose rule over everything and so today we want you to call the prayer line if you want to give your life to christ or maybe you need prayer maybe you're going through some things in your life want you to hit that prayer line we have some powerful intercessors that's waiting on you to call and they'll lead you as our praise team sings we want you to have some power in jesus [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] the bible tells us that old has passed away and all becomes new i love that scripture lets us know that when we give our lives to christ whatever is in the past is in the past and god makes things new and so even in this time god is doing a new thing and god wants you to be a part of that new thing but you have to give your life to the lord or maybe you've given your life to the lord and you've given up i want to encourage you that god is ready to renew your faith in the lord god makes all things new call that prayer line and we'll be waiting on you god bless you stay strong don't give up stay strong don't give up god bless you

Channel: Macedonia Church of Pittsburgh

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Keywords: sermon, preach, mcop, brian edmonds, dionne edmonds, pittsburgh, macedoniapgh, 412, steel city, hill district, historic hill district, macedonia, church, christ, jesus, word, bible, sermons, the hill

Id: W--Rp2FIPws

Length: 38min 45sec (2325 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020