You must guard the seeds you allow into your life by choosing inputs that align with God's righteousness. Take the physical step of baptism to declare Jesus as the cornerstone of your new life, trusting that His life is now your life.
Amen. Well, I don't have my dad joke book today. But, I did do some dad stuff with my son yesterday. I I got to you've been coming any amount of time, you may have heard that we've been running together. It's been a really cool thing.
I'm enjoying it. I'm thankful that God put it in trip. My he just turned 11. He had his eleventh birthday on Thursday. Yeah.
Tell him happy birthday when you see him. But I'm I'm thankful that God has, over the last few months, put it in him to love running. And so we ran our first official 5 k, our first official race yesterday. Got up, drove 45 minutes to, you know, Fort DeSoto and and ran with the stars is what they called it. You know, it was the fundraiser for the cops and stuff.
Anyway, so my son won his first race. He got first place in his division, which was, he just turned 11, 10 to 14 years old, he got first place. I mean, and he wore his medals today. He saw them. Yeah.
Hey, I got second place. In Tripp's division. He beat me by a second. In my division, didn't place. But there's my dad joke for the day.
Does that does that work? Yes. Alright. We are in first Corinthians, our series on first Corinthians. Has this been encouraging for you guys?
Yes. Hope so. It's encouraging for me. I'm growing in it. And I'm I'm gonna I'm just gonna invite you in to my bible study in *1 Corinthians-3*.
So my prayer and my hope is that this comes across clearly today. And that you're able to take 1 or 2 or 10 different things to help encourage your life. Take what you can get, and "gnaw on it" for the week. Go back. Where's that gnaw on it?
What do I mean? It's like River, we did baby led weeding with River, our youngest. And what I mean by that is, when she was 6 weeks old, no, 6 months old, we'd give her a big bone of a rib eye and she'd just take it and she'd just gnaw on it. You know? Learning, enjoying the taste and the flavor and learning what it means to pick up meat, if you will.
Still loves the milk, but hasn't really gotten used to eating meat yet, but man, she's being, when she was 6 months old, you know, being introduced to it, if you will. So as I go through this, I would encourage you, take notes if if that helps you to understand, to listen. If some of it's like, I've never heard that before, great. Go back and study it, and and take what is encouraging to your life. I'm inviting you into my bible study.
Is that okay? Okay. And and and today, if I had any goal, the goal of today would be to give you a clear, hold on, let's pray. Father, I just thank you for your goodness. I thank you for your love.
And Lord, I just pray that these words are not mine, but, Lord, I I I speak as led by your spirit so they have your anointing, Lord God, and and the power that comes from you that cuts hearts, oh God, and and that we would all be placed in that valley of decision in multiple areas of our life today where we have the opportunity to choose you as our Lord in every area of our life, to build our life on you. Lord, I trust you. Lord, I pray that people, as you said, Jesus, to take care how they listen, to take care how they hear, that they wouldn't just be hearers of the word, but doers. Whether this would help them to see you and see their life more clearly than ever. In Jesus' name, amen.
So if I had any goal today, it would be, I hope to present to you a way to **build your life** in Christ. Practically, but also the principles behind that, what it looks like to consistently, moment by moment, desire by desire, build understand where those come from, and to build your life that where the output of your life is Christ, and where the output of your life seeds and waters the world around you with the goodness of Jesus. Because what we talked about last week, we talked about affections. Affection is is like what you like and what you're fond of. And we said, like, God gives the spirit without limit.
But sometimes we feel limited in our ability to hear His voice because He gave, He put His Spirit in us, so we feel limited in our ability to hear Him clearly. And He put His Spirit on us, in us for our relationship with Him, on us so that He can impact you through me. And sometimes we feel limited in our ability to impact the world around us powerfully. And if God gives the Spirit without limit, then He doesn't limit us. The Bible says we're limited by our own affections.
By what we're fond of and what we like, it limits us. And I wanna talk to you about, like Paul goes into 1 Corinthians-3, the very next thing, it unpacks and we can understand that a bit more clearly. Are you guys ready? Yes. Are you sure?
Are you ready? Yeah. Somebody just said that. Alright. *1 Corinthians-3* chapter mean, 3 verse 1 says, brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the spirit, but as people who are still worldly, Mere infants in Christ.
So 2 type of people here, those that live by the spirit and those that are still worldly. You see that? What does it mean for those that live by the spirit? Well, we just saw in *1 Corinthians-2* that in 1 Corinthians-2, we have, when you've been "born again", you you have the *Holy Spirit* in you so that you can know Him, so that you can walk with Him. The Holy Spirit speaks to you and reveals to you the very mind of Christ.
Like the the mind of the Father is communicated to you by the Holy Spirit in you so that you can live your life in submission to His leading day in and day out. So a Christian is 1 that has a relationship with the God of the universe and submits their life to His leading both as Lord and as a friend. Amen? Amen. As a Christian.
Those that live by the spirit are Christians that have grown to understand how he speaks and to follow him more than when they first gave their life to Jesus. Right? Because we got 2 types of people. We got those that live by the spirit and those that are still worldly. But then it said, mere infants in Christ.
So there's 2 types of worldly people. There's those that are not Christians and those that are mere infants in Christ. They don't understand who Christ made them to be yet. They don't understand their identity in Christ Jesus, so the output of their life still looks like the world. And today, I'm gonna help you if that is where you struggle.
We're gonna go through 1 Corinthians-3 so that you don't have to struggle that way anymore. You will see how to shift that. Does that make sense? Yes. Alright.
Let's keep going. I gave you milk, not solid food. We learned what milk was. What was milk? In 1 Corinthians-2, it says milk is Christ and Christ crucified.
That's milk. Who Christ is, you have to believe who Christ is before you can confess him as Lord, and then Christ crucified. Christ died on the cross for you. He loves you, and he cares for you, and he doesn't want to leave you where you are, so he died on a cross in order to not just pay for your sin, but to restore your created value. And then He rose again so that you could have His life.
And when you confess Him as Lord, watch this, when you confess Him as Lord, you realize that you were in Him all along. If my grandfather died, where would I be? If he died before he met my grandmother, would I be there? Would there be a David John Phillips junior if Papa John Coco, is what we called him, what I called him, if Papa John Coco died before he met my grandmother? Would there be think about it.
Yes or no? No. You know why? Because I was in him. When he died, I died with him.
There would be no more me. That make sense? When Christ died on the cross, you were in Christ. Yeah? So when he died, you died.
So the message the milk of the gospel, and this sometimes this feels like meat, but no, it's milk. The milk of when Christ crucified, you were crucified with him, so now it's no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you and you in Christ, so his life is your life. It makes it not about self anymore. That's why those who don't understand it still live for self. Still live like they're an infant, and the infant cries and says, "give me", give me, me, give me.
I need, I I need, I need. A baby Christian still lives for self, self at the center, because they don't understand life's not about them anymore, it's about Jesus. They already died to self. There is, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Make sense?
The milk of the gospel is Christ crucified, and you crucified with Him. It's who Jesus is, and beginning to understand who Christ is in me. *Romans-6 literally says, those who have died have been set free from sin*. Gosh. Wow.
Watch this. I gave you milk, solid food, for you were still not ready for it. Indeed, you're still not ready. Watch this. You are still worldly, for since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, the word for jealousy is like rivalry.
I like that translation better. The original text is rivalry. So like competition and trying to get what's mine, trying to put yourself forward, is antichrist. So since since there's jealousy and or rivalry and quarreling, like, always arguing about who's right and all this stuff among you. Are you not worldly?
Watch this. Are you not acting like mere humans? Everybody say mere humans. Mere humans. Chastised the Corinthians for acting like mere humans.
I'll go easy on this 1. But here's people a lot of times, maybe you've heard it before. Well, we're only human. You heard that? Yes.
Like making an excuse for failures or expecting to fail, well, we're only human. Right? Right. Those that use that phrase are 1 of 2 people. Well, "I'm only human".
You ready? They're either not a Christian or they're an infant in Christ Jesus. So if that's you, stop using the phrase because it's not biblical. If you've given your life to Jesus, you're not a mere human. You've been **born again** when you confess Jesus as Lord.
God Himself resides inside of you. How dare you say you're just a human? Right? Through the Holy Spirit, God resides in you and Jesus credited His righteousness to your account so that when the God of the universe looks at you, he doesn't see a mere human. He sees someone who is just as righteous as Jesus.
In 1 Corinthians-15, I believe it is, it says, as is the earthly man, as as is the earthly man, so are those who are of him. And as is the heavenly man, so are those who are of him. So if you're in Christ, you are of Christ, and you are not of this world anymore. Amen? Amen.
That's good. It is. So stop using that phrase as an excuse for your failures and your faults. You say, well, the same phrase, it's the exact same 1, but we're all just sinners saved by grace. No, we all were sinners, but now we're saved by grace.
Do you understand? We all were sinners, but now we're saved by grace. You have a new nature. Your sin nature was crucified on the cross, dead with Christ. *John-1*, verse 12, 13, for all who received him.
Some of you some of you, this is hitting, and you're like, this is the first time you're hearing this stuff. Go back and get in the word, and don't go from what you always heard and what everybody always says, but go from what scripture says, because this is challenging some theology. That's a good thing. *John-1:12* says, to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children not born of a natural descent or a husband's will, but born of Born of God. Born of God.
So you have your heavenly Father's nature now. You're not just a sinner saved by grace. You were a sinner, you needed to be saved, and grace saved you by grace through faith. And now because of that, you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So by saying I'm just a mere human or I'm just a sinner, you're giving away that you're an infant in Christ Jesus and you don't understand what he did for you.
Real church? You are forgiven, clean. But I still sin. Nowhere in scripture does it say after you gave your life to Jesus that you're still a sinner. It does say we still sin.
Right? But it doesn't say when you sin, it says if you sin. So quit making excuses for your failures and for your bad habits. Instead, I'm a son, I'm forgiven. So now I don't wake up to when I sin and just expect to be a sinner today.
I wake up to shine his glory and his goodness and to reflect my Savior day in and day out. And if, if I happen to fall, guess what happens? I have an advocate that's at the right hand of the Father who is interceding for me so that instead of falling back, I can fall forward into my heavenly Father's arms, get back up and keep walking and reflecting the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Alright. For when 1 says, follow Paul and another follow Apollos, are you not mere human beings?
What after all is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord has assigned to each his task. Verse 6, I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, and God has been making it grow. We all have a role to play in church.
We all have a role to play in extending his kingdom, not just in church, but in your jobs, in your families. You are all seed sowers and waterers, every single 1 of you. The output of your life, you're sowing some kind of seed into other people's lives. And you're watering some kind of with what? Some kind of water into other people's lives.
Guess what? When you give your life to Jesus, there's no more secular work. There's not secular work in ministry work. You're a minister of the gospel as a born again Christian. And what you're ministering reflects something.
The 1 who plants and the 1 who waters have 1 purpose and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor for we are coworkers in God's service. You are God's field, God's building. Verse 10, by the grace of God, by the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder and someone else is building on it. But each 1 should build with care. No 1 can lay any foundation other than the 1 already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, their work will be shown for what it is because the day, which is like judgment day, will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire and the fire will test the quality of each person's work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive award. If it's burned up, the builder will suffer loss but will be saved, even though only as 1 "escaping through the flames". Now, when you confess Jesus as Lord, you're born again, and the output of your life matters.
We do work. We don't work for *salvation* anymore. We "work from salvation". You can't get saved and confess Jesus as Lord by earning it, by being good enough. And and guess what?
You can't do any good works after that by earning it and being good enough either. But you do works. The output of your life matters for eternity. See, I want I want to in this message, I want you to have an understanding and a plan so that your life from this day forward, if it hasn't already, is influential, is significant in this day and for the rest of eternity. So that so that when, like, your life is created by God in order to reflect His glory.
*God* wants you to live a glorious, abundant life, abundant in Him, abundant with His presence. So glorious that when other people see your life, they feel the weight of His glory, and it draws them into relationship with Him. And in order for that to happen, the output of your life matters. Do you understand? What you do and what you say and where all of that originates, and where that come from comes from matters.
See, God is building a house, and you're either and your the house is you, it's your life. You're either co laboring with him to build your life, or you're doing it by your own effort apart from him to build your life, and only 1 way works for eternity. Some people will live a Christian life and do a bunch of good things that everybody applauded, and it looked like they were amazing ministers of the gospel, but every single work will be burnt up in eternity, and they'll be left with nothing but the cornerstone of Jesus Christ because they did it by doing what they thought was good instead of in communion with the father. Others will live a life that's in communion with the Father, and maybe half of what they did, people applauded, and the other half, people hated, and whatever, but they lived a life in total communion with the Father, and it wasn't about what other people thought. And when they get there, they'll have a mansion because they built it, and the other person will suffer loss.
I don't wanna suffer loss in eternity, and just barely escape the flames by the skin of my teeth because I didn't know any better. A lot of people in the world, you hear this phrase, what you know what you don't know won't hurt you. The Bible says, what you don't know will destroy you. My people perish for lack of knowledge and all you're getting get wisdom and understanding. It's important.
You guys ready for the next part? Okay. So how do we build this house? Well, it starts this way. Let's imagine, I got a cornerstone.
When you're building a house back in the day, 2000 years ago when they were writing 3000 years ago when they were writing some of these analogies, they used analogies that they knew. The Holy *Spirit* breathed on the analogies that they knew. They were co laborers with God. 1 of it was a cornerstone. When they'd build a house, they'd start with a cornerstone and they would make it so that it was perfectly square.
I understand this isn't perfectly square. But they would make it so it was perfectly square and and they'd level the land and they'd set the cornerstone down in the corner because the whole house was gonna be built off of that cornerstone. When you confess Jesus as Lord, you're setting the cornerstone of your life down. Perfect. Jesus is perfect.
If the cornerstone had any blemishes or any issues or wasn't square, then when you built off of the cornerstone, when the storms came, the wind blew and beat against the house, it would fall because it didn't have a solid foundation. When you confess Jesus as Lord, he's the cornerstone of your life, and you have a perfect, everybody say perfect, **perfect foundation* in Jesus Christ*. He is the perfect cornerstone of your life. Christ alone, cornerstone. Amen?
Amen. So this is our cornerstone. Now, I wanna go back to that first verse. Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the spirit, but as people who are still worldly. Like, this is very important.
Understanding how to live by the spirit, understanding what happens. Like, we talked about affections last week. Affections are what you like and what you're fond of. What you have affections for is what or who you what and who you have affections for is what and who you will commune with. K?
Let me explain what I mean. Communion is what we did earlier, the bread and the juice, but that's not the only definition of communion. Another definition of communion is the **"intimate exchange"** of ideas mentally and spiritually. Look it up, dictionary.com. Communion, the intimate exchange of ideas especially mentally and spiritually.
What you have affections for, you will commune with. And there will be an intimate exchange of ideas mentally and spiritually. So if I have affections for God, I will spend time in communion with him. In my quiet time alone in my office for me or on my bike rides or throughout the day, I'm **communing with the Father* through the Holy Spirit. I'm communing with Christ through the Holy Spirit*.
Okay? And there's an intimate exchange where He's sharing His very thoughts with me. And I'm hearing His voice, and it's a it's a big deal, I'm communing with Him. And if there's another affection for something, that thought comes in, and if I'm not careful, I won't take that thought captive and kick it out and go back to communing with the Father, but I'll begin to commune with that thought. I begin to sit in that.
Maybe it's a thought of the past. You have no right to look at your past outside of the blood of Jesus. Jesus purchased your past. So the only way that you can look at your past is as a testimony. Otherwise, you should be focused on the present and what Christ has said to do by faith, forgetting what's behind.
But if you begin to look at what other people did to you or what you didn't get, those thoughts come in, you begin to commune with that, something happens. Watch this. Desire. Desire happens. Desire, you gotta be careful.
Desire not all desire is bad. Desires are can be good, they can be bad. It just kinda depends on where it comes from. In James-1, I didn't give you this verse, but it says, when tempted, no 1 should say, God is tempting me, for God cannot tempt be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.
Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it's full grown, gives birth to death. So every desire you have comes from somewhere. Desire, you split the word apart, d e s I r e. You have d and you have sire. D e means of.
Sire means father. Every desire you have has a father that you communed with and received from, and then it produces desire. When you're in communion with the heavenly father, the intimate exchange of ideas, mentally and spiritually, communion with him because you are affectionate for him, plants the seeds, his thoughts in your mind, and you you ruminate on it, you meditate on it. Before long, you're gonna have a desire that's of the father, of his kingdom. You follow that desire to its logical end, you'll see where it came from.
Right? Because every desire of the father will be to love. *God* is love. So it will be him leading you to either sacrifice yourself to worship him in 1 way or another, or to sacrifice yourself for the sake of those around you to see his goodness and his and his nature, or to sacrifice what you want and you desire in order to develop you, to build the character and nature of your life so that you're ready to love better in the next season. But the desires for His kingdom come from communing with the Father, And you want to commune with him because you're affectionate for him, because you understand how much he loves you.
You guys follow me. Yeah? And if you desire something enough, *God* wants to give you desires, and He's giving you desires. If you desire it enough, it grows and grows. You can't contain it.
You'll end up speaking about it, and you'll end up acting on it. And guess what? When your speech and actions flow from communion with the father, you're putting a brick on your house that reflects the character and nature of the father. When they're tainted because you've been communing with something else, you're putting a brick on your house that's not in line with the cornerstone. Does that make sense?
What you commune with is important because what you commune with creates desires in you, and over time, those desires bear fruit, either *sin* or righteousness. And your house matters. Give me a second. I gotta get another brick. Because I wanna build a house, a life that is significant today and tomorrow, and continues to grow in its significance because it's growing in its ability to reflect his glory, because I've been in communion with him, and doesn't get burned up.
Because what it's talking about is the fire of God that burns it up. And the fire of God burns away everything that's not of him, and it leaves everything that's of him. Watch this. *Isaiah-28:16*, I didn't give these verses either, Says, so this is what the sovereign Lord says. See, lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation.
The 1 who relies on it will never be stricken with panic. Who's the cornerstone? Jesus. He's the cornerstone of your life. When you confessed him as Lord, he became the cornerstone of your life.
It's a big deal. Watch this. I will make justice the measuring line and **righteousness the plumb line**. Justice, the measuring line, righteousness, the plumb line. Let me get me an example here.
Let's see. This will work. There we go. Oops. Y'all bear with me here for a second.
I'm making a plumb line. There we go. Alright. Let's start with plumb line. What's the plumb line?
*Righteousness*. Righteousness is the plumb line. Okay. A plumb line, old school carpenters would know, new school better know. I'm sure they do.
I'm not a carpenter, but I know because I researched it. So a plumb line, especially back in the day when they were using cornerstones like this, they would have a plumb line. They'd have a plumb bob at the end of it and a line. And they would hang it up. They had their cornerstone set.
They'd hang it up over it, and gravity would cause it to fall straight. So it'd be a perfect line, plumb line. So that when you build up off the cornerstone, you have to build in line with the plumb line. If you build out of line of the plumb line, what's gonna happen? Well, if I didn't build perfectly in line with the plumb line, my next brick might be like this.
Right? And then over time, I continue to build my life, The winds come, the streams rise, the wind blows and beats against the house, and guess what happens? Falls, cornerstone don't move, but everything that's not of Him does. We have to restart with everything that was built from him and by him in communion with him. And I don't want you to have to restart over and over in your life anymore.
Some people have been Christians for 20 years, but have been living the first year of their Christianity over 20 times. Because they didn't know how to build off the cornerstone. No more. Cornerstone is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It's Christ, but everything that builds off of that has to be in line with righteousness.
What is righteousness? Righteousness is right standing with God and it's your nature. The nature of God, it's who you are. So every brick in our life that we build off of the cornerstone has to be, it has to have the nature of Christ. Anything less will be burned up.
It has to be perfect. Jesus said, or God said, Be holy as I'm holy. He said, be perfect as I am perfect, but I'm just a mere human. Yeah, but you're always gonna fall back to this if that's what you think. You're not a mere human.
You're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And guess what? Like I said a few weeks ago, when my son obeys me, even if he doesn't understand, his action displays all of the wisdom of his father. Right? When I obey Him, even if I don't understand, my actions display all of the wisdom of my heavenly Father.
And if I'm walking in obedience and communion, then I can do perfect action in communion with Him. Not because of me, but because of His perfect amazing grace and my faith combined with that. Hearing, believing, and obeying even when I don't understand, and I'm building a life that reflects the life of Christ. Amen? Amen.
So righteousness is the plumb line building up, but guess what? It says justice is the measuring line. Now when I explain righteousness in the New Testament, I always say, you've heard me say this over the last year a lot, righteousness is right standing, which leads to right doing. Right? When the Old Testament, it was most of the time together.
They would use the Hebrew word for righteousness and the Hebrew word for justice, and it's like inextricably linked. They would they would almost never separate it. And when it's used together like that, it means the righteousness of God and the right action of God, the right standing of God and the right action of God, because the definition of justice is just action. Just right doing. So so righteousness, the plumb line, the nature of our work has to be in line with the nature of Christ, but then justice is the measuring line.
So right action is the measuring line. So a measuring line is they would mark off a string of how long they wanted the side of the brick to be and how long they wanted the top, and they'd have these a string that was the perfect length. And so when they measured, they'd measure by that measuring line. And the measuring line is justice. The measuring line is the perfect action of Jesus Christ.
Anything outside of that measuring line will burn, will fail, and not last for eternity. So every brick that we have not only has to have the nature of God, but the actions of it have to be in perfect line with Jesus. It has to be perfection. We can't do that in and of ourself. If we try to act outside of communion with God in anything, we're gonna there's gonna be actions that are from self and are gonna be burnt up and fall away.
So everything has to happen in communion. This is why Jesus said, I only do what I see my Father doing, and I only say what I hear my Father saying. He was given us the example. We're friends of God in communion, an intimate exchange where I'm speaking to Him and listening to Him and there's this interaction, but yet He's my Father and Jesus is my Lord, so I'm gonna submit to His leadership and everything. And as I obey Him, my life displays all of the wisdom of my Father and the glory of my father.
But see, not just individually church. And, band, you guys can come on up. The metaphor grows bigger. Your life is a house. But together, your life's just a brick.
Together, we're a house that's meant to reflect His goodness. And then our little local church is just a brick. Look out bigger, together with the Church of Pinellas County and the Church of of the United States, and the Church of the world, we're His house, His temple, meant to reflect His character and His nature to the world around us. It's a beautiful thing. Guess what?
If you've built some stuff that is out of line, simple. Kick it over and restart with the last thing that you obeyed God in and ask Him what's next. Like we said last week, repent for your affections that are not of him, and begin to commune with him daily. As you commune with him daily, you learn to hear his voice more clearly. As you hear his voice more clearly, in that communion, you have desires that are of the kingdom.
It's very important what you let sow seeds and water your life. Seeds into and what you let water your life. Very, very important because your affections come from what you're allowing to continuously come into your eyes, into your ears. So if what you're watching is not holy, it's gonna produce thoughts in your mind that you're more likely to commune with, which will produce desires. Do you want to have do you want to cheat on your husband and your wife?
Why would you watch things that show the husband and wife cheating on each other? It's gonna create thoughts, eventually desires. And then you're gonna wonder, how'd my life fall apart? Well, it's because you were commuting with the wrong thing. Do you wanna sleep around constantly?
Why do you listen to things, music, that's constantly seeding you with the wrong desire? Listen to the words. If the words aren't holy, why would you put it in your mind? Babies just take in anything. They don't have the ability to change their atmosphere.
So they take in anything and their influence. Hopefully their parents put them in a good environment. God wants to put you in a good environment, but it takes your partnership with Him. *Repenting* of what's seeding your life so the output of your life is holy. Amen?
And then taking right action. 1 of those right actions is baptism. We're about to have baptism. Do they need to be changed? Are ready we're ready to be baptized now?
Okay. Perfect. Baptism is an important step, and it's part of a right action. When you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you declare Him as the Lord of your life. Every spiritual decision requires a physical step of obedience.
It's called faith. Hear Him spiritually, believe it, then obey. Part of that obedience, the next step is baptism, when you give your life to Jesus. If you've never been baptized, I just wanna take a moment to explain what it is. Baptism is a declaration that you started your life with Jesus as your cornerstone.
You've been born again. Baptism is I'm kicking my house over that I built myself. And I'm declaring to the world that Jesus is the cornerstone of my life. And from this day forward, I'm following him as Lord. Baptism is a declaration that I have died with Christ.
I've been crucified. Life's no longer about myself. When I go into the water, buried with Christ. When I come up out of the water, resurrected to new life with Him. His life is now my life.
I'm no longer the sum of my past actions. I'm no longer the sum of what everybody else said about me or even what I thought about me. I am who He says that I am. And if what He says is not the way that I'm living, I'm dedicating my life to changing it to be in line with who He says. That's baptism.
It's a beautiful thing. But what if I what if I fell after I got baptized and everything? Hey, you just forgot that you're forgiven. So you just go commune with the Father, get back up and keep walking. But it's an important initial step to declare that Jesus is your cornerstone.
Thank you for tuning in today to the Real Church podcast. I pray that you walk away from today encouraged and with a deeper understanding of how much God loves you. If you'd like to connect with us, we can't wait to reach out to you and pray for you. You can go to www.realchurch.us/connect. And then also, if you would like to give to what God is doing in and through our ministry, you can do so at www.realchurch.us/giving, or you can text any amount to 84321 and then just search in the link that comes up search for Real Church Clearwater.
*God* bless you and the best is yet to come.